Quotes of the Day:

"While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive."

– Sissela Bok

"Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men." 

– Pythagoras

"Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do."

– Umberto Eco

1. Pentagon won’t say if troop deployment tempo exceeds recommended goal

2. Analysis: Six more years of Putin will worry many countries. But not China

3. Special Operations News - March 18, 2024 | SOF News

4. A Revolution in American Foreign Policy by Bernie Sanders

5. Notes from Central Taiwan: Gaming the Wrong War

6. Standing Up to China, Philippine Leader Courts New Network of Partners

7. For many Chinese, there are ‘more important things’ than Taiwan unification

8. SPECIAL REPORT: Army’s Project Convergence Goes on the Offensive

9. Bolster Ukraine’s irregular warfare tactics with Western tech

10. Cheap drones 'cannot match' artillery power in Ukraine: experts

11. Pentagon stares down "drone swarm" threat

12. Netanyahu says Israel ‘will not succumb’ to pressure to stop war in Gaza

13. Great-Power Competition Comes to Antarctica

14. Opinion: Is the US on the brink of another civil war?

15. Potential TikTok Ban Tees Up Legal Showdown Over Free Speech

16. Professionalism is the Foundation of the Army and We Will Strengthen It

17. Warfighting from Ship to Shore and Beyond: Why Amphibious Operations Still Matter

18. Why is the US facing a “crisis of credibility”?

19. US Army instructors say Ukrainian soldiers were 'amazing' at mastering the Patriots they've used to shoot down Putin's overhyped missiles

1. Pentagon won’t say if troop deployment tempo exceeds recommended goal

We also have to look especially at the high demand low density units and personnel (such as air and missile defense).

Pentagon won’t say if troop deployment tempo exceeds recommended goal

militarytimes.com · by Meghann Myers · March 18, 2024

The Defense Department is still operating under a 2021 policy that sets a goal for active duty units to spend three months at home for every month they spend deployed, a spokeswoman confirmed to Military Times on Friday, but the Pentagon won’t disclose how often it’s being met.

The policy, which technically expired in November but is still part of the department’s force management guidance, includes a waiver process for units to revert to the mandatory minimum 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio, but the numbers on waiver requests and approvals are classified, Army Maj. Grace Geiger said.

“The Department has multiple processes in place to identify, approve, and track individuals and units not meeting the goal,” she added, including oversight from the services, the Joint Staff and the defense secretary’s office.

The Pentagon had not answered follow-up questions seeking details of these oversight processes as of Friday afternoon.

Questions about the Pentagon policy emerged following an Army Times investigation last week that found that members of Army armor brigades — units that largely have not met the dwell time goals over the past decade — were twice as likely to kill themselves than other active duty soldiers in recent years.

RELATED

BROKEN TRACK: Suicides & suffering in Army’s exhausted armor community

An Army Times data analysis found that armor brigades and tankers experienced higher suicide rates than the rest of the Army.

Long periods of high operational tempo can increase a service member’s suicide risk, according to Craig Bryan, a psychologist and mental health researcher at Ohio State University who spoke to Army Times.

Bryan, a former Air Force psychologist, was a member of the suicide prevention independent review committee convened by the Pentagon in 2022.

That committee found that “training demands and requirements … [are] primary sources of stress, burnout and demoralization.” Other common stressors include shoddy computers, byzantine promotion policies, unsupportive leaders and poor housing.

Army tank brigades have flirted with or broken the dwell threshold in recent years.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team returned from a nine-month South Korea rotation in August 2021. But the Raider Brigade rapidly deployed to Europe six months later in February 2022, when Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine. The brigade’s families were furious about the move, detailing the hardships they faced during a March 2022 town hall with the Army’s then-top noncommissioned officer at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

This month, the Fort Carson, Colorado-based 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, deploys to Europe approximately 16 months after returning from an eight-month Poland mission in December 2022.

Former officials argue that the sustained operational tempo has harmed units as well.

Retired Gen. Robert “Abe” Abrams, who led Army Forces Command before retiring in 2021, previously told Military Times that the Army’s armor units struggle with a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio at current resourcing levels and “cannot sustain that tempo indefinitely.”

“That’s what’s crushing them,” he said.

Other communities, such as air defense, have faced high deployment rates as well.

The Navy has also dealt with a bruising tempo in recent years, with an ever-increasing assortment of missions. The COVID pandemic only exacerbated that pace, as pre-cruise quarantines and zero port calls became the order of the day.

The aircraft carrier Nimitz and its strike group spent an historic 11 months at sea from April 2020 through February 2021.

Precisely 22 months later, a perfect 1:2 dwell ratio, they were back on deployment. Policy dictates they would have needed a waiver to deploy again that quickly.

About Meghann Myers and Davis Winkie

Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.

Davis Winkie covers the Army for Military Times. He studied history at Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill, and served five years in the Army Guard. His investigations earned the Society of Professional Journalists' 2023 Sunshine Award and consecutive Military Reporters and Editors honors, among others. Davis was also a 2022 Livingston Awards finalist.

2. Analysis: Six more years of Putin will worry many countries. But not China

Analysis: Six more years of Putin will worry many countries. But not China | CNN

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · March 17, 2024

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia's President Vladimir Putin attend an event at Beijing's Great Hall of the People in October 2023.

Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

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

Hong Kong CNN —

For leaders across the West, Vladimir Putin’s inevitable landslide win in an election without true opposition was a reminder of his tight control over Russia’s political arena as his war against Ukraine grinds on.

But Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and other leaders benefiting from Putin’s rejection of a Western-led global order, will be cheering his victory.

With 99.8% of ballots counted, Putin amassed 87.3% of the vote, according to preliminary results reported Monday morning by Russia’s Central Election Commission.

Xi congratulated the Russian leader in a call that day, saying his re-election “fully reflected the support of the Russian people,” Chinese state media reported. He also pledged that China would promote the “sustained” and “in-depth” development of the two countries’ strategic partnership, the report said.

Xi has staked much on his relationship with Putin since the start of the Kremlin’s war more than two years ago, refusing to back away from the “no limits” partnership he declared with the Russian leader weeks before the invasion, while strengthening trade, security, and diplomatic ties.

China has paid a price for this. While it claims neutrality, its refusal to condemn the invasion as the US and its allies united to sanction Russia piqued European suspicion about its motivations. It also drew attention to Beijing’s designs on the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan. An annual NATO report released Thursday reflected the bloc’s hardening line on China, with chief Jens Stoltenberg saying Beijing does “not share our values” and “challenges our interests,” while pointing to its increasing alignment with Moscow.

But China’s stance enabled Xi to stay focused on deeper goals: he sees Putin as a crucial partner in the face of rising tensions with the US and in reshaping a world he believes is unfairly dominated by rules and values set by Washington and its allies. A stable relationship with Moscow, too, allows Beijing to focus on other areas of concern such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“Xi sees Putin as a genuine strategic partner,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, ahead of the Russian election results, adding that anything less than a landslide win for Putin would be “a disappointment” for Beijing.

Xi, who has centralized control over his own nation like no Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, won’t be alone among leaders applauding Putin’s renewed grip on power.

Kim Jong Un of North Korea recently met Putin in Russia’s Far East during a rare overseas trip that Washington says focused on Moscow buying munitions from Pyongyang.

For Kim, that tightening bond is a major opportunity to strengthen his struggling economy as he continues weapons development in the face of increased coordination between the US and South Korea. The North Korean leader swiftly congratulated Putin on his win Monday, according to the country’s state media.

A sanctions-battered government in Iran, which has been expanding its cooperation with Russia and providing it with drones and ammunition, also gains from a continuation of the Putin era.

Even India, while tightening ties with the US and calling for peace in Ukraine, has benefited from continuing exchanges with Russia, especially through its purchase of discounted oil.

Other governments across the Global South have also looked to bolster partnerships with Russia, even as they back peace in Ukraine and have suffered from knock-on economic impacts of the war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a visit to Vladivostok, Russia last September.

KCNA/Reuters

Alternate world order

While the Russian election was no contest, Putin’s ability to maintain his iron grip on power and reach this point without a defeat in Ukraine has not been a sure bet.

The Russian leader has weathered an apparent miscalculation that what his government still calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine would be a swift success. He faced a challenge from the late warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin who launched a brief but failed rebellion, and Western sanctions that severed Russia’s economy from much of the global market.

In response he’s ramped up repression and further quashed dissent across the country – including from the Kremlin’s most charismatic and prominent domestic critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month.

Now, as he emerges poised to carry on for at least another six years, Putin presides over an economy that’s surviving sanctions and a battlefield where his opponent has yet to see a decisive breakthrough. Meanwhile, there are nascent signs of fatigue, in particular from the United States, where a presidential election in November could upend American support for Ukraine.

BEIJING, CHINA - OCTOBER 23: Chinese President Xi Jinping waves during the meeting between members of the standing committee of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee and Chinese and foreign journalists at The Great Hall of People on October 23, 2022 in Beijing, China. China's ruling Communist Party today revealed the new Politburo Standing Committee after its 20th congress. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Related card China has a sweeping vision to reshape the world – and countries are listening

Much could still change in the war. But for countries that remained close to Putin or avoided US-led efforts to isolate him, his win ensures the stability of their Russia ties – and of a rising grouping of vehicles for non-Western alignment.

Russia is set to host an annual summit of the BRICS grouping of major developing economies as its chair this year. The group, since 2011 made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, almost doubled in size at the start of this year to also include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

BRICS is seen as developing countries’ answer to the G7, and its scheduled October summit in Russia’s Kazan will likely underline the stark difference between the two group’s sensibilities. In 2014, G7 countries ousted Russia from what was then a G8 after its 2014 invasion of Crimea, and bailed on its planned summit that year in Sochi.

There is a range of reasons why Putin is seen differently in some parts of the world than in the West: the rise of middle powers that resent US domination of international affairs; the itch for a world order that doesn’t look down on authoritarians or repressive states; or pure economic practicality for economies striving to develop.

US support for Israel, especially amid the ongoing devastation in Gaza, has been a key alienation point for many of these nations and China’s prominent criticism of how Palestinians are treated has resonated across much of the Global South.

Putin, for his part, has painted BRICS as part of a growing movement eclipsing the established order, including in terms of economic heft.

“There is no getting away from this objective reality, and it will remain that way no matter what happens next, including even in Ukraine,” he said during his state of the union address late last month.

Then he underscored a view he’ll likely want both friend and foe to consider as he enters his new term: “No enduring international order is possible without a strong and sovereign Russia.”

Ukrainian tank crew prepare for combat against Russian forces earlier this month.

Jose Colon/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Watchful Beijing

But that doesn’t mean countries tied to Moscow aren’t also watching the conflict in Ukraine carefully. That may be especially true for China, Russia’s most powerful strategic partner.

Chinese state media credulously reported the election results Monday with official news agency Xinhua highlighting Putin’s promise to continue to promote “national development,” while another state media headline hailed Russia’s “steadily advancing political process.”

Coverage also noted Putin’s comments on China made during a news conference Sunday night, where he pointed to the “coinciding of state interests” between the two countries and reiterated his backing of Beijing’s claim over the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan.

China has reaped significant benefit from the war and stands to continue doing so – as long as it doesn’t trend toward a Russian defeat.

Chinese buyers lapped up record levels of Moscow’s crude oil in 2023, while exports of items such as cars and household electronics to Russia expanded since the invasion, buoying trade to a record high and boosting Chinese yuan-denominated transactions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with his confidants for the 2024 election at Gostiny Dvor in Moscow, Russia January 31, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Related article Putin says he’s ready to use nuclear weapons if Russian state at stake, but ‘there has never been such a need’

Xi has used the war in Ukraine as a platform to pitch his own, albeit vague, alternative system for global security, while a diluted focus of the US government is good news for China.

Beijing, however, says it is working “tirelessly” to bring the conflict to a close as it seeks to carve out an image as peacemaker. It sent special envoy for Eurasia Li Hui on two tours to Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Europe to promote a negotiated end to the conflict, the second of which concluded last week.

Chinese foreign policy thinkers such as Wang Yiwei of Renmin University say Beijing is concerned about nuclear escalation – a threat recently raised again by Putin – and the potential for more European countries to become directly involved in the war. “How to avoid escalating the conflict … that’s Li Hui’s special concern this time,” he told CNN.

But Li, a former ambassador to Russia, and other Chinese officials are seen in much of Europe as merely presenting a plan whose outcome would benefit Putin. That’s in line with European views on Beijing’s stance since the war’s opening days, when it insisted that all sides’ “legitimate security concerns” must be resolved.

For now, as pressure from across the world to end the conflict grows, the foregone results of this weekend’s Russian election will likely only bolster the view in Beijing – and some other non-Western capitals – that they were right to back Putin.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Josh Pennington, Anna Chernova and Wayne Chang contributed to this report.

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · March 17, 2024

3. Special Operations News - March 18, 2024 | SOF News

Special Operations News - March 18, 2024 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · March 18, 2024

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

Photo / Image: Two U.S. Air Force MC-130J Commando II aircrafts, operated by the 67th Special Operations Squadron, fly in formation prior to conducting static line jump training with Greek special forces during exercise Trojan Footprint 24, over Greece, March 8, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Westin Warburton)

Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it 2 or 3 days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF News

Emerald Warrior 24. This annual event started earlier this month. It is a key exercise for AFSOC units to train up for potential future missions anywhere in the world.

SOF Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) Explained. A ship based on a civilian oil tanker hull serves as a launching pad for special operations forces. It has a flight deck for rotary wing aircraft and can launch and recover small boats as well. As of early 2024, there are six ESBs in service or in various stages of construction. The ESBs provide a flexible, global capability that augments the SOF Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB). (Naval News, 11 Mar 2024).

Chinese vs. American SOF? China’s elite special operations forces come from all branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The SOF of China and the SOF of the United States are quite different in various aspects. The obvious differences are in training methods and mission types. “Who wins a fight between Chinese Special Ops and American SOF?”, We Are the Mighty, March 11, 2024.

SF on Taiwan Islands. The Defense Minister of Taiwan confirmed that U.S. Army Special Forces personnel are stationed on Taiwan’s outlying islands. (map, NSI) Numerous news reports had reported this over the past few months. (Focus Taiwan, 14 Mar 2024)

New US Partner in the Med. Cyprus was a recent host (SOF News) of a special operations exercise. Cyprus was formerly aligned with Russia, but things seem to have changed. Read more in an article by Business Insider, March 15, 2024. (View map of Cyprus, NSI)

SOCKOR. Special Operations Command Korea stands ready for any future conflict. “U.S. commandos train for the unexpected in North Korea’s shadow”, Reuters, March 15, 2024.

Rapid Dragon and JASSMs. C-17 and MC-130J aircraft have been conducting rehearsals in the airdropping of long-range palletized effects (bombs, missiles, etc.). “US Air Force special ops forces are turning big cargo planes into bombers with a new weapon”, Business Insider, March 11, 2024. Watch a video of SOCEUR dropping a JASSM. (SOF News, 15 Nov 2022)

McRaven Gets $50 Million for Charitable Use. Retired Navy Adm. William McRaven has been awarded a large sum of money for charitable use from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. McRaven says the money will go to charities that support the children of veterans and those that work on veteran mental health and brain issues. McRaven is the former commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). “Admiral McRaven, who oversaw bin Laden raid, gets $50 million from Jeff Bezos”, by Jeff Schogol, Task & Purpose, March 15, 2024.

International SOF

Israel’s NSA. Unit 8200 is an Israeli signals intelligence unit within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). It has a long history with its early beginnings in the 1930s. This long article traces its history, role in the wars, organization, training, operations, and more. It includes an analysis for the ‘intelligence failure’ of the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks that killed over 1,200 Israelis. “Unit 8200: Israel’s Stealthy Sentinel”, by Jawhar Farhat, Grey Dynamics, March 16, 2024.

UAE’s ‘Foreign Legion’. A former member of the French special forces is working on behalf of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to form up a unit of foreign volunteers. The unit would be part of the UAE’s regular army and would likely deploy to other countries such as Yemen and Somalia. The UAE is focused on increasing its influence in the Red Sea and East Africa region – seeing it in competition with Iran and other Gulf states. “UAE creating elite ‘Emirati Foreign Legion’ for combat operations abroad”, Middle East Monitor, March 17, 2024.

ROK-NSWF. Members of the Republic of Korea Naval Special Warfare Flotilla (ROK-NSWF) conducted joint combined exchange training (JCET) with a U.S. Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Unit from Feb. 1 to Feb. 27, 2024. (DVIDS, 27 Feb 2024)

UKSF to Get Chinooks. The UK has finalized an order for 14 more extended-range Chinooks through a deal with the US government. The CH-47-ERs, which are primarily for use by UK special forces, will be delivered to the Royal Air Force (RAF). “UK Orders 14 more Chinooks”, AirMed&Rescue, March 15, 2024.

SOF History

On March 24, 1961, the 12th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was activated.

On March 21, 1962, the 22nd Special Warfare Aviation Detachment was activated at Fort Bragg, NC to support the 5th and 7th SFG(A), the 1st and 13th Psychological Warfare Battalions, and the US Army Center for Special Warfare. In June 1962 it was reorganized and designated the 22nd Aviation Detachment (Special Forces). The detachment was inactivated on December 3, 1963.

On March 16, 1967, Operation Bright Light was initiated. During the Vietnam War when a down pilot, Hatchet Force, or Recon Team was in trouble a MACV-SOG Brightlight team was formed and inserted into the fight to find, locate, assist, and exfiltrate the entity in trouble.

On March 21, 1967, SFC Charles Hosking Jr., U.S. Army Special Forces, lost his life after he took the blast of a hand grenade to save the lives of his fellow Americans and members of the Vietnamese CIDG Reaction Force. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery.

On March 19, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) began. Special operations forces played a big role in the invasion of Iraq. JSOTF-W conducted CTBM in the West and UW in the South. Elements of the 10th SFG(A) linked up with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Joint_Staff/09-F-1449_Operation_Iraqi_Freedom_OIF_History_Brief.pdf

On March 19, 2003, attack helicopters of the 160th SOAR struck Iraqi targets along the southern and western borders. The MH-60 “Black Hawk” Direct Action Penetrators (DAPs) and AH-6M “Killer Egg” attack helicopters eliminated over 70 Iraqi observations posts, crippling the enemy’s ability to effectively gauge the size and scope of the incoming ground assault.

https://www.national-security.info/weapons/aircraft/MH-6X-mission-enhanced-little-birds.jpg

Conflict in Israel and Gaza

Future Attack on Rafa? According to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) four battalions of Hamas remain in the southern city (and area) of Rafa. (map, NSI) The remaining 130 hostages (that are still living) are likely there as well. Israel seems intent on entering Rafa to destroy the remainder of Hamas and rescue the hostages (before they are killed by Hamas). If the IDF does not enter Rafa to finish the mission, then Israel will need to accept a ceasefire on terms dictated by Hamas to get the hostages back. Hamas would then emerge as the leading contender to take charge of the future of Gaza and Israel will be forced to live with a terrorist neighbor next door.

