Quotes of the Day:

"You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream."

– C.S.Lewis

"All cruelty springs from weakness."

– Seneca

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."

– John Stuart Mill

1. Stealth, speed, and adaptability: The role of special operations forces in strategic competition

2. Special operations forces in an era of strategic competition (VIdeo event with ASD SO/LIC)

3. Few women are trying for elite special operations roles, new data shows

4. Conflict in Gaza: The Law of War and Irregular Warfare in Urban Terrain

5. Navy SEAL Museum in San Diego Coming Soon | SOF News

6. The Terrifying A.I. Scam That Uses Your Loved One’s Voice

7. Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports

8. Chinese-Made Surveillance Cameras At Romanian Military Sites Raise Security Concerns

9. Army intelligence analyst charged with selling military secrets to contact in China for $42,000

10. Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.

11. TikTok ban: Furious Congress plows forward with China bill after user revolt

12. TikTok campaign against ban backfires

13. U.S. Troops in Syria Are Critical For Multiple Missions: Keep Them On

14. China Intensifies Push to ‘Delete America’ From Its Technology

15. Time is Running Out in Ukraine

16. The Day After—in Israel

17. Lawmaker who claims to be a retired rear admiral was actually demoted

18. Army creating deep sensing cross-functional team

19. Targeting time shrinks from minutes to seconds in Army experiment

20. Urgent Air Lift Abroad – New Thinking on Existing Capabilities

21. The U.S. Air Force's New Mission: Beat China In a War At All Costs

22. Kill the zombies: Army on mission to make soldiers better writers

23. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 7, 2024

24. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 7, 2024

1. Stealth, speed, and adaptability: The role of special operations forces in strategic competition

A very nice report.  Access the complete report here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/uncategorized/starling-marine-special-operations-forces-in-strategic-competition/. Also click on the individual topic below in the table of contents to access it directly.

However, I am going to make a very strong criticism here. Unconditional Warfare is referenced foru times but only in laundry lists of missions and Foreign Internal Defense is mentioned five times also only in laundry lists of missions and one additional reference here:  "While USSOF fosters partner-nation resilience against Russia and China through foreign internal defense (FID), there is more it could do."

The critique I am going to make here extends far beyond this report and its authors but this report is useful in illustrating the problem. Most people writing on SOF do not acknowledge the importance of the unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense missions and how they inform SOF thinking and develop critical thinkers within the SOF community to be able to solve or assist in solve complex political military problems (wh=ich is what characterizes strategic completion, integrated deterrence,and the gray zone) specifically among Special Forces Psychological Operations, and Civil Affairs forces. These two missions should and must be the foundation for SOF in the future. They are the "whole mission" that trains and educates for the force for the future - they focus on combat operations, governance (e.g., understand government through training for a shadow government) influence – the largest components of UW and FID is about influencing target audience behavior, they are economy of force missions, small footprint, work through the fundamentals of concept of "through, with, and by" and language and culture based in the human domain) With these problem solving focused missions we can add on all the other new capabilities such as cyber and space but the foundation must be UW and FID. Unfortunately most people think these are anachronism and cold legacies and accuse people like me of having a failure of imagination. But actually the failure of imagination (and understanding) is in recognizing how these missions are the only ones that adapt to the conditions and environment over time. They accuse me of "old think" but actually these missions have always provided the foundation for "new think." The problem is that every SF, PSYOP, and CA operator who has been trained in UW and FID know this but those conducting research and commenting on the future of SOF (or evaluating SOF force structure using data) do not have the experience with these missions and therefore reject or neglect them. As a reminder, at 9/11 the most prepared force for US military operations in Afghanistan was Special Forces (and I will give great credit to airpower and the CIA as well) and that was due to the force being trained and educated to conduct UW (and FID).

Please see the late BG Toney's contribution to 9/11 preparedness here:

Unconventional Warfare, 9/11 And The Future Of U.S. Military Power

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/09/unconventional-warfare-9-11-and-the-future-of-u-s-military-power/

For the UW mindset and philosophy please see this article:

An Unconventional Warfare Mindset - The Philosophy of Special Forces Must be Sustained

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/unconventional-warfare-mindset-philosophy-special-forces-must-be-sustained

Again, this is a very useful and well written report. with some very important ideas to consider. It would have been most excellent if it had acknowledged the continued importance and relevance of the UW and FID missions.  But I had to use it to make the point that so many of similar reports and along with those commenting on the future of special operations are neglecting the UW and FID mission, which again is mostly due to lack of understanding and experience which causes them to either reject or neglect these critical missions.

