Quotes of the Day:
"In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."
- Margaret Thatcher
"Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do."
- Liz Smith
1. DoD Transmits 2022 National Defense Strategy
2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 28 (PUTIN'S WAR)
3. Fiscal 2023 Budget Funds Military for Today, Future
4. Ukrainian intelligence releases names of more than 600 alleged Russian spies
5. Here’s what’s in Biden’s natsec budget
6. Billionaire Abramovich, Ukrainian peace negotiators hit by suspected poisoning -reports
7. The Army Is Not Ready to Win Without Fighting
8. Shanghai starts China's biggest COVID-19 lockdown in 2 years
9. Taliban hard-liners turning back the clock in Afghanistan
10. Zelensky says Ukraine prepared to discuss neutrality in peace talks
11. Ukraine War Update - March 28, 2022 | SOF News
12. The Work to Come: Russia, Ukraine, and the West at the Negotiating Table
13. The Will to Fight
14. Biden makes 'no apologies' for saying Putin 'cannot remain in power'
15. Global Supply Chains Are Driving Conflict. They Can Be Rewired for Peace.
16. China hid the COVID pandemic and could do it again
17. Strikes on Iraq Reveal Iran’s Embrace of Missile Operations
18. Troops would see a 4.6% pay raise next year under Biden’s fiscal 2023 budget plan
19. Pentagon will accelerate production of missiles Ukraine has requested to refill US stockpiles
20. US, Filipino forces start war drills in region facing Taiwan
1. DoD Transmits 2022 National Defense Strategy
I have also pasted the full fact sheet below this article.
Since the NDS is classified I expect this two page fact sheet is all we are going to have to work with until the unclassified version is released which will be "sequenced with the NSS." Based on the comment that it is consistent with the President's interim strategic guidance released in March 2021 I think we can still use that as a guide for the NSS. You can download the 24 page interim strategic guidance here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf
DoD Transmits 2022 National Defense Strategy
Immediate Release
March 28, 2022
The Department of Defense transmitted the classified 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) to Congress today.
The classified NDS sets out how the Department of Defense will contribute to advancing and safeguarding vital U.S. national interests – protecting the American people, expanding America’s prosperity, and realizing and defending our democratic values.
The NDS is the capstone strategic guidance document for the Department of Defense. It translates national security priorities into guidance for military planning and activities. The 2022 NDS is consistent with the President’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, released in March 2021.
An unclassified version of the NDS will be forthcoming and sequenced with the release of the unclassified National Security Strategy.
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Fact Sheet: 2022 National Defense Strategy
Today, the Department of Defense transmitted to Congress the classified 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS).
For the first time, the Department conducted its strategic reviews in a fully integrated way – incorporating the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Missile Defense Review (MDR) in the NDS – ensuring tight linkages between our strategy and our resources. The unclassified NDS will be forthcoming.
Consistent with the President’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, the classified NDS sets out how the Department of Defense will contribute to advancing and safeguarding vital U.S. national interests
– protecting the American people, expanding America’s prosperity, and realizing and defending our democratic values.
The Defense priorities are:
1. Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC
2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners
3. Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
4. Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.
The Department will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.
Russia poses acute threats, as illustrated by its brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. We will collaborate with our NATO Allies and partners to reinforce robust deterrence in the face of Russian aggression.
The Department will remain capable of managing other persistent threats, including those from North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations.
Changes in global climate and other dangerous transboundary threats, including pandemics, are transforming the context in which the Department operates. We will adapt to these challenges, which increasingly place pressure on the Joint Force and the systems that support it.
Recognizing growing kinetic and non-kinetic threats to the United States’ homeland from our strategic competitors, the Department will take necessary actions to increase resilience – our ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption.
Mutually-beneficial Alliances and partnerships are an enduring strength for the United States, and are critical to achieving our objectives, as the unified response to Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated. Answering this “call to action,” the Department will incorporate ally and partner perspectives, competencies, and advantages at every stage of defense planning.
The Department will advance our goals through three primary ways: integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions that build enduring advantages.
• Integrated deterrence entails developing and combining our strengths to maximum effect, by working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, other instruments of U.S. national power, and our unmatched network of Alliances and partnerships. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.
• Campaigning will strengthen deterrence and enable us to gain advantages against the full range of competitors’ coercive actions. The United States will operate forces, synchronize broader Department efforts, and align Department activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with Allies and partners.
• Building enduring advantages for the future Joint Force involves undertaking reforms to accelerate force development, getting the technology we need more quickly, and making investments in the extraordinary people of the Department, who remain our most valuable resource.
The Department will develop, design, and manage our forces – linking our operational concepts and capabilities to achieve strategic objectives. This requires a Joint Force that is lethal, resilient, sustainable, survivable, agile, and responsive.
2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 28 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 28 (PUTIN'S WAR)
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 28
Mason Clark and George Barros
March 28, 4:30pm ET
Ukrainian forces recaptured Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 28. Ongoing Ukrainian counterattacks around Kyiv will likely disrupt ongoing Russian efforts to reconstitute forces and resume major offensive operations to encircle Kyiv. Ukrainian forces additionally repelled Russian attacks toward Brovary, east of Kyiv, in the past 24 hours. Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine remain stalled and did not conduct offensive operations against Chernihiv, Sumy, or Kharkiv in the past 24 hours. Russian forces continue to make grinding progress in Mariupol but were unable to secure territory in either Donbas or toward Mykolayiv.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces have not abandoned their objective to encircle and capture Kyiv, despite Kremlin claims that Russian forces will concentrate on eastern Ukraine.
- Ukrainian forces recaptured the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on March 28. Ukrainian forces will likely seek to take advantage of ongoing Russian force rotations to retake further territory northwest of Kyiv in the coming days.
- Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks toward Brovary and did not conduct offensive operations toward Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv. Russian operations in northeastern Ukraine remain stalled.
- The Ukrainian General Staff stated that a battalion tactical group (BTG) of the 1st Guards Tank Army fully withdrew from Ukrainian territory near Sumy back to Russia for possible redeployment – the first Ukrainian report of a Russian unit fully withdrawing into Russia for redeployment to another axis of advance in this conflict.
- Russian forces continued to steadily take territory in Mariupol.
- Ukrainian resistance around Kherson continues to tie down Russian forces in the area. Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations in the southern direction.
Russian conscription efforts, which Ukrainian intelligence expects to begin on April 1, are unlikely to provide Russian forces around Ukraine with sufficient combat power to restart major offensive operations in the near term. Russia’s pool of available well-trained replacements remains low and new conscripts will require months to reach even a minimum standard of readiness. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on March 28 that Russia will begin conscription through the BARS-2021 (Combat Army Reserve of the Country) program on April 1 alongside the normal semi-annual conscription cycle on April 1 to “conceal mass mobilization measures.”[1] The GUR reported that BARS-2021 reservists will replenish units operating in Ukraine and will be supported by convicted criminals recruited through the BARS program in return for full amnesty.
ISW published an explainer on BARS-2021 and other Russian conscription efforts on March 5.[2] The Russian military launched the BARS-2021 program in 2021 in order to establish an active reserve by recruiting volunteer reservists for three-year contract service. BARS-2021 operated on the same principle as US and NATO reserves, where reservists actively train and are compensated while maintaining their civilian jobs. The Russian Armed Forces sought to create exclusively reservist units but likely did not accomplish its goals due to low engagement from Russian citizens. The Russian Defense Ministry hoped to recruit more than 100,000 reservists starting in August 2021, but it is unlikely the Kremlin was able to achieve its goals on such a short timeline.
The Russian military is likely close to exhausting its available reserves of units capable of deploying to Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 28 that Russia continues to train and deploy additional units to Ukraine, including the Pacific Fleet’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade and an unspecified element of the 14th Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade.[3] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported on March 27 that unspecified Western Military District and Pacific Fleet units continued to deploy toward Ukraine, but that Ukraine has observed a “significant decrease in the intensity of traffic from the depths of the Russian Federation”—indicating Russia has likely already deployed most of its reserves to Ukraine.[4] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally stated that Russia is covertly mobilizing the population of the Russian-backed, Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia to support the war in Ukraine and has already transferred 150 South Ossetian fighters to Crimea.[5]
We do not report in detail on the deliberate Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure and attacks on unarmed civilians, which are war crimes, because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
Russian forces are engaged in four primary efforts at this time:
- Main effort—Kyiv (comprised of three subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv;
- Supporting effort 1a—Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts;
- Supporting effort 2—Mariupol; and
- Supporting effort 3—Kherson and advances northward and westward.
Main effort—Kyiv axis: Russian operations on the Kyiv axis are aimed at encircling the city from the northwest, west, and east.
Russian forces have not abandoned their objective to encircle and capture Kyiv, despite Kremlin claims that Russian forces will concentrate on eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff directly stated on March 28 that Russia continues to deploy additional forces to the Kyiv front and are unsuccessfully seeking to resume major offensive operations to encircle the city “despite statements by officials from the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Russian Federation regarding changes in plans and priorities.”[6] ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin has not abandoned its efforts to capture Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities; we have not observed any Russian redeployment of combat power away from Kyiv to support operations in eastern Ukraine.[7]
Subordinate main effort along the west bank of the Dnipro
Ukrainian forces recaptured the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on March 28. The Mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushin, stated on March 28 that Ukrainian forces liberated Irpin and are conducting a “sweep” of the area, but warned that the city remains dangerous and asked civilians not to return to their homes yet.[8] Ukrainian forces additionally shared photos of themselves in Irpin on March 28.[9] Markushin said Ukrainian forces intend to use Irpin as a staging ground for further counterattacks on Bucha, Vorzel, and Hostomel. Ukrainian forces began counterattacks in the Irpin area on March 22.[10] Kyiv Obalst military authorities confirmed the recapture of Irpin on Mach 28, removing Irpin from their published list of Russian-occupied Kyiv suburbs.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on March 28 that Ukrainian counterattacks are intended to deter further Russian offensive operations.[12] Ukrainian forces will likely seek to take advantage of ongoing Russian force rotations to retake further territory northwest of Kyiv in the coming days.
Russian forces northwest of Kyiv did not conduct any offensive operations in the past 24 hours.[13] The Ukrainian General Staff reported Russia is withdrawing units from the Eastern Military District to Belarus to restore combat capability, and additionally specified on March 27 that Russia withdrew two BTGs from the 106th Airborne Division from the Kyiv front.[14]
Subordinate supporting effort—Chernihiv and Sumy axis
The Ukrainian General Staff reported at noon local time on March 28 that Ukrainian forces halted offensive operations towards Brovary by elements of the Russian 90th Tank Division and 2nd Combined Arms Army.[15] The Kyiv Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian positions northeast of Kyiv did not change in the past 24 hours.[16] Ukrainian forces additionally released imagery on March 28 confirming their claimed recapture of Rudnytske, east of Brovary, on March 27.[17]
The Ukrainian General Staff reported at noon local time on March 28 that Russian forces around Chernihiv prioritized establishing defensive positions and concentrating equipment in secured locations to mitigate damage from Ukrainian artillery.[18] Russian forces continue to shell the city of Chernihiv but did not conduct any ground operations in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff additionally stated that Russian forces destroyed several bridges in Chernihiv and Sumy Oblast, including in Stara Rudnya, Smyach, Maly Dyrchyn, Velykyi Dyrchyn, and Konotop.[19] Russian forces may be destroying bridges to impede possible Ukrainian counterattacks—further indicating that Russian forces will be unable to resume major offensive operations in northeastern Ukraine in the near future.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations around Sumy in the past 24 hours.[20] Russian forces around Sumy face growing morale problems, with the General Staff claiming servicemen from the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade are refusing to participate in combat. Ukrainian forces released footage of DNR conscripts around Sumy on March 27-28, the first deployment of DNR/LNR forces outside of Donbas ISW has observed.[21] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported for the first time on March 27 that Russia is withdrawing units from the Sumy axis for possible redeployment to other areas. The Ukrainian General Staff said a BTG of the 1st Guards Tank Army fully withdrew from Ukrainian territory back to Russia for possible redeployment. ISW cannot independently confirm this report, but Russian forces may be withdrawing units from the Sumy area to support operations elsewhere.
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv:
Russian forces continued to shell Kharkiv but did not conduct any offensive operations in the last 24 hours.[22] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions around Topolske, Kamyanka, and Sukha Kamyanka (near Izyum) on March 28 but did not provide additional details.[23] The General Staff additionally stated elements of the 20th Combined Arms Army, 1st Guards Tank Army, and Baltic Fleet remain active around Izyum.[24]
The Ukrainian General Staff claimed on Mach 27 that about 600 bodies of Russian servicemen—over two-thirds of a BTG—from the 47th Tank Division (of the 1st Guards Tank Army) were brought to Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region.[25] The Ukrainian General Staff previously stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed a BTG from the 47th Tank Division near Kharkiv on March 18.[26]
Supporting Effort #1a—Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts:
Fighting continued in Popasna and Rubizhne on March 28, but Russian forces did not make any substantial progress.[27] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces are regrouping to resume major operations to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.[28] Russian forces launched unsuccessful assaults at several locations in Donetsk Oblast, including against Marinka, Verkhnotoretske, and Niu York (a Ukrainian town west of Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast).[29]
Supporting Effort #2—Mariupol:
Russian forces continued to take territory in Mariupol on March 28, though ISW cannot confirm any specific Russian advances in the past 24 hours. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that Russian forces advanced as of noon local time on March 28 but said Ukrainian forces are inflicting heavy casualties on Russian forces.[30]
Supporting Effort #3—Kherson and advances northward and westwards:
The military situation around Kherson did not materially change on March 28. Ukrainian forces repelled limited Russian advances towards Hulyaipole and Zaporizhia as of 6:00 am local time on March 28.[31] Russian forces continued to reinforce their defensive positions toward Mykolayiv and did not conduct offensive operations in the past 24 hours.[32] Media reports that Ukrainian forces have recaptured the entirety of Mykolayiv Oblast are incorrect, however, and Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim confirmed on March 28 that Russian forces are operating in Snihurivka.[33]
The Ukrainian General Staff continued to report that Ukrainian resistance in Kherson is tying down increasing numbers of Russian Rosgvardia forces, which are carrying out “filtering measures” to identify Ukrainian servicemen and civic activists, as well as seizing weapons and ammunition.[34] ISW cannot independently confirm these reports or the numbers of Rosgvardia troops operating in Kherson, though the reports are likely accurate as residents of Kherson have consistently resisted the Russian occupation since Russian forces captured the city on March 2.[35]
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces will likely capture Mariupol or force the city to capitulate within the coming weeks.
- Successful Ukrainian partisan actions around Kherson will continue to tie down Russian manpower.
- Ukrainian counterattacks northwest of Kyiv will likely further disrupt Russian efforts to resume offensive operations.
- Russia is deploying additional Eastern Military District assets around Kyiv and are likely attempting to restart offensive operations on a limited scale.
- Russian and proxy troops will continue efforts to seize the full territory of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but are unlikely to make rapid progress in doing so.
[11] https://t dot me/kyivoda/2751; https://t dot me/kyivoda/2751.
[16] https://t dot me/kyivoda/2751.
3. Fiscal 2023 Budget Funds Military for Today, Future
Some key data points before Congress "adjusts" them:
The end strength of the services remains essentially unchanged at 2,122,900 active, Guard and reserve service members.
The Army is set at 998,500. This is down 3,000 on the active duty rolls from fiscal 2022. The Army National Guard is set at 336,000, and the Army Reserve at 189,500.
The Navy is at 404,000, down incrementally from fiscal 2022 level of 406,135. The Navy Reserve is set at 57,700.