Maritime Route for Humanitarian Aid. President Biden’s plan to establish a temporary pier (JLOTS) for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea route is supposed to take about 60 days to set up – meaning it would be operational in mid-May. In the meantime, Israel has already begun preparing a site for a pier off the coast of Gaza and shipments have already set sail for Gaza. A ship, operated by the Spanish aid group Open Arms, delivered 200 tons of humanitarian supplies, food, and water to Gaza on Friday using a sea route from Cyprus. The food will be distributed in northern Gaza where over 300,000 people are on the verge of starvation. (Associated Press, 15 Mar 2024)

Gaza Security Post Conflict. The Israel Defense Forces will have a difficult task of maintaining security over the long-term in Gaza. One solution is a local police force trained and advised by an international staff. A model to consider is the Office of the US Security Coordinator (USSC) to train and professionalize Palestinian security forces. The USSC was a US-led and internationally staffed training mission that proved successful in the West Bank. Frank Sobchak, a retired U.S. Special Forces officer, provides the details in “Security Planning for Postwar Gaza”, The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, March 2024.

• References:
• Map Gaza Strip (2005), and more maps of Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Israel.
• Israel-Hamas War: Insights from RAND

Ukraine Conflict

Unconventional Military Options. A recent article presents three options that Ukraine could adopt to change the static situation of the front. “Ukraine Military Situation Report: Ukraine’s Unconventional Military Options”, Hudson Institute, March 13, 2024.

$300 Million in Aid. The U.S. announced (DoS, 12 Mar 2024) on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, that it was sending another weapons package to Ukraine. This new delivery is the first since the previous funding ran out in December; some accounting methodology found “unexpected Army savings“. (DOD News, 12 Mar 2024) It includes artillery rounds, armor systems, and air defense equipment. (DOD News, 12 Mar 2024) A couple of ‘senior defense officials’ held a background briefing to explain the mathematical gymnastics that occurred to free up the money. (DOD Transcript, 12 Mar 2024)

Drones and Ukraine. Issue No. 91 of Strategika features three essays that explore the legal framework surrounding the use of drones as weapons, how drones have changed the battlefield (drawing on experiences from the Russia–Ukraine war), and what the use of drones in armed conflict today means for future defense planning. Strategika, Hoover Institution, March 14, 2024.

And There’s More:

• “Ukraine: The Case for Urgency”, Parameters, U.S. Army War College Press, Spring 2024.
• “Starlink in Warzones”, Grey Dynamics, March 12, 2024.

Artillery Shells. The Czech Republic is doing what the U.S. House of Representatives couldn’t . . get more artillery shells to Ukraine. Without the timely assistance, Kyiv would probably have lost an entire oblast in the past month. For many months in 2023, the Ukrainians had achieved firepower parity with the Russians. This happened despite the fact that Russia holds the upper hand in force generation, industrial capacity, and artillery tubes. This kept the Russians at bay. But once Ukraine ran out of shells the Russians went on the offensive and began making modest offensive gains. Read up on this story in “How the Czech Republic has just stopped Putin cold and saved Ukraine”, The Telegraph, March 13, 2024.

• References:
• Interactive Map. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine by the Insitute for the Study of War and Critical Threats. On storymaps.arcgis.com See also https://www.national-security.info/ukraine/maps.html
• U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine, Congressional Research Service, CRSIF12040, periodically updated, PDF, 3 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040
• Ukraine Conflict, National Security Info. https://www.national-security.info/ukraine-conflict.html

National Security and Commentary

Drone Quiz. Unmanned aerial systems provide the capability for resupply, armed attack, reconnaissance, and surveillance. Drones have been around for a while. How much do you know about the U.S. military’s drones? Take a quiz to find out. Department of Defense, March 2024.

Border Crisis:

• Drones Across the Border. There are ‘probably’ about 1,000 border incursions by drones each month along the southern border. These unmanned aircraft systems along the U.S.-Mexico border are likely used by drug and human traffickers who use the UAS technology to facilitate their illegal operations. “NORAD Commander: Incursions by Unmanned Aircraft Systems on Southern Border Likely Exceed 1,000 a Month”, DOS News, March 14, 2024.
• Parole Flights. The United States brought in over 320,000 ‘parolees’ via airline flights from foreign airports in 2023. These flights carried inadmissible aliens into some 43 American cities over the past year – all pre-approved on a cell phone app. “Government Admission: Biden Parole Flights Create Security ‘Vulnerabilities’ at U.S. Airports”, Center for Immigration Studies, March 4, 2024.

Sexpionage. The practice of using sex as a lure to pry secrets out of someone is an age-old practice by intelligence agencies. In the past two weeks, the U.S. has seen two of these cases hit the news. The practice used to involve physical relationships but there is now a trend toward ‘cyber-honey trapping’. Read more in “Honeypot: The Art of Seduction in Espionage”, Grey Dynamics, March 12, 2024.

Arrow Security & Training, LLC is a corporate sponsor of SOF News. AST offers a wide range of training and instruction courses and programs to include language and cultural services, training, role playing, and software and simulation. https://arrowsecuritytraining.com/

Report – Defense Primer: The United States Space Force. The Congressional Research Service has published a short report about the new Space Force. CRS IF12610, March 11, 2024, PDF, 3 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12610

Urbanizing the ‘Q’ Course. Sal Artiaga, a frequent commentator on irregular warfare writes that it is time to take an ‘urban’ direction in the Special Forces Qualification Course. Read his article entitled “The Imperative for Urbanizing the Special Forces Culmination Exercise”, LinkedIn, March 12, 2024. Sandor Fabian wrote an article with a similar topic a few years back entitled “Taking “De Oppresso Liber” to the Streets: Why the US Army’s Special Forces Qualification Course Needs to Become More Urban”, Modern War Institute, October 7, 2020. (Editor’s Note: I think Robin Sage should stay as it is. SFAUC and other advanced courses can be handled by the groups and specialized schools.)

“Duty, Honor, Country”. West Point has changed its mission statement, and it has aroused some backlash. The three words remain in the school’s motto but were stripped out of the school’s mission statement. West Point is defending their actions saying that mentioning ‘Army Values’ in the mission statement is good enough.

Strategic Competition

Armor Brigade to Poland? Once it was apparent that the breakup of the Soviet Union lessened the threat to western Europe the United States began the process of downsizing U.S. military personnel permanently stationed in Europe and withdrew much of its combat power – to include its armored formations. Now, in some circles, there is a call to once again station armor units in Europe on a permanent basis. This time in Poland. “Army should permanently station armor brigade in Poland, report argues”, Army Times, March 13, 2024.

Report – Forward Defense: Strengthening U.S. Force Posture in Europe, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), March 2024, PDF, 131 pages. Link.

Niger – U.S. is Out? On Saturday, March 16, 2024, a spokesman for the Niger government announced that the country is ending its military agreement with the United States. The U.S. has maintained a couple of bases in Niger that provide a platform for ISR drones providing intelligence and surveillance in the Sahel region. There are over 600 U.S. servicemembers in the country at this time – down for over 1,000 several months ago. The U.S. has spent millions of dollars on building a drone base in Niger. It is quite likely that a Russian presence in Niger will soon grow. “US military operations across the Sahel are at risk after Niger ends cooperation”, Associated Press, March 17, 2024.

Libya and Russian Mercenaries. Since 2018 (NSI) the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has had a growing presence in Libya (NSI, map). It first started training troops under Khalifa Haftar -a renegade military commander who controls the eastern part of the country. The remnants of the Wagner Group now appear to be under the command of the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence service. Read more in “Russian Military Intelligence Takes Over Wagner Operations in Libya”, Eurasia Daily Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation, March 12, 2024.

Map of Hispaniola from “Dominican Republic and Haiti Area Handbook”, U.S. Army, 2001.

Crisis in Haiti

Situation Update. The United States Department of State (DoS) has listed Haiti as a ‘level 4’ country in its travel advisories since 2020 – meaning don’t go there. The DoS does not have any reliable information on the number of AMCITS in Haiti – but acknowledges there is a considerable amount of travel between the two countries. On Monday, March 11, 2024, the Sec of State announced that the U.S. will provide $33 million in humanitarian assistance. In addition, the U.S. is providing $300 million to support the Multinational Security Support Mission that Kenya will launch very soon.

Street Gangs and Politicians. The country is now controlled by street gangs – some news reports say the groups are holding the airport and key infrastructure. The crime gangs are a formidable force for Haitian police to deal with. Haiti has always had street gangs but over the past four years the country has devolved into a mini mafia-state. How did the gangs get so powerful? “Why is Haiti so chaotic? Leaders used street gangs to gain power. Then the gangs got stronger”, Associated Press, March 10, 2024. See also “Haiti is Facing an Insurgency, not a Gang Problem”, Foreign Policy, March 13, 2024.

Kenya Police on Hold The plan to send 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti is on hold until a new Haitian transitional government is formed. As of Tuesday, March 12, 2024, Ariel Henry, Haiti’s prime minister, is still stranded in Puerto Rico since the crime gangs have made it impossible for him to return. It seems that Henry has either resigned or soon will resign.

Role of Multinational Mission? The Congressional Research Service has published a report on Haiti and the possible activities of a foreign security force to establish stability. Haiti in Crisis: What Role for a Multinational Security Support Mission? CRS IN 12331, March 15, 2024. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12331

Journals, Podcasts, Videos, and TV

Military Review. The March-April 2024 issue has now been posted by the Army University Press. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/March-April-2024/

Parameters. The United States Army War College Press has published the Spring 2024 issue of Parameters. Lots of interesting reading on Ukraine, sanctions, China’s strategic landpower, Taiwan, Israel-Hamas conflict, and book reviews. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/

Video – Special Operations Forces in an Era of Strategic Competition. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Christopher Maier discusses how US Special Operation Forces will operate in an era of strategic competition. Atlantic Council, March 7, 2024, 50 minutes. Atlantic Council or YouTube.

Video – Raven Advisory Showreel. Here is an interesting video depicting some of the training that Raven Advisory conducts. The firm is owned, managed, and operated by former special operations, government agency, law enforcement, and other personnel. YouTube, 8 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/@ravenadvisory8871/videos

TV – SEAL Team. Travis Pike was in a VA waiting room and SEAL Team was playing on the television. He got intrigued and watch the first season of the series – and enjoyed it! Read about his impression in “SEAL Team is Surprisingly Good TV”, SANDBOXX, March 15, 2024.

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sof.news · by SOF News · March 18, 2024

4. A Revolution in American Foreign Policy

A painful critique from the Senator.

A Revolution in American Foreign Policy

Replacing Greed, Militarism, and Hypocrisy With Solidarity, Diplomacy, and Human Rights

By Bernie Sanders

March 18, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Bernie Sanders · March 18, 2024

A sad fact about the politics of Washington is that some of the most important issues facing the United States and the world are rarely debated in a serious manner. Nowhere is that more true than in the area of foreign policy. For many decades, there has been a “bipartisan consensus” on foreign affairs. Tragically, that consensus has almost always been wrong. Whether it has been the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the overthrow of democratic governments throughout the world, or disastrous moves on trade, such as entering the North American Free Trade Agreement and establishing permanent normal trade relations with China, the results have often damaged the United States’ standing in the world, undermined the country’s professed values, and been disastrous for the American working class.

This pattern continues today. After spending billions of dollars to support the Israeli military, the United States, virtually alone in the world, is defending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government, which is waging a campaign of total war and destruction against the Palestinian people, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands—including thousands of children—and the starvation of hundreds of thousands more in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in fear-mongering around the threat posed by China and in the continued growth of the military industrial complex, it’s easy to see that the rhetoric and decisions of leaders in both major parties are frequently guided not by respect for democracy or human rights but militarism, groupthink, and the greed and power of corporate interests. As a result, the United States is increasingly isolated not just from poorer countries in the developing world but from many of its long-standing allies in the industrialized world, as well.

Given these failures, it is long past time to fundamentally reorient American foreign policy. Doing so starts with acknowledging the failures of the post–World War II bipartisan consensus and charting a new vision that centers human rights, multilateralism, and global solidarity.

A SHAMEFUL TRACK RECORD

Dating back to the Cold War, politicians in both major parties have used fear and outright lies to entangle the United States in disastrous and unwinnable foreign military conflicts. Presidents Johnson and Nixon sent nearly three million Americans to Vietnam to prop up an anticommunist dictator in a Vietnamese civil war under the so-called domino theory—the idea that if one country fell to communism the surrounding countries would fall as well. The theory was wrong, and the war was an abject failure. Up to three million Vietnamese were killed, as were 58,000 American troops.

The destruction of Vietnam was not quite enough for Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. They expanded the war into Cambodia with an immense bombing campaign that killed hundreds of thousands more people and fueled the rise of the dictator Pol Pot, whose subsequent genocide killed up to two million Cambodians. In the end, despite suffering enormous casualties and spending huge amounts of money, the United States lost a war that never should have been fought. In the process, the country severely damaged its credibility abroad and at home.

Washington’s record in the rest of the world was not much better during this era. In the name of combatting communism and the Soviet Union, the U.S. government supported military coups in Iran, Guatemala, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, and other countries. These interventions were often in support of authoritarian regimes that brutally repressed their own people and exacerbated corruption, violence, and poverty. Washington is still dealing with the fallout from such meddling today, confronting deep suspicion and hostility in many of these countries, which complicates U.S. foreign policy and undermines American interests.

A generation later, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, Washington repeated many of these same mistakes. President George W. Bush committed nearly two million U.S. troops and over $8 trillion to a “global war on terror” and catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraq war, much like Vietnam, was built on an outright lie. “We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” Bush infamously warned. But there was no mushroom cloud and there was no smoking gun, because the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. The war was opposed by many U.S. allies, and the Bush administration’s unilateral, go-it-alone approach in the run-up to the war severely undermined American credibility and eroded trust in Washington around the world. Despite this, supermajorities in both chambers of Congress voted to authorize the 2003 invasion.

The Iraq war was not an aberration. In the name of the global war on terror, the United States carried out torture, illegal detention, and “extraordinary renditions,” snatching suspects around the world and holding them for long periods at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba and CIA “black sites” around the world. The U.S. government implemented the Patriot Act, which resulted in mass surveillance domestically and internationally. The two decades of fighting in Afghanistan left thousands of U.S. troops dead or wounded and caused many hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilian casualties. Today, despite all that suffering and expenditure, the Taliban is back in power.

THE WAGES OF HYPOCRISY

I wish I could say that the foreign policy establishment in Washington learned its lesson after the failures of the Cold War and the global war on terror. But, with a few notable exceptions, it has not. Despite his promise of an “America first” foreign policy, President Donald Trump increased unrestricted drone warfare around the world, committed more troops to the Middle East and Afghanistan, ramped up tensions with China and North Korea, and nearly got into a disastrous war with Iran. He showered some of the most dangerous tyrants in the world—from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia—with weapons. Although Trump’s brand of self-dealing and corruption was new, it had its roots in decades of U.S. policy that prioritized short-term, unilateral interests over long-term efforts to build a world order based on international law.

And Trump’s militarism wasn’t new at all. In the past decade alone, the United States has been involved in military operations in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. The U.S. military maintains around 750 military bases in 80 countries and is increasing its presence abroad as Washington ramps up tensions with Beijing. Meanwhile, the United States is supplying Netanyahu’s Israel with billions of dollars in military funding while he annihilates Gaza.

U.S. policy on China is another illustration of failed foreign policy groupthink, which frames the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum struggle. For many in Washington, China is the new foreign policy bogeyman—an existential threat that justifies higher and higher Pentagon budgets. There is plenty to criticize in China’s record: its theft of technology, its suppression of workers’ rights and the press, its enormous expansion of coal power, its repression of Tibet and Hong Kong, its threatening behavior toward Taiwan, and its atrocious policies toward the Uyghur people. But there will be no solution to the existential threat of climate change without cooperation between China and the United States, the two largest carbon emitters in the world. There will also be no hope for seriously addressing the next pandemic without U.S.-Chinese cooperation. And instead of starting a trade war with China, Washington could create mutually beneficial trade agreements that benefit workers in both countries—not just multinational corporations.

The United States, virtually alone in the world, is defending Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government.

The United States can and should hold China accountable for its human rights violations. But Washington’s concerns for human rights are rather selective. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy controlled by a family worth over a trillion dollars. There is not even the pretense of democracy there; citizens have no right to dissent or elect their leaders. Women are treated as second-class citizens. Gay rights are virtually nonexistent. The immigrant population in Saudi Arabia is often forced into modern-day slavery, and recently there have been reports of mass killings of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants by Saudi forces. One of the country’s few prominent dissidents, Jamal Khashoggi, left a Saudi embassy in pieces in a suitcase after he was murdered by Saudi operatives in an attack that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Yet despite all of that, Washington continues to provide Saudi Arabia with weapons and support, as it does with Egypt, India, Israel, Pakistan, and the UAE—all countries that habitually trample on human rights.

It is not just U.S. military adventurism and hypocritical backing of tyrants that have proved counterproductive. So, too, have the international trade agreements that Washington has entered in recent decades. After ordinary Americans were told, year after year, how dangerous and terrible the communists of China and Vietnam were, and how the United States had to defeat them no matter the cost, it turns out that corporate America had a different perspective. Major U.S.-based multinationals came to love the idea of “free trade” with these authoritarian countries and embraced the opportunity to hire impoverished workers abroad at a fraction of the wages they were paying Americans. Hence, with bipartisan support and cheerleading from the corporate world and mainstream media, Washington forged free trade agreements with China and Vietnam.

The results have been disastrous. In the roughly two decades that followed these agreements, more than 40,000 factories in the U.S. shut down, around two million workers lost their jobs, and working-class Americans experienced wage stagnation—even while corporations made billions and investors were richly rewarded. Beyond the damage done at home, these agreements also contained few standards to protect workers or the environment, leading to disastrous impacts overseas. Resentment of these trade policies among working-class Americans helped fuel Trump’s initial rise and continues to benefit him today.