Report

March 7, 2024

Stealth, speed, and adaptability: The role of special operations forces in strategic competition

By Clementine G. Starling and Alyxandra Marine

Table of contents

Executive summary

Introduction

Background: What makes special operations forces “special”?

• How are US Special Operations Forces organized today?
• The five SOF truths
• USSOF’s twelve core activities
• USSOF’s role prior to and during conflict

History of USSOF: SOF’s evolving purpose and how its history lends to competition today

• The creation of USSOF and its role in the twentieth century
• USSOF in the GWOT and the twenty-first century
• Public perceptions of USSOF

USSOF today in the context of strategic competition

• USSOF’s strengths applied to strategic competition
• I. Global and persistent engagement with allies and partners
• II. Gaining placement and access across the globe
• III. Operations across the competition continuum
• IV. At the cutting edge of capability development and employment 

What’s next? Enhancing USSOF in the 2020s and beyond

• Revamping USSOF’s mindset for strategic competition
• “Walk and chew gum at the same time”
• Applying SOF’s strengths in new ways
• Knowing what success looks like

Conclusion

About the authors

Acknowledgments

Executive summary

Today, the US Joint Force grapples with an array of security challenges that transcend traditional boundaries and cut across theaters and domains. US competitors—China and Russia—conduct military, information, economic, cyber, and diplomatic activities across the globe, from the Indo-Pacific and Europe to Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and the Arctic. Managing strategic competition necessitates the United States taking proactive measures to counter malign activities and advance US strategic objectives across multiple theaters and domains.

US Special Operations Forces (USSOF) possess distinct abilities and expertise that can greatly aid in addressing the complexities of strategic competition, yet these assets are often overlooked or misunderstood. USSOF is too often seen as the direct-action, finishing force of the Global War on Terror era. Yet, the special operator of 2024 is not just the physically imposing “trigger puller,” but also the young man or woman who is an expert at coding. USSOF has a unique position that allows it to elevate the Joint Force’s capacity to navigate the entire spectrum of competition. Its activities prior to conflict, such as operational preparation of the environment (OPE), can shape the strategic environment with US competitors. This report contends that, when leveraged effectively, USSOF has the potential to play a pivotal role in promoting US global interests, particularly in addressing vulnerabilities across the competition continuum.

A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier demonstrates lateral marksmanship drills to U.S. and Panamanian security forces during joint combined exchange training in Panama City, Panama. Credit: DVIDS – U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Osvaldo Equite.

To fully harness USSOF’s role in strategic competition, the authors of this report propose recommendations to United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD(SO/LIC)), the Joint Force, the Department of Defense (DOD), and policymakers within the defense ecosystem. The recommendations are aimed at enhancing USSOF’s capabilities that already have utility in strategic competition, while shifting USSOF’s mindset toward this role. By implementing these measures, USSOF can better support the US interagency and promote US global interests in strategic competition. The recommendations are summarized below.

First, USSOF must adapt its mindset to play a larger role in strategic competition, expanding its non-kinetic activities and irregular-warfare concepts to counter the sophisticated capabilities of near-peer US adversaries like China and Russia. To do this, USSOF must balance its traditional tasks like countering violent extremist organizations (VEO) and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) operations, which will remain critical, with new challenges posed by strategic competitors. The latter necessitates the global synchronization of Joint Force planning to fully leverage USSOF’s capabilities across seven geographic combatant commands. Effective communication between ASD(SO/LIC) and USSOCOM is essential for articulating SOF’s strategic role across the DOD enterprise, but USSOF must be empowered by the Joint Force to proactively support competition below the threshold of conflict.