The Marine Corps end strength goes up slightly from 209,606 to 210,000 with 33,000 in the Marine Corps Reserve.
The Air Force — including the Space Force — stays at 510,400.
By percentage, the Air Force department receives 30.3 percent of the budget with the Navy receiving 29.9 percent. The Army receives 22.9 percent and defense-wide is pegged at 16.9 percent.
Fiscal 2023 Budget Funds Military for Today, Future
President Joe Biden's $773 billion fiscal year 2023 Defense Budget Request funds the department for today's security environment and positions DOD to maintain its competitive advantage in the years ahead, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks said today.
Hicks, along with Navy Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, unveiled the budget that is built on the tenets of the new National Defense Strategy. That strategy recognizes Russia as a concern — especially since Russia's invasion of Ukraine — but still regards China as America's pacing threat.
Budget Rollout
Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Navy Adm. Christopher W. Grady deliver opening remarks on the president's Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Budget at the Pentagon, March 28, 2022.
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The budget is roughly an 8.1 percent increase over fiscal year 2022. "These investments are as vital as ever, as we face a myriad of challenges," Hicks said at a Pentagon press conference.
Hicks said the people of Ukraine "are foremost on our minds" as they confront the Russian invasion of their country. "Even as we confront Russia's malign activities, the defense strategy describes how the department will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence with the [Peoples Republic of China] as our most consequential strategic competitor and pacing challenge. The PRC has the military, economic and technological potential to challenge the international system and our interests within it."
The strategy does not discount other threats and she specifically cited Iran, North Korea and threats from violent extremists.
The United States fights with a joint force that provides amazing combat effectiveness and lethality. "With the joint warfighting concept and a new strategic approach to setting requirements, our joint force has set out to achieve expanded maneuvers in all domains, building new capabilities and leveraging technologies to achieve overmatch against any potential adversary," Grady said. "The American people can be confident that this year's budget request … ensures the joint force remains the most lethal and capable military on the planet. It will modernize, and it will transform the force needed to win in the 2030s and beyond."
Service members and civilians would receive a 4.6 percent pay raise if Congress approves this budget, Hicks said. This is the largest pay raise in 20 years. The budget also calls for investing in child care including fee assistance, new construction and sustainment. The request also calls for at least a $15 per hour minimum wage for everyone in the federal workforce. The majority of those affected by this last are in the child-care workforce.
The budget request also asks for $55.8 billion for military health care and $9.2 billion for family support — including commissaries, DOD Education Activity schools, youth programs and morale, welfare and recreation programs.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has spoken at length about "integrated deterrence" being one of the key concepts of the new strategy. Two others are campaigning and building enduring advantages.
Integrated deterrence is essentially bringing to bear all aspects of defense and the larger U.S. government. It also calls for working closely with allies and partners around the world. The concept needs combat-credible forces and a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.
The fiscal 2023 budget calls for $56.5 billion for air power. The money is focused on F-35 fifth-generation joint strike fighters, F-15EX — a mix of fourth-generation aircraft with fifth-generation avionics, the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, more air mobility aircraft, KC-46 tankers and various unmanned aircraft systems.
The budget stressed integrated defense with $40.8 billion for construction of nine battle force fleet ships. The funding includes incremental funding for construction of Ford-class aircraft carriers, and two Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.
A total of $12.6 billion is dedicated to modernization of Army and Marine Corps combat equipment including armored multi-purpose vehicles, the amphibious combat vehicle and the optionally manned fighting vehicle.
Another part of integrated deterrence is the recapitalization of the nuclear triad. The budget request is for $34.4 billion. This includes upgrades to weapons systems and the nuclear command, control and communications system.
Hypersonic weapons are scheduled to be fielded under this budget request with $7.2 billion across the services. This includes a hypersonic missile battery by fiscal 2023, hypersonic missiles aboard Navy ships by fiscal 2025 and hypersonic cruise missiles by fiscal 2027.
Another $24.7 billion goes to missile defeat and defense initiatives, including $892 million for the defense of Guam from Chinese missiles.
Defense Budget
Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Christopher W. Grady deliver opening remarks on the President's Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Budget, the Pentagon, March 28, 2022.
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Cyberspace remains a contested domain and the budget contains $11.2 billion for cyberspace activities including adding five more Cyber Mission Force Teams and "operationalizing" the department's Zero Trust Architecture.
Space is the ultimate high ground and the budget calls for $27.6 billion for everything from detecting missile launches to global positioning satellites to "hardening" satellite communications.
Another concept in the strategy is called campaigning. "Our competitors are increasingly undertaking activities designed to erode U.S. deterrence and advance their own interests via gray zone activities," Hicks said. "We, in turn, will operate forces, synchronize broader department efforts and gain advantage on our terms by tying together the breadth of U.S. and allied and partner defense activities through campaigning."
Central to campaigning is ensuring that the joint force is ready now, across the full battlespace competitors can present, she said.
DOD will be able to respond to threats anywhere in the world, but "the department will focus our campaigning efforts in the Indo-Pacific and Europe," Hicks said. The Pacific deterrence initiative along with other efforts are the basis for efforts in that region. DOD will invest in enhancing its comparative military advantage, promote the military posture, provide for resilient logistics and increased cooperation with regional allies and partners.
In Europe, the budget will support U.S. European Command "and deepen our ironclad commitment to NATO," she said. "We will optimize the responsiveness of the joint force, provide assistance to Kyiv through the Ukraine security assistance initiative, and bolster security cooperation programs."
The campaigning concept is tied to joint force readiness. Officials said the campaigning aspect receives $134.7 billion in the fiscal 2023 request. The Army would receive $29.4 billion under this request, the Navy $47.4 billion, the Air Force $35.5 billion, the Marine Corps $4.1 billion and the Space Force, $3 billion. U.S. Special Operations Command is slated to receive $9.7 billion of this pot of money and other joint requirements would consume $5.6 billion.
Budget Speech
Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Christopher W. Grady deliver opening remarks on the President's Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Budget, the Pentagon, March28, 2022.
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Building enduring advantages aspect of the National Defense Strategy comes down to people, Grady said. DOD must grow its talent. It must build resilience and force readiness and it must ensure accountable leadership. The 4.6 percent pay raise for both military and civilian members of DOD. It is the largest civilian pay raise in more than a decade.
"Building enduring advantages also means that the department must continue to innovate and modernize," Hicks said. "Of the roughly $130 billion that we are investing in [research, development, test and evaluation] — our largest request ever — $16.5 billion is dedicated to science and technology."
The strategic concept looks to address diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. The budget includes $479 million to implement the recommendations of the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military.
The budget also calls on Congress to allow the services to retire or discontinue programs no longer needed. In the Navy, this calls for the retirement of some cruisers, littoral combat ships and a landing ship dock. In the Air Force, this calls for retiring A-10s, E-3 Sentry aircraft, E-8 JSTARS, KC-135s and C-130H.
The end strength of the services remains essentially unchanged at 2,122,900 active, Guard and reserve service members.
The Army is set at 998,500. This is down 3,000 on the active duty rolls from fiscal 2022. The Army National Guard is set at 336,000, and the Army Reserve at 189,500.
The Navy is at 404,000, down incrementally from fiscal 2022 level of 406,135. The Navy Reserve is set at 57,700.
The Marine Corps end strength goes up slightly from 209,606 to 210,000 with 33,000 in the Marine Corps Reserve.
The Air Force — including the Space Force — stays at 510,400.
By percentage, the Air Force department receives 30.3 percent of the budget with the Navy receiving 29.9 percent. The Army receives 22.9 percent and defense-wide is pegged at 16.9 percent.
4. Ukrainian intelligence releases names of more than 600 alleged Russian spies
Better than the Chinese OPM hack!! Now we should turn over their phone numbers to car warranty services and other spam telemarketers to harass them. We can take a whole of society approach for counterintelligence and harassment of foreign intelligence officers.
Ukrainian intelligence releases names of more than 600 alleged Russian spies
The list includes names, phone numbers, passport numbers, and, in come cases, financial details, of alleged Russian spies
Former Soviet undercover spy Jack Barsky joins ‘America Reports’ to provide insight into a New York building that may be housing Russian spies amid Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Ukraine's defense intelligence ministry released a list of more than 600 alleged Russian spies working in Europe in an apparent attempt to burn them and weaken Russia's intelligence operations across the continent.
The intelligence wing of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine released the "list of employees of the FSB of the Russian Federation registered at the address: Moscow, St. Bolshaya Lubyanka" on Monday. The FSB is the successor agency to the KGB, Russia's notorious spy arm.
The list, released in Russian and apparently unavailable on the English version of the ministry's website, provides names, phone numbers, passport numbers, "registration addresses," license plate numbers, and occasionally financial details for 620 alleged Russian spies. In a few cases, the list includes a home address.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Yerevan, Armenia. (Shutterstock)
Fox News has not authenticated the list.
One alleged FSB agent has a Skype address including the phrase "jamesbond007," along with the characters "DB9," referring to Bond's Aston Martin. Another agent reportedly has a taste for "premium cars," while a third is a heavy drinker who "systematically violates traffic regulations."
A former head of the British intelligence agency MI6 warned that only "10 per cent" of Russia's operations across Europe have been uncovered, The Telegraph reported.
BERLIN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 05: People walk past the Russian Embassy on November 05, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. A Russian diplomat of the embassy was reportedly found dead on the sidewalk in front of the embassy on October 19, apparently after having fallen from a window. Media are reporting that the man, 35, was an agent of the FSB, Russia's intelligence agency, and the son of a high-ranking FSB official. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
"We see the extent of Russian aggressive intelligence activities across Europe," said Sir John Sawers, who led MI6 from 2009 to 2014. "We probably only know 10 per cent of what they’re doing. There will be a great deal that intelligence services do that we’re simply not aware of."
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly put two FSB agents who reportedly scouted Ukraine on house arrest after Russia's Ukraine invasion proved far more difficult than Putin appears to have considered at first.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., called on the FBI to investigate the Russian Diplomatic Compound that experts perviously told Fox News Digital houses diplomats who are in the U.S. to spy on America.
A view of the Russian Diplomatic Compound at 355 West 255th Street (Google Maps)
"We have been appalled and alarmed by Vladimir Putin's unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine. We have been appalled by his war crimes against the Ukrainian people, and it is in that context that I have formally requested that the FBI open an investigation into reports of espionage at the Russian diplomatic compound," Rep. Ritchie Torres told reporters Tuesday about the white high-rise tower located at 355 West 255th Street.
The Bronx Democrat called it "both metaphorically and literally a structure of surveillance."
Fox News' Amy Kellogg and Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
5. Here’s what’s in Biden’s natsec budget
A short summary.
Here’s what’s in Biden’s natsec budget
Politico · by Alexander Ward · March 28, 2022
If you’re in the national security space in Washington, D.C., you’re bound to hear iterations of these three phrases: “Let’s do brunch at Le Dip,” “What do you do?” and “Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
We’re going to focus on that last one — the defense-related portions of the FY 2023 budget released Monday — and leave the “What WILL SMITH slapping CHRIS ROCK tells us about X” takes for others.
Here’s the BLUF, per our own POLITICO defense team: “The White House asked Congress for $813 billion for national defense on Monday — including $773 billion for the Pentagon, or $30 billion more than approved by Congress for this year.”
“The 4 percent boost from the 2022 submission will come as good news for defense hawks, but it won’t be considered enough by Republicans in Congress who were calling for at least a 5 percent raise,” they added. “The national defense budget enacted for this year was $782 billion.”
So what’s in the budget? Here’s the down and dirty:
Air Force: The service is seeking $234.1 billion for fiscal 2023, up from $182 billion provided by Congress for this year. It’s looking to shed Cold War-era planes and invest more in modern aircraft.
Space Force: It is requesting $24.5 billion for fiscal 2023, a significant boost from the $17.4 billion it requested for this year. Investing in satellites to track missiles remains a key priority.
Army: The Army would see a modest increase to $177.5 billion in fiscal 2023, compared to the $174.7 billion lawmakers approved for the current year, approximately a 1.6 percent increase. “The budget request supports a total Army force of 998,500 troops, a decline of 12,000 from the personnel levels authorized by Congress,” per our defense team.
Navy: The Navy Department, which includes the Marine Corps, would receive $230.8 billion, an increase of approximately $9.1 billion from the level Congress enacted for fiscal 2022. The Navy’s share of the request is $180.5 billion, up about $8 billion from the current level. The service plans to decommission 24 ships, which is certain to raise hackles on the Hill.
Marine Corps: The Marine Corps’ share of the budget is $50.3 billion, nearly a 1.8 percent increase from the $49.5 billion enacted level this year. The service will continue to invest in network-related programs, a major priority for Gen. DAVID BERGER, the commandant of the Marine Corps.
There are also a few notable priorities in the budget, namely nuclear modernization, missile defense, and research and development.
“The White House is requesting $34.4 billion for nuclear modernization, $24.7 billion for missile defense programs and another $27.6 billion for space missile warning, missile tracking and space launch efforts,” per our defense team. “The research and development budget will also be the largest on record, increasing 9.5 percent from 2022 to hit $130.1 billion.”
And then there’s this: “Overseas, the request includes $6.9 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative — up from a $3.6 billion request in 2022 — and $1.8 billion for expanding U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Now that Biden has shown Congress what he values, the question is if those on the Hill share his vision. The earliest indications are the president will once again have a fight on his hands.
“[O]ur military needs more resources in this increasingly dangerous world than this budget provides,” Sen. JIM INHOFE (R-Okla.), the retiring top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “President Biden’s defense budget reflects the world he wishes for — but not the world as it is. You simply can’t look at the world around us now and think this budget is adequate to confront all the threats we face.”
6. Billionaire Abramovich, Ukrainian peace negotiators hit by suspected poisoning -reports
Billionaire Abramovich, Ukrainian peace negotiators hit by suspected poisoning -reports
(Reuters) -Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning earlier this month after a meeting in Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal and the investigative outlet Bellingcat reported https://www.wsj.com/articles/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffer-symptoms-of-suspected-poisoning-11648480493?mod=latest_headlines on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Abramovich, who accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and at least two senior members of the Ukrainian team, were affected, the WSJ report said.
Ukrainian officials poured cold water on the report. Asked about the suspected poisoning, Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said "there is a lot of speculation, various conspiracy theories". Rustem Umerov, another member of the negotiating team, urged people not to trust "unverified information".
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba later took a similar line, saying in an interview on national television that "everyone is thirsty for news and sensations". However, he also added wryly: "I advise anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink anything, (and) preferably avoid touching surfaces".
A U.S. official said intelligence suggested an "environmental" reason for the sickening of Abramovich and the negotiators, "E.g., not poisoning". The official spoke on condition of anonymity and did not elaborate further.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
'RED EYES, PEELING SKIN'
According to the WSJ report, Abramovich and the negotiators showed symptoms that included red eyes, constant and painful tearing, and peeling skin on their faces and hands.
Abramovich and the Ukrainian negotiators, including Crimean Tatar lawmaker Umerov, have since improved and their lives are not in danger, WSJ reported.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed the incident to Reuters but said Abramovich had not allowed it to stop him working.
Bellingcat said experts who examined the incident concluded "poisoning with an undefined chemical weapon" was the most likely cause.
Citing the experts, Bellingcat said the dosage and type of toxin used was not enough to be life-threatening, "and most likely was intended to scare the victims as opposed to cause permanent damage. The victims said they were not aware of who might have had an interest in an attack."