PEOPLE OVER PROFITS

Modern American foreign policy has not always been short-sighted and destructive. In the wake of World War II, despite the bloodiest war in history, Washington chose to learn the lessons of the punitive post–World War I agreements. Instead of humiliating defeated wartime enemies Germany and Japan, whose countries lay in ruin, the United States led a massive multibillion-dollar economic recovery program and helped convert totalitarian societies into prosperous democracies. Washington spearheaded the founding of the United Nations and the implementation of the Geneva Conventions to prevent the horrors of World War II from ever happening again and to ensure that all countries are held to the same standards on human rights. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy launched the Peace Corps to support education, public health, and entrepreneurship around the world, building human connections and advancing local development projects. In this century, Bush launched the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, which has saved over 25 million lives, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, and the President’s Malaria Initiative, which has prevented more than 1.5 billion cases of malaria.

If the goal of foreign policy is to help create a peaceful and prosperous world, the foreign policy establishment needs to fundamentally rethink its assumptions. Spending trillions of dollars on endless wars and defense contracts is not going to address the existential threat of climate change or the likelihood of future pandemics. It is not going to feed hungry children, reduce hatred, educate the illiterate, or cure diseases. It is not going to help create a shared global community and diminish the likelihood of war. In this pivotal moment in human history, the United States must lead a new global movement based on human solidarity and the needs of struggling people. This movement must have the courage to take on the greed of the international oligarchy, in which a few thousand billionaires exercise enormous economic and political power.

Economic policy is foreign policy. As long as wealthy corporations and billionaires have a stranglehold over our economic and political systems, foreign policy decisions will be guided by their material interests, not those of the vast majority of the world’s population. That is why the United States must address the moral and economic outrage of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, in which the richest one percent of the planet owns more wealth than the bottom 99 percent—an inequality that allows some people to own dozens of homes, private airplanes, and even entire islands, while millions of children go hungry or die of easily prevented diseases. Americans must lead the international community in eliminating the tax havens that enable billionaires and large corporations to hide trillions in wealth and avoid paying their fair share of taxes. That includes sanctioning countries that serve as tax shelters and using the United States’ significant economic leverage to cut off access to the U.S. financial system. An estimated $21 trillion to $32 trillion in financial assets are sitting offshore in tax havens today, according to the Tax Justice Network. This wealth does nothing to benefit societies. It’s not taxed and it’s not even spent—it simply ensures that the rich get richer.

Many defense contractors see the war in Ukraine primarily as a way to line their own pockets.

Washington should develop fair trade agreements that benefit workers and the poor of all countries, not just Wall Street investors. This includes creating strong, binding labor and environmental provisions with clear enforcement mechanisms, as well as eliminating investor protections that make it easy to outsource jobs. These agreements must be negotiated with input from workers, the American people, and the U.S. Congress—rather than just lobbyists from large multinational corporations, who currently dominate the trade negotiation process.

The United States must also cut excess military spending and demand that other countries do the same. In the midst of enormous environmental, economic, and public health challenges, the major countries of this world cannot allow huge defense contractors to make record-breaking profits as they provide the world with weapons used to destroy one another. Even without supplemental spending, the United States plans to devote around $900 billion to the military this year, almost half of which will go to a small number of defense contractors that are already highly profitable.

Like a majority of Americans, I believe it is in the vital interest of the United States and the international community to fight off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. But many defense contractors see the war primarily as a way to line their own pockets. The RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon, has increased prices for its Stinger missiles sevenfold since 1991. Today, it costs the United States $400,000 to replace each Stinger sent to Ukraine—an outrageous price increase that cannot even remotely be explained by inflation, increased costs, or advances in quality. Such greed doesn’t just cost American taxpayers; it costs Ukrainian lives. When contractors pad their profits, fewer weapons reach Ukrainians on the frontlines. Congress must rein in this kind of war profiteering by more closely examining contracts, taking back payments that turn out to be excessive, and creating a tax on windfall profits.

Meanwhile, Washington should stop undermining international institutions when their actions don’t align with its short-term political interests. It is far better for the countries of the world to debate and discuss their differences than to drop bombs or engage in armed conflict. The United States must support the UN by paying its dues, engaging directly on UN reform, and supporting UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council. The United States should also finally join the International Criminal Court instead of attacking it when it delivers verdicts that Washington sees as inconvenient. President Joe Biden made the right choice in rejoining the World Health Organization. Now the United States must invest in the WHO, strengthen its ability to respond quickly to pandemics, and work with it to negotiate an international pandemic treaty that prioritizes the lives of poor and working people around the world—not Big Pharma’s profits.

SOLIDARITY NOW

The benefits of making this shift in foreign policy would far outweigh the costs. More consistent U.S. support for human rights would make it more likely that bad actors face justice—and less likely that they commit human rights abuses in the first place. Increased investments in economic development and civil society would lift millions out of poverty and strengthen democratic institutions. U.S. support for fair international labor standards would raise wages for millions of American workers and billions of people around the world. Making the rich pay their taxes and cracking down on offshore capital would unlock substantial financial resources that could be put to work addressing global needs and helping restore people’s faith that democracies can deliver.

Most of all, as the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy, the United States must recognize that our greatest strength as a nation comes not from our wealth or our military might but from our values of freedom and democracy. The biggest challenges of our times, from climate change to global pandemics, will require cooperation, solidarity, and collective action, not militarism.

• BERNIE SANDERS is an independent U.S. Senator from Vermont.

Foreign Affairs · by Bernie Sanders · March 18, 2024

5. Notes from Central Taiwan: Gaming the Wrong War

Interesting alternative analysis here:

Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer still have imagined that the PRC might choose that as an alternative to opening a PRC-US conflict by directly attacking Taiwan and Japan.

...

A PRC attack on the Philippines would trigger Japanese and Taiwanese involvement, but probably not their military involvement, especially if the PRC was scrupulous about avoiding it. Moreover, unlike Taiwan, the US has a formal defense treaty with Manila: it would have to intervene. And it may have to do so without Japan’s impressive navy or Taiwan’s air and missile capabilities.

If Beijing uses its second-line forces with a leavening of first-line ships — over 1,200 hulls in the Coast Guard (under direct military control since 2013), including over 220 exceeding 500 tons displacement, never mind the thousands of vessels in the PRC’s seaborne militia, its fishing fleet and in its shadowy People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) — they will have to be killed. The fact that killing poorly armed ships will be easy does not mean it will be cheap, or successful. Ask the Ukrainians about stopping poorly trained Russian “meat assaults.”

Every commander who has ever played a war game well understands the concept of “soaking off” piles of cheap, weak units against the enemy’s expensive, more capable units, especially when they can be used to draw those expensive units into the range of airborne and land-based missiles that can kill them. That is how PRC commanders will view the coming war.

...

Beijing is not testing Manila. It does not need to.

It is testing the US.

Mon, Mar 18, 2024 page13

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2024/03/18/2003815083

Notes from Central Taiwan: Gaming the Wrong War

Are PRC incursions in Philippine waters simply testing US resolve?

• By Michael Turton / Contributing reporter
• 
  
•  
•  
• In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread.
• Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer still have imagined that the PRC might choose that as an alternative to opening a PRC-US conflict by directly attacking Taiwan and Japan.
• 
  
• 
  
• GRAPHIC: TT
• WAR GAMES
• Last month Robert Kitchen, a naval expert with the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Center, published a review of war games of the PRC Taiwan scenario. Kitchen observes that before 2020, war games tended to end in a victory for the US side. Then, between 2020 and 2022, the pendulum shifted to the PRC. “Finally,” he notes, “in the two games since Feb. 22, 2022, the immediate insights from the larger Russian invasion of Ukraine have tilted the outcomes towards the defender.”
• The PRC games this too, and they are likely seeing the same trends the western war games are showing: high costs, immense destruction, global economic disaster, PRC defeat.
• 
  

Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr says the Philippines doesn’t want to be “the grass” between two “fighting elephants.”

• Photo: EPA
• Recall that the PRC goal isn’t just interested in annexing Taiwan. It also demands Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — called the Senkaku Islands in Japan — and Okinawa, has been eyeing the Batanes Islands in the Bashi Channel between Luzon and Taiwan, wants to solidify its control over the South China Sea, and then move on its next round of expansion. India? Korea? Regardless, we are not in for a single cataclysmic war, but likely several rounds of hegemonic warfare.
• Americans tend to relate everything to World War II: sacrifices duly made, enemies duly defeated, problem duly solved. But even that war was the last in a series of hegemonic wars to settle Germany’s place in Europe, and Japan’s in Asia. In any case, the current position of the US is not that of the UK in the between-wars era, as Americans fondly imagine themselves to be. A much better historical analogy is the rise of an expansionist France in the 17th-18th century, with its wars of “reunion” over nearby states, a long wave of wars that finally ended at Waterloo. In that analogy, we are not the vigorous, rising English commercial kingdom, but Spain of Philip III.
• The PRC is well aware of the numerous social, economic and industrial problems the US faces. The (pointless) expenditure of expensive Tomahawk missiles against the Houthis in the Red Sea mess has underscored the US Navy’s extensive ammunition problems: even a small operation expends missiles faster than the US can build them. US Representative Rob Wittman, chair of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces panel, quoted in Politico in January, said that US problems are force-wide: “This is not just Tomahawks, but it’s also Standard Missiles. It’s also MK 48s, MK 54s, because there’s always been an issue, too, of inventory of torpedoes...”
• 
  

This photo taken last month shows a Chinese coast guard ship shadowing the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) ship BRP Datu Tamblot near the China-controlled Scarborough Shoal, in disputed waters of the South China Sea.

• Photo: AFP
• A PRC attack on the Philippines would trigger Japanese and Taiwanese involvement, but probably not their military involvement, especially if the PRC was scrupulous about avoiding it. Moreover, unlike Taiwan, the US has a formal defense treaty with Manila: it would have to intervene. And it may have to do so without Japan’s impressive navy or Taiwan’s air and missile capabilities.
• If Beijing uses its second-line forces with a leavening of first-line ships — over 1,200 hulls in the Coast Guard (under direct military control since 2013), including over 220 exceeding 500 tons displacement, never mind the thousands of vessels in the PRC’s seaborne militia, its fishing fleet and in its shadowy People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) — they will have to be killed. The fact that killing poorly armed ships will be easy does not mean it will be cheap, or successful. Ask the Ukrainians about stopping poorly trained Russian “meat assaults.”
• Every commander who has ever played a war game well understands the concept of “soaking off” piles of cheap, weak units against the enemy’s expensive, more capable units, especially when they can be used to draw those expensive units into the range of airborne and land-based missiles that can kill them. That is how PRC commanders will view the coming war.
• And when the US has expended thousands of munitions killing them, it will be short on the munitions it needs to conduct a successful defense of Taiwan. Its ships and crews, worn out by fighting and currently lacking in logistics capabilities for restocking missiles at sea (it is still testing systems for doing that), will have to return to ports weeks away for lengthy repairs and resupply.
• A glance at the list of war games on Kitchen’s list shows that none of them considers an alternate start to a PRC-US war. All of them are Taiwan-centered and some don’t even include the Philippines. Our thinking on war with the PRC has become stale.
• STRATEGIC THINKING
• Other advantages of the Philippines may leap to PRC minds. The Philippines is heavily penetrated by PRC technology products, a testimony to the effectiveness of low-cost exports driven by PRC state policy, and the complete failure of western, especially US, firms and governments to respond to this. For example, while Apple is the top selling mobile phone brand in the Philippines, eight of the other top 10 mobile phone brands in the Philippines are from the PRC. The telecommunications infrastructure itself is also supplied in part by Huawei, though many local telecom firms of their own volition are working to diversify their technology sources. Astonishingly, the telecom towers on the Philippines’ military bases were built in 2019 by China Telecom, under contract with a local firm. As of last year, the Philippines had officers training in the PRC. It will not be difficult for PRC computer experts to spy on the Philippines’ handling of its defense, and to sabotage its infrastructure.
• Moreover, the Philippines armed forces are not nearly as capable and powerful as Taiwan’s. Beijing knows this well, it has been taking Manila’s measure with its gray zone operations and patient, constant, wearing pressure on the Philippines.
• Just last month PAFMM ships re-occupied the Philippines’ Sabina Shoal, lashed together to form rafts, according to satellite photos. The Philippines had ejected them in April of 2021, but they soon returned, and in larger numbers.
• Beijing is not testing Manila. It does not need to.
• It is testing the US.
• Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.

6. Standing Up to China, Philippine Leader Courts New Network of Partners

Excerpts:

The militarization of the Spratly Islands allowed China to maintain a round-the-clock presence in waters about 500 miles from the coast of China. Chinese boats stationed there then repeatedly harassed Filipino fishing boats in an area that an international tribunal in The Hague had ruled was a traditional fishing ground of the Philippines, Vietnam and other nations. The Chinese presence also prevented Manila from fully exploring oil and gas deposits in the surrounding water.

China has blamed the Philippines for the frequent clashes in the South China Sea.

...

“China is basically pushing us closer to the United States and to the other countries that have already indicated their support, as far as Germany and as far as the Czech Republic,” said Renato Cruz De Castro, a professor of international studies at De La Salle University in Manila.

On Thursday, Petr Pavel, the president of the Czech Republic, said he was willing to cooperate with the Philippines in defense and cybersecurity, adding that his country “fully” supports Manila in the South China Sea.

“To us, South China Sea may seem to be far, far away, but if you take into account the percentage of share of world or global trade that passes through this area, any disruption of theses routes would have an adverse impact on Europe, not only in the form of shortage of goods but also soaring prices,” Mr. Pavel told reporters at a joint news conference with Mr. Marcos. “Which is why we have to pay attention to this topic.”

Standing Up to China, Philippine Leader Courts New Network of Partners

Escalating tensions in the South China Sea, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. says, are not only a regional issue, but a global one.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/16/world/asia/philippines-south-china-sea.html

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany this past week at the chancellery in Berlin.Credit...Markus Schreiber/Associated Press

By Sui-Lee Wee and Camille Elemia

March 16, 2024

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With China aggressively asserting its claims on the South China Sea, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines spent his first year on the job beefing up Manila’s alliance with its oldest ally, the United States. Now he is shoring up support from a wider and new network of partners.

Mr. Marcos is adding a new intensity to his muscular foreign policy at a critical moment in his country’s territorial dispute with Beijing. Maritime clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels have become more frequent in recent months.

In January, Mr. Marcos and the leaders of Vietnam, another country fighting off Chinese claims to the crucial waterway, pledged closer cooperation between their coast guards. This month, Mr. Marcos clinched a maritime cooperation deal with Australia. And this past week, he took his pitch to Europe.

“It has to be recognized that the South China Sea handles 60 percent of the trade of the entire world. So, it’s not solely the interest of the Philippines, or of ASEAN, or of the Indo-Pacific region, but the entire world,” Mr. Marcos said on Tuesday in Berlin, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Standing alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Mr. Marcos, the first Philippine president to visit Germany in a decade, added, “That is why it’s in all our interest to keep it as a safe passage for all international commerce that goes on in the South China Sea.”

This flurry of diplomacy, analysts said, might ultimately help to deter China. But they also acknowledged that Beijing was going to continue doubling down on its territorial claims, increasing the risks of a conflict that could ultimately draw in the United States, the Philippines’ oldest treaty ally. Washington has repeatedly condemned Beijing’s actions and has vowed to come to the aid of Manila in the event of an armed conflict.

Image

Chinese coast guard ships firing water cannons this month at a Philippine Navy chartered vessel off the Second Thomas Shoal.Credit...Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

The foreign policy strategy adopted by Mr. Marcos, who took office in June 2022, is almost the opposite of the approach of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. While Mr. Duterte spurned the West and courted China, Mr. Marcos has revived and cemented ties with traditional security partners like the United States and Japan. He has also cultivated new relations with the likes of Sweden and France, and his government has pushed for arms deals and military drills.

Tensions flared again this month when Chinese boats blocked the Philippine vessels off the Second Thomas Shoal, a contested reef 120 miles off the coast of the western province of Palawan. The confrontation culminated in Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels colliding.

Mr. Marcos told reporters then there was no reason yet to invoke the mutual defense treaty with the United States.

China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, some of it hundreds of miles from the mainland and in waters surrounding Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines. In the past decade or so, China has asserted ever greater control over these waters, using two island chains called the Paracels and the Spratlys to expand its military footprint by building and fortifying outposts and airstrips.

The militarization of the Spratly Islands allowed China to maintain a round-the-clock presence in waters about 500 miles from the coast of China. Chinese boats stationed there then repeatedly harassed Filipino fishing boats in an area that an international tribunal in The Hague had ruled was a traditional fishing ground of the Philippines, Vietnam and other nations. The Chinese presence also prevented Manila from fully exploring oil and gas deposits in the surrounding water.

China has blamed the Philippines for the frequent clashes in the South China Sea.

Image

Chinese-built structures on Mischief Reef, off the Philippine island of Palawan.Credit...Jes Aznar for The New York Times

Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, in December admonished the Philippines for “changing its policy stance, reneging on its commitments and continuing to provoke and cause trouble at sea.”

Mr. Wang also issued a warning: “If the Philippines misjudges the situation, insists on going its own way, or even colludes with malicious external forces to continue causing trouble and chaos, China will definitely safeguard its rights in accordance with the law and respond resolutely.”

Two weeks later, the Philippines announced that it had signed agreements with Britain and Canada to increase defense cooperation. They were part of 10 security agreements that Mr. Marcos has signed with seven countries since last year, according to a tally of public statements.

“China is basically pushing us closer to the United States and to the other countries that have already indicated their support, as far as Germany and as far as the Czech Republic,” said Renato Cruz De Castro, a professor of international studies at De La Salle University in Manila.

On Thursday, Petr Pavel, the president of the Czech Republic, said he was willing to cooperate with the Philippines in defense and cybersecurity, adding that his country “fully” supports Manila in the South China Sea.

“To us, South China Sea may seem to be far, far away, but if you take into account the percentage of share of world or global trade that passes through this area, any disruption of theses routes would have an adverse impact on Europe, not only in the form of shortage of goods but also soaring prices,” Mr. Pavel told reporters at a joint news conference with Mr. Marcos. “Which is why we have to pay attention to this topic.”

Image

President Biden with Mr. Marcos last May in the Oval Office.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

New allies, Mr. De Castro said, are welcome because the Philippines cannot rely on the United States alone, especially if former President Donald J. Trump returns to power next year.

“The U.S. is simply — even Americans would say — so unstable right now, the political system is so volatile, look at what’s happening with the U.S. military assistance to Ukraine,” he said. “And I’m not saying that Trump would win, but there’s always uncertainty because of how unstable American domestic politics is.”

Another important calculus for Mr. Marcos, analysts said, is securing investments for the Philippines.