Second, USSOF’s capacity to synchronize the efforts of interagency partners, allied and partner militaries, and the Joint Force serves as a linchpin in addressing the complexities of strategic competition. There is nevertheless a gap in understanding regarding USSOF’s pre-conflict role among decision-makers. Many of USSOF’s activities can be leveraged more strategically to shape the competition environment, such as its aptitudes in special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, civil-affairs operations, military information-support operations, unconventional warfare, security-force assistance, and foreign humanitarian assistance. By recognizing USSOF’s integral role in the competition continuum and integrating it more effectively into strategic planning, the DOD can leverage USSOF’s capabilities to their fullest extent, ensuring a proactive and comprehensive approach to strategic competition.

Third, USSOF can adapt its strengths to new challenges by enhancing capabilities in cyber, space, and undersea warfare, bolstering civil-affairs expertise for extreme environments like the Arctic, and investing in technological advancements like artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve cognitive overmatch in complex operating environments. Empowering USSOF to succeed in 2024 and beyond will require USSOF and the broader DOD enterprise to recognize that the special operator of the future includes a diverse cadre of cyber operators, culturally immersed experts, specialists in space, AI, engineering, or physics support operations, and gender-diverse teams.

Fourth, USSOF must find ways to measure its success in an unclassified setting by internally defining clear mission objectives for strategic competition and establishing tracking mechanisms to assess progress. Articulating success through deliberate campaigns to disrupt adversaries’ strategies can help communicate USSOF’s contributions and impact while safeguarding classified information.

Fifth, enhancing integration between USSOF and the US military services necessitates a better understanding of USSOF’s current capabilities and roles, improved communication, and synchronized global campaign planning to leverage USSOF’s strategic advantages effectively across multiple combatant commands and interagency partners. Clarifying USSOF’s presence and activities in regions pre-conflict, and facilitating collaboration between commands, can enhance intelligence sharing and support strategic-competition efforts.

Sixth, it is critical to leverage USSOF’s agility in identifying innovations from nontraditional defense-industrial partners. USSOF is a leader in identifying, testing, fielding, and evolving new, cutting-edge technologies that have utility across the Joint Force, DOD, and the Intelligence Community (IC). Enhancing USSOF and defense-industrial base relations involves improving collaboration between USSOF and leading-edge defense industries. Initiatives like SOFWERX and recommendations from the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Innovation Adoption can facilitate this collaboration, ensuring a culture of operational experimentation and incentivizing private-sector engagement to support USSOF’s mission success. Appropriately resourced, USSOF can continue to advance innovation adoption for the Joint Force at a time when doing so is essential for strategic competition.

Finally, USSOF must maintain effective cooperation with its allied counterparts while communicating its current and future plans, particularly regarding areas of focus, investments, and adaptations. The US interagency and DOD can learn from the experiences and models put forward by allies—such as the United Kingdom, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Norway—that have highly integrated special operations into their plans to compete with strategic challengers like Russia and China. In so doing, the United States should continue to recognize the importance of prioritizing special-forces capabilities, investing in small, specialized teams, and aligning with allies on shared priorities to facilitate multilateral operations.

These recommendations not only ensure USSOF’s relevance and effectiveness, but also reinforce its pivotal role in safeguarding US interests and promoting global stability. The US interagency and DOD should invest in USSOF’s many strengths for strategic competition. In so doing, USSOF will stand ready to navigate the complexities of the modern conflict and to serve as a formidable force in advancing US strategic objectives on the global stage.

2. Special operations forces in an era of strategic competition (VIdeo event with ASD SO/LIC)

For those who missed this event with the ASD SO/LIC yesterday. The 50 minute video can be accessed here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-laOqofv3o

Thank you to the Atlantic Council for hosting this.

I teed up the UW question for him to make sure we all understand its importance and relevance. He responded with a number of points but this is the money quote: "I think this is going to be the bread and butter of of sof"

ASD Maier also made an important point that is too often overlooked. When he discussed Syria he mentioned that our operations there provided protection to Iraq's west flank. This is an important contribution but does not fit into the traditional conventional data analysis for measures of effectiveness. This is illustrative of the problems we have when measuring the effects of SOF. If nothing is happening on Iraq's west flank that is a good thing, but how do you measure something that does not happen? (the house that is not on fire does not make the news).

Special operations forces in an era of strategic competition

618 views • Streamed live 17 hours ago

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Christopher Maier discusses how US Special Operation Forces will operate in an era of strategic competition.

Transcript

Follow along using the transcript.