The three men who experienced the symptoms had only consumed water and chocolate in the hours beforehand, Bellingcat said. A fourth member of the team who also consumed these items did not experience symptoms, it said.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what President Vladimir Putin calls a "special military operation" to demilitarize Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
The Kremlin has said Abramovich played an early role in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine but the process was now in the hands of the two sides' negotiating teams. The two sides are due to meet in Istanbul on Tuesday for the first face-to-face peace talks in more than two weeks.
Kuleba said Ukraine's most ambitious hope for the talks this week was to agree a ceasefire. But his government had clear red lines, and would not yield any land or sovereignty to Russia, he said.
The West has imposed heavy sanctions on Russian billionaires such as Abramovich, Russian companies and Russian officials, in an attempt to force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.
Abramovich, whose international profile rose after he acquired Chelsea FC in 2003, has put the London soccer club up for sale after being hit by sanctions.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Natalia Zinets, Max Hunder, Jonathan Landay, David Gauthier-Villars, Mark Trevelyan and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; Writing by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Matthias Williams; Editing by Jon Boyle and Rosalba O'Brien)
7. The Army Is Not Ready to Win Without Fighting
As an aside the best way to win without fighting is to attack the enemy's strategy -that is what is of supreme importance. Recognize the enemy's strategy, understand it, expose it, and attack it. That is one of the key lines of effort for influence operations.
Excepts:
This implies even more of a premium on geostrategic and cultural understanding, which must exist long before a crisis breaks out. Understanding the geostrategic, sociocultural, and historical context for the war in Ukraine, for example, with its implications for runaway escalation between nuclear-armed powers, is even more critical than it was in Iraq or Afghanistan.
...
Access, influence, and legitimacy are the vital positional advantages in strategic competition that visiting teams like US forces in particular need, lacking the interior lines of advantage that first-hand cultural knowledge brings. “Influence and information are so disproportionally important in great power competition that [they are] actually decisive,” Nagata has pointed out.
The Army Is Not Ready to Win Without Fighting - Modern War Institute
For all its talk of great power competition, the US military—and the Army in particular—remains poorly structured to help the United States maintain a decisive advantage in contemporary strategic competition. This is largely because it still subscribes to a now outdated understanding of warfare. Losing to a materially inferior nonstate adversary like the Taliban is one thing, but the Army, as the joint force’s premier capability for strategic competition on land and in the human domain, is not able to help the United States “win without fighting,” as Sun Tzu put it, against the likes of Russia and China.
To contend with the unique challenges of strategic competition, the Army needs to think beyond doctrinal updates, techno-centric silver bullets, and operational quick fixes—it must fundamentally change its strategic and organizational culture. Rather than emphasizing geographic key terrain, the Army needs to recognize that traditional centers of gravity have shifted from the power of states and militaries to the perceptions of populations; it has to focus on what Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales described nearly two decades ago as “capturing the psycho-cultural rather than the geographical high ground.” As the war in Ukraine is reaffirming, war, which is as much about people as politics, is above all a contest of wills.
Ultimately, how well the Army learns from its recent defeats, as well as from its partners in places like Ukraine, will determine how well it performs in the “infinite game” of strategic competition.
The American Way of War is Outdated
Today, the Army remains fixated on major combat operations and deterring conventional threats as its organizational identity. This imbalance reflects a limited understanding of competition, if not of modern war itself—an undervaluing of psychological factors compared to physical ones, disregarding Napoleon’s dictum that in war moral factors far outweigh the material.
The central problem is that the United States remains heavily invested in a twentieth-century way of war involving overwhelming force, firepower, and technological superiority. This core playbook has remained unchanged since World War II. Despite its first major strategic failure in Vietnam, the United States again pursued a strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan that tried to repurpose forces designed for short, sharp, force-on-force battles for protracted, people-centric, irregular warfare and stabilization, with similarly disappointing results.
The US military, in the words of irregular warfare expert David Kilcullen, has been “excellent at high-end technical combat but massively suck[s] at translating battlefield success into successful outcomes outside the narrow, technological definition of warfare.” As a result, it “flounders in the human domain of conflict,” and its “failure to engage with the building blocks of humanity—culture, society, politics, economics, and religion—leaves our strategies and plans untethered to reality.” For decades now, the way to beat the Americans has been an open secret—go asymmetric, irregular, and indirect. Attacking this US Achilles’ heel subverts both the material and moral advantages the United States would otherwise enjoy across the competition continuum.
The United States may not like winning without fighting, but it has also been fighting without winning, repeatedly failing to achieve political and strategic outcomes while winning battles and firefights on the ground. The military’s demonstrated inability to “fight and win the nation’s wars” has produced what the Quincy Institute’s Andrew Bacevich calls a “yawning gap” between its reputation and its actual performance. Its failure to win on the ground has called into question its ability to maintain the confidence of allies as well as deter adversaries. Many have surmised that the debacle in Afghanistan emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, as China and Russia open a new “Great Game” against the West.
The Army’s cut-and-paste application of Cold War–era conventional-force deterrence theory in its concept of competition doesn’t help matters, either. “Traditional deterrence no longer works,” observes Sean McFate, author of The New Rules of War, because US adversaries “wage war but disguise it as peace.” In complex strategic competition, deterrence works more subtly, situationally, and regionally—and relies more on economic than military power. Besides, as the Royal United Services Institute’s Peter Roberts has pointed out, “what deters the Kremlin doesn’t necessarily deter Tehran.”
This implies even more of a premium on geostrategic and cultural understanding, which must exist long before a crisis breaks out. Understanding the geostrategic, sociocultural, and historical context for the war in Ukraine, for example, with its implications for runaway escalation between nuclear-armed powers, is even more critical than it was in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Further evidence of what former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster calls our “strategic narcissism” lies in the five “core tasks” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has identified for the Indo-Pacific region. They are all about major combat and the usual firepower and technology, with practically no discussion about how to win influence among populations. While the Army has to be “looking at everything” going forward, Wormuth stressed how it must “ruthlessly prioritize” materiel modernization and preparedness for major combat. Even Project Convergence, the Army’s aggressive force modernization program, is almost wholly about enhancing technical combat capabilities, reflecting an ongoing obsession with “lethality” and “large-scale combat operations.”
The Army is right to take into greater consideration how its great power and irregular warfare adversaries see the field—not just to understand them, but to learn from them. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sees competition as an extension of conflict, using all national “lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interest” before the West can bring superior combat forces to bear. The PLA plays a pervasive but clearly supporting role in interagency-led civil and economic “white area warfare,” in more practical terms and at higher levels of civil-military integration to which the US Stabilization Assistance Review still only aspires.
The Challenge of Strategic Competition
America’s outdated approach to warfare prevented success in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is now prohibiting it in strategic competition—where the stakes are dramatically higher. Eric Wesley, the former deputy commanding general of Army Futures Command, has put it bluntly: The United States is “poorly postured for competition,” and the Army is “not able to compete aggressively left of bang.” There is “no consistent or coherent understanding of what competition really is,” added retired Lieutenant General Michael Nagata, the former National Counterterrorism Center strategy director: “You cannot solve a problem if you don’t understand what it is.”
Army doctrine, in Field Manual 3-57, Civil Affairs Operations, calls competition “the condition when two or more actors in the international system have competing and potentially incompatible interests but neither seeks to escalate to open conflict in pursuit of those interests.” In its truest sense, strategic competition is the moral, societal, and political struggle between (and within) states—above all, between authoritarianism and democracy. Far more than whole-of-government, it is whole-of-nation—a form of total rather than limited war, as old as war itself, but at much lower levels of violent intensity and mainly along political, economic, and informational lines. This is what an Army Chief of Staff paper means by “winning without fighting by leveraging all elements of national power.”
The military has a critical supporting and enabling role in strategic competition. This role must be understood as a continuously active task of forward engagement that goes well beyond the conventional understanding of strategic landpower simply being ready for major combat operations. To have an active role in strategic competition, the US military must first “stop pretending that the military instrument can be separated from diplomacy,” as McMaster testified. Other than to achieve strategic outcomes with an economy of military force, strategic competition aims to preserve a rules-based international order favorable to Western values and interests—an order that is currently jeopardized in Eastern Europe.
Access, influence, and legitimacy are the vital positional advantages in strategic competition that visiting teams like US forces in particular need, lacking the interior lines of advantage that first-hand cultural knowledge brings. “Influence and information are so disproportionally important in great power competition that [they are] actually decisive,” Nagata has pointed out.
The Army’s multi-domain operations concept limits its understanding of warfare as being largely physical. To gain the upper hand in competition, the Army must expand this concept “from the material to the moral.” This means that information- or influence-related capabilities such as civil affairs, psychological operations, information operations, public affairs, and foreign area officers must be organized, managed, and resourced with the same institutional as well as operational seriousness as combat forces.
Rather than merely “force multipliers” or “enablers,” these forces are themselves maneuver forces in the psycho-cultural spaces of war—moral warriors who gain, maintain, and deny political, narrative, and perceptual positional advantages in the human domain, or what NATO calls “cognitive warfare.”
The forward presence of such strategic enablers—especially in expeditionary forces—increases situational understanding, provides early warning, and enables superior politico-military decision-making through continuous civil reconnaissance, engagement, and networking activities. Local relationships and context in the competition continuum matter deeply in contemporary warfare. Such specially selected, educated, trained, and steadily deployed personnel must constantly gain and maintain extensive learning networks by, with, and through an immense, well managed mix of host-nation, interagency, and interorganizational partners.
This strategic capital comes through security cooperation activities, which remain “a central feature of the indirect approaches to warfare that are a hallmark” of strategic competition. Such activities must enjoy the same level of institutional seriousness as, say, intelligence operations. If the Army is looking for stark examples of forces failing to fully integrate soft and hard (or moral and material) power, it need only look at Russian armed forces in Ukraine.
Structuring for Competitive Success
How will the Joint force integrate physical and informational power to change or maintain the perceptions, attitudes, and other elements that drive desired behaviors of relevant actors in an increasingly pervasive and connected IE [information environment] to produce enduring strategic outcomes?
The Army needs to move on this now—the new great game of strategic competition is already long in play, and it has yet to complete its game plan or its roster. For one, it must lobby the joint staff to recognize the human domain and develop a framework for the concepts and capabilities needed to help the United States compete effectively today, not tomorrow. It also needs to overhaul its approach to security cooperation, integrating security force assistance brigades, the National Guard State Partnership Program, theater and embassy civil-military support elements, and other proven engagement activities within a concept of cognitive warfare, with the same urgency as Project Convergence.
The US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command exemplifies much of the solution as well as the problem. It is the Army’s key capability to win without fighting. However, it is poorly structured and empowered to deliver on this. With 76 percent of DoD’s civil affairs, 63 percent of psychological operations, and nearly 70 percent of information operations personnel, this Army Reserve organization is the ideal core of a more robust, multi-component Army command to manage and deploy integrated influence-related capabilities—even as the basis of an Army center of excellence for information, influence, and engagement.
In the twenty-first century, as Military Strategy in the 21st Century concludes, “strategic advantage will emerge from how we engage with and understand people and access political, economic, and social networks to achieve a position of relative advantage that complements American military strength.” In such moral struggles, those who can best understand local context and build networks around relationships that come from continuous, multifaceted human domain engagement are “winning without fighting.” The post–World War II Army has looked to be ready to fight and win the first battle of the next war. Across the competition continuum, however, it must be constantly ready to help the United States gain and maintain decisive strategic advantage because “in this connected world, even more than before, the decisive battle will occur before the first shot is fired.”
To help move to a better American way of war and peace, the Army must see itself within a whole-of-nation framework in strategic competition, build global and regional networks with allies and interorganizational partners, and integrate moral as well as material maneuver forces—or else it may risk losing without fighting.
Retired Colonel Christopher Holshek is vice president for military affairs of the Civil Affairs Association, where he organizes the annual CA Symposium and Roundtable and edits the Civil Affairs Issue Papers. He is also a senior civil-military adviser at Narrative Strategies, LLC, the International Preparedness Associates’ Global Strategy Group, and the NATO ResilientCivilians project.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization with which the author is affiliated.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Micah VanDyke, US Army
8. Shanghai starts China's biggest COVID-19 lockdown in 2 years
For those who think China deliberately unleashed COVID this might be blowback. This is one of the things I hear from biological warfare experts. You may not be able to sufficiently control the effects of a biological attack and it could affect unintended target and populations.
Shanghai starts China's biggest COVID-19 lockdown in 2 years
BEIJING (AP) — China began its most extensive coronavirus lockdown in two years Monday to conduct mass testing and control a growing outbreak in Shanghai as questions are raised about the economic toll of the nation’s “zero-COVID” strategy.
Shanghai, China’s financial capital and largest city with 26 million people, had managed its smaller previous outbreaks with limited lockdowns of housing compounds and workplaces where the virus was spreading.
But the citywide lockdown that will be conducted in two phases will be China’s most extensive since the central city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, confined its 11 million people to their homes for 76 days in early 2020. Millions more have been kept in lockdown since then.
Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from Monday to Friday as mass testing gets underway, the local government said. In the second phase of the lockdown, the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will start its own five-day lockdown Friday.
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Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended.
Already, many communities within Shanghai have been locked down for the past week, with their housing compounds blocked off with blue and yellow plastic barriers and residents required to submit to multiple tests for COVID-19. Shanghai’s Disneyland theme park is among the businesses that closed earlier. Automaker Tesla is also suspending production at its Shanghai plant, according to media reports.
Panic-buying was reported on Sunday, with supermarket shelves cleared of food, beverages and household items. Additional barriers were being erected in neighborhoods Monday, with workers in hazmat suits staffing checkpoints.
In-person observations of the April 5 Tomb Sweeping Festival have been canceled and memorials will instead be held online.
Some workers, including traders at the city’s stock market, were preparing to stay within a COVID-19 “bubble” for the duration of the lockdown.
Li Jiamin, 31, who works in the finance industry, said she had packed several days of clothing and supplies, and her company was sorting out sleeping and eating arrangements.
“The overall impact is still great,” Li told The Associated Press, pointing especially to losses suffered by workers in the informal sector who have no such support.
Huang Qi, 35, who works at a local university, said he had undergone a lockdown at home before and prepared for the new round by stocking up.
“I think if the closure continues like this, our school workers will not be affected much, but what about those who work in the real economy? How can their business be maintained?” Huang said.
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“I still hope that our society can find a better balance between ensuring normal life and epidemic prevention and control,” Huang added.
Shanghai detected another 3,500 cases of infection on Sunday, though all but 50 were people who tested positive for the coronavirus but were not showing symptoms of COVID-19. While people who are asymptomatic can still infect others, China categorizes such cases separately from “confirmed cases” — those in people who are sick — leading to much lower totals in daily reports.
Nationwide, 1,219 new confirmed cases of domestic infection were detected on Sunday, more than 1,000 of them in the northeastern province of Jilin, along with 4,996 asymptomatic cases, the National Health Commission reported on Monday.
Two deaths were reported March 20 in Jilin. Before that, mainland China’s official death toll had stood at 4,636 for a year.
China has reported more than 56,000 confirmed cases nationwide this month, with the surge in Jilin accounting for most of them.
Jilin province is enforcing travel bans and partial lockdowns in several cities, including Changchun, one of the centers of the Chinese auto industry. Although the province has seen more than 1,000 new confirmed cases per day, prevention and control measures taken there do not appear to have been as extreme as in other places.
As has become customary, Jilin has been building pre-fabricated temporary wards to house COVID-19 patients and those under observation as suspected cases. The city of Suzhou, about an hour from Shanghai, as well as Changsha in the country’s center and Shenyang in the northeast are also erecting such structures capable of housing more than 6,000 people.