“That means that we can really be assertive, we can really protect the South China Sea interests without thinking of the economic backlash that China might impose on us,” said Aries A. Arugay, the chairman of the political science department of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Even India, which has been silent on the South China Sea dispute for years, announced last June that it would provide loans with preferential rates to the Philippines for its military modernization. In August, both countries signed agreements to cooperate in the coast guard sectors.

Last week, when he was in Australia, Mr. Marcos warned that the constant clashes between Filipino and Chinese vessels have increased the risks of miscalculation.

“The potential for outright conflict is much higher now than it was before,” he said. “We worry in the Philippines because it could come from not a strategic decision by anyone saying, ‘OK, we’re going to war,’ but just by some servicemen making a mistake, or some action that’s misunderstood.”

The South China Sea Dispute

With an Eye on China, Philippines Moves Closer to U.S. Interests

Feb. 20, 2023

Tensions With China Cross a New Line in the South China Sea

Sept. 26, 2023

What It Feels Like to Be the Target of China’s Water Cannons

Dec. 11, 2023

Blasting Bullhorns and Water Cannons, Chinese Ships Wall Off the Sea

Sept. 23, 2023

Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region. More about Sui-Lee Wee

A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2024, Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Manila Shores Up Ties As Deterrent to China. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

7. For many Chinese, there are ‘more important things’ than Taiwan unification

For many Chinese, there are ‘more important things’ than Taiwan unification

Beijing has not ruled out using force to annex Taiwan, but there is little appetite for war among Chinese people.

Al Jazeera English · by Frederik Kelter

“It is difficult to imagine that this used to be a warzone,” 23-year-old *Shao Hongtian told Al Jazeera as he wandered along a beach near the city of Xiamen on China’s southeast coast.

Halting by the water’s edge where gentle waves lapped against the sand, Shao gestured beyond the shallows towards the sea and the Kinmen archipelago – now peaceful, but in the 1940s and 1950s, a battleground.

The communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and the nationalists of the Kuomintang (KMT) fled Beijing for the island of Taiwan. It was on Kinmen, the main island of the archipelago of the same name, less than 10km (6.2 miles) from the coast of China, that the nationalists repulsed repeated communist invasion attempts, but not before the fighting had wreaked havoc on both Xiamen and Kinmen.

Kinmen and its outlying islets – some of which lie even closer to the Chinese coast – have been a part of Taiwan’s territory ever since.

Chinese citizens like Shao were once able to get tourist visas to visit the islands, but that ended with the pandemic.

“Kinmen, China and Taiwan are all part of the same nation, so it should be possible to visit, and I hope I can visit one day,” Shao said over a video connection – his eyes fixed on Kinmen.

Like Shao, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claim that Taiwan and its territory are part of China.

Defences line the beaches of Kinmen where nationailsts beat back the communists in the wake of the 1949 civil war [File: Ann Wang/Reuters]

Xi said in his New Year’s address that China’s unification with democratic Taiwan was an “historical inevitability“, and China has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification. Last year Xi called on China’s armed forces to strengthen their combat readiness.

In recent years the Chinese military has increased its pressure on Taiwan with almost daily airborne and maritime incursions close to Taiwan’s air and sea space. At times of particular tension, such as during the visit of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, such manoeuvres have been accompanied by sabre-rattling rhetoric and large-scale military drills.

Capsized boats, recriminations

Recently, tensions have been rising near Kinmen as well.

In February, two Chinese fishermen were killed when their speedboat capsized as they attempted to flee the Taiwanese coastguard when they were discovered fishing “within prohibited waters” about one nautical mile (1.8km) from the Kinmen archipelago.

Since then, the Chinese coastguard has stepped up its activities around Kinmen.

Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the February incident was “vicious” and stressed the waters were “traditional” fishing grounds for fishermen in China and Taiwan. There were no off-limits waters around Kinmen, she added.

A second capsize was reported on Thursday, and on this occasion China asked for help from the Taiwan coastguard.

Standing on the beach looking out towards Kinmen, Shao says hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.

“I want unification to happen peacefully,” he said.

If that is not possible, he would prefer things to remain as they are.

Soldiers pay tribute to the fallen during a 2023 ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of China’s attack on Kinmen island [File: Chiang Ying-ying/Reuters]

He knows that many of his friends feel the same way. According to Shao, if they go to Kinmen and Taiwan, it should be as visitors, not as fighters.

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“The Taiwanese haven’t done anything bad to us, so why should we go there to fight them?” he said, convinced that any war between China and Taiwan would result in significant casualties on both sides. “Unification with Taiwan is not worth a war.”

No appetite for war

A study published by the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center last year suggests that Shao and his friends are not alone in opposing a war over Taiwan.

The study explored Chinese public support for different policy steps regarding unification with Taiwan and found that launching a full-scale war to achieve unification was viewed as unacceptable by a third of the Chinese respondents.

Only one percent rejected all other options but war, challenging the Chinese government’s assertion that the Chinese people were willing to “go to any length and pay any price” to achieve unification.

Mia Wei, a 26-year-old marketing specialist from Shanghai is not surprised by such results.

“Ordinary Chinese people are not pushing the government to get unification,” she told Al Jazeera.

“It is the government that pushes people to believe that there must be unification.”

At the same time, support for a unification war turned out to be close to the same level found in similar studies from earlier years, indicating that despite the growing tension in the Taiwan Strait and renewed talk about taking control of Taiwan, there has not been a corresponding increase in support for more forceful measures.

Wei believes that Chinese like herself are more concerned with developments inside their country.

“First there was COVID, then the economy got bad and then the housing market got even worse,” she said. “I think Chinese people have their minds on more important things than unification with Taiwan.”

According to Associate Professor Yao-Yuan Yeh who teaches Chinese Studies at the University of St Thomas in the United States, there is currently little reason for Chinese people to be more supportive of conflict with Taiwan.

US President Joe Biden has on several occasions said the US will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. At the same time, the US has been strengthening its military ties with countries such as Japan and the Philippines – Taiwan’s immediate neighbours to the north and the south.

“There is no guarantee of a quick victory in a war over Taiwan,” Yeh told Al Jazeera.

“Also, many people in China have business partners, friends and family in Taiwan, and therefore don’t want to see any harm come to the island and its people.”

The study also showed that young Chinese were more averse towards forceful policy measures than earlier generations.

“Young people are usually among the first to be sent to the battlefield so naturally they are more opposed to war,” Yeh said.

Shao from Xiamen thinks that any hope of victory in a war over Taiwan and its partners will require the mobilisation of a lot of young people like him.

“And I think many young people in China [will] refuse to die in an attack on Taiwan.”

Not an issue for debate

Regardless of what Chinese people might think, unifying Taiwan with the mainland will remain a cornerstone of the CCP’s narrative, according to Eric Chan who is a senior fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, DC.

“Unification is not a topic that is up for any sort of debate with the general public,” he told Al Jazeera.

China has become increasingly assertive in its claim over Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its aims [File: Andy Wong/AP Photo]

Although the Chinese leadership often claims that China is a democratic country where the party is guided by the will of the Chinese people, there are no regular national elections or free media while online discourse is restricted and regularly censored. Speaking out against the CCP can also result in criminal convictions.

Since Xi became president in 2012, crackdowns on civil liberties have intensified, and Xi has centralised power around himself to a degree unprecedented since the rule of Mao Zedong – the man who led the communists to victory against the nationalists and became communist China’s first leader.

During Mao’s rule, reforms and purges of Chinese society led to the deaths of millions of Chinese people, while upwards of 400,000 Chinese soldiers died as a result of his decision to enter the 1950-1953 Korean War on North Korea’s side.

But according to Chan, the days when a Chinese leader could expend tens of thousands of lives in such a manner are over.

Recent government actions that exacted a heavy toll on citizens led to public pushback, and Xi did not appear immune.

During the COVID pandemic, Xi ardently defended the country’s zero-COVID policy even though its mass testing and strict lockdowns had dire socioeconomic consequences. The government eventually abandoned the policy as the economy sank, and people took to the streets across China’s major cities demanding an end to the lockdowns, even calling for Xi to step down.

As for war, the circumstances are also different. Unlike, for example, the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, a battle for Taiwan would be existential for the communist party and Xi, according to Chan.

“The party (CCP) would not have been threatened by a loss or high casualties in those wars,” he said.

Today, Xi would need to assume that those types of losses would be unacceptable to the Chinese people, he added.

Public outrage over a long unification war that might even end in a Chinese defeat could, in Chan’s view, endanger the party’s rule.

Mindful of the mood of the Chinese people, Chan sees the CCP instead continuing to engage in low-cost grey zone operations against Taiwan while developing a Chinese military that would be able to score a swift victory.

For Shao, however, any attempt to settle the issue through conflict would be a disaster.

“I don’t think it will end well for anyone – not for those that have to fight it and not for the government that starts it,” he said.

*Shao’s name has been changed to respect his wish for anonymity given the sensitivity of the topic.

Al Jazeera English · by Frederik Kelter

8.  SPECIAL REPORT: Army’s Project Convergence Goes on the Offensive

Excerpts:

Alex Miller, senior science and technology advisor to the chief of staff of the Army, told a small group of reporters that GIDE 9.2 and PCC4 phase one were essentially the same event.

“Their objective at GIDE is how do you rapidly field digital workflows and CJADC2 capabilities?” he said. “And our objective for PCC4 is how do you bring that joint task force and [combatant command]-level architecture down to something that is below the joint task force — so at your component level, at your service level, all the way down to the warfighter or system level?

“And what we’ve been able to demonstrate … is how do you take nontraditional sensors and pair them with traditional shooters? How do you sort of hide in plain sight in the spectrum?” he said.

Connecting everything was no small task, he said.

“What we saw, frankly, was we could force the technical architecture together, we could do that,” he said. “The soldiers and sailors and airmen out here, they are magicians. They made it work, and they’re amazing.

“But we spent a lot of time standing up a network,” he continued. “We spent a lot of time getting architectures to work together. And because we focused so much on that, we invested a lot of calories and time just getting us to that.”

SPECIAL REPORT: Army’s Project Convergence Goes on the Offensive

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/3/18/armys-project-convergence-goes-on-the-offensive

3/18/2024

By Sean Carberry

A drone carries a payload (far left) and soldiers work inside a command cell at Camp Pendleton, California, as part of Project Convergence Capstone 4.

Army photos

This is part 1 of a 3-part special report on the Army-led Project Convergence Capstone 4 exercise.

CAMP PENDLETON, California — Inside a hulking white tent in an expeditionary command base next to the Pacific Ocean, projectors render a large map on the floor representing the Pacific theater. U.S. and allied bases, ships and aircraft are spread across the battlespace, as are enemy ships, aircraft and installations.

The mission objective: use sensors and weapons deployed in all domains to detect and defeat air threats and missiles and take out enemy maritime, air and land targets.

This scenario played out multiple times over several days at phase one of the Army-led Project Convergence Capstone 4, or PCC4. The experimentation at Camp Pendleton in California was designed to test and stress the capabilities of the U.S. military services and allies from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to connect their disparate systems and share threat and mission execution data at machine speed.

Lt. Gen. Richard Coffman, deputy commander of Army Futures Command, said during a media roundtable that PCC4 built on the Project Convergence 2022 model that included the Joint Force along with partners and allies.

“At that point, we began producing a number of enemy systems to prove technology,” he said. “With the concept that you prove the tech, then you scale, and you continue to prove the tech and scale again.

“This year, we have increased the threat envelope to 10 times what we did last” time, he continued, adding that two multi-domain task forces participated, with Army Pacific representing the headquarters. “And the entire Joint Force and with our U.K. and Australian teammates and allies, we’re able to effectively move data for the first time in an Indo-Pacific scenario at a magnitude never seen before.”

Project Convergence is the Army’s program of record to develop capabilities for the Defense Department’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort. The overarching goal is to develop connectivity so that any sensor can provide threat information that feeds a command center that can then task the “best shooter” to target the threat.

Col. Matt Rauscher, director of the fires capability development and integration directorate at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, told reporters that integrating offensive and defensive fires was a central element of the experiment.

“The integration of those will increase the effectiveness of both capabilities by sharing data at machine speed across the Army, our joint partners and our allies, enabling a joint coalition force to more effectively fight the fight,” he said.

“When we talk offensive and defensive integration … imagine an enemy threat. They fire a volley of missiles … at a target,” he said. “We pick up that launch location. As our sensors are also tracking those targets inbound, we are passing that data through a pathway over to the [joint task force] commander, who then can make a decision to offensively strike that location or sense that location or do some kind of effect on that location.

“So, before it would be a launch, we would engage those targets, and then we would send aircraft to go SCUD hunting,” he said. “We’re past that. Now, it’s launch, then we’re launching to kill the launcher, and then we’re killing the arrows as they’re inbound.”

The transition to integrated fires is a recognition of the U.S. military’s limited magazine depth and the need to take out an enemy’s offensive capability rather than defend against a potential adversary’s larger supply of missiles, officers said.

Project Convergence 2022 experimented with the Joint Track Manager Capability bridge — developed by the Missile Defense Agency — which provided “the ability to share data across the services,” a new capability at the time, Rauscher said.

“Over the past 18 months, the work that MDA has done on the bridge has brought us the ability not only to pass data but composite data and share that data holistically across the services, and in some cases we’re able to share that data with our allies,” he said.

Another new element of PCC4 was the integration with the Defense Department’s Global Information Dominance Experiment 9.2 led by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, which is responsible for the data integration layer of CJADC2.

Alex Miller, senior science and technology advisor to the chief of staff of the Army, told a small group of reporters that GIDE 9.2 and PCC4 phase one were essentially the same event.

“Their objective at GIDE is how do you rapidly field digital workflows and CJADC2 capabilities?” he said. “And our objective for PCC4 is how do you bring that joint task force and [combatant command]-level architecture down to something that is below the joint task force — so at your component level, at your service level, all the way down to the warfighter or system level?

“And what we’ve been able to demonstrate … is how do you take nontraditional sensors and pair them with traditional shooters? How do you sort of hide in plain sight in the spectrum?” he said.

Connecting everything was no small task, he said.

“What we saw, frankly, was we could force the technical architecture together, we could do that,” he said. “The soldiers and sailors and airmen out here, they are magicians. They made it work, and they’re amazing.

“But we spent a lot of time standing up a network,” he continued. “We spent a lot of time getting architectures to work together. And because we focused so much on that, we invested a lot of calories and time just getting us to that.”

Much of that had to do with the different standards and languages or grammars the services — and allies — use in their communications and messaging systems, he said.

Maj. Gen. Jeth Ray, the Network Cross-Functional Team director, “did something that was really awesome,” Miller continued. “He forbade anyone from saying the network was broken. And what he really did was he told people, ‘You have to identify the problem and then work to identify the root cause.’”

That meant saying things like: “This part failed because the cross-domain dropped the message, or it was an ill-formed request, or this segment of the network actually failed for these reasons,” he said.

There was one network failure that highlighted the importance of real-world testing, he said.

“There’s some wildlife out here, and the wildlife apparently got hungry one morning and decided that one of the network cables looked really delicious,” he said. “So, there are some unique effects that we saw from being live, not being at home, not being in a lab that you could only really get in the field.”

Once the network team got things connected, participants shifted over “to something that is actually quite amazing for us … when service components started talking about workflows and they started talking about, ‘Hey, here’s what I actually have to do with this data. Here’s what I actually want to achieve. Here’s the actual end result,’ rather than, ‘Oh, I just want this box to talk to that box,’” he said.

From there, scale and speed increased, “and the time between every event went way down, from what used to take hours to something that is now taking seconds in terms of being able to move a piece of data … from where it originated to who has to do what with it,” he said.

Miller said that since the first Project Convergence capstone, the speed of moving data from a sensor to an effector has increased by two orders of magnitude.

“We did see things that took minutes of very human-centric processing go down to seconds because the workflows were entirely automated,” he said.

Some of it was making sure not to overclassify data. Some of it involved automating data entry and transfer tasks, eliminating what the military refers to as “chair swivel” — manually moving data from one system to another.

That’s where some of the GIDE systems came into play, he said.

“And then instead of going from digital to a PowerPoint slide and then … make it another digital dashboard, another PowerPoint slide, we just left everything in the data, we lived in the data, and we fought in the data.”

With the completion of phase one, PCC4 shifted to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, for phase two, which was Army-centric experimentation focused on ground autonomy.

Reflecting on phase one, Gen. James Rainey, head of Army Futures Command, said the experiments validated assumptions that came out of Project Convergence 2022.

“What we’ve been able to figure out over the last 18 months or so is the power of software,” he said in an interview. “So now, you don’t have to standardize everything. What you need to do is be able to connect the systems — cross-domain solutions we call them — and the ability to automate that.”

“And that was one of the big breakthroughs of this experiment,” he said, adding that some of the solutions will be imported into the force now.

That’s what the Army now refers to as C2 Fix — making current systems work together for today’s fight — whereas C2 Next is about the future generation of command and control.

“There’s a clear realization that the future is about moving to data centrality, algorithmic warfare, whatever term you prefer,” he said, referring to the C2 Next effort. “So, when we start thinking about the next set of things we buy … we need to connect them by design and acquire them that way, so we don’t have to have a connection problem.”

In addition to solving connection problems, PCC4 phase one also tested smaller form factors for network technology to reduce electronic signatures and lighten the load for expeditionary forces, Miller said.

“We showed that we could virtualize a lot of the current stack that we’ve been making units lug around for several years,” he said. “And in the virtualization, we can make it smaller. … Again, it doesn’t mean that we’ve solved the data problem. What it does show is for the near term … we can take 700 or 800 pounds of gear and put it into a 50-pound box.”

That will help units that have to fight today, and it will help inform the development of C2 Next, he said.

“The goal is, what is the actual data architecture? What are the actual data workflows?” he said. “And don’t worry about the boxology, don’t worry about the kit. How do you actually make those tools effective?

So, I am pretty excited to see some of the experimentation that’s happening there, which will inform” C2 Next, he said. “It doesn’t fix the problem, but it will inform the future.” ND

9. Bolster Ukraine’s irregular warfare tactics with Western tech

Conclusion:

A strategy to attrit Russian army logistics and undermine morale is optimal for indirect, irregular warfare. It will support the more substantial conventional offensive operations needed to expel Russian forces from Ukraine.

Bolster Ukraine’s irregular warfare tactics with Western tech

Defense News · by Philip Wasielewski and William Courtney · March 15, 2024

As Ukrainian forces assume a more defensive posture, Kyiv’s irregular warfare behind enemy lines becomes even more important. Ukrainian irregulars are already active, even striking distant targets in Russia. With Western support and technology, these silent warriors could become even more potent.