Show transcript

3. Few women are trying for elite special operations roles, new data shows

I am at a loss as to how to solve this problem. We have to be triple volunteers for SOF, the operative word being volunteers. Where is today's Virginia Hall,  Betty Lussier, Anna Cavanaugh and so many others (35% of the OSS were women). https://crimereads.com/the-women-of-the-oss-on-the-pioneering-american-spies-of-wwii/

Few women are trying for elite special operations roles, new data shows

militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · March 8, 2024

In the eight years since the Pentagon opened previously closed special operations jobs to women, just four have entered the training pipeline to become a Navy SEAL.

Only 17 women have attempted Marine Raider training in that same timeline. None of those applicants went on to secure a position on a SEAL or Raider team.

That’s according to new data compiled by the military services at the request of the Pentagon-appointed Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.

The information provides a rare snapshot into military efforts to breach what is effectively the last frontier of gender integration: the elite and physically demanding units that operate in secrecy and conduct the most complex and high-stakes missions.

RELATED

Why getting more female troops into Special Operations will take time

As recently released data from the military services has shown, the participation of women in elite special operations roles remains a rarity.

Data shows some services have had more success than others in attracting female candidates for special operations.

In the Air Force, 54 women have entered training to join the special tactics, combat rescue and pararescue, tactical air control party and special reconnaissance career fields since 2016, with a handful successfully completing training and joining units.

Today, the Air Force has one female special tactics officer and one officer and two female enlisted tactical air control party airmen. The data also reveals for the first time that the Air Force quietly welcomed its first female enlisted special reconnaissance airman in 2022.

The Army has seen 41 women volunteer for Special Forces assessment and selection ― the first phase of the service’s Special Forces Qualification Course, also known as the “Q” Course.

Three female soldiers have graduated from the Q Course, earning the coveted Green Beret, and received assignments in Special Forces groups, according to service data. One female soldier, at the time of the data compilation, was currently attempting the course.

And in the Navy, a few women have entered special operations via the combatant craft crewman boat teams. Data shows nine women have entered the pipeline for small boats, and two have graduated and are currently serving on teams.

For U.S Special Operations Command, which oversees the services but does not conduct recruiting efforts, bringing more women to the table is not a neutral proposition, according to Gen. Bryan Fenton, Special Operations Command commander.

“Strong teams are diverse,” Fenton told Military Times in a statement. “Diversity of thought, education, experiences, culture, gender, race, and creed … all provide value to special operations.”

Fenton added that the number of uniformed women serving in special operations ― including those in operator and support roles ― has increased significantly in recent years. The overall proportion of women in special operations forces has ramped up from 7.9% in 2016 to 12% in 2023, officials said.

“To ensure that U.S. Special Operations Command draws upon the widest pool of talent,” Fenton said, “the SOF Enterprise has continued to progress in supporting women’s ability to join, serve, and advance within the SOF community, including among our most elite units.”

These efforts vary in approach and specificity from service to service.

Information provided by Special Operations Command specifically cited the Army’s Women in Army Special Operations Forces study, the results of which were first reported by Army Times and pointed to a need for greater cultural acceptance of women as well as practical considerations including better-fitting equipment and accessible child care.

Officials also pointed to a 2023 Naval Special Warfare initiative that expanded the number of female instructor billets from four to 11 at Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command and Naval Special Warfare Assessment Command in Coronado, California, “to normalize the presence of women in the training pipeline.”

As the service with the fewest female operator candidates, the Navy has also made “a concerted effort” in recent social media postings and website material to get the word out about opportunities to potentially qualified candidates, officials said.

Naval Special Warfare spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Irish further expanded on these efforts.

Since 2016, the command has “significantly enhanced” recruitment, she said. That has included standing up a Naval Special Warfare Assessment Command focused on national outreach in 2022.

In 2023, she said, that new command organized 40 events across the country and brought diverse groups, including female athletes, on visits to Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California. A Naval Special Warfare Assessment Command digital campaign featured NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan, she said.

It’s not yet clear how effective these measures are. Between 2022 and 2023, three women attempted combatant craft crewman training and one entered SEAL training, data shows.

“As (Naval Special Warfare) continues to develop a dynamic and capable force ready to take on the demands of strategic competition, we do so together with inclusive teams that benefit from unique experiences and perspectives,” Irish said.