Shanghai itself has converted two gymnasiums, an exhibition hall and other facilities to house potential infected patients.
China has called its long-standing “zero-tolerance” approach the most economical and effective prevention strategy against COVID-19.
The new measures being enforced in Shanghai aim to “curb the virus spread, protect people’s life and health, and achieve the dynamic zero-COVID target as soon as possible,” the city’s COVID-19 prevention and control office stated in an announcement Sunday evening.
That requires lockdowns and mass testing, with close contacts often being quarantined at home or in a central government facility. The strategy focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as quickly as possible.
While officials, including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have encouraged more targeted measures, local officials tend to take a more extreme approach, concerned with being fired or otherwise punished over accusations of failing to prevent outbreaks.
Most recently, Hunan province, which has seen relatively few cases, ordered punishments against 19 officials for “failure to vigorously consolidate anti-pandemic policies,” state broadcaster CCTV reported Monday.
With China’s economic growth already slowing, the extreme measures are seen as worsening difficulties hitting employment, consumption and even global supply chains. With a 21-day curfew in place for all foreigners arriving from abroad, travel between China and other countries has fallen dramatically.
On Friday, the International Air Transport Association announced it was moving its annual general meeting from Shanghai to Doha, citing “continuing COVID-19 related restrictions on travel to China.”
“It is deeply disappointing that we are not able to meet in Shanghai as planned,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh said in a news release.
Still, Shanghai’s announcement of the dates when the two lockdowns would be lifted appeared to show a further refinement in China’s approach. Previous citywide lockdowns had been open-ended.
Although China’s vaccination rate is around 87%, it is considerably lower among older people who are more likely to become seriously ill if they contract the virus.
In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the government was still considering next steps in what has been criticized as a halting response to a recent fifth wave of COVID-19 infections that has led to tens of thousands of cases and more than 7,000 deaths.
Lam said no decision has been made on whether or when to test all 7.4 million residents of the southern Chinese semi-autonomous region.
“I don’t have a timetable yet. It’s not easy to predetermine a timetable, in the same way that I don’t know how quickly the cases will come down,” Lam told reporters at a daily briefing.
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Associated Press researcher Chen Si contributed to this story from Shanghai, China.
9. Taliban hard-liners turning back the clock in Afghanistan
What happened to the "moderate" Taliban?
Taliban hard-liners turning back the clock in Afghanistan
AP · by KATHY GANNON · March 28, 2022
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark back to their harsh rule from the late 1990s.
Girls have been banned from going to school beyond the sixth grade, women are barred from boarding planes if they travel unaccompanied by a male relative. Men and women can only visit public parks on separate days and the use of mobile telephones in universities is prohibited.
It doesn’t stop there.
International media broadcasts — including the Pashto and Persian BBC services, which broadcast in the two languages of Afghanistan — are off the air as of the weekend. So are foreign drama series.
Since the Taliban seized control of the country in mid-August, during the last chaotic weeks of the U.S. and NATO pullout after 20 years of war, the international community has been concerned they would impose the same strict laws as when they previously ruled Afghanistan.
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The United Nations has called the banning of international media broadcasts “another repressive step against the people of Afghanistan.” The website of the BBC Pashto service said it was “a worrying development at a time of uncertainty and turbulence.”
“More than 6 million Afghans consume the BBC’s independent and impartial journalism on TV every week and it is crucial they are not denied access to it in the future,” BBC World Services’ head of languages Tarik Kafala said in a statement Sunday.
On Monday, members of the Taliban vice and virtue ministry stood outside government ministries, ordering male employees without traditional turbans and beards — seen as a symbol of piety — to go home. One employee who was told to go home said he didn’t know if and when he would be able to return to work. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his safety.
According to a senior Taliban official and Afghans familiar with the Taliban’s leadership, the push to return to the past — which resulted in the edicts — emerged from a three-day meeting last week in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.
They say the edicts stem from the demands of the Taliban’s hard-line supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, who is apparently trying to steer the country back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban had banned women from education and public spaces, and outlawed music, television and many sports.
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“The younger among the Taliban do not agree with some of these edicts but they are not comfortable contradicting the elders,” said Torek Farhadi, an analyst who served as adviser to previous Afghan governments. Farhadi, who has been in contact with Taliban officials since their return to power, did not elaborate.
The more pragmatic among the Taliban are resisting the edicts — or at least silently ignoring them, Farhadi said.
Since their takeover of the country, the Taliban have been trying to transition from insurgency and war to governing, with the hard-liners increasingly at odds with the pragmatists on how to run a country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and an economy in free fall.
The Taliban leadership today is different from the one-man rule of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive founder of the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s who reigned with a heavy hand. A divide is growing between some within the old guard, who uphold the harsh rule of the past and a younger generation of Taliban leaders who see a future of engagement with the international community.
The younger generation sees rights for both men and women, though still within their interpretation of Islamic law — but one that allows school for girls and women in the workforce.
“The younger Taliban need to speak up,” said Farhadi.
Still, Akhundzada has modelled himself on Mullah Omar, preferring to stay in remote Kandahar, far from the eyes of the public, rather than rule from the Afghan capital of Kabul. He also adheres to Pashtun tribal mores — traditions where women are hidden away and girls are married off at puberty.
Akhunzada ran a madrassa, or a religious school, in Pakistan’s border regions before his 2016 rise as the new Taliban leader. Those with knowledge of Akhunzada say he is unconcerned about international outrage over the latest restrictive Taliban edicts and about the growing discontent and complaints from Afghans, who have become increasingly outspoken.
It was Akhunzada who reportedly vetoed the opening of schools to girls after the sixth grade as the Taliban had promised to do in late March, at the start of the new schoolyear. On Saturday, dozens of girls demonstrated in Kabul, demanding the right to go to school.
Ethnic Pashtuns elsewhere have resisted Taliban adherence to tribal laws. In Pakistan, where ethnic Pashtuns also dominate the border regions, movements such as the Pashtun Rights Movement have emerged to challenge backward tribal traditions and disavow Taliban interpretations of Islamic law.
Manzoor Pashteen, the movement’s leader, has been an outspoken opponent and has accused the Taliban of hijacking ethnic Pashtun sentiments and misrepresenting their traditions — and misinterpreting them as religious edicts.
Akhunzada’s onslaught against progress comes at a time when the health of the Taliban-appointed prime minister, also a hard-liner, Hasan Akhund, is reported to be deteriorating. Akhund did not meet with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week, when the top Chinese diplomat made a surprise one-day visit to Kabul.
Farhadi has hope the younger, more pragmatic Taliban leaders will find their voice and urged for an outreach to them by Islamic countries and scholars, as well as Afghan scholars and political figures.
“The Taliban movement needs a reform,” said Farhadi. “It is slow to come and it is frustrating for everyone involved. But we mustn’t give up.”
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Follow Kathy Gannon on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Kathygannon.
AP · by KATHY GANNON · March 28, 2022
10. Zelensky says Ukraine prepared to discuss neutrality in peace talks
Zelensky says Ukraine prepared to discuss neutrality in peace talks
Published
20 hours ago
Ukraine's president has said his government is prepared to discuss adopting a neutral status as part of a peace deal with Russia.
In an interview with independent Russian journalists, Volodymyr Zelensky said any such deal would have to be put to a referendum in Ukraine.
He has made similar comments before, but rarely so forcefully.
The news comes as the negotiations between the two countries are set to resume this week in Turkey.
"Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point," Mr Zelensky said in the 90-minute video call.
Neutrality means a country does not ally itself militarily with others.
Mr Zelensky said that any potential agreement would require a face-to-face meeting with President Putin and that effective security guarantees that Ukraine would not come under attack were essential.
The Ukrainian leader - speaking in Russian throughout - added that Russia's invasion has caused the destruction of Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine.
Later, in an overnight video address to his nation, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine sought peace "without delay".
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has long demanded a neutral Ukraine, and guarantees that it would not join the Nato military alliance. After the country achieved independence in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it has gradually veered towards the West - to both the EU and Nato.
But Russia's leader aims to reverse that, seeing the fall of the Soviet Union as the "disintegration of historical Russia". He has claimed Russians and Ukrainians are one people and denied Ukraine its long history.
On Sunday, the Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor instructed the press not to publish the interview with Ukraine's leader, and said "an investigation has been started in order to identify the level of responsibility and what response will be taken" in relation to those who carried out the interview.
Roskomnadzor notes some of the media outlets that conducted the interview are designated "foreign agents" in Russia. The country recently passed new laws restricting the way in which Russian media can report on the war in Ukraine.
The interview was published by outlets now based outside Russia.
But a senior adviser to President Zelensky, Alexander Rodnyansky, told the BBC that Ukraine would make no concessions on handing over territory to Russia.
"We're certainly not willing to give up any territory or talk about our territorial integrity," Mr Rodnyansky told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.
"If you ask the people who live in these areas, they wouldn't want to live in Russia. How can we leave them? Let alone the whole idea of slicing up our country."
The possibility of Ukrainian neutrality is not new. It's been discussed by Russian and Ukrainian officials for at least two weeks.
But President Zelensky's reference is perhaps the most explicit so far.
Clearly, there's no room for Nato membership in such a vision of Ukraine's future.
Removing that aspiration from Ukraine's constitution (it was added in 2019) will need to be put to a referendum. With support for membership at an all-time high, it will be a bitter pill for many Ukrainians to swallow.
The key will be what sort of security guarantees can possibly take the place of being a member of the Western alliance.
Ukrainian officials insist that guarantees will need to be much more specific than the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which gave Ukraine security assurances in return for giving up its stock of nuclear weapons.
Ukraine will want to know the precise terms under which countries are prepared to come to its defence in the event of further Russian aggression.
There are many versions of neutrality. Finding one that meets the competing needs of Kyiv and Moscow will not be simple.
And what will Ukraine's borders actually be? President Zelensky says Russian troops must retreat to positions held before Moscow's full-scale invasion began on 24 February.
He says Ukraine will not try and retake the Donbas or Crimea by force, but Ukrainian officials are not yet ready simply to give up on territories that have been under Russian control (direct or indirect) since 2014.
11. Ukraine War Update - March 28, 2022 | SOF News
Ukraine War Update - March 28, 2022 | SOF News
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tactical situation on the ground, Ukrainian defense, and NATO. Additional topics include refugees, internally displaced personnel, humanitarian efforts, cyber, and information operations.
Photo: Special Forces Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Special Forces Group deploy light tactical vehicles from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade during exercise Saber Junction in Germany. The 10th SFG(A)’s primary area of responsibility is Europe. (photo SOCEUR Twitter 12 Dec 2019).
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Russian Campaign Update
In an apparent shift in campaign objectives, Russia has decided to focus on the areas of eastern Ukraine along the Russian border. It stated in a recent press conference that Kyiv is no longer an objective, although the Russian troops arrayed around much of Kyiv have not departed. Russia is moving reinforcements from the country of Georgia, a country that was invaded by Russia in 2008. Now that some of Russia’s forces are in defensive positions, they are emplacing mines in front of their perimeters. This will slow down Ukrainian counterattacks and pose a problem for Ukraine far into the future.
Fight for the Skies. Apparently, some of Russia’s precision-guided missiles are not that precise. Some are failing to launch, many miss their intended targets, and some that do, fail to detonate. The United States has estimated that the missiles have between a 20% to a 60% failure rate. On Saturday (Mar 26) a record 70 missiles were fired by Russia on Ukraine. The US DoD estimates that as of Friday (Mar 25) the Russians have launched over 1,250 missiles into Ukraine.
Russian Generals and Upward Mobility. By some counts, at least seven Russian generals have been killed in Putin’s War. At this rate, if this war continues, the number of senior officer promotions will accelerate in the Russian army.
Russian Artillery – MIA. One aspect of the war in Ukraine that deserves further study is the lack of effectiveness of Russia’s much-vaunted artillery. Considered a mainstay of the Russian offense, the artillery support seems deficient. Perhaps the striking of civilian infrastructure is diverting the artillery barrages from being used during tactical operations. Read more in “Russian Prototypes, Cope-cages, and Missing Artillery”, Vantage Point North, March 27, 2022.
Russian Armor. The tank columns of the Russian army have been decimated by the Ukrainian forces. Small, roving bands of Ukrainian soldiers are ambushing the tanks using anti-tank weapons. Many tanks have been stuck in mud, out of fuel, or victims of Russian tank crews abandoning the fight. “With Captured Tanks, Ukraine Now Has More Armor Than When The War Began”, by Howard Altman, Coffee or Die Magazine, March 26, 2022.
Russian Comms. There are some apparent deficiencies in the planning and execution of the communications plan for the invasion of Ukraine. Some units are relying on unencrypted push-to-talk radios and cell phones. Some units have their comms systems up and running while others do not. The Ukrainian military and intelligence services are taking advantage of the poor communications practices of the invaders. “Russian troops’ tendency to talk on unsecured lines is proving costly”, The Washington Post, March 27, 2022.
Ukrainian Defense
Conducting some limited counterattacks, the Ukrainian military has put up a successful defense of many of the cities the Russians had attempted to capture. But now “the real hard task begins”. Read more in an article posted by Andrew Milburn from Kyiv in “Russia’s war in Ukraine is far from over”, Task & Purpose, March 26, 2022.
Ukraine’s Intel Chief Speaks Out. Howard Altman interviews Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the defense intelligence agency head, on how the war is progressing and the intelligence coups that have helped the Ukrainian military face off against the Russians. “Ukraine’s Intel Chief: We have sources in the Kremlin, but we need jets”, Coffee or Die Magazine, March 27, 2022.
Insurgency and Resistance – a Critical Role. Russian forces are still slowly advancing. They are not likely to give up much of the territory that they currently hold, unless the Ukrainian military forces them off that terrain. So the war, in those occupied territories, may become one of insurgent versus counter-insurgent. While there are plenty of fighters that will conduct guerrilla operations in the enemies rear – they won’t last long without the support of the civilian population. This means an underground, shadow government (on the local level), and auxiliary are critical. An Army Civil Affairs officer explains in “Oft Forgotten but Critical Elements of Ukrainian Resistance”, War on the Rocks, March 28, 2022.
Tactical Situation
Donbass. The bulk of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in eastern Ukraine and the Russians are attempting to secure all of the area referred to as Donbas. They are likely attempting reposition their forces, shorten their supply lines, and cut off Ukrainian forces in the east from their own supply lines. The key objective in this ‘new plan’ is the besieged city of Mariupol.
Mariupol. The Russians continue to make small, incremental advances into the city. Located on the Sea of Azov, the coastal city of Mariupol is under siege by the Russians. France and Turkey are in talks with Russia to assist in a joint humanitarian mission for Mariupol. Over 100,000 residents remain in the seaport on the Sea of Azov.
Kyiv. At one time, the capital city of Ukraine was considered the primary objective of the Russians. The capture of Kyiv would allow Russia to put in place its puppet government. But now, with the successful defense of Kyiv, Russia seems to have moved the goalposts. Apparently, according to a briefing by Russian defense officials a few days back, Kyiv was never the primary objective; just a way of keeping Ukrainian troops tied down and away from the eastern front. However, Ukrainian officials are wary of recent Russian statements and say that it is too early to dismiss the danger to Kyiv. Residents of Kyiv are in a lighter mood although the air raid sirens are still blaring through the night and missile attacks continue.
Kharkiv. The second largest city of Ukraine, Kharkiv, continues to experience Russian shelling with Grad and Uragan missile launch systems. The city is holding out and still has open supply lines to the west.