Using unorthodox and imaginative tactics, Ukraine’s irregular warriors are notching stunning gains. Sea drones sink modern warships in the Black Sea. Aerial drones evade Russia’s best air defenses to strike oil facilities in St. Petersburg. Saboteurs blow up trains and paralyze Russia’s longest rail tunnel in the Far East. Officials and turncoats in Russian-occupied areas are routinely assassinated.

Two years ago, when Ukraine’s military prospects seemed dimmer, Western allies considered helping to sponsor a government in exile and subsequent guerilla operations. There is a Ukrainian precedent: Insurgents fought in World War II and endured for a decade afterward.

In 2022, some in the West worried that backing a Ukrainian insurgency could draw NATO and Russian forces into conflict. These concerns might now be less. Russia has not attacked NATO member states, and Ukraine has not used Western arms to strike ground targets in Russia.

The West has long had experience in aiding resistance movements. In World War II, covert Allied supplies helped Yugoslav Partisans tie down Nazi divisions. In the 1980s, the U.S. helped Afghan insurgents fight Soviet occupiers, and it supported the Solidarity free trade union to oppose Poland’s Soviet-backed regime.

Drawing on this experience and emerging technologies, how might the West further strengthen Ukraine’s irregular warfare campaign as part of an overall strategy to win the war?

First, in a conventional war between industrial powers, irregular warfare operations will be only a supporting element to the main strategy. They can, however, have outsized impact if properly integrated into that strategy. D-Day sabotage by the French resistance is an example.

A common definition of strategy is a method to combine ways and means to accomplish an end. For Ukraine, this is the restoration of territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. Standing in the way of this, however, is the Russian army. Last year, it blunted Ukraine’s counteroffensive, although Russia’s own offensive also failed.

Despite some recent success, the Russian army has vulnerabilities in logistics, command and control, and morale. Ukraine’s fighting force could further exploit these weaknesses with improved integration of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets linked to longer-range fires. The West could help by providing greater support to Ukrainian operations behind Russian lines, and to longer-range fires for strikes deep behind them.

This integrated capability could help Ukraine suppress enemy air defenses. This will be essential if newly arriving F-16 jets are to provide effective close-air support to future Ukrainian offensives. The Russian military failed to do this when increasing air sorties to support its Avdiivka offensive and lost a dozen combat aircraft. Ukrainian forces could not afford a similar mistake.

Longer-range fires would enable Ukraine to seriously disrupt Russian logistics as well as command and control. These fires could destroy or render inoperable the Kerch Bridge and other bridges as well as railyards, warehouses and ammunition depots in occupied Ukraine and over the border in Russia. If Moscow can daily target Ukrainian civilians, Kyiv should have the ability to strike Russian military assets that sow death and destruction on Ukrainian soil.

Dismantling Russian air defenses and logistics requires intelligence gathered behind enemy lines. Ukraine has shown that even with limited resources it can conduct intelligence-based deep strikes in Crimea and elsewhere. The keys to scaling this up are increased on-the-ground human and technical intelligence and secure communications.

Irregular warfare behind Russian lines need not resemble the guerrilla exploits of the French, Polish or Yugoslav resistance movements in World War II. Smart weapons and Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians make this unnecessary or unwise. Instead, Ukrainian irregular warfare should resemble stealthy Cold War intelligence and counterintelligence work rather than large-scale paramilitary operations.

The West has been criticized for being overly reluctant to provide Ukraine with some advanced conventional arms. This self-deterrence ought not stay the West’s hand in helping Ukraine with irregular warfare. This is unlikely to pose escalatory risks that worry some in the West.

A strategy to attrit Russian army logistics and undermine morale is optimal for indirect, irregular warfare. It will support the more substantial conventional offensive operations needed to expel Russian forces from Ukraine.

Phillip Wasielewski is a senior fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute think tank. He previously served as a paramilitary case officer with a 31-year career in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at the think tank Rand and a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia.

10. Cheap drones 'cannot match' artillery power in Ukraine: experts

Excerpts:

"Even large numbers of small drones cannot match the potency of artillery fire," agreed Stacie Pettyjohn in a study by American security think-tank "CNAS".

Drones can supplement indirect fire weapons, but they are not substitutes, she added.

In September, the New York Times reported that less than a third of drone strikes hit their target, as the machines can easily be jammed or disrupted by electronic countermeasures.

Ukraine can no longer count on superiority in the field of drones.

In 2022 Ukraine had a "9-to-1 advantage" in commercial drones but this lead has now "essential disappeared", Pettyjohn added.

Cheap drones 'cannot match' artillery power in Ukraine: experts

Yahoo · by Mathieu RABECHAULTMarch 17, 2024 at 10:19 PM·3 min read14Link Copied

Ukraine is relying on the massive use of drones to compensate for an artillery shell shortage and undermine Russian military capabilities, but experts warned they cannot tip the balance.

Both drones used for strikes hundreds of kilometres away and commercial drones are starting to dominate the battlefield.

In particular, so-called First Person View (FPV) drones allow their pilots to see live images of the ground as if they were on board and can locate enemy units and, if armed with explosives, attack them from within a few kilometres.

"At the moment in Ukraine, we are seeing the use of drones on an unimaginable scale, we are really talking about tens and hundreds of thousands of drones on the battlefield," Ulrike Franke, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told AFP.

In its 2024 budget Kyiv earmarked 1.15 billion euros ($1.25 billion) for drones, and President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the country will produce "one million drones" this year, after setting up a specific drone branch in February.

Kyiv's direction comes as its supporters are trying to bolster Ukrainian stocks -- London is set to deliver more than 10,000 drones, of which one thousand are FPV drones, and Paris is preparing to order 2,000 kamikaze drones, some of which will be used in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials estimate between 100,000 and 120,000 drones are needed monthly.

Whereas it needs 200,000 to 250,000 artillery shells per month for a major offensive or 75,000 to 90,000 to sustain the war defensively, according to an Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) review.

Western backers largely depend on US stocks to sustain defence, but Kyiv does not have enough ammunition to launch a major offensive next year, it added.

So "Ukraine can reduce its requirements for artillery ammunition by significantly increasing production of strike drones" continued Michael Kofman and Franz-Stefan Gady in the IISS review.

Drones are "capable of reproducing many of the functions of artillery and missiles at a fraction of the cost", agreed Mykola Bielieskov of the Atlantic Council.

A small commercial drone costs just a few hundred euros, whereas a simple anti-tank missile, artillery shell or remotely operated munition costs several thousands.

- "Not ideal" -

Ukrainian FPV drones are currently responsible for between 65 and 85 percent of the destruction of Russian positions, according to a French military source.

But Ulrike Franke warned: "They use drones because they can produce or buy them, but it is not ideal."

FPV drones have a small load capacity of just hundreds of grams of explosive and a few kilograms for the largest commercial drones.

"Even large numbers of small drones cannot match the potency of artillery fire," agreed Stacie Pettyjohn in a study by American security think-tank "CNAS".

Drones can supplement indirect fire weapons, but they are not substitutes, she added.

In September, the New York Times reported that less than a third of drone strikes hit their target, as the machines can easily be jammed or disrupted by electronic countermeasures.

Ukraine can no longer count on superiority in the field of drones.

In 2022 Ukraine had a "9-to-1 advantage" in commercial drones but this lead has now "essential disappeared", Pettyjohn added.

"While the Russian Ministry of Defence was slow to catch up, Russian troops had quickly realized the utility of commercial quadcopters and volunteer groups had emerged to provide frontline soldiers with drones and the necessary training."

Russia also relied heavily on FPV kamikaze drones to thwart Ukraine’s counter-offensive last summer.

For Pettyjohn, although drones offer new capabilities, they ultimately make it more difficult to "concentrate forces, achieve surprise, and conduct offensive operations" so they will not make "truly disruptive change".

burs-mra/tq/ico/spb/cw

Yahoo · by Mathieu RABECHAULTMarch 17, 2024 at 10:19 PM·3 min read14Link Copied

11. Pentagon stares down "drone swarm" threat

Mar 15, 2024 -Technology

Pentagon stares down "drone swarm" threat

• Noah Bressner

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/15/drone-swarms-ai-military-war

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photos: Bettmann and Interim Archives via Getty Images

Swarms of low-cost drones powered by AI — perhaps hundreds of them at the same time — could soon pose an existential threat to America's hulking war machinery.

Why it matters: Advanced militaries can largely fend off individual drones. But swarms of them deployed on a single target have the potential to reshape the global balance of power.

The big picture: Future battles will be fought with a connected mix of cheap weapons — not sophisticated weapons systems that only superpowers can afford, retired Adm. James Stavridis and Marine veteran Elliot Ackerman argued yesterday in a Wall Street Journal essay.

• Expensive aircraft carriers or stealth bombers, which require massive time commitments to develop and build, will become vulnerable to drones that almost every military and armed group can access.
• "This moment hasn't yet arrived, but it is rushing to meet us," Stavridis and Ackerman write.

Zoom in: The use of lethal drones has exploded in conflicts around the world.

• They've changed the trajectory of the war in Ukraine multiple times.
• Houthi militants are aiming them at ships.

Those are largely point-and-shoot weapons controlled remotely by individual combatants, and American soldiers and ships are typically capable of shooting them down.

• But if they're deployed in a swarm, Iranian-supplied drones that cost thousands of dollars each could take on multibillion-dollar warships.

State of play: The Pentagon is racing to develop a defense against swarms while building AI-coordinated drone systems of its own.

• The Defense Department has signed at least five deals with contractors that explicitly reference swarming, according to a report from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology that examined procurement contracts from 2020.

• Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that cheap drones are "one of the top threats," and called swarms an even bigger concern.
• He said the U.S. should "continue to invest in things like high-powered microwave" weapons to defend against mass drone attacks.
• Another Pentagon initiative known as "Replicator" is building "thousands of autonomous systems" over the next 18 to 24 months to counter the Chinese military's rapid buildup.

The bottom line: In the future, the "winning side will be the one that's developed the AI-based decision-making that can outpace their adversary," Stavridis and Ackerman write.

• "Warfare is headed toward a brain-on-brain conflict."

12. Netanyahu says Israel ‘will not succumb’ to pressure to stop war in Gaza

Netanyahu says Israel ‘will not succumb’ to pressure to stop war in Gaza

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/17/israel-hamas-war-news-gaza-palestine/

By Niha Masih, Jennifer Hassan and Sarah Dadouch

Updated March 17, 2024 at 4:18 p.m. EDT|Published March 17, 2024 at 2:14 a.m. EDT

Israel “cannot, and will not, succumb” to international pressure to stop its military campaign in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a government meeting Sunday, amid growing U.S. frustrations over his government’s conduct of the war.

“In the international community, there are those who are trying to stop the war now, before all of its goals have been achieved,” he said. “They are doing so by means of an effort to bring about elections now, at the height of the war. They are doing this because they know that elections now will halt the war and paralyze the country for at least six months.”

“If we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, this means that Israel will have lost the war, and this we will not allow,” Netanyahu continued.

His comments came in response to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) — the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States and a staunch ally of Israel — who gave a speech Thursday in which he said Israel risks becoming a “pariah” under Netanyahu and called for new elections. President Biden later praised Schumer for a “good speech.”

Schumer’s comments were “totally inappropriate,” Netanyahu told CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding, “We are not a banana republic.”

Netanyahu also promised Sunday to press on with his military’s plan to attack Rafah, the southern city where over half of Gaza’s population is sheltering.

“We will operate in Rafah,” Netanyahu said. He said it was the “only way” to “eliminate” Hamas and to free the remaining hostages — the country’s two stated goals for its war in Gaza.

Israel’s military said last week it intends to direct a “significant” portion of Rafah’s population of 1.5 million toward “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza ahead of the offensive, which Biden has warned would cross a “red line.”

On Sunday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated on ABC’s “This Week” that the United States would not support a Rafah operation “unless or until [Israel] can accommodate the 1.5 million refugees that are there and preserve their safety and security.”

Aid groups are also pleading for restraint. On Saturday, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was “gravely concerned” about Israel’s plan to attack Rafah and appealed to Israel to call off the operation.

In Tel Aviv, meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned after a meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday that “we cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation,” the latest Israeli ally to call for increasing the flow of aid to Gaza. The conditions of distribution must be “urgently, massively improved,” Scholz said, adding that “we need a hostage deal with a longer-lasting cease-fire.”

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Humanitarian agencies say the besieged enclave is teetering on the brink of famine, and they are calling for Israel to facilitate increased aid deliveries and open more access points into the territory. One-third of children under age 2 are now acutely malnourished in northern Gaza, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Saturday, adding that malnutrition among children is reaching “unprecedented” levels.

Twelve aid trucks crossed into northern Gaza on Saturday night, protected by members of Gaza’s civil police force, as well as representatives of prominent families and local community groups, residents told The Washington Post. Spokeswomen for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the World Food Program said the organizations played no role in the delivery or storage of the aid, which they described as a private initiative.

Here’s what else to know

Israel’s war cabinet and security cabinet discussed Israel’s response to Hamas’s cease-fire and hostage-release proposal on Sunday evening, according to an Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. An Israeli delegation will travel to Qatar to continue negotiating a hostage deal, Netanyahu’s office said.

A second ship carrying 240 tons of food aid, as well as machinery, is preparing to depart for Gaza from the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, according to World Central Kitchen, the U.S. nonprofit founded by celebrity chef José Andrés. A first shipment carrying nearly 200 tons of food aid arrived in Gaza on Saturday and the aid is now being “readied” for distribution, the organization said.

At least 31,645 people have been killed and 73,676 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and says that 249 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.

The first pieces of the United States’ planned floating dock off Gaza’s coast are en route, Kirby told ABC, adding that it will take roughly six to eight weeks for all parts to arrive and be assembled. “We are working with partners in the region to figure out the details of how the material will be secured on and off the floating dock,” he said, “and of course, how it will be distributed inside Gaza.”

Lior Soroka, Peter Jamison and Miriam Berger contributed to this report.

Israel-Gaza war

Israel-Gaza war: Israel’s government warned that Hamas “is continuing to hold to unrealistic demands” as it prepared to review the latest cease-fire proposal Friday. A ship carrying 200 tons of food — the first attempt to deliver aid by way of a maritime corridor — began offloading its cargo into Gaza. The boat was dispatched by the U.S. nonprofit World Central Kitchen, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, and the Spanish search-and-rescue group Open Arms.

Middle East conflict: Tensions in the region continue to rise. As Israeli troops aim to take control of the Gaza-Egypt border crossing, officials in Cairo warn that the move would undermine the 1979 peace treaty. Meanwhile, there’s a diplomatic scramble to avert full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon.

U.S. involvement: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria killed dozens of Iranian-linked militants, according to Iraqi officials. The strikes were the first round of retaliatory action by the Biden administration for an attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members.

13. Great-Power Competition Comes to Antarctica

Excerpts:

That said, there are policies the West can implement on its own to keep more corrosive activities in check. A good place to start would be to hold China to account by highlighting its activities in Antarctica. States should also audit their polar research sectors to ascertain whether they are funding or supporting Chinese state research endeavors. As per the military-civil fusion law, the Chinese government deems any research activity to have military-strategic application potential. Just how much of Beijing’s Antarctic endeavor are Western states naively underwriting? International inspections should be ramped up. Too few inspections occur under the treaty auspices, largely because of a lack of capabilities. States should therefore pool their funding more purposefully and much more regularly to ensure China’s stations are well monitored.

In summer, as many as 1,500 U.S. personnel operate at McMurdo Station.

Where cooperation is working, the United States and others should lean into it. The parts of the Antarctic Treaty System that work well include scientific data sharing among parties and emergency-response collaboration. In 2020, despite Australian-Chinese tensions, the crew of a Chinese icebreaker in Antarctica rescued a sick Australian expeditioner. Indeed, the recent uptick in Antarctic tourism presents opportunities for bolstering cooperation, as states must grapple with the vast environmental effect polar tourism is having. Some 100,000 tourists are expected to converge on the continent this summer, a devastating toll for a fragile ecosystem. Treaty stakeholders came together at the 2023 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and found consensus, despite the war in Ukraine, to develop a framework for Antarctic tourism.

Efforts to subvert the Antarctic Treaty System won’t cause it to implode, but they will cause it to erode. At some point, it could become damaged beyond repair. China, Russia, and the United States should acknowledge they have a common Antarctic threat: a failed treaty system. Today, the treaties in place are facilitating strategic competition in Antarctica by allowing states to execute broad agendas on the continent with little real constraint. China has positioned itself to take advantage of today’s status quo, ready to pounce if the treaty system fails. The rest of the world cannot afford to fall further behind.

Great-Power Competition Comes to Antarctica

China’s Scientific Push Tests the Continent’s Stability

By Elizabeth Buchanan

March 18, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Elizabeth Buchanan · March 18, 2024

After decades of tranquility, the status quo in Antarctica is unraveling. Today, the continent is balancing on the edge of a meltdown—both literal and figurative. Not only is climate change irreversibly changing the continent’s physical environment, but the politics of Antarctica are also rapidly shifting as great-power competition and rising demand for resources have moved it up the global agenda.

China, Iran, and others are pushing the boundaries of what types of activities are sanctioned on the continent and are contemplating future territorial claims. Last fall, Shahram Irani, the commander of the Iranian navy, announced that Tehran had plans to build a permanent base in Antarctica, even going so far as to claim that Iran somehow had “property rights” in the South Pole. Then, in November, China’s largest ever Antarctic fleet arrived with some 460 personnel to build the country’s fifth research station on the continent. They completed their work in three months, and the station opened in February. Under the Antarctic Treaty, which governs activities on the continent, China's expansion is entirely permissible. That the new station is legal doesn’t stop suspicion from brewing that China’s research stations could house activities with military utility, including for surveillance purposes. Research satellites might track ice shelf shifts on Monday and on Tuesday pivot to mapping force movements in Australia.

The arrival of great-power competition on Antarctic shores would mark a break from a long era in which the continent was a place of international cooperation. The Antarctic Treaty, which entered into force in 1961, prohibits using the continent for military purposes and instead champions scientific cooperation. A series of follow-on agreements, which have come to be known as the Antarctic Treaty System, has succeeded at keeping the continent a neutral international site. But the system is now under greater strain than ever.

Antarctica offers reach into the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. On and offshore, it boasts vast deposits of precious minerals, oil, and natural gas, as well as large krill fisheries. The continent is also central to global communications because it holds the clearest shot to space, as moisture in the air freezes, making Antarctic ground stations crucial for operating satellites.