The Marine Corps, which unlike the other services draws all its Raider critical skills operators and officers from the population of currently serving Marines, has held steady on its recruiting approach, according to Maj. Timothy Irish, a Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, spokesman.

Irish said the command’s recruiting team engages with 100% of eligible enlisted women before holding screening events, and sends “awareness” cards to all boot camp and Officer Candidate School attendees.

“We believe our efforts to make 100% contact with the eligible officer and enlisted population of female Marines is the answer,” Irish said. “MARSOC has made a concerted effort to address existing recruiting ads, videos, and other materials to include images of women.”

While 17 women have attempted Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command assessment and selection, none have progressed to the command’s Individual Training Course, which formally begins the Raider training pipeline. Interest in opportunities at the command may be increasing: Between 2022 and 2023, seven women attempted assessment and selection, more than in the previous three years.

The Air Force, which saw a peak of 14 women entering the special operations training pipeline in 2021 and had 10 pipeline entries over the past two years, credits its relative success in recruiting female candidates in part to grassroots efforts including the airman-led Air Force Special Operations Command Women’s Initiative Team, which identifies barriers to service and presents solutions.

Among efforts spearheaded by this team include policies allowing Bluetooth-enabled breast pumps in secure spaces and on aircraft, and advanced bladder relief devices on Air Force Special Operations Command planes to allow female airmen to urinate in comfort, said spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse.

Heyse acknowledged the women already serving on elite teams, including two officers and three enlisted airmen.

One of those officers was the subject of a 2022 controversy after a leaked letter alleged she had quit training and been offered the chance to return, counter to service policy. An Air Force inspector general probe found the candidate did not receive preferential treatment, and the incident resulted in clarifications to training policy.

“For (operations security) purposes, we do not discuss young operators, male or female, in detail to make sure we preserve all future developmental and assignment possibilities,” Heyse said. “These women will develop as operators at the units and when the time comes ― probably in a couple of years ― we’ll be able to talk about them more.”

Of all the services, the Army perhaps has been the most aggressive in working to attract women to special operations.

While just 41 women have attempted Special Forces assessment and selection, another 916 have attempted assessment and selection for civil affairs and psychological operations, which also fall under Army Special Operations.

U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman Col. Mike Burns pointed to the command’s Women in Army Special Operations Forces Initiative, which identifies opportunities to create equitable policies.

During a partnered event with the XVIII Airborne Corps, Burns said, the group collected size measurements from female soldiers to assist with the creation of better-fitting future uniforms.

The event, he said, resulted in 50 new leads for women interested in learning more about Army Special Operations Forces opportunities. United States Army Special Operations Command Command Sergeant Major, JoAnn Nauman, also plans to engage with women during an upcoming command visit to West Point during a physical training session, an address to the women’s lacrosse team and a leadership panel, Burns said.

In 2022 and 2023, 10 female soldiers attempted Army Special Forces assessment and selection. The highest enrollment year was fiscal year 2019, with 19 candidates.

“The unique talents and attributes allow the command to defend the nation without fear, without fail, without equal,” Burns said. “Together we will continue to provide the nation’s premier special operations element by attracting and retaining America’s top soldiers.”

About Hope Hodge Seck

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter covering the U.S. military and national defense. The former managing editor of Military.com, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Politico Magazine, USA Today and Popular Mechanics.

4. Conflict in Gaza: The Law of War and Irregular Warfare in Urban Terrain

Excerpts:

Israel has consistently asserted that its military actions in Gaza are consistent with IHL. As the number of civilian casualties continues to grow (currently estimated at 30,000 deaths and twice that number wounded), and the number of well-publicized incidents (e.g., the recent incident involving an aid convey in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of over a hundred people; attacks on the Maghazi refugee camp and the tragic killing of three shirtless hostages waving white flags) there are increasing public challenges to Israeli assertions, particularly regarding the principles of distinction and proportionality. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), on the other hand, continues to produce evidence to support their claims that Hamas deliberately has put civilians at risk by using otherwise protected areas such as hospitals, mosques, and schools, for military purposes. The extent of Israeli compliance with IHL during its current military campaign against Hamas and Hamas’ violation of it by deliberately putting civilians at risk will most certainly enter the long list of charges and countercharges that have characterized the Israeli