Mykolayiv. Located on the west bank of the Dnieper River close to the coast of the Black Sea, Mykolayiv is a strategic objective for the Russians that is on the road to Odessa located further west along the coast of the Black Sea. It now appears unlikely that the Russians will take this city. The Ukrainian forces have been conducting limited counterattacks around the city.
General Information
Negotiations. The talks are continuing. On Saturday Turkish President Recep Erdogan claimed that Ukraine and Russia were nearing consensus on four of Russia’s demands. Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the status of the Russian language are two key points of the negotiations. More talks will take place on Tuesday (Mar 29) in Istanbul, Turkey.
Chornobyl – A Constant Worry. When the Russians attacked and took control of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine there was a concern that a radiative leak could occur. Thus far, that has not happened. However, there are some worries about radioactive materials that may fall into the wrong hands. “Dirty bomb ingredients go missing from Chornobyl monitoring lab”, Science.org, March 25, 2022.
IO and Cyber
Chinese Disinformation. Beijing has amplified Russian conspiracy theories to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine to a global audience. It has been parroting the Kremlin’s talking points to include the need to conduct a “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. “Chinese Disinformation Seeks to Support Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine”, The Soufan Center IntelBrief, March 28, 2022.
‘Conversational Receptiveness’. Some Harvard University colleagues are reaching out to the Russians about Putin’s War. Using a crowd-sourcing method of sending emails to Russians, they hope to educate Russians about the war – providing information not available in their government controlled media. The approach used by www.mail2ru.org encompasses the lessons of research on receptiveness to opposing views. “Blending technology with psychology to engage Russian people on the Ukraine war”, Harvard Kennedy School, March 22, 2022.
World Response
Biden’s Visit to Europe. The U.S. president made a decent display of leadership during the visit to NATO, European organizations (G7), and then to Poland last week. He has his detractors, of course, who will point out various gaffes and slips of the tongue. But overall, he seemed to say what Europe needed and wanted to hear. A speech in Warsaw, Poland on Friday (Mar 26) caught the attention of the world when he said “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The president of France was not thrilled with those words – he is currently working with Putin to bring an end to the conflict.
“A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people’s love for liberty. Brutality will never grind down their will to be free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
German Military Aid. A shipment of 1,500 “Strela” anti-aircraft missiles and some MG3 machine guns arrived in Ukraine on March 25, according to the German Press Agency. Food, medical supplies, and 50 medical transport vehicles were also provided.
Norway-Russian Border. A 200 kilometer long border shared by two countries is a possible flashpoint in this new Cold War 2.0 era. The Kola Peninsula is a strategic area of the world for Russia. Russia’s fleet of ballistic missile submarines pass by the North Cape to head to their Atlantic Ocean patrols. Despite the possibility of conflict, tensions along the border remain low. This is in part, due to a direct line of communication between the Norwegian Joint Headquarters near Bodo and Russia’s Northern Fleet in Severomorsk. (The Barents Observer, Mar 21, 2022).
Informal Military Equipment Shipments. Citizens across Europe are augmenting the supply of military and other equipment heading to Ukraine. Some are with non-profit groups that have been established in past years and others are with newly-formed volunteer groups. Read more: “Inside the secret transfer of military equipment to Ukrainian soldiers”, Stars and Stripes, March 18, 2022.
Belarusian Volunteer Battalion. A lot of foreign fighters have joined the Ukrainian military to take part in the defense of that country. Some have come from the country located to the north of Ukraine and allied with Russia – calling themselves the Belarusian Volunteer Battalion. (The Kyiv Independent, Twitter, Mar 26, 2022).
Video – Spirit of America. Jim Hake, the founder and CEO of the Spirit of America, talks about the work his group is doing to assist members of Ukraine’s military. “Jim Hake on Supporting Ukraine’s Military”, Washington Journal, C-Span, March 27, 2022.
GSMSG. A U.S. volunteer group, many who are Special Forces veterans, is now operating in Ukraine. Dr. Aaron Epstein, the founder of GSMSG, and 10 other members of the organization are now on the ground in Ukraine providing training in emergency medical services. The Global Surgical and Medical Support Group was founded in 2015. It is a non-profit organization made up of more than 1,500 volunteers. Recently it has been focused on training Ukrainians on being able to handle combat injuries. GSMSG has also translated the US Army’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care course into Ukrainian and it has been viewed by over 20,000 viewers online. The organization has been utilizing the U.S. Army Special Forces model of developing host nation capabilities. “US special ops veterans, medical professionals training Ukrainian soldiers, civilians in combat care”, Fox News, March 27, 2022.
Commentary
How to Defeat Russia. An Australian special forces veteran, Adrian McKenzie, expresses his frustration in not being able to help but then proposes how the Ukrainians (and the west can defeat Russia). “Full-spectrum warfare and Russia’s path to defeat”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, March 28, 2022.
Europe’s ‘Hot Peace’ is now ‘Cold War 2.0’. Graeme Dobell explores the consequences of Putin’s War and how it has drastically changed international relations not only in Europe but in Asia as well. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine killed Europe’s hot peace”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, March 28, 2022.
Ukraine Invasion – Could Have Been Prevented. The president of Latvia argues that if NATO had reacted more strongly in 2008 to the Russian invasion against Georgia and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow would not have troops threatening Kyiv today. He says the West has been naïve about Putin. Latvia suffered for over 50 years under rule by the Soviet Union before getting its independence. (USNI News, Mar 25, 2022).
Putin’s Dream Evaporates. The attempt by the Russian president to reverse the course of history and re-establish the Russian empire – returning to the days of glory of the Soviet Union are dashed. His ‘three-day war’ is now into its second month. Some reports (NATO officials and Ukraine MoD) say Russia has lost more soldiers in one month than almost ten years during the Afghanistan conflict. “The number that puts Vladimir Putin at risk”, by Peter Bergen, CNN, March 27, 2022.
Upcoming Events
Online Event – Ukraine: The Humanitarian Catastrophe. Tuesday, March 29. A massive humanitarian crisis threatens millions of lives. A hobbled health care system and lack of heat, water, electricity, and food are compounding the ravages of a raging conflict in Ukraine. Watch a 30-min presentation on the scope of the problem and what can be done. Presented by the Harvard University Humanitarian Initiative, YouTube. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/event/ukraine-the-humanitarian-catastrophe/
SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, defense, or the current conflict in Ukraine then we are interested.
Maps and Other Resources
UNCN. The Ukraine NGO Coordination Network is an organization that ties together U.S.-based 501c3 organizations and non-profit humanitarian organizations that are working to evacuate and support those in need affected by the Ukraine crisis. https://uncn.one
Maps of Ukraine
Ukraine Conflict Info. The Ukrainians have launched a new website that will provide information about the war. It is entitled Russia Invaded Ukraine and can be found at https://war.ukraine.ua/.
UNHCR Operational Data Portal – Ukraine Refugee Situation
Ukrainian Think Tanks – Brussels. Consolidated information on how to help Ukraine from abroad and stay up to date on events.
Janes Equipment Profile – Ukraine Conflict. An 81-page PDF provides information on the military equipment of the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. Covers naval, air, electronic warfare, C4ISR, communications, night vision, radar, and armored fighting vehicles, Ukraine Conflict Equipment Profile, February 28, 2022.
Arms Transfers to Ukraine. Forum on the Arms Trade.
12. The Work to Come: Russia, Ukraine, and the West at the Negotiating Table
Excerpt:
Neither the scale of the negotiating enterprise, nor the tradeoffs that will have to be faced to end this war, are small. Considering the potential options shows four key implications.
The Work to Come: Russia, Ukraine, and the West at the Negotiating Table - War on the Rocks
After four weeks of heavy fighting, there is a growing consensus that neither the forced submission of Ukraine nor the forced withdrawal of Russia from Ukrainian territory are likely to be possible. Alongside the threat of an escalation to a NATO-Russian conventional or nuclear conflict, this has added to the incentives for negotiations.
Negotiations to end this war, however, are not only a matter for the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators at Antalya, the Pripyat River, and elsewhere. External parties were part of the war’s structural and proximate causes. The war’s course, and how it ends, will have substantial consequences for many states other than Ukraine and Russia, including strategic interests related to national security and nuclear deterrence. The stability of any deal to end the war will also be shaped by external support, pressures, and guarantees — or lack thereof. One way or another, external states will be involved, and in significant ways, in attempts to negotiate an end to this war.
The effectiveness of that external involvement is my concern. I am not an expert on the conflict in Ukraine. I am a specialist in peace negotiations. Advising on and negotiating peace agreements is my profession.
My motivation for writing lies in two fears. Firstly, as Western reporting of battlefield success has swung in favor of Ukraine, I fear that Western governments and analysts may be tempted to downgrade the importance of negotiations. There are already signs of this. Even in a scenario of a Russian military collapse, there are still going to be unresolved political and military issues requiring negotiation. There are many military futures that we can still anticipate and nearly all of them can be expected to end in difficult and internationally consequential talks.
Second, on the flip side, I fear that some calls for a negotiated end to this war risk being as fanciful and un-thought-through as calls for regime change in Moscow. Neither diplomatic pressure nor battlefield stalemates automatically lead to negotiated agreements — they only create an interest in them. The belligerents also need to believe that a deal is possible. A clear pathway to an agreement should be constructed through meticulous and detailed work, and in a manner that not only bridges the issues but also manages distrust in the other side’s commitments, builds ladders for saving face, and handles popular desires for honor and vengeance. Otherwise, the belligerents will continue to see value in gambling on a future breakthrough on the battlefield, somewhere, somehow.
This article is an attempt to chart some of the hypothetical options for securing a de-escalation, through a discussion of four of the core issues of the conflict: Russian military withdrawal, Crimea, the Donbas, and Ukraine’s independence and foreign policy identity. These options are not a prediction of what kind of war-termination deal will transpire, nor are they a proposal of what the parties should or should not accept. Instead, this is an exercise to illuminate the scale of the challenge for negotiators and to highlight the serious preparations (both in terms of policymaking and in terms of public expectations) that these negotiations will require.
As this analysis demonstrates, the incentives against Russia implementing key components of a peace agreement are significant. Tough trade-offs and external support will be needed for a sustainable peace agreement — including preparation of a clear and coordinated Western offer to Russia on sanctions relief in return for Russia’s acceptance and implementation of Ukraine’s most important demands.
Russian Military Withdrawal and International Observers
Ukraine’s number one concern will be its independence as a sovereign nation-state, which will require, among other steps, a Russian military withdrawal. This is the issue that worries me most. This is partly due to Russia’s past form in Syria for combining on-and-off fighting with negotiations, as well as Russia’s with unresolved conflicts and long-lasting troop commitments in disputed territories. But my concern most of all is that because the invasion has given Russia “facts on the ground,” it may struggle to convince itself to give these up for mere promises and pledges, even if it were to be offered juicy incentives in the form of something approaching acceptance of its possession of Crimea and the future neutral status of Ukraine. At the top of the list of these new “facts on the ground” are: 1) Russia’s control of Europe’s biggest nuclear power station (and 25 percent of the current Ukrainian electricity supply); 2) keeping Kyiv within artillery range on a permanent basis (much like North Korea enjoys against Seoul); 3) control over the fresh waterways north of Crimea that run into and sustain the peninsula (seizing and destroying a Ukrainian dam on one of these waterways was an early objective of the Russian invasion); and 4) control of Ukraine’s coastline, through which 60 percent of Ukraine’s exports and 50 percent of imports flow (which Russia may still yet achieve through combining its land seizures with a naval blockade, even if its abandons its move on Odessa), allowing Russia to structurally weaken Ukraine in the long term. Nations do not like giving up leverage over their enemies, and some of these assets are potent bargaining chips for a long-term process of negotiating with not only Ukraine but also the West, because they raise the cost of the latter’s support for Kyiv.
Even if Russia agrees on withdrawal from all territories other than Crimea and the Donbas, the technicalities of a negotiated withdrawal will be complicated. Will it be full and immediate, or phased? If phased, how many stages will there be, over how long, and under what conditions and guarantees? How will withdrawal be monitored and verified, and on what basis will both parties agree that withdrawal has taken place?
Even if both parties fully commit to peaceful withdrawal, there are many potential points of failure related to security and ceasefire arrangements to enable withdrawal. These risks are increased with the proliferation of people’s defense units and other irregular forces not under direct control of the Russian or Ukrainian military. There are also many ways in which the parties could turn these issues into a labyrinth of potentially unending negotiations about conditions and guarantees, should they desire.
Finally, both parties would be unwise to make an agreement on withdrawal without a pre-agreed role for external observation to limit the risk of deceptive behavior during withdrawal (i.e., bogus claims by either party of completion or breaches of the withdrawal agreement). The United Nations or the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe could provide observers, or a joint observation mechanism could be considered, staffed with military personnel from nations trusted by Russia and from nations trusted by Ukraine to provide assessments jointly so that both sides and the wider international community have confidence in the conclusions.
Crimea and the Northern Ireland Option
If Kyiv cannot return Crimea to Ukrainian control through force, which looks to be the case, it would be wise to make a deal on the territory to stabilize this point of disagreement. Distrust arising from the competing claims to the peninsula, combined with Ukrainian and Russian rearmament to replenish losses after this war, could lead to a security dilemma focused on the unresolved issue of Crimea. Russia has already demanded international recognition as well as Ukrainian recognition, so whatever solution is applied will need foreign backing for it to function as a stabilizing measure.
Any deal involving recognizing Russia’s claim of sovereignty over territories seized through aggression looks unfeasible for the West and Ukraine, however, both due to commitments to international law and fears of encouraging further aggression elsewhere. Meanwhile, the idea that “Crimea is ours” runs deep in Russian society and is why the annexation in 2014 was popular in Russia, and even Alexey Navalny has indicated that he would be against returning the peninsula to Ukraine. It is not something that we should expect the Russians to give up on as long as they have the means to refuse.
This means that creative, mutually face-saving measures need to be found. One method for dealing with such a territorial dispute is a lease arrangement of the kind that Britain extracted from China over Hong Kong in 1898. However, opportunity for this method probably died in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, embedding its claim to sovereignty over Crimea in Russian law. But if it could be revived it would be a potential way around the Ukrainian demand for Russian reparations (which are unlikely to be achieved as, historically, such measures have been imposed on defeated parties unable to reject such a demand), as it would allow Russia to avoid the humiliation of effectively accepting guilt, but still create a basis for a transfer of funds from Russia to Ukraine.
Another method available in the historical toolbox could be through declaring the right of the population of Crimea to determine their own future. Russia already held a referendum for the population of Crimea on its national status shortly after its occupation of the territory in 2014, to bolster its claim, but this was not internationally recognized. This solution would, essentially, be a rerun of that event but in an election designed and overseen by the United Nations in adherence with internationally recognized standards, with pledges from Ukraine, Russia, and the international community to respect the result. However, governments that face multiple separatist threats (as Ukraine does) have, historically, been aggressive in refusing to extend individual territories the right to self-determination for fear of emboldening other separatist movements (for example, in 2014, Ukraine’s prime minister explicitly referred to his government’s rejection of the Crimean referendum as a warning to ).
President Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested a formula of “agree to disagree” on Crimea, presumably in a situation where Ukraine continues to reject Russian control of Crimea in principle but signals acceptance in practice. Leaving the issue wholly unresolved in this way would help Ukraine to save face but it would not do much to neutralize the issue as a potential cause of war in the future. Russia might see any Ukrainian re-armament as preparation for an attempt to retake the peninsula, triggering responses that could spiral into another war.