The current absence of armed conflict in Antarctica has created a false sense of security. Policymakers from countries that support a neutral, peaceful Antarctica seem to assume that cooperation there is a given. In fact, the status quo is fragile. To keep competition for resources at bay, stakeholders must shine a light on Beijing’s destabilizing activities. Public agency and interest in Antarctica need to be strengthened, as this is a critical precondition to supporting the continuance of the rules-based order enshrined by the Antarctic Treaty. But states also need to enhance their footprint (whether through capabilities or funding) in Antarctica, where presence equals power.

SOUTH POLE VERSUS NORTH POLE

Observers have often drawn parallels between Antarctica and the Arctic. The two regions are similar on the surface—extreme ends of the earth, frigid polar climates. They are the subject of interest from the same countries—namely, China, Russia, and the United States. But, crucially, the regions are administered differently: the Arctic does not have a treaty system, while the Antarctic does. Geographically, the Arctic is a maritime domain, whereas Antarctica is a continental landmass.

The Arctic is not part of the global commons; it is a region encircled by undisputed land territories of eight states. During both world wars and the Cold War, the Arctic was a key theater. Since 1996, Arctic governance has been facilitated by the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that promotes communication and environmental partnerships. In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Arctic Council members decided to pause their work with the council while Russia served as its chair. The result was the effective disengagement of Russia from Arctic affairs. With the chair rotating to Norway in 2023, activities restarted but without Russia’s participation. In February, it was announced that there would be a gradual resumption of virtual working-group meetings, after some researchers raised alarm over the global implications of the continued absence of Russian Arctic climate data.

Antarctica has not had to weather the same setbacks, thanks to the Antarctic Treaty. It was initially designed to stop Cold War tensions from spilling over to the South Pole by designating Antarctica as a scientific reserve. Unless in the support of scientific ends, military activity and nuclear weapons testing are banned on the continent. Parties to the treaty are required to provide free and fair access to their research stations (and vessels), which are subject to inspection. The rules of the road are well established in the Antarctic, and for the most part, they have succeeded in keeping the continent insulated from geopolitical tensions.

The continent is balancing on the edge of a meltdown—both literal and figurative.

Today, 54 states are party to the Antarctic Treaty, which includes 29 consultative parties with voting rights to Antarctic affairs. Several additional agreements have expanded on the key tenets enshrined in the 1961 treaty: freedom of scientific investigation, research and cooperation, and peaceful use of the continent. A 1998 protocol, for example, officially designated Antarctica as a natural reserve for global peace and science and prohibited mining and other forms of resource extraction, except for scientific research.

The architects of the Antarctic Treaty designed it to continue in perpetuity: it has no expiration date. Should any party wish to amend the treaty, it must gain consensus to open a review conference. This avenue for change has been available since 1991 but never used, suggesting that countries would rather uphold the Antarctic status quo than gamble their stake.

Part of the success of the Antarctic Treaty System is that it skirts the question of sovereignty, effectively allowing parties to agree to disagree. Seven countries have made territorial claims—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom—but all debate over and discussion of their merits was set aside when they signed the Antarctic Treaty. The wording of the treaty creates a unique and artfully crafted holding pattern.

CRACKS IN THE ICE

Although the Antarctic Treaty System has kept the region stable for decades, the return of great-power competition is bringing new instability to the South Pole as some countries try to subvert the system. China, for example, built its new research station without submitting the necessary environmental evaluations to treaty members, as required. Russian fishing vessels have spoofed their location in the Southern Ocean in attempts to hide illegal fishing activities in protected waters. These examples of failing to follow various obligations illustrate how states are testing how much they can get away with.

It does not help that there are no enforcement mechanisms that have any teeth to respond to or deter dubious activities. Although the international inspection protocol is supposed to serve this function, the reality is that there are various loopholes in the treaty’s wording that allow states to skirt inspections if they’re required. For example, Russia is known to have made station runways inaccessible and to have switched off station radios to block parties landing to conduct internal inspections. The treaty allows for inspections to be undertaken aerially, as well, which means inspection teams can technically inspect Russian Antarctic stations without stepping inside them.

Gray-zone tactics—activities that occur between peace, cooperation, and conflict or war—take advantage of the ambiguity of the Antarctic Treaty System itself. This ambiguity fostered cooperation during the Cold War, allowing the United States and the Soviet Union to agree to disagree on matters of territorial sovereignty and still expand their footprints on the continent. After the Cold War, the absence of great-power competition placed the Antarctic question on the back burner of global affairs. The United States entered its unipolar moment and Russia was busy rebuilding after the collapse of its empire. But during this period, great-power competition was merely dormant in Antarctica, not put to rest, and today, it is back with a vengeance.

This time, the players are different, with China quickly becoming a capable actor on the continent. China’s ability to construct its own icebreakers – with a rumored nuclear-powered icebreaker set to debut in a few years – sets Beijing apart from the United States and Australia when it comes to Antarctic capability and therefore, power. The United States has two icebreakers – Healy and the Polar Star – which take turns catching fire and are consistently pushed well beyond their expected operational life. Australia, holding the largest sovereign claim to Antarctica, has a single icebreaker, which, although brand new, is unable to currently refuel efficiently at its homeport. Both the United States and Australia find themselves renting icebreakers to prop up their national Antarctic activities.

The return of great-power competition is bringing new instability to the South Pole.

As the lines between scientific research and military activity blur, activities that live in this gray zone are beginning to chip away at the peaceful status quo that has been in place for so long. Vast resources such as fisheries, energy, and fresh water belong to no one country, so countries looking to improve their long game are establishing footholds in permissible scientific research across these sectors so that they are in prime position (having extensively mapped resources on the continent) in the event the system falls apart.

Consider krill fisheries. Some parts of Antarctica’s waters are protected by a convention within the Antarctic Treaty System that sets up protected marine zones. In recent years, China has deployed fleets of so-called super trawlers, large boats that stay at sea for several weeks, to enhance its fishing capacity, and it has used the treaty system to exploit krill fisheries in the name of science. China sees a strategic interest in cornering the global fisheries market, positioning itself to be able to control the flow of global food chains and secure such critical resources for its population. The resource-rich waters of the Southern Ocean that surround Antarctica are certainly ripe for exploitation–and Beijing has put its distant-water fisheries strategy on steroids, increasing its presence in the region.

At a 2021 meeting, China and Russia vetoed the establishment of new marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean, with Beijing calling for “further scientific research” to identify the need for such zones. China’s move could be viewed as an effort to frustrate progress in the marine protection sphere, but more likely it is strategic: Beijing would like to know exactly how bountiful in fish these zones are—and continue fishing for so-called research purposes.

SCIENCE OR SECURITY?

Part of the reason Antarctica is vulnerable to strategic competition is that countries already have a scientific presence there that could easily be transformed into a military presence. The United States’ strategic science hub—Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station—straddles all seven frozen territorial claims to the continent. The base hosts up to 150 U.S. personnel to conduct and support scientific research. Further south, in summer, as many as 1,500 U.S. personnel operate at McMurdo Station. A third American station, Palmer, accommodates about 40 U.S personnel. Together, these stations send a strong signal of the United States’ presence on the continent. China also has a history of blending scientific research work with military activity, an approach it has now enshrined in law. Dubbed by the Chinese government “civil-military fusion,” all civilian research activities are now required to have military application or utility for China. This extends to China’s Antarctic footprint.

Although the Antarctic Treaty bans militarization or military deployment south of 60 degrees latitude—covering the whole continent—military personnel and hardware are allowed if they support scientific research objectives. Many countries rely on their militaries to operate in Antarctica. Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States all deploy military assets and personnel on Antarctic research expeditions. China’s and Russia’s militaries also provide logistical support for some national Antarctic missions.

This practice operates entirely within the bounds of the Antarctic Treaty System, but its ambiguity creates clear security implications. Whether personnel are conducting civilian or military operations is difficult to determine. The system operates on trust, presenting a ripe opportunity for abuse. Satellites are a clear example. Systems such as the United States’ GPS, China’s BeiDou, the European Union’s Galileo, and Russia’s GLONASS all rely on Antarctic ground receivers to function. Although these systems are central to scientific research in Antarctica, they have clear military-security applications, too.

China has sought to use Antarctic Treaty System rules to advance its own interests. Consider its approach to Dome Argus, the highest point on the Antarctic continent. The ice dome provides the clearest (and shortest) shot to space, making it the ideal place from which to receive satellite activity. China is free to conduct research on the dome as it does via a research station in the area, but in 2019 it went further, attempting to assert de facto control over the dome. It proposed establishing an Antarctic Specially Managed Area—a zone provided for by the treaty system where a country can restrict and dictate access to (or over) an area. A country is only allowed to establish such a zone if it can prove that subsequent research activities in the same area are undermining its scientific research agenda. China claimed that this was the case, but its request was rejected given that Beijing was the only country carrying out research activities at that time in the area.

CONFLICT ON ICE

The crux of the challenge with Antarctica is enforcement: what is stopping countries from engaging in subversive activities? Although China’s cunning plans for Dome Argus were blocked, the issue will likely come up again. Dome Argus falls in the territory claimed by Australia. Given Canberra’s vital interest in the area, Australia must invest in adequate in-land capabilities to reach the isolated area—including by ski, tractor, and helicopter. Presence is power in the barren wasteland that is Antarctica.

Consensus among all 29 parties—what is needed to open a review conference into the Antarctic Treaty—would be practically impossible. In theory, the review conference mechanism, available to parties since 1991, yet never utilized, could be used to build in enforcement mechanisms, such as fines and bans. But for the foreseeable future, it is hard to imagine the United States and its allies achieving consensus with China and Russia to agree to discuss revisions to the treaty.

That said, there are policies the West can implement on its own to keep more corrosive activities in check. A good place to start would be to hold China to account by highlighting its activities in Antarctica. States should also audit their polar research sectors to ascertain whether they are funding or supporting Chinese state research endeavors. As per the military-civil fusion law, the Chinese government deems any research activity to have military-strategic application potential. Just how much of Beijing’s Antarctic endeavor are Western states naively underwriting? International inspections should be ramped up. Too few inspections occur under the treaty auspices, largely because of a lack of capabilities. States should therefore pool their funding more purposefully and much more regularly to ensure China’s stations are well monitored.

In summer, as many as 1,500 U.S. personnel operate at McMurdo Station.

Where cooperation is working, the United States and others should lean into it. The parts of the Antarctic Treaty System that work well include scientific data sharing among parties and emergency-response collaboration. In 2020, despite Australian-Chinese tensions, the crew of a Chinese icebreaker in Antarctica rescued a sick Australian expeditioner. Indeed, the recent uptick in Antarctic tourism presents opportunities for bolstering cooperation, as states must grapple with the vast environmental effect polar tourism is having. Some 100,000 tourists are expected to converge on the continent this summer, a devastating toll for a fragile ecosystem. Treaty stakeholders came together at the 2023 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and found consensus, despite the war in Ukraine, to develop a framework for Antarctic tourism.

Efforts to subvert the Antarctic Treaty System won’t cause it to implode, but they will cause it to erode. At some point, it could become damaged beyond repair. China, Russia, and the United States should acknowledge they have a common Antarctic threat: a failed treaty system. Today, the treaties in place are facilitating strategic competition in Antarctica by allowing states to execute broad agendas on the continent with little real constraint. China has positioned itself to take advantage of today’s status quo, ready to pounce if the treaty system fails. The rest of the world cannot afford to fall further behind.

• ELIZABETH BUCHANAN is Co-Director of Project 6633 at the Modern War Institute at West Point Military Academy. She is a Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and an Expert Associate at the National Security College at the Australian National University.

Foreign Affairs · by Elizabeth Buchanan · March 18, 2024

​14. Opinion: Is the US on the brink of another civil war?

Excerpts:

... Among the key factors she cites is accelerationism — which Walter describes as “the apocalyptic belief that modern society is irredeemable and that its end must be hastened, so that a new order can be brought into being.”

Accelerationism is embraced by a spectrum of white supremacists, white nationalists, racists, antisemites, xenophobes and anti-government militants as a clarion call to revolution. They fervently believe that the modern Western, liberal state is so corrupt and inept that it is beyond redemption and must be destroyed in order to create a new society and way of governance.

With the West supposedly on the precipice of collapse, accelerationism’s adherents maintain that violent insurrection is required to push democracy over the edge and into oblivion. Only by hastening its destruction can a White-dominated society and new order emerge, the thinking goes. Fomenting divisiveness and polarization through violent attacks on racial minorities, Jews, liberals, foreign interlopers and power elites, and thus producing a cataclysmic collapse of the existing order and provoking a second civil war, accordingly, is accelerationism’s stock-in-trade.

But this terrorist strategy is in fact part of a long tradition of extreme, destabilizing far-right violence. To understand why, and to put those events in broader context, one has to view January 6, 2021, as another milestone in a trajectory that commenced in the late 1970s and gathered momentum throughout the 1980s. Its evolution slowed following the nationwide law enforcement crackdown after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, but was infused with new purpose after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and the Great Recession stunned the country that same year. And, it was subsequently weaponized in the 2010s by social media and further empowered by the febrile rhetoric and polarization of politics that continued to divide America.

...

Given the long historical trajectory that culminated in the events of January 6, the continued proliferation and pervasiveness of conspiracy theories and the growing racism, antisemitism and xenophobia that has entered the mainstream of political and social discourse in the United States, along with readily accessible weapons, the potential for new acts of domestic, politically-motivated violence — including mass shootings, attacks on critical infrastructure, bombings and other attacks — cannot be dismissed or ignored.

Opinion: Is the US on the brink of another civil war? | CNN

Opinion by Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware

Updated 1:40 PM EDT, Sat March 16, 2024

CNN · March 16, 2024

A police officer outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 7, 2024.

Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Bruce Hoffman is senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council of Foreign Relations and a professor at Georgetown University. Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and DeSales University. This article is adapted in part from their new book, “God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America” (Columbia Univ. Press). The views expressed in this commentary are their own. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN —

Three months into 2024, it seems dire predictions of political violence are now commonly issued both by the country’s extreme fringes as well as from the mainstream. Former President Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vociferous prognosticator, warning that there would be “bedlam in the country” should the criminal charges against him lead to a 2024 election loss. Nowadays, even seemingly mundane political procedures can also result in promises of violence. When the US Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in January, allowing federal border agents to remove concertina wire put in place by the state of Texas, some in elected office said it was a sign of civil war. In its threat assessment for 2024, the Department of Homeland Security forecast that, among other threats, the 2024 election cycle would be a “key event for possible violence…”

Bruce Hoffman

Michael Lionstar

In her 2022 book, “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” renowned political scientist Barbara F. Walter argues that “we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe” because of a toxic mix of political extremism and polarization, social and cultural tribalism, the popular embrace of conspiracy theories, proliferation of guns and well-armed militias and the erosion of faith in government and the liberal, Western democratic state. Among the key factors she cites is accelerationism — which Walter describes as “the apocalyptic belief that modern society is irredeemable and that its end must be hastened, so that a new order can be brought into being.”

Jacob Ware

Jacob Ware

Accelerationism is embraced by a spectrum of white supremacists, white nationalists, racists, antisemites, xenophobes and anti-government militants as a clarion call to revolution. They fervently believe that the modern Western, liberal state is so corrupt and inept that it is beyond redemption and must be destroyed in order to create a new society and way of governance.

With the West supposedly on the precipice of collapse, accelerationism’s adherents maintain that violent insurrection is required to push democracy over the edge and into oblivion. Only by hastening its destruction can a White-dominated society and new order emerge, the thinking goes. Fomenting divisiveness and polarization through violent attacks on racial minorities, Jews, liberals, foreign interlopers and power elites, and thus producing a cataclysmic collapse of the existing order and provoking a second civil war, accordingly, is accelerationism’s stock-in-trade.

But this terrorist strategy is in fact part of a long tradition of extreme, destabilizing far-right violence. To understand why, and to put those events in broader context, one has to view January 6, 2021, as another milestone in a trajectory that commenced in the late 1970s and gathered momentum throughout the 1980s. Its evolution slowed following the nationwide law enforcement crackdown after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, but was infused with new purpose after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 and the Great Recession stunned the country that same year. And, it was subsequently weaponized in the 2010s by social media and further empowered by the febrile rhetoric and polarization of politics that continued to divide America.

Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, two former National Security Council staffers with deep knowledge of sectarian conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, have similarly described a situation where the United States could easily tip into civil war. The country, they write, “now appears to be in a state of ‘unstable equilibrium’ — a term originating in physics to describe a body whose slight displacement will cause other forces to move it even further away from its original position,” heightening the risk that violent action could plunge the United States into the chaos and disorder that accelerationists so desperately want.

CNN Illustration/Getty Images

Related article Opinion: Trump’s praise of dictators tells us all we need to know

The most dismal assessment, though, is that of Canadian journalist Stephen Marche who, in his 2022 book, The Next Civil War: Dispatches form the American Future, contends that a new American civil war is inevitable. “The United States is coming to an end. The question is how.” To his mind, “The United States is descending into the kind of sectarian conflict usually found in poor countries with histories of violence, not the world’s most enduring democracy and largest economy.”

As febrile and alarmist as such assertions may be, there is more than a grain of truth behind these fears. A 2021 survey conducted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement and the Washington Post had found that almost a quarter of Democrats and 40% of Republicans believe the use of violence against the government is “somewhat justified.”

This was the highest percentage of respondents to this question dating back more than two decades. These concerns have hardly diminished, according to a new survey recently conducted by both the Post and the same University of Maryland center in 2024. “Republicans are more sympathetic to those who stormed the US Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attack,” the Washington Post reported, “than they were in 2021.”

But neither polls nor predictions are prophecy. While we think the likelihood of a civil war is relatively low — in large part because America’s political divides no longer fall into clear-cut geographic categories like North versus South, nor do they center around one contentious issue like slavery — the country now faces a different kind of threat. Defying simple red state-blue state differences or urban versus rural divides, a different form of violence, manifesting more as sustained and nationwide terrorism than organized separatism, is potentially more likely.

Related article Opinion: Swatting is a heinous crime. I was one of its victims

Remember that the United States leads the world — by far — in the number of firearms in private hands. Although the United States comprises only 4% of the world’s population, it accounts for roughly 40% of the globe’s firearms, according to Small Arms Survey, an independent research project based in Switzerland. There are an estimated 393 million privately held firearms in the United States — more than one gun per person. In fact, there are more civilian-held guns in the United States than the other top 25 countries in the world combined. Indeed, more guns were purchased in the United States in 2020 — nearly 23 million — than any other year on record. This proliferation of privately-held weapons in the United States, Simon and Stevenson observe, “make the leaderless resistance advocated by the late-twentieth-century militia theoreticians and now epitomized by the far right, anti-authoritarian Boogaloo Bois — they of the Hawaiian shirts — all the more practicable.”

Indeed, among the most fervent defenders of Second Amendment rights are people who express their desire for a new civil war. Gun rights also electrified the militia movement in the early 1990s and played a major role in motivating Timothy McVeigh to carry out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil until September 11, 2001.

If the United States avoids an actual civil war, it is not difficult to imagine a variety of dark scenarios spanning a range of politically violent potentialities that would destabilize the country, further entrench existing divisions and severely challenge our government’s ability to protect its citizens. In his 2023 book on the erosion of democratic norms in America, then-Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass raised the possibility of the US facing a version of Northern Ireland’s longstanding “Troubles”.

“If there is a model for what we should fear,” Haass warns, “it comes from Northern Ireland and the Troubles, the three-decade struggle starting in the late 1960s that involved multiple paramilitary groups, police, and soldiers and resulted in some 3,600 deaths and a sharp reduction in local economic output.” Leading American white supremacists, who have long been among the foremost advocates of civil war and sedition, have cited the Northern Irish exemplar and the province’s preeminent terrorist organization, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), as worthy of emulation. “Soon, our own version of the ‘Troubles’ will be widespread,” Robert Miles, one of the early leaders of America’s violent far-right underground, wrote under his Norse code name “Fafnir” on a 1980s online forum. “The patterns of operations of the IRA will be seen across this land. […] Soon, America becomes Ireland recreated.”

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Despite the ultimately successful certification of the 2020 presidential election; the arrests of over 1,000 rioters who participated in the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol; the guilty pleas or convictions of at least half of those cases; and the mostly peaceful events surrounding the 2022 midterm elections, the threat of far-right terrorism in America continues.

Given the long historical trajectory that culminated in the events of January 6, the continued proliferation and pervasiveness of conspiracy theories and the growing racism, antisemitism and xenophobia that has entered the mainstream of political and social discourse in the United States, along with readily accessible weapons, the potential for new acts of domestic, politically-motivated violence — including mass shootings, attacks on critical infrastructure, bombings and other attacks — cannot be dismissed or ignored.

CNN · March 16, 2024

15. Potential TikTok Ban Tees Up Legal Showdown Over Free Speech

Do 170 million TikTok users believe a ban will abridgie their freedom of speech?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As an aside - has anyone ever written such elegant, succinct, and most powerful words as our founding fathers did in the Constitution? '

Potential TikTok Ban Tees Up Legal Showdown Over Free Speech

Litigation would force courts to weigh the government’s national-security objectives against First Amendment rights of TikTok, its users

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/tiktok-ban-legal-court-challenges-fdc06180?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Jacob Gershman

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Updated March 18, 2024 12:10 am ET

If the bipartisan TikTok legislation is passed, the company would have to shut down operations in the U.S. unless it is sold to a non-Chinese owner. PHOTO: CFOTO/ZUMA PRESS

The bipartisan TikTok legislation that sailed through the House this past week gives the company and its Chinese-controlled parent, ByteDance, a stark choice: Sell the platform’s U.S. operations or face a ban. 

TikTok, though, may go for option three: Sue the government.

It isn’t guaranteed that the Senate will pass the Biden-backed legislation. But if the bill is approved, it would shut down TikTok’s U.S. operations unless sold to a non-Chinese owner. ByteDance would have six months to comply. 

Since China has already signaled its opposition to a forced sale, the fate of the video app juggernaut could ultimately be decided by the federal courts.

Any litigation could raise several legal issues, but at its core, a court dispute would require judges to weigh the national security objectives of the ban against the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its users.

The U.S. has long restricted foreign ownership of radio and television broadcasting, but Congress has never taken such drastic actions against an internet platform used by millions of Americans to communicate. 

Though the legislation doesn’t authorize enforcement actions against U.S. residents who attempt to keep using the app, judges in previous TikTok litigation have recognized that the app’s fans have constitutional free-speech rights in posting and consuming content that would be harmed by its shutdown.

That means the government’s legal defense of any ban will have to do more than show the legislation advances U.S. interests in preventing undue Chinese influence or access to Americans’ data. For the ban’s free-speech infringements to pass muster, the government will likely need to demonstrate that less drastic measures wouldn’t work.

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Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is putting together a consortium to buy TikTok after the House passed a bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S., or force its sale to a non-Chinese owner. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“It will really depend on how the government explains the reasons for the law,” said David Greene, a lawyer with digital civil liberties nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the ban.

ByteDance, which declined to comment, has had some court successes in the past, but First Amendment concerns haven’t always been the reason judges sided with the company. That leaves the free-speech questions somewhat untested.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. twice ruled against Commerce Department efforts to ban TikTok during the Trump administration, deciding that it exceeded its authority under a law from the 1970s called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In a separate Pennsylvania case, another U.S. district judge, citing similar legal grounds, sided with a group of TikTok stars that sued the Trump administration with the company’s support. 

Both judges said that while then-President Donald Trump had broad emergency economic powers, that authority was constrained when the government was seeking to take actions that would restrict personal communications and informational materials. 

Government lawyers in that litigation described China’s control of TikTok as an unacceptable threat that could give the Chinese government access to Americans’ personal information, enable it to spy on federal employees and allow it to participate in corporate espionage.

They argued that the ban was within Trump’s executive authority and didn’t impinge on speech rights because TikTok users shut out from the app could post and consume the same content on other platforms such as Instagram.

Similar litigation unfolded when the Trump administration sought to ban 

WeChat, China’s dominant multipurpose app used by Chinese-speaking U.S. residents. A judge in California blocked that ban, saying it wasn’t clear why less restrictive alternatives, such as barring WeChat from government devices, wouldn’t address U.S. security fears.“There were a lot of lessons learned” from the WeChat case, said Joel Thayer, a D.C.-based lawyer who runs the Digital Progress Institute, a tech policy think tank that supports the TikTok ban that passed the House. “The onus is on the government to demonstrate that this is the only option.”

More recently, Montana lost a court ruling that blocked its attempt to ban TikTok, with a judge ruling the state’s effort was likely illegal for several reasons, including because it intruded on free-speech protections. The app provided a unique form of communication for some users, and Montana hadn’t justified its move to cut off the platform entirely, the judge said. 

Multiple Supreme Court precedents could color future ligation. In 1965, the high court ruled citizens have a right to receive information, even if it is foreign propaganda. The decision invalidated a federal law that allowed the U.S. postmaster general to deliver foreign mailings of Communist political propaganda only upon the addressee’s request. In 1986, the court ruled the government could shut down a business—namely an adult bookstore—suspected of engaging in illegal activity, rejecting arguments that the closure unlawfully limited the bookseller’s expressive activity. 

As the congressional debate moves to the Senate, additional legal issues could be in play. Some lawmakers have expressed concern that a bill specifically aiming at TikTok could be constitutionally vulnerable because courts could view it as a legislative attempt to punish the company without due process.

Other foreign companies have struggled to make that argument in recent cases. Chinese tech giant Huawei and Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab each lost on legal claims that U.S. legislation limiting their businesses amounted to an unconstitutional punishment.

Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com

16. Professionalism is the Foundation of the Army and We Will Strengthen It

Conclusion:

We all know that our profession is huge. It is made up of countless units, teams, offices, and departments that are manned with people from all walks of life. I encourage every solider and Army civilian to take responsibility for their piece of the profession. Each of us — no matter our rank, mission occupational specialty, or assignment — can strengthen the whole by strengthening its parts.

Professionalism is the Foundation of the Army and We Will Strengthen It - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Gen. Gary Brito · March 18, 2024

In my nearly 37 years of service, I’ve seen the strength of the Army profession in action — in the courage and dedication of our soldiers, leaders, and army civilian professionals on the battlefield and in garrison. I observed that strength watching a company commander display his professional competence and leadership while driving conversation during a National Training Center after action review. I experienced it while shaking the hand of Staff Sgt. Ashley Buhl, the embodiment of the character and soul of our profession and the 2023 drill sergeant of the year. And I felt it, just a few weeks ago, watching Pvt. Jamavius Curry (pictured above) lead his formation in reciting the “Soldiers Creed” at his basic training graduation. Our profession allows us to maintain trust; construct cohesive and disciplined teams; train our soldiers, leaders, and civilians; and build climates that don’t tolerate harmful behaviors. In a changing world, our profession undergirds all our strengths; but it must be continuously tended, or it will atrophy.

The Army is a part of American society at large and will always reflect its attributes — we cannot assume that the dynamics operating in America won’t affect our profession. Changes in generational preferences and worldviews impact the way our profession manifests across our ranks, but that diversity in thought can also lead to novel ideas. While social and sensationalized media put a spotlight on every misstep and sometimes overlook efforts to improve, it also presents an opportunity to highlight the value of service. Perhaps most importantly, our adversaries grow stronger every day and seek any seam to erode our advantages, but also provide us with a renewed sense of purpose. As we work to transform our Army, we will rely on our people to keep us ahead of potential adversaries. Our profession will continue to produce unparalleled soldiers and leaders who serve as the foundation of America’s relative strength.

Indeed, it is our people that give us our greatest advantage. No other army can boast the U.S. Army’s disciplined, trained, and fit soldiers capable of operating independently, making difficult decisions, and working as part of cohesive teams. All of that — all our advantages — stem from our unique version of professionalism.

Become a Member

Over the years, generations of Army leaders have stewarded that strength. Our professionals have always taken lessons from ongoing wars and conflicts to improve the way we educate and train, adjusting our culture and systems to reflect a changing society. In the mid-20th century, sociologists like Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz considered how a democracy could maintain a large, standing army and established the foundational concepts of the profession that we still use today. In subsequent decades, Army leaders such as Gens. William DePuy and Donn Starry, and the newly formed Training and Doctrine Command and Forces Command, worked to deal with the effects of the Vietnam War and build professionalism and discipline in the nascent all-volunteer force.

Today, it is our duty — our professional obligation — to account for the impacts of a generation of war, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and other hotspots around the globe, current recruiting challenges, and various societal factors to determine how our profession may need to adapt to maintain its vitality In a tumultuous world where many advantages we once took for granted seem illusory, the time is ripe to focus on our Army profession. In this article, I intend to stoke such a discussion. As I discussed in a recent episode of the War on the Rocks podcast, it is our obligation as Army leaders to refine and update our understanding of what it is, take stock of what we’re already doing to steward and strengthen it, streamline and rationalize those existing programs, and determine where to go from here. However, senior leaders cannot do it alone. This is our profession, and we need soldiers across the entire Army —active, guard, and reserve— to generate ideas and move it forward.

The Army Profession and the Professional

Before we can determine how to strengthen our profession, we need to agree on what it is. This is well-trod territory, and I can’t claim to have some new, visionary definition that will fundamentally alter our trajectory. However, this topic is a personal one and we all have a viewpoint. A common understanding and some accepted lexicon will go a long way to advancing the conversation.

Army doctrine defines the profession as “a trusted vocation of soldiers and army civilians whose collective expertise is the ethical design, generation, support, and application of landpower; serving under civilian authority; and entrusted to defend the constitution and the rights and interests of the American people.” That’s probably a good enough starting point, but it is especially important that our current understanding of the profession has two primary components: theprofession itself and the professional it produces. These two components are heavily interrelated, feeding off one another to sustain and improve themselves. The split may seem unnecessary, but I find that it enables us to zero in on specific aspects of each and tailor potential solutions to where they will make the biggest impact.

Our profession is more than the competence, character, and commitment of individual soldiers, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers, officers, and Army civilian professionals in our ranks. It must also encompass the systems with which we develop expertise, accountability, and responsibility. It is a complex system that builds professional warriors who fight and win our nation’s wars within the legal, moral, and ethical bounds of our profession.

The objective expertise that we provide to our nation, that no one else can, is in warfighting. The Army is obligated to have well-trained soldiers and competent leaders to meet this requirement — and the systems that our profession uses to generate that competence are vital. These systems should start with encouraging and moderating diverse discourse on war and its related fields through writing and publication, research, experimentation, and conferences among our professionals and associated parties (think tanks, academia, industry, etc.) However, this is not simply an intellectual exercise. Our purpose is to produce expert warfighters and competent professionals. As such, our system of knowledge generation ought to go further, to turn that discourse into knowledge (doctrine, programs of instruction, training scenarios, etc.) and then transmit that knowledge to developing professionals through training and leader development.

Our profession also requires a system of self-policing that qualifies who we access, retain, and promote. We are trusted with the survival of our nation and the lives of its youth. We are rightly held accountable for that trust. Grounded in our oaths, the “Warrior Ethos,” and the “Army Values,” our profession produces soldiers and leaders of character through well-established systems of selection, promotion, retention, training, and leader development. Through these accountability mechanisms, we build individual character to produce better soldiers and citizens.

Trust, combined with quality training and leader development, is vital to ensuring that we are a ready and professional army. That trust is built from the responsibility that our profession shows to its members and the commitment that our professionals show to their profession. By caring for soldiers’ needs, providing them the skills and resources to live full and healthy lives, and setting them on the path to a better future, we demonstrate that responsibility and earn their commitment. Ongoing programs steered by the Army People Strategy — prevention, quality of life, life skills development, etc. — are great displays of this responsibility and must be continuously improved to enable our commanders at echelon.

The Army’s systems of expertise, accountability, and responsibility build competent and committed professionals of character. However, it is not these systems that together build a culture. Rather, our profession is a complete entity that enables the Army’s commanders to build positive cultures, which I define as climates and environments that do not tolerate eroding factors such as sexual harassment and assault, or any form of discrimination, while fostering cohesion, dignity, and respect for all that raised their hand and took an oath.

What Are We Doing About It?

I remain an optimist. The Army profession isn’t broken; it simply needs to be stewarded more thoroughly. While it is important to note shortfalls such as soldier and leader misconduct, lack of fitness, harmful behaviors, and more, we — as a total team — are obligated to embrace the profession to build soldiers and leaders of character, competence, and commitment, and to foster positive organizational cultures. To do so, we will continuously improve and refine our professional systems to ensure focus, prioritization, and accountability.

The Sergeant Major of the Army — supported by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Forces Command, and the total Army — has undertaken efforts to reestablish the primacy of the sergeant in this area through a revised Blue Book and the revitalization of common task training and testing at echelon. But unless leaders at every echelon prioritize the effort, we will continue to be challenged. We must also combine this effort with leader development — delivered through “brick and mortar” schoolhouses and further honed at the unit level — at all echelons to reinforce the basic competence of our profession.

To build our expertise, we are working to improve our professional discourse, which will encourage our leaders to think and write about what we do. We have simultaneously sought to expand the understanding of our soldiers and leaders through direct means. Finally, we are investing to streamline our systems of doctrine and program of instruction development to ensure rapid incorporation of lessons and new ideas.

Even the character of our individual soldiers and leaders should be considered as outputs of our professional systems. It is true that our problems with misconduct and indiscipline are, in part, inevitable, just as they are in any other organized group of human beings. But we cannot and will not simply blame soldier indiscipline on generational values or junior leader unwillingness to enforce standards, nor can we blame continued senior leader misconduct on a “few bad apples.” As we continuously transform, we have the opportunity to examine how we bring people into the Army, acculturate them at initial entry and pre-commissioning sources, train them in our values and culture (across a career, not just at institutional training), assess and evaluate them for their adherence to our norms and responsible behavior, and select them for promotion and positions of increased responsibility. We have begun these processes through more effective acculturation at basic training and by enhancing professional military education, assessing future battalion and brigade leaders, and reinforcing the importance of our oath.

Lastly, we often look at the commitment of our soldiers and leaders to their profession as a one-way street. Individuals should remain committed to our values and to their mission; however, we also have professional responsibilities to care for our people, provide for their and their families’ needs, offer safe and healthy environments for them to work and live in, and set them up for a future in or out of uniform. Continued efforts to improve foundational soldier and leader skills, the provision of resources to commanders to build healthy command climates and reduce harmful behaviors, and increased investment in quality-of-life initiatives are demonstrations of our commitment to these responsibilities.

What Can You Do? A Call to Action

The first, and most important thing, we can all do is exactly what we’re trying to do here: acknowledge that our profession is not a constant. While it is certain that our profession undergirds all our strengths, I again remind you that it must be continuously tended, or it will atrophy. This simple acknowledgement — and the commensurate requirement for each and every professional to think deeply about his or her profession, discuss it with their peers, come up with solutions, and drive them into existence — is the most important thing we can do. Our professionals are obligated to increase their engagement on relevant topics in daily interactions, as well as by writing for expanding outlets to spread lessons learned and generate dialogue. If that is all this article achieves, that will be enough.

Each of us must also work to rebuild pride in service. Wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army is a big deal. That honor and responsibility ought to be reflected in each and every one of us. After a long term of service, especially following multiple deployments, it’s easy to get jaded and cynical — to forget why we joined in the first place. But I challenge each of you to go to a basic training, Basic Officer Leader Course, or Officer Candidate School graduation (or at least think back to your own) and look at the sense of accomplishment in every new soldier’s eyes and the pride of every family member. Attaining membership in our profession is hard — as it should be — and pride in service must be reinforced in every unit, school, department, and section.

We all know that our profession is huge. It is made up of countless units, teams, offices, and departments that are manned with people from all walks of life. I encourage every solider and Army civilian to take responsibility for their piece of the profession. Each of us — no matter our rank, mission occupational specialty, or assignment — can strengthen the whole by strengthening its parts.

This we’ll defend.

Become a Member

Gen. Gary Brito is the commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. He is responsible for strengthening the Army profession, building the next generation of soldiers and leaders, and delivering holistic solutions to the future force. He previously served as the deputy chief of staff G-1 at Headquarters Department of the Army and in a variety of command and staff assignments, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Gen. Gary Brito · March 18, 2024

17. Warfighting from Ship to Shore and Beyond: Why Amphibious Operations Still Matter

Excerpts:

Today, in an increasingly insecure world, amphibious operations should be at the forefront of military thought. Ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza underline the importance of effective amphibious forces, even during wars in which they are not a defining feature. Given the maritime geography of potential conflict zones like Taiwan and the Baltic, there is a clear need not only to have effective amphibious capabilities, but also to develop plans that could blunt or defeat adversary amphibious operations. Additionally, both the US military and the People’s Liberation Army are pursuing new concepts based on multidomain operations. Amphibious operations, which have always been inherently multidomain, offer lessons far beyond their scope.

In that spirit, we have compiled and edited a new volume of essays on amphibious warfare and amphibious operations. We believe that the history of amphibious warfare offers unique perspectives on the current environment and lessons for the future. It is the responsibility of academics, historians, and practitioners to examine the history of amphibious warfare. On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare is our effort to facilitate that study. The second volume was just released by Marine Corps University Press and is available online for free download. The first volume was released in 2020 and is also available online for free download. Print copies can be requested through Marine Corps University Press.