With this in mind, a third and perhaps more promising option is one of symbolic steps to signal acceptance of overlapping claims of sovereignty. This takes inspiration from Northern Ireland. The territorial status of Northern Ireland, formed in a process formally begun in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, is an “agree to disagree” formula. The process created a way for differing interpretations of the deal and diverging aspirations for the future of the province to sit side by side, with multilayered incentives for both sides to uphold the structure and stability of the agreement. For the province’s British loyalists and for audiences in mainland Britain the deal was generally interpreted as one that secured Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom while ending the violence of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. But for Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland a greater emphasis could be placed on aspects of the deal that suggested a form of overlapping sovereignty between Ireland and the United Kingdom. This included allowing residents of Northern Ireland full freedom to become Irish citizens if they wished and to vote in Irish elections, with freedom of movement, trade, and the customs rules of the European Union used to create an open border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. The agreement also pledged an end to direct rule from London and a re-establishment of the Belfast parliament, with a power-sharing arrangement between the British loyalists and Irish nationalists a condition of this restoration.
This example could be used as inspiration for working out an agreement on Crimea that would give the parties the opportunity to create a process of “agreeing to disagree” but with stronger and more stable structures than just leaving the issue unresolved. This could begin, for example, with Russia accepting that Ukraine has the right to send a delegation as a permanent observer to a process of intra-Crimean negotiations on a new system of local government for the peninsula. A purpose of such a process might be to secure the rights of non-Russian speakers and enhance protections for Crimean Tatars.
Formulas like this could allow both sides to declare greater recognition of their claim than existed before the agreement, while leaving the parties’ principles and claims to sovereignty over the territory untouched. A small beginning like this, but with an eye on bigger aspirations, may be wise given that the territorial status of Crimea is an issue between Russia and Ukraine that we can expect to survive the presidencies of both Zelensky and Putin.
In the absence of political measures like those listed above, only military measures would be available for reducing the threat of a future conflict. This could mean negotiations on a line of separation between Russian and Ukrainian forces, which could be enhanced by a demilitarized zone like the one that exists between North Korea and South Korea, or a buffer zone occupied by observers or peacekeepers from the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe or the United Nations. Given the scale of the military threat posed by the parties to each other, and the fact that a future Ukrainian-Russian war would put the crisis near the bottom rungs of the nuclear escalation ladder, there would be a decent case for a “hard” U.N. peacekeeping force of the form invented during the Cold War, such as the first armed U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNEF I) that was deployed to help end the Suez Crisis in 1956. This would mean the classical form of peacekeeping, with troops under strict rules of engagement, able to use force only in self-defense, and having a limited mandate of activities centered on occupying and monitoring the line of separation between the belligerents, not the bevy of additional governance and human rights tasks and responsibilities that have become associated with U.N. peacekeeping missions since the 1990s. The great-power stakes of this conflict and the potential for controversy (not least because the conflict involves a permanent member of the Security Council) would be reasons to keep the mission to as simple a mandate as possible.
The Donbas: The Thornier Dispute
Given that the Donbas issue was Russia’s official casus belli for the invasion in February, the unimplemented Minsk II peace agreement of 2015 is a reminder of the risk that unresolved issues can set the stage for a future war. Russia and Ukraine have each embedded their claims to the region in their domestic laws (Ukraine’s constitution claims legal sovereignty, and Russia has established in law its recognition of the independence of the two self-declared separatist republics). This reduces options for flexibility in negotiations. The issue is also thornier than Crimea because the Donbas has suffered a protracted conflict since 2014, with high levels of violence and involving separatist Ukrainian forces as well as Russian troops. It is possessed of elements of a civil war as well as those of an interstate conflict.
The potential toolbox of measures for bridging the divisions over the Donbas are similar to those that could apply to Crimea, outlined above, with the framework of Minsk II added. At the center of Minsk II is the expectation that Ukraine find a new constitutional solution for the relationship between the Donbas region and the central Kyiv government, suggesting a federal form of settlement — but Russia’s recognition of the self-declared separatist republics has likely ended the possibility of reviving that framework. It is interesting, however, that Zelensky has said in recent days that his biggest concern on this issue is regarding the fate of those residents of the self-declared separatist republics who consider themselves Ukrainian. This highlights an obstacle but also hints at a willingness to compromise. Formulas based on the above Northern Ireland example could address Zelensky’s concern about the freedom of citizens to associate with their nation of choice.
Given the heat and instability of the Donbas front line since 2014, the case for deploying a U.N. peacekeeping force to help to stabilize the dispute is potentially even more compelling than the case for one at the boundary of Crimea, especially now that the capacity of the Donbas issue to trigger a major war has been proven. That the Donbas issue has hitherto been impervious to sustained attempts at mediation by Germany and France strengthens the argument for a peacekeeping force.
Ukraine’s Independence and Foreign Policy Identity
NATO member states have signaled that the odds of Ukraine ever joining NATO are low, creating an opportunity for Ukraine to trade its ambition to join NATO for agreements that re-establish and preserve its independence and territorial integrity. However, Russian offers of guarantees in this regard are unlikely to be sufficient for Ukraine, because Russia already broke a commitment to guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity made in 1994 in the Budapest Memorandum (in return for Ukraine handing over legacy Soviet nuclear weapons to the new Russian Federation). Russian negotiators have also suggested that they are willing to concede their goal of “demilitarization” if Ukraine agrees to limits on its armed forces, which Ukraine may see as a bad faith attempt to lay the ground for a future invasion to “finish the job.” Ukraine, therefore, is highly likely to want the strongest insurance policy possible for Russian promises to respect Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity — meaning it will want full freedom to create and maintain military forces capable of repelling or inflicting heavy damage on a future Russian invasion.
Recent comments made by an advisor to Zelensky indicate that this is where Ukrainian calculations have turned. This would leave the option of armed neutrality, where Ukraine retains the right to possess forces to properly defend itself through conventional means but also commits, through treaty agreements and domestic law, to neutrality in world affairs, much like Finland and Switzerland today, Austria during the Cold War, or Belgium from 1839 to 1914 — all measures that were designed to secure European peace and stability by reassuring great powers that the country in question would not become a military asset of an adversary. Furthermore, peacekeepers in Crimea and the Donbas might also be seen as a measure for aiding the security of a neutral Ukraine, as they would provide an additional buffer against (and early warning of) a future invasion. Moscow, meanwhile, could frame its agreement to peacekeepers as a measure for protecting Russian speakers.
There would be a host of political and technical issues to resolve in an agreement on armed neutrality. Would Ukraine be allowed to receive weapons and military technology from NATO member states, for example? Ukraine is sure to want this freedom, and this may be what aides to Zelensky are referring to when they talk of securing foreign guarantees for Ukraine’s future security. But the Russians may seek to drive a hard bargain, using the land they now hold as leverage. In response, however, Ukraine could insist on the right to purchase arms and receive military aid but offer to ban, say, the presence of foreign troops and military assets on Ukrainian soil or Ukraine’s participation in foreign military exercises. But this is an area of complexity that could drag out the talks. To soften the blow of its demand to retain a full force for conventional deterrence, Ukraine might see value in offering to submit to a new international inspections regime (updating prior agreements on international inspections that accompanied the Budapest Memorandum) to reassure Russia that no weapons of mass destruction will ever be present or developed on Ukrainian soil. This would require negotiations on technical measures for the inspections that have, historically, taken months or, in some cases, years.
Such measures might deal with the NATO issue but not the European Union question. As several eminent analysts of Russian foreign policy have argued, Russia’s animosity toward Ukraine’s proposed NATO membership is only a part of a broader animosity toward Ukraine’s overall westward drift. Some have even argued that Russian economic concerns about Ukrainian E.U. membership were potentially a more urgent motivator of this invasion than NATO-related military concerns. Ukraine’s attempts to accelerate steps to set since February has given it a kind of “fact on the ground” of its own, which Kyiv might be using as a way to fortify this foreign policy goal so that it is more likely to survive at the negotiating table. Or it might be a measure to construct a heftier bargaining chip than Ukraine’s E.U. membership would have otherwise been, to bolster the package it can offer Russia in return for withdrawal and guarantees on independence. But negotiations over Ukraine’s ambitions for E.U. membership will probably be a difficult issue to resolve because, without this, Ukraine will need to design an alternative vision for its economic development.
Another issue related to Ukraine’s independence is the Russian war aim of “de-nazification”. At the launch of the February invasion Putin made clear that this goal was effectively a euphemism for regime change. However, Russian negotiators quickly dropped this demand and there are signs that the Ukrainians are willing to entertain symbolic measures regarding “de-nazification” — in particular, presumably at Russia’s request, they have signaled that they are willing to change certain street names and recognize Russian as an official language in some regions. Zelensky has also signaled that the terms of any peace agreement with Russia would need to be put to a Ukrainian referendum. Some have interpreted this as an attempt by Zelensky to slow down the talks, in a sign of his confidence in the military situation. But it is more likely to be a measure to make clear to his Russian adversaries that he cannot be forced into making a deal that would betray the interests of Ukraine, and that the Russians had better temper their expectations of a settlement accordingly. It is also a step that would strengthen the legitimacy of any deal and therefore its long-term survivability.
Conclusion
Neither the scale of the negotiating enterprise, nor the tradeoffs that will have to be faced to end this war, are small. Considering the potential options shows four key implications.
Firstly, the political and technical obstacles to agreements on the core issues are substantial. Negotiations will take time, protracting hostilities — and, with them, the war’s considerable humanitarian cost and global economic disruptions. It is important for Ukraine’s external supporters not to protract things further by fumbling opportunities for progress due to insufficient preparation, inadequate coordination in support of a deal, or wishful thinking. Real trade-offs will be required by not only Ukraine but also by Western states to end this war and to create as stable and safe a settlement as possible for all parties. Strategic thinking is needed both to end the war and to avoid laying the foundations for a future — potentially even more dangerous — conflict. External countries need to be prepared to do their part to bring the war to an end, even if this means disappointing sectors of public opinion that demand a more emotionally satisfying conclusion.
Second, Western states that support Ukraine should stand ready to make a clear offer of relief for Russia on sanctions. This will strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table as it seeks to bargain for the crucial goals of full Russian military withdrawal and robust long-term guarantees of Ukraine’s independence. The Russians have incentives, and a variety of means, to confound these core Ukrainian demands and there is a risk that battlefield coercion alone will not be enough to secure Russian commitment. But a clear offer of sanctions relief in return for a settlement would put the future of Russia’s economy in Zelensky’s hands. An offer of negotiations on a future European security architecture would also bolster the incentives for Russia to accept Ukraine’s most important conditions. This requires coordination among Western states and management of internal opposition to such measures.
Third, there is the distinct possibility of a scenario of indecisive military action followed by failed peace talks, and back again — in a pattern of fight and freeze — as the two sides bargain, fight, and try to maneuver their way to a more advantageous position, using both the talks and violence to advance their goals. This will be more likely if interests in securing tactical advantages dominate over interests in a stable peace on reasonable terms. This risk is exacerbated if there is a lack of belief in the possibility of a peace agreement. There are contributions that external parties can make to this by providing helpful and creative proposals, offering resources (such as peacekeepers and observers), and establishing guarantees to counter distrust. This is why serious work by not only Ukraine but also its Western supporters to chart — and demonstrate — a pathway to a resolution of the core issues is so important.
Fourth, just as we can expect failed military assaults, we can expect failed talks. But failed talks are not useless. The history of peace negotiations shows that the path to a stable peace agreement is often paved with failed talks that teach the parties what is fantasy, what is reality, and where the real bridges between them might lie. Much like confrontations on the battlefield, talks are relational and a learning process for the participants. Support for and participation in talks should be embraced, even when prospects seem poor, because the belligerents and the many great-power stakeholders are going to need to learn how to end this war.
Tom Hill, Ph.D., is executive director of the Center for Peace Diplomacy and a visiting senior research fellow in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is also a deployable civilian expert for mediation at the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Previously, he was a United Nations political officer and special assistant to Joint Special Envoy for Syria Kofi Annan, and a lecturer in international conflict resolution at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.
Image: TASS/BELTA (Photo by Maxim Guchek)
13. The Will to Fight
The Will to Fight
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As late as November 2021, military analysts in the West estimated that invading Russian forces could overrun the capital of Ukraine in a matter of days. Over a month has passed since the invasion began — Kyiv stands. This is just the latest example of pre-war miscalculation, a flaw to which the U.S. is hardly immune.
Net assessments try to predict the outcomes of theoretical wars between different pairs of adversaries. They focus on the military capabilities and technologies — essentially manpower and weapons. Other factors are theoretically considered but harder to quantify. These include motivation; morale; the will to fight; the role of military and political leadership; and the individual decisions made by thousands of soldiers or an entire population.
As a 2018 RAND study noted, “[a]rguably, will to fight is the single most important factor in war.” Despite this, “the integration of will to fight concepts into military…assessments is glaringly sparse.” A collapse of morale can bring down an army faster than a virus. Stubborn courage can be equally infectious.
These miscalculations may reflect continued reliance on measuring manpower and materiel, which do often prevail in military contests. The will to fight and a nation’s determination to persevere resist the kind of measurement pragmatic managers prefer, so they tend to be set aside.
In Ukraine, ferocious defense has stalled the invaders, forcing them to resort to massive, indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian targets in an effort to pound the country into submission. Even if Kyiv falls, continued resistance seems likely.
In recent testimony before the Senate, top U.S. intelligence officials admitted that they underestimated the Ukrainians’ will to fight—a mirror image of the misjudgment in Afghanistan in which Pentagon analysts estimated that the Afghan government could hold out against the Taliban for as long as two years if all U.S. ground forces were withdrawn. Reportedly, that estimate was revised downward in June 2021—Afghanistan’s military collapse could come in six to 12 months. The Afghan government fell in 11 days.
This is something American analysts and their counterparts around the world regularly get wrong. American planners also underestimated the determination of the Taliban and the resistance in Iraq.
During the Vietnam War, based upon interviews with Viet Cong prisoners and defectors, analysts at the RAND Corporation overestimated the impact of U.S. military operations—in particular, air power—on Viet Cong motivation and morale. Not all RAND analysts agreed. Taking a contrary position, one author concluded that the Viet Cong as a group and man for man “seems unlikely to yield, let alone disintegrate, under the type of pressure the United States can apply…The thought of compromise in the current struggle, even in return for concessions, seems alien to these men. They see the war entirely as one of defense of their country against the invading Americans.”
Putin’s miscalculation in Ukraine is a more personal failure. Tyrants exercise supreme power over all aspects of life in their domains. They therefore often succumb to the delusion that they are supermen whose will has no limits. Surrounded by servile sycophants, their assessments are not questioned. There are no councils of war to raise different points of view. He who commands, commands. Failure is unacceptable, therefore unthinkable.
National crises create sometimes unlikely heroes. History is filled with examples. Vietnam’s Tru’ng sisters 2000 years ago led a revolt against Chinese occupiers. Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, inspired French forces against the English invaders. Charles De Gaulle, a stubborn French colonel, rallied Free French Forces against Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill led Great Britain through its darkest hours.
Determined defenders don’t always win. Two hundred defenders of the Alamo held out against thousands of Mexican soldiers for 13 days. Poland fought for 27 days before surrendering to Nazi invaders. The Viet Cong defended their bastion in Hue for 32 days. German soldiers dug in at the Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy and held out for four months—the battle resulted in the deaths of 55,000 Allied soldiers and 20,000 German casualties. During Spain’s civil war, the siege of Madrid lasted two-and-half years.
The ultimate outcomes were in little doubt. The longer wars go on, however, the greater the possibility of surprises—unpredictable events that change the trajectory of the conflict or its long-term consequences.