Warfighting from Ship to Shore and Beyond: Why Amphibious Operations Still Matter - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Timothy Heck, Brett Friedman, Walker Mills · March 18, 2024

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Marines have long been mythologized as an elite fighting force. Richard Harding Davis’s famously understated dispatch—“The Marines have landed and have the situation well in hand”—speaks to this mythology and the notion that there is no challenge that a Marine force can’t handle, and handle easily. Much of this fame, echoed in histories, recruiting pitches, and catchphrases, comes from popular recognition that the amphibious assaults that Marines the world over are known for are exceptionally difficult operations. Classic examples like the assaults on the shores of Gallipoli, Normandy, Iwo Jima, or Inchon involved thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines emptying out of ships and landing craft in the face of fierce enemy fire. And these landings were coordinated with awesome amounts of seapower and, in the latter cases, airpower.

General Douglas MacArthur, in planning for the successful landings at Inchon in 1950, remarked, “The amphibious landing is the most powerful tool we have.” That remains true today as amphibious forces remain the cornerstone of joint forcible entry concepts and capability in the United States. The concepts of amphibious operations—whether a raid, a demonstration, an assault, a withdrawal, or support to crisis response—continue to play a role nearly seventy-five years after Inchon. MacArthur’s force at Inchon was spearheaded by elements of the 1st Marine Division, but amphibious operations are not limited to the Marine Corps.

The National Security Act of 1947 tasked the Marine Corps “to develop . . . those phases of amphibious operations which pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment employed by landing forces,” with the implication that the Marine Corps is responsible for executing amphibious operations but also developing the means for other services to carry them out. For its own part, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, Warfighting only uses the word amphibious four times in its 106 pages, instead focusing on maneuver warfare as the core concept for employment of Marines. Marines are a force capable of amphibious operations, but not incapable of other operations.

Any landing by Marines, or any amphibious force, is a decidedly more complex process than just crossing the beach. Operation Overlord, the scale of which necessitated the use of many regular infantry and other units not accustomed to amphibious operations, required over a year of planning and nearly a full year of training. To be successful amphibious forces need to be recruited, trained in amphibious tactics and doctrine, equipped with specialized equipment, and then coordinated with effective naval and air support. These forces need to carry out shaping operations like reconnaissance and fires. And then after storming the beach or shoreline they need to be quickly reinforced so that they can hold their lodgment and continue operations inland. Singly, these are no small feats; the capability to accomplish all of them together is among the crown jewels of a nation’s military power. But for nearly as long as forces have been raised for the purpose of carrying out amphibious operations, they have faced difficulties and naysayers.

One does not need to look far to find critics of amphibious operations even in the US military. In 2010 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioned the future of amphibious operations in a changing security environment: “Looking ahead, I do think it is proper to ask whether large-scale amphibious assault landings . . . are feasible.” His line of questioning was not new. Just a year before the successful landings at Inchon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley famously told the House Armed Services Committee that “large-scale amphibious operations will never occur again.” And a few decades earlier, after watching the amphibious debacle at Gallipoli unfold, “the general conclusion [among military professionals] was that large scale amphibious operations against a defended shore, especially conducted in daylight, were almost certain to be suicidal.” Yet after each period of uncertainty, amphibious operations again prove their necessity.

Today, in an increasingly insecure world, amphibious operations should be at the forefront of military thought. Ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza underline the importance of effective amphibious forces, even during wars in which they are not a defining feature. Given the maritime geography of potential conflict zones like Taiwan and the Baltic, there is a clear need not only to have effective amphibious capabilities, but also to develop plans that could blunt or defeat adversary amphibious operations. Additionally, both the US military and the People’s Liberation Army are pursuing new concepts based on multidomain operations. Amphibious operations, which have always been inherently multidomain, offer lessons far beyond their scope.

In that spirit, we have compiled and edited a new volume of essays on amphibious warfare and amphibious operations. We believe that the history of amphibious warfare offers unique perspectives on the current environment and lessons for the future. It is the responsibility of academics, historians, and practitioners to examine the history of amphibious warfare. On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare is our effort to facilitate that study. The second volume was just released by Marine Corps University Press and is available online for free download. The first volume was released in 2020 and is also available online for free download. Print copies can be requested through Marine Corps University Press.

The second volume of On Contested Shores is both similar and different to the first volume. We have compiled another collection of essays on amphibious warfare, with a specific focus on case studies and topics that we believe have been understudied or overlooked. We are excited to publish two chapters each on amphibious warfare in twentieth-century China and the Soviet Union, as well as lesser-known case studies about operations ranging from Mexico to Africa. Some chapters are operational case studies. Others are focused on key, individual themes—there is a chapter on post-landing inland maneuver in Arctic environments, for example, and another on the logistics considerations of amphibious operations. Still other chapters are focused on specific developments, like the LST (“landing ship, tank”). We have also altered the organization of the volume compared to the first. Instead of a strictly chronological order, this volume is organized along the lines of the DOTMLPF-P spectrum, which should be familiar to students of military doctrine. However, we have not thoroughly covered all the elements of DOTMLPF-P, instead choosing to include operational case studies and focus more on the areas most relevant to amphibious operations.

We hope that these volumes provide current and future researchers, be they planners, academics, or simply curious parties, with an accessible resource to examine the nature and character of amphibious operations well beyond the beach.

On Contested Shores, Volume 2, Table of Contents

Foreword

Lt. Gen. (retired) Philip D. Shutler

Introduction

Timothy Heck, B. A. Friedman, and Walker D. Mills

Doctrine and Logistics

Chapter 1 — The Landing at Collado Beach: The Logistical Importance of the Amphibious Landing near Veracruz during the Mexican-American War

Christopher Menking

Chapter 2 — The Landing Craft Controversy, 1934–1942

Jerry E. Strahan

Chapter 3 — Red Tide over the Beach: Soviet Amphibious Warfare in Theory and Practice

Benjamin Claremont

Chapter 4 — Innovative Amphibious Logistics for the Twenty-first Century

Walker D. Mills

Technology and Innovation

Chapter 5 — Amphibious Juggernaut: How the Landing Ship, Tank, and Landing Vehicle, Tracked Created the Most Powerful Amphibious Assault System of World War II

Douglas E. Nash Sr.

Chapter 6 — The Union Defence Forces’ Amphibious Invasion of German South West Africa, 1914

David Katz

Chapter 7 — Operation Albion: The German Amphibious Landing on the Baltic Islands, 12–17 October 1917

Eric Sibul

Chapter 8 — Beyond Cold Shores: Inland Maneuver in Historical Polar Operations

Lance R. Blyth

Chapter 9 — Soviet Preparations for a Naval Landing against Israel in June 1967 and Their Partial Implementation

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez

Policy and Implementation

Chapter 10 — Operation Husky: The Challenges of Joint Amphibious Operations

Darren Johnson

Chapter 11 — A New Zealand-led “Commando Raid” in the South Pacific: The Green Islands, 30–31 January 1944

Shaun Mawdsley

Chapter 12 — PLA Amphibious Campaigns and the Origins of the Joint Island Landing Campaign

Xiaobing Li

Military Materiel and Personnel

Chapter 13 — U.S. Geostrategic Deterrence and A2/AD at Work in the American Civil War, 1861–1865

Howard J. Fuller

Chapter 14 — A Groundswell of Support in the Pacific: Deploying Small Wars Doctrine amid the Rise of Amphibious Warfare

Evan Zachary Ota

Chapter 15 — Prelude to Stalin’s Third Crushing Blow: The Kerch-Eltigen Landing, 1943

Timothy Heck

Chapter 16 — Not a Carbon Copy of the U.S. Marine Corps: The Development of the People’s Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps since 1979 and What that Means for the Chinese Power Project in the Pacific and Beyond

Edward Salo

Conclusion

Conclusion

Timothy Heck, B. A. Friedman, and Walker D. Mills

Timothy G. Heck, B. A. Friedman, and Walker D. Mills are the editors of the second volume of On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare.

Timothy was previously the deputy editorial director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and is a Marine Corps Reserve officer with the Marine Corps History Division and the Joint History and Research Office.

B. A. is strategy analyst and a retired US Marine Corps artillery officer. He is currently enrolled as a PhD student in international affairs at the University of Reading, UK.

Walker a US Marine Corps infantry officer and MQ-9A Reaper student pilot. He is a former nonresident fellow at Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future War and a former nonresident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative.

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

Image credit: Sgt. Austin Hazard, US Marine Corps

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Timothy Heck, Brett Friedman, Walker Mills · March 18, 2024

18. Why is the US facing a “crisis of credibility”?

Conclusion:

Ultimately, a restrained focus on core interests and the reduction of global obligations will counter-intuitively serve to bolster credibility, because threats and security commitments are ultimately most credible when backed by unencumbered capability and when tied to concrete interests.

Why is the US facing a “crisis of credibility”? | Sabreena Croteau | The Critic Magazine

It is a crisis that has been created by the hubris of the establishment

ARTILLERY ROW

By

Sabreena Croteau

16 March, 2024

thecritic.co.uk · · March 16, 2024

Concerns about U.S. credibility are consistently brought up when discussing what foreign policy Washington should adopt, most recently: the development of a strategy with Ukraine, U.S. commitments to Taiwan, and as a response to various attacks on US troops, and shipping in the Middle East. It can be difficult to define or quantify the concept of international credibility, and unlike a state’s more concrete economic or strategic interests, it is defined by the perception of foreign government, existing “only in the eye of the beholder”. Historian Robert McMahon describes it as a “blend of resolve, reliability, believability, and decisiveness.” In sum, the United States cannot be credible unless other states believe that it is credible.

This dynamic around credibility is clear in policy rhetoric addressing key issue areas. Aid to Ukraine is frequently justified on the basis that continued assistance is imperative to credibly maintaining U.S. commitments in Europe and deterring Russia from further aggression. The policy of strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan is consistently undermined by rhetoric that coming to the defense of Taiwan is paramount to demonstrating resolve to East Asian allies and checking Chinese ambitions across the region. The United States is even willing to continue admittedly operationally ineffective strikes against Yemen’s Houthis as a means of proving U.S. resolve.

The most recent foreign aid package for $66.3 billion, coming from a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House — and competing with a $95 billion foreign aid package which passed the Senate — seems to encapsulate the stress of how American credibility is spread thin across various issue areas. The duelling bills are focused on military assistance, designating pots of funding to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, thus attempting to tie American resolve in three areas of global conflict up into one neat funding package that will serve as universal evidence of U.S. commitment. As if these disjointed international commitments weren’t enough for one funding package, the House version also includes a provision reinstating the “remain in Mexico” policy as a border security measure.

While these unrelated issue areas are strung together with a quippy title, the “Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act,” the lack of cohesion amongst the foreign aid bills is indicative of two overarching issues facing American credibility abroad. First, that America’s global overreach has left it without a prioritised central strategy. Second, unresolved crises within the domestic political sphere are hurting the U.S. international image as well.

Ultimately, the United States is facing a credibility crisis of its own creation. Washington has refused to follow a strategy that makes hard choices and prioritises. As it attempts to balance all its goals and desires in various corners of the world, it has found that it simply does not have the resources or the capability to do everything it would like to do at the same time.

At the same time, deep political polarisation and dysfunction have continued to plague the United States since the 2016 election, increasing under the weight of a global pandemic, a contentious 2020 election, an ongoing economic struggle, and what will certainly be an unusual 2024 election cycle. Ongoing domestic dysfunction only serves to hurt international credibility. How can the United States be trusted to keep its commitments abroad when it cannot even manage its own domestic affairs? The rest of the world has watched as the superpower has spread itself thin both at home and abroad.

The U.S. should not expect to solve the issue of credibility in each individual foreign policy area until it reflects upon what its overall global overreach has done to decay its credibility overall. A 2018 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments report argues that, “credibility, like deterrence, is a function of perceived capability and perceived resolve to use it, and America’s current credibility gap reflects shortfalls in both of these areas.” But as long as the United States remains overstretched and over-involved, even where its core interests are not at stake, credibility will remain a plaguing issue. The reality that the United States continues to have a hard time accepting is that its commitments simply are not credible in areas where its core security interests are not at stake, especially when facing adversaries that have a much greater stake in the issues than Washington does.

The United States needs to prioritise its global interests around its core security and economic interests

Like it or not, the United States is simply not going to get everything it wants all the time and cannot single handedly enforce an entire international order. It simply does not have the capabilities to do so, and other countries are aware of its limits. Where core interests aren’t at stake, resolve will always come under question as well. The United States needs to prioritise its global interests around its core security and economic interests and pursue realistic strategies around those priorities. Rather than obsessing over the credibility of a myriad of peripheral threats and commitments, the United States could focus its limited resources around a responsible competition with China that is open to cooperation in areas of mutual interest and assessing the security measures that are actually necessary to protecting U.S. access to full participation in the global economy. A reduction in international commitments would then allow the United States to focus its attention on resolving domestic dysfunction.

Ultimately, a restrained focus on core interests and the reduction of global obligations will counter-intuitively serve to bolster credibility, because threats and security commitments are ultimately most credible when backed by unencumbered capability and when tied to concrete interests.

thecritic.co.uk · · March 16, 2024

19. US Army instructors say Ukrainian soldiers were 'amazing' at mastering the Patriots they've used to shoot down Putin's overhyped missiles

US Army instructors say Ukrainian soldiers were 'amazing' at mastering the Patriots they've used to shoot down Putin's overhyped missiles

Yahoo · by Jake EpsteinMarch 15, 2024 at 4:47 AM·6 min read258Link Copied

• Ukrainian soldiers spent 10 weeks learning to use the US military's Patriot air-defense system.
• US Army instructors at Fort Sill told Business Insider the Ukrainians were "amazing" students.
• Kyiv's troops have since used the system to shoot down Russia's overrated Kinzhal missiles.

The American-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system has proved to be a defensive workhorse for Ukraine since it first arrived in the country nearly a year ago.

Kyiv's forces have since found resounding success with the Patriot, which is considered to be one of the world's most capable and advanced air-defense assets. They have used it to shoot down some of Russia's more deadly — but also somewhat overhyped — aerial threats. Though impressive, these accomplishments haven't necessarily come as a surprise to the Americans military personnel who helped teach the Ukrainians how to use the system.

Business Insider recently visited Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Patriot training took place last year, and spoke with two US Army instructors who were involved in the program. They described the Ukrainian soldiers as "awesome" students and "amazing" learners with a lot of drive to learn how to operate the system.

The US first indicated that it was prepared to send Patriot systems to Ukraine in December 2022, and several weeks later, in January, a group of 65 Ukrainians arrived at Fort Sill, home to the schoolhouse where the Army trains US and allied troops to use the missile system.

FILE - Patriot missile launchers acquired from the U.S. last year are seen deployed in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 6, 2023.AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk, File

What would normally be a 19-week-long training scheme was squeezed into just 10 weeks for the Ukrainians, given the urgency of the air-defense situation back home. The 65 students also fell slightly short of the 72-74 soldiers who typically man a Patriot battery.

"They were experienced air defenders and they wanted to learn the system, so they had the overall concept," retired Army 1st Sgt Kevin McConkey, now the supervisor of instruction and training at the schoolhouse, told BI. "They've used air-defense systems in Ukraine — not Patriot, but different ones. They had the concept of how it works, so they were very good."

McConkey said once the Americans and the Ukrainians were able to get past the language barrier, "everything really started to come together." The soldiers actually wanted a more in-depth training on the system, he added, but there wasn't enough time.

The focus was getting the Ukrainians to be able use the system, learn to maintain it, and understand how to fix it if something broke.

A Patriot launcher at the Rzeszow Jasionska airport in Poland on March 8, 2022.Sean Gallup via Getty Images

"They would push," McConkey said. "We were doing 10 hours a day, including Saturdays, to fit the time schedule that they needed to get back to go use this equipment."

Staff Sgt. Austin Christie, one of the instructors at the schoolhouse, told BI that he taught the Ukrainians how to operate the Patriot "by the books," but he also taught them the quickest way to use the system if "something hits the fan," or if they quickly found themselves in combat.

Underscoring the deep experience of some of the soldiers, Christie said one student fought during Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and eventually left the military, only to rejoin after the full-scale war began in 2022.

Another Ukrainian was an electrical engineer before he joined the military during the war, but when it came time to learn how to use the Patriot's engagement control station, the student was "way above" what he was being taught, McConkey said.

A Patriot missile is fired during a training exercise at the Black Sea training range in Capu Midia, Constanta, Romania, on Nov. 15, 2023.INQUAM PHOTOS/George Calin

Still, despite the high levels of experience, they were eager to learn as much as possible.

"The training for the Ukrainians was intense, and it was a lot," McConkey said. "It was condensed so we could get them trained, but it was rewarding to get them trained up and let them go and defend their country."

The first Patriot battery arrived in Ukraine in April 2023, and over the past year, Kyiv's forces have relied heavily on the weapon system to help protect their skies from scores of Russian threats like advanced missiles and fighter jets.

Probably the most notable of the Patriot's achievements in Ukraine is its success against the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, an air-launched ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top military officials in Moscow have said is basically unstoppable and impossible to intercept.

In this file photo taken on May 9, 2018, a Russian Air Force MiG-31K jet carries a high-precision hypersonic aero-ballistic missile Kh-47M2 Kinzhal during a Victory Day military parade.AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Russia has often described the Kinzhal as a hypersonic weapon. This, however, is a bit misleading because although it can reach hypersonic speeds (at least five times the speed of sound), it seems to lack some of the key characteristics of what is normally considered to be a hypersonic missile. The Kinzhal is actually just an air-launched ballistic missile based on the 9K720 Iskander.

Ukraine initially struggled against the Kinzhals, but all that changed with the initial arrival of the Patriot. In May of last year, the Pentagon confirmed Ukraine had shot one down with a Patriot interceptor missile. As of early January, per official statements from Kyiv, Ukrainian forces had used the system to shoot down more than two dozen of the missiles.

Now, Ukraine currently operates five long-range Patriot batteries, which have been sent by the US, Germany, and the Netherlands, and work alongside other Soviet-era and Western-provided air-defense systems.

But despite the many capabilities that Ukraine has in its arsenal, additional air-defense systems and ammunition are a consistent request. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long sought greater firepower so his troops can continue to defend their skies from unrelenting Russian attacks.

"More air defense systems and other means of destruction of Russian aviation bring peace closer," Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation on Sunday. "I am grateful to everyone in the world who helps us with this."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Yahoo · by Jake EpsteinMarch 15, 2024 at 4:47 AM·6 min read258Link Copied

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