Some Western analysts believed Ukrainians had little faith in their president, either as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, or as the head of his administration. Yet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has proved to be a brave leader, inspiring people in Ukraine and abroad by his words and deeds. Had Zelenskiy folded and fled, Western protest would have been muted, and its material support minimal. Had the Ukrainian people been unwilling to fight, his exhortations would have been ineffectual. Instead, backed by Ukraine’s heroic defense, Zelenskiy’s pleas for military assistance are bringing help and have already led to unprecedented sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine’s valiant defense has sent waves of impact far beyond its own borders. It has galvanized the Western alliance. It may lead to a permanent restructuring of the global economy. The isolation of Russia will adversely affect the entire world, but Russia will suffer greater damage. As a result of Putin’s ambition, aggravated by miscalculation, Russians are already poorer, isolated, and more oppressed.
The Ukrainians, like many of us, may not be paragons of morality. But these brave people have reminded the world that national unity in the face of existential threats, self-reliance strengthened by collective defense, and courage coupled with compassion can help underdog populations resist the mightiest military forces. This is a lesson military planners would be wise to consider.
Brian Michael Jenkins is a senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and author of numerous books, reports, and articles on terrorism-related topics. The views expressed are the author's own.
14. Biden makes 'no apologies' for saying Putin 'cannot remain in power'
But does anyone think Putin has the moral authority to remain in power after his invasion of Ukraine? Who can justify him remaining in power? The President just said the quiet paper out loud and what we all hopefully feel about Putin. Will it really influence Putin? What relations are left to harm with Russia? And I would submit we need to focus on blaming Putin so we can repair relations with Russia after Putin is no longer in power. And whether the president made the statement Putin surely believes it is the US position (and that of the free world) that he should be ousted. He is just wrong to think that the US is going to do it. Hopefully it will happen internally.
Biden makes 'no apologies' for saying Putin 'cannot remain in power'
President Joe Biden appeared to want to both ways when he fielded a barrage of questions Monday asking him to clarify his comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power."
He stood by his words "expressing moral outrage" but also clarified that he wasn't "articulating a policy change."
In a rare move for the White House, Biden -- who made the apparently unscripted comment in Poland on Saturday -- took questions from reporters Monday afternoon at an event unveiling his latest budget proposal, which includes $6.9 billion to help Ukraine fight Russian aggression.
The first question to Biden was: "Do you believe what you said, that Putin can't remain in power, or do you now regret saying that? Because your government has been trying to walk that back, did your words complicate matters?"
Patrick Semansky/AP
President Joe Biden speaks about his proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 in the State Dining Room of the White House, Monday, March 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C., as Office of Management and Budget acting director Shalanda Young listens.
"Number one, I'm not walking anything back. The fact of the matter is I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the acts of this man just -- brutality, half the children in Ukraine. I had just come from being with those families, and so -- but I want to make it clear, I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it," Biden said.
"The fact is that we're in a situation where it complicates the situation at the moment is the escalatory efforts of Putin to continue to engage in carnage. The kind of behavior that makes the whole world say, 'My God, what is this man doing?' That's what complicates things a great deal and -- but I don't think it complicates it all," Biden added.
"I was expressing my outrage. He shouldn't remain in power. Just like, you know, bad people shouldn't continue to do bad things. But it doesn't mean we have a fundamental policy to do anything to take Putin down in any way," Biden said.
Pressed by ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce if he's confident Putin doesn't see his words as escalatory, Biden said, "I don't care what he thinks."
"Given his behavior, people should understand that he is going to do what he thinks he should do, period. He's not affected by anybody else including, unfortunately, his own advisers. This is a guy who goes to the beat of his own drummer. And the idea that he is going to do something outrageous because I called him for what he was and what he's doing, I think is just not rational," Biden said.
Patrick Semansky/AP
President Joe Biden speaks about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine after unveiling his proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 in the State Dining Room of the White House, on March 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
He told Bruce that another meeting with Putin, "depends on what he wants to talk about."
Asked why he made the comment closing out his four-day alliance-building trip that was not in his prepared remarks, Biden said he was "talking directly to the Russian people."
"The last part of the speech was talking to the Russian people, telling them what we thought. I was communicating this to not only the Russian people but the whole world. This is -- this is just stating a simple fact that this kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. And the way to deal with it is to strengthen and put -- keep NATO completely united and help Ukraine where we can," he said.
"Nobody believes we're going to take down, I was talking gonna go -- about taking down Putin," Biden added. "Nobody believes that."
Pressed further, Biden repeated he was "expressing the moral outrage I felt toward this man" and "wasn't articulating a policy change."
Biden also told reporters Sunday evening he was not calling for Putin's removal from office, after the White House and some Democrats scrambled to explain the president was not endorsing regime change in Russia as a policy goal.
"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change," a White House official said after the speech.
Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters
President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the Royal Castle, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland, March 26, 2022.
"I think the president, the White House made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday. "As you've heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else, for that matter. In this case, as in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question. It's up to the Russian people."
Putin's allies, meanwhile, have appeared to take the comment as escalatory rhetoric, and the fallout could undermine diplomatic efforts to end the war.
"That's not for Biden to decide. The president of Russia is elected by Russians," said Kremlin spokesperson Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Biden also called Putin a "butcher" over the weekend, prompting some world leaders to distance themselves from the rhetoric, with France's Emmanuel Macron saying, "I wouldn't use this type of wording."
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
President Joe Biden visits Ukrainian refugees at the PGE National Stadium, in Warsaw, Poland March 26, 2022.
The dustup comes as recent polls have shown growing frustration with Biden's handling of Ukraine, even while most Americans favor specific steps the president has taken. According to recent ABC News/Ipsos data, 70% of Americans disapprove of Biden's handling of gas prices, for instance, though even more respondents -- 77% -- support his proposal to ban Russian oil, even if it means paying more at the pump.
Biden has stepped up his rhetoric in recent weeks as the fighting in Ukraine has worsened. At least twice in the last month, he has called the Russian president a "war criminal," adding he thinks Putin "will meet the legal definition." The State Department announced last week Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine but did not specially name Putin.
15. Global Supply Chains Are Driving Conflict. They Can Be Rewired for Peace.
An interesting argument.
Excerpt:
Long-term peace, stability, and a strengthened democratic global order everywhere require a permanent (and iterative) rewiring of our global supply chains. Starting to make these moves now will help us demonstrate clearly that ally-shoring is the way to help us grow economies and provide the engine of good jobs and livelihoods that democracy can and should deliver in spades. Much to Putin’s dismay, the Ukrainians have already chosen democracy, and now they are showing the world what they are willing to do to protect it. We owe them our full support. Ally-shoring is part of the solution.
Global Supply Chains Are Driving Conflict. They Can Be Rewired for Peace.
Barron's · by Elaine Dezenski and John Austin
The immediate path to stopping Vladimir Putin’s brazen and brutal war in Ukraine may not be entirely clear, just yet. But one thing is certain: global supply chain dependencies on Russian oil and natural gas are what will allow Putin to continue financing it. Unless the U.S. and its allies reorient supply chain dynamics for the long-term, today’s conflict won’t be the last of its kind. To preserve and strengthen democratic order, unite to take down Putin economically, and reduce the potential for dependency-induced conflict to continue, we need to re-order our critical global supply-chains through what we call ally-shoring.
Ally-shoring, as we wrote previously, means leaning into our trade and co-production relationships with friends and allies we trust—deliberately sourcing essential materials, goods, and services with countries who share our democratic values and commitment to an open, transparent, rules-based international economic and trade regime. Ally-shoring achieves two key foreign policy goals: It supports deeper economic integration with key partners while offering a real alternative to countries that would prefer to work with a democratic-led trade and economic development regime, rather than rely on authoritarian “offerings” such as China’s corrupting Belt and Road Initiative, or Russia’s dependency-inducing energy deals.
Over time, ally-shoring helps to solve the problem of chronically sourcing commodities and products from countries who then use those foreign reserves to finance their aggression toward us and our allies. Without substantial foreign reserves, China would be hard pressed to fund its Belt and Road Initiative; meanwhile, Putin is counting on Europe, the United States, and others to continue buying Russian oil and natural gas. Ally-shoring means shifting our consumption to other sources, but carefully.
For example, an ally-shoring framework helps us understand that substituting Venezuelan or Iranian oil in lieu of Russia’s would empower other hostile dictatorships rather than fixing supply-chain problems. Do we really want to solve our gas dependencies with Russia by supporting authoritarian kleptocrats in the Middle East and Latin America? The answer should be obvious.
Taking this a step further, tapping into U.S. oil and gas reserves, intended for use during exactly the kind of crisis we now face, is an obvious step, as is longer-term co-investing with Canada to unlock shale reserves. Over time, this approach can provide an abundance of energy from the right kind of sources, although it is unlikely to bring down costs right away. Right now, however, the greater risk to us is not higher gas prices at home but in allowing democracy to die in Ukraine.
Oil and gas provide but one immediate example. Dependencies on critical minerals, rare earths, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, medical technologies and supplies also create serious vulnerabilities and potential to fuel conflict and force painful trade-offs in the future.
How would a full-scale ally-shoring program work in the United States? We would start with an assessment of all critical global supply chains. We need to define them properly and root out the deepest and most problematic dependencies and vulnerabilities, including what technologies are at risk. Understanding our dependencies allows us to identify and rank the options to move us out of these dependencies as quickly as possible. Then, we double down on the alliances and partnerships needed to protect the most critical goods, materials, technology, and commodities. We co-invest with our partners to build new supply chains where needed, creating jobs, political stability, and economic security within and across our borders. Both the assessment and weighing of options is a dynamic process that should be subject to revision as the threat changes.
Business leaders, especially those who own or manage critical supply chains, must be part of this discussion from the beginning. The seeds are already planted and taking root. Quick moves to untangle commercial interests in Russia—ranging from Western energy giants to manufacturers of luxury goods, electronics, and cars—demonstrate that companies understand that they have a critical stake in the outcomes of this conflict. The preservation of free and open governance protects the foundations for global supply chains by which they profit. The private sector plays a critical role in addressing the vulnerabilities.
Shifting away from dependencies on Russia is causing pain, but we fear what supply chain dependencies mean in the context of our relationship with China. Would the United States and its allies be able to similarly shift interests out of China in the face of future aggression by that authoritarian regime? Would Tesla, Apple, Nike, JP Morgan, and others walk away from their supply chains, influence, and investments in China if faced with a similar situation, like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or another neighbor? It won’t be easy, but let’s not wait until we are facing a new conflict to sort out our vulnerabilities. Even more reason for the government and private sector to begin working together to find alternate suppliers of critical components and technologies among friends and invest in growing economies (and markets) with countries who share our values and play by our “good” rules.
Long-term peace, stability, and a strengthened democratic global order everywhere require a permanent (and iterative) rewiring of our global supply chains. Starting to make these moves now will help us demonstrate clearly that ally-shoring is the way to help us grow economies and provide the engine of good jobs and livelihoods that democracy can and should deliver in spades. Much to Putin’s dismay, the Ukrainians have already chosen democracy, and now they are showing the world what they are willing to do to protect it. We owe them our full support. Ally-shoring is part of the solution.
About the authors: Elaine Dezenski is a senior advisor at the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. John Austin directs the Michigan Economic Center and is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback to ideas@barrons.com.
16. China hid the COVID pandemic and could do it again
China hid the COVID pandemic and could do it again
The World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 had become a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The announcement arrived when there were already 118,000 confirmed cases in 114 countries and more than 4,200 deaths. It came so late because WHO, under Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, deferred to Beijing as the virus emerged.
The death toll in the United States alone could surpass 1 million, yet President Joe Biden has given up on reforming WHO, which still has not conducted a credible investigation of the pandemic’s origins and is not prepared to challenge Beijing if it hides another outbreak. Last year, Ghebreyesus ran unopposed for a second five-year term as WHO chief because the Biden administration did not recruit another candidate. Yet without change at the top, WHO will remain broken.
In the pivotal month of January 2020, when there may still have been a chance to curtail the pandemic, Ghebreyesus and WHO consistently extolled the Chinese government for its handling of the outbreak. After meeting with President and Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, Ghebreyesus insisted , “I will praise China again and again because its actions actually help in reducing the spread of coronavirus to other countries.”
Ghebreyesus's subordinates privately voiced a very different view. The Associated Press later discovered that while Ghebreyesus was celebrating Beijing’s commitment to transparency, senior WHO officials said China was keeping them in the dark. One of them said at an internal meeting, “We’re going on very minimal information. It’s clearly not enough for you to do proper planning.” At another meeting, the top WHO official in China said, “We’re currently at the stage where yes, they’re giving it to us 15 minutes before it appears on [China Central Television].”
In 2020, American experts wrote off as fantasy the idea that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. By the time Biden took office, the U.S. Intelligence Community was approaching the view that the lab leak hypothesis was at least as credible as the idea that the virus spread from a meat market in Wuhan, the city that happens to be home to laboratories experimenting with coronaviruses.
In response, Biden asked the IC to “redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” on the origin of the virus. That was May 2021, and almost a year later, we are no closer to an answer. WHO sent a team of investigators to look for the cause of the outbreak, but the CCP imposed such tight restraints that even Ghebreyesus had to disavow the final report.
At times, the administration has hinted that it may regret letting Ghebreyesus run unopposed. The director-general is trying to increase his discretionary budget to free himself from oversight by WHO’s largest donors, including the U.S. Instead, the Biden administration supports the creation of a fund housed at the World Bank to “make immediate investments to prevent and prepare for future health crises.” While some of the money would support WHO projects, the proposal is an acknowledgment that Ghebreyesus alone should not be entrusted with global public health efforts.
The Biden administration boasted last month that it convinced the WHO executive board to strengthen the legally binding International Health Regulations, which were last updated in 2005 following Beijing’s efforts to hide the 2003 SARS1 outbreak. WHO coordinates the implementation of the regulations. The administration said these new regulations will “enhance the world’s ability to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to infectious disease outbreaks in the future.” Yet the administration cannot explain how it will secure Beijing’s approval for changes that impose precisely the kind of transparency the CCP cannot abide.
The White House has also been remiss in terms of starting a public discussion about the risks of laboratory experiments that involve the modification of viruses, potentially making them more lethal and infectious. The pandemic exposed the extent of dangerous and poorly supervised lab activities. Even if they were not the cause of the pandemic, we must discuss whether the risks outweigh the benefits. The White House also needs to drive a discussion about disease surveillance programs, in which scientists visit potential animal reservoirs to study viruses that may spread to humans — an activity that may accelerate a pandemic.
Biden rejected his predecessor’s withdrawal from WHO and pledged to strengthen and reform the organization from within. More than a year into his presidency, the world is ill-prepared for the next pandemic, and there are no guardrails to prevent China from hiding another outbreak.
Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously served in the U.S. government for more than 19 years, most recently as senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the U.S. National Security Council. Follow Anthony on Twitter @NatSecAnthony. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
17. Strikes on Iraq Reveal Iran’s Embrace of Missile Operations
Conclusion:
So long as Iran engages in cost-free ballistic missiles operations, it will continue to overlearn lessons about the deterrent, coercive, and punitive power of its missiles. Such confidence could easily beget overconfidence and miscalculation and lead to a region-wide war. But the most important lesson is for the here and now. Whereas Iranian taunts were once easy to write off as hyperbole or bluster, future threats or promises of revenge will have to be measured against the question: would Tehran launch ballistic missiles over this?
Strikes on Iraq Reveal Iran’s Embrace of Missile Operations
The pattern of strikes reveals an important dyad driving Iran toward more missile use: real advancements in its ballistic missile program and sticky perceptions of declining U.S. resolve to counter Iran.
At 1:20 AM local time on March 13, 2022, Iran launched between ten to twelve short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) from its territory against an alleged Israeli facility near the U.S. consulate in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack, which reportedly took place at the same time as a January 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Iran’s infamous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds-Force (IRGC-QF) commander in Iraq, may have ended in a matter of moments but should have been seen coming long ago.
The strike on Erbil was the Islamic Republic’s fifth operation in recent history launched directly from Iranian territory against a foreign target, employing ballistic missiles, and being publicized or attributed to as coming from the IRGC. This troika is likely to feature in future Iranian military operations as its hesitation to using overt and attributable force in the Middle East continues to shrink.
Previously, Iran fired six SRBMs at Islamic State positions in Syria in June 2017, seven SRBMs at Kurdish opposition positions in Iraq in September 2018, another six SRBMs at the Islamic State in Syria in October 2018, and sixteen SRBMs at bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq in January 2020. Prior to the 2017 strike, Tehran had not launched ballistic missiles from its territory at foreign targets since 2001.
Iran has framed each of these strikes as “retaliatory” and as responding to threats—both real and perceived. Tehran’s largest launch—the January 2020 combination of sixteen liquid- and solid-propellant surface-to-surfaces missiles—was framed as making good on its much-promised “hard revenge” against Washington for the targeted killing of its aforementioned IRGC-QF commander. While there were no U.S. fatalities in the strike, over 100 American servicepersons suffered traumatic brain injuries, thirty-nine of whom are approved to receive purple hearts. The strike was reported by U.S. media as the “largest ballistic missile attack against Americans ever.”
Iran and its proxies have taken to framing the recent attack as a success against Israel even as debates continue over the strike’s intended target and the proximate cause. Pro-Iran militias in Iraq proclaimed that Tehran attacked an Israeli facility purported to be behind a drone strike on Iran this February. Israeli outlets have since reported that the alleged February attack was against an airbase housing the regime’s drone fleet. An IRGC source only partially confirmed this, framing Iran’s attack as a response to Israeli threats emanating “from Iraqi soil.” The source also named the missile used in the operation: a single-stage solid-propellant SRBM dubbed the “Conquerer-110” or “Fateh-110,” in Persian. If the IRGC thesis about responding to Israel is to be believed, then the strike is also likely to have been Iran making good on threats of revenge after Israel killed two IRGC colonels in Syria earlier this March.
Regardless of spin, the pattern of strikes reveals an important dyad driving Iran toward more missile use: real advancements in its ballistic missile program and sticky perceptions of declining U.S. resolve to counter Iran.
Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal is routinely described by U.S. intelligence as being the largest in the Middle East, and most recently assessed by the outgoing U.S. CENTCOM commander as “the greatest threat to the region’s security.” Tehran has been busy making qualitative improvements to these systems to grow the range, accuracy, reliability, and survivability of its missile forces, as well as making other strides such as in the field of solid-propellant motors. The Fateh-110, for instance, is Iran’s oldest solid-propellant SRBM. It has been upgraded numerous times to increase its range, payload, and accuracy and is among Iran’s most battlefield-ready systems. The Fateh-110 or its variants have been a part of all five aforementioned missile operations.
At the same time that Iran’s missile capabilities are evolving, officials in Tehran increasingly perceive Washington’s staying power in the Middle East as waning, as well as American resolve to use force to counter Iran or Iran-backed attacks as declining. Iranian officials bragged in 2018 that they struck positions within three miles of U.S. forces when the IRGC fired SRBMs into Syria. The United States also may have inadvertently sent a pale green light for more attacks when it did not meaningfully respond to the downing of its drone by Iran over international waters in June 2019 and an Iranian cruise missile and drone strike against Saudi Arabia’s key oil installations later that September.
What’s more, excluding the targeted killing of Iran’s IRGC-QF commander in January 2020, Washington’s response ratio to Iran-backed attacks against U.S. positions in Iraq under U.S. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump has been lackluster.
But perhaps most poignantly in the minds of Iranian decisionmakers, Washington did not kinetically respond to Iran’s missile barrage in January 2020 against two bases housing American troops in Iraq. According to Iran’s supreme leader, the strike was a “blow to the dignity of the U.S. as a superpower.” America’s perceived willingness to absorb such a blow vindicated, in the eyes of Iranian elites, not only the deterrent power of Iran’s missiles, but according to the commander of the IRGC’s missile force, the importance of balancing what the regime may lack in military capability compared to a larger power like the United States, with greater resolve and the “will to use” such capabilities.
Taken together, these forces have pushed and will keep pushing Tehran towards more direct military engagement in the Middle East. To be clear, this does not imply that Iran is ditching its effective proxy warfare strategy. Proxy warfare remains Iran’s most cost-efficient way to fight in a theater and control escalation dynamics while limiting kinetic reprisal and blowback against its homeland.
Rather, the Islamic Republic is layering on a new component to its security strategy. Instead of proliferating systems abroad, it is launching them from Iranian territory. And rather than covet secrecy, the IRGC is seeking the limelight. This is probably the impost important but under-appreciated development in Middle East national security matters over the past half-decade. And its consequences could meaningfully alter the regional balance for much longer.
So long as Iran engages in cost-free ballistic missiles operations, it will continue to overlearn lessons about the deterrent, coercive, and punitive power of its missiles. Such confidence could easily beget overconfidence and miscalculation and lead to a region-wide war. But the most important lesson is for the here and now. Whereas Iranian taunts were once easy to write off as hyperbole or bluster, future threats or promises of revenge will have to be measured against the question: would Tehran launch ballistic missiles over this?
Behnam Ben Taleblu is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where he focuses on Iranian political and security issues. He is the author of a forthcoming monograph on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Image: Reuters.
18. Troops would see a 4.6% pay raise next year under Biden’s fiscal 2023 budget plan
But that will not keep up with inflation if the current rate persists.
Troops would see a 4.6% pay raise next year under Biden’s fiscal 2023 budget plan
The $733 billion spending proposal includes a 4.6% pay raise set to start next January as well as a new basic needs allowance to help military families living near or below the federal poverty line.
But the plan would also shrink active-duty military end strength by thousands of personnel.
In a statement, President Joe Biden called the proposed budget plan “one of the largest investments in our national security in history, with the funds needed to ensure that our military remains the best-prepared, best-trained, best-equipped military in the world.”
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The 2022 pay raise was 2.7 percent, but 2023 could be much higher.
Lawmakers will spend the next several months debating and dissecting the White House spending outline, likely making numerous changes before a final compromise budget is reached.
But the plan represents a starting point for those debates, and likely the lowest-possible level for personnel items such as the pay raise. In recent years, Congress has either opted to go along with White House recommendations or increase those salaries, not trim back on troops’ compensation.
The last time the military pay raise was above 4.0% was in 2003 (when it was also 4.6%). In January, the raise was at 2.7%, and the figure has hovered around that mark for the past five years.
But soaring inflation rates over the last year led to a rise in civilian sector wages, which in turn led to an increase in the federal formula used to calculate the military pay raise. White House officials called the raise a “modest increase” given the other financial pressures facing military families.
For junior enlisted troops, a 4.6% raise would mean $1,300 more in pay next year, over 2022 levels.
For senior enlisted and junior officers, that hike equals about $2,500 more. An O-4 with 12 years service would see more than $4,500 extra next year under a 4.6% increase.
If the raise is approved by Congress, the average military compensation for officers would rise to $127,100 after including other benefits like housing and food allowances. For enlisted personnel, the figure would grow to $70,200.
Despite that, some junior service members will still remain below the federal poverty line, which sits around $27,000 for a family of four.
Congress in recent years has grown concerned about the financial pressure faced on those most junior troops, and created a new basic needs allowance to help offset those problems.
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More than 90,000 American troops are on the ground in Europe now.
Service leaders are expected to release more details of that program in coming weeks, but White House officials touted the addition in this year’s budget as “taking care of service members” and addressing “economic insecurity” in the ranks.
Even with a 4% increase in overall defense spending, the White House budget calls for an overall reduction in troop numbers.
Under the White House plan, the Army would see its active-duty end strength drop by 12,000 soldiers from the levels approved by Congress earlier this month, to 473,000. The Navy would see a drop of about 600, to 346,300 sailors. The Marine Corps would trim its active-duty end strength by 1,500, going to 177,000 troops.
The Air Force would lose about 6,000 airmen, going to 323,400 personnel. About 200 new guardians would be added under the plan, bringing the Space Force end strength to 8,600.
The new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, but Congress in recent years has failed to get federal agency budgets finalized by then, forcing the Defense Department to work on short-term budget details for the start of the next fiscal year. Lawmakers have said they hope to avoid that this year.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Follow on Twitter @Meghann_MT
19. Pentagon will accelerate production of missiles Ukraine has requested to refill US stockpiles
As one of my SF brothers pointed out (who was involved in buyback programs of Stingers) what processes or measures have we put in place to account for these weapons and to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. We have to accept risk to help te Ukrainians but we have to think through the eventual demobilization and translation process. Hopefully as we trained the resistance we also put in place the demob/transition processes and that the victorious Ukrainian government will be able to recover remaining weapons from the resistance.
Pentagon will accelerate production of missiles Ukraine has requested to refill US stockpiles
CNN · by Barbara Starr, Ellie Kaufman and Oren Liebermann, CNN
(CNN)The Defense Department plans to accelerate production of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles so it can refill its own depleted stocks as it continues to send the vital systems to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion, according to defense officials.
By March 7, less than two weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US and other NATO members had sent about 17,000 anti-tank missiles and 2,000 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. Since then, that number has certainly increased but an update has not been made public.
On March 16, the White House announced an $800 million assistance package that included 800 additional Stinger anti-aircraft systems and 2,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles systems.
The Stinger production line had shut down but was restarted to fulfill a foreign sales order. Now, in order to keep it open efficiently, several options to increase production capacity and decrease production timelines are being considered in consultation with prime contractor Raytheon, according to Jessica Maxwell, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Options include adding workers to the production lines, manufacturing new components to replace obsolete parts and purchasing additional tooling or test equipment for the production line, according to Maxwell.
Currently it takes about 18 to 24 months to manufacture a production lot of Stinger missiles, depending on the size of the lot. The Pentagon does not disclose specific inventory levels for munitions due to the sensitivity of the issue, but it maintains levels for what may be needed in conflict, under Defense Department policy.
There is an ongoing $320 million foreign sales production contract awarded to Raytheon. Prior to that award, production had ceased.
The Javelin anti-tank system is in a full production mode, according to the Pentagon. However, the Pentagon is looking at trying to ramp up production.
Lockheed Martin, the Javelin manufacturer, "has the capacity to meet increased demand for the foreseeable future," a company spokeswoman said in a statement.
Javelin anti-tank systems can be produced at a rate of more than 6,000 a year as of 2022, according to Department of Defense budget documents.
They have been made in a joint venture of Raytheon/Lockheed Martin Javelin Joint Venture in Orlando and in Tucson, Arizona, according to the company and Department of Defense documents.
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are produced by Raytheon in Tucson.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated with a new photograph, as the original image by Agence France-Presse via Getty Images misidentified the type of missile featured.
CNN · by Barbara Starr, Ellie Kaufman and Oren Liebermann, CNN
20. US, Filipino forces start war drills in region facing Taiwan
US, Filipino forces start war drills in region facing Taiwan
MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of American and Filipino forces began on Monday one of their largest combat exercises in years that will include live-fire maneuvers, aircraft assaults, urban warfare and beach landings in a showcase of U.S. firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan.
The annual exercises, called Balikatan — Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder — will run up to April 8 with nearly 9,000 navy, marines, air force and army troops, including 5,100 American military personnel, to strengthen the longtime treaty allies’ “capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” U.S. and Philippine military officials said.
China will likely frown on the war drills given their relative proximity to Taiwan, which it claims as Chinese territory, but organizers said the exercises don’t regard any particular country as a target.
“The U.S. military and Armed Forces of the Philippines will train together to expand and advance shared tactics, techniques, and procedures that strengthen our response capabilities and readiness for real-world challenges,” said Maj. Gen. Jay Bargeron, the U.S. 3rd Marine division’s commanding general. “Our alliance remains a key source of strength and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Philippines Exercise Director Major Gen. Charlton Sean Gaerlan of the Philippine Navy, left, and U.S. Exercise Director Major Gen. Jay Bargeron, center, of the U.S. Marine Corps unfurls the "Balikatan" or "Shoulder to Shoulder" flag during opening ceremonies of military exercises Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Philippines on Monday, March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
First staged in 1991, the Balikatan exercises are anchored on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which commits the United States and the Philippines to come to the aid of the other in case of an attack. The allies aim to be strong and seamlessly braced for any security contingency as a deterrence against war. “It’s for mutual defense, never for offense,” Philippine military spokesman Col. Ramon Zagala said.
The treaty alliance “declares formally our sense of unity and determination to mutually defend against external armed attack, so that no potential aggressor could be under the impression that either of them stands alone,” Zagala told The Associated Press.
But the governor of northern Cagayan province, where amphibious landings with limited live-fire maneuvers were scheduled to be held in the coastal town of Claveria this week, has opposed any joint exercise utilizing gunfire, fearing it could antagonize China.
“The military consulted and asked me, but I said I cannot allow any live-fire exercise. Any exercise is OK, but live-fire,” Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba told The AP by telephone. “We have to engage China, but not in a war, because I know Taiwan is a powder keg.”
China, along with the U.S. and Taiwan, have expressed interest in investing in Cagayan, which has an underdeveloped agriculture and related industries, Mamba said, adding “I’m not pro-China, I’m pro-Cagayan.”
A Philippine military official said the beach landing exercises would proceed in Claveria without any live-fire training, which will be held instead at Crow Valley, an aircraft gunnery range in Tarlac province further south of Cagayan.
A U.S. Marine provides simulated cover fire on May 9, 2018, during an amphibious exercise at Naval Station Leovigildo Gantioqui, Philippines, as part of Exercise Balikatan 2018. (MC1 Nardel Gervacio/Navy))
The combat exercises in the northern Philippines are being held amid heightened tensions between Taiwan and China. But Zagala said most of the military maneuvers have been planned a year ago and did not consider the recurring tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
In what it calls a warning to Taiwan independence supporters and their foreign allies, China has been staging threatening exercises and flying military planes near the island’s airspace, including on Feb. 24, when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese officials led by President Xi Jinping say they are committed to using peaceful means to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. The U.S. has consistently expressed its support for ensuring that Taiwan can defend itself, and Chinese military action against the island in the short- to medium-term is generally considered a remote possibility.
Maj. Kurt Stahl of the third U.S. Marine division said that while most combat exercises and humanitarian projects would take place in the country’s north, some maneuvers will be staged on the western island province of Palawan, along with an air defense exercise featuring U.S. and Philippine fighter aircraft around the western side of Luzon.
That region faces the disputed South China Sea, where China’s increasingly assertive actions, including the building of missile-protected island bases to reinforce its vast territorial claims, have sparked protests from rival claimants like the Philippines and Vietnam, along with condemnation from the U.S. and its Western and Asian allies.
The large-scale exercises reflect how outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte has walked back on his earlier threat to restrict U.S. military activities in the Philippines. He has nurtured closer ties with China and Russia while often criticizing U.S. security policies.
In July last year, Duterte reversed his termination of a key defense pact with Washington that allows large-scale combat exercises between U.S. and Philippine forces like the Balikatan after the U.S. provided millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine that he had publicly demanded.
President Joe Biden has said America’s vaccines were being donated to poorer countries at the time to save lives and “don’t include pressure for favors or potential concessions.”
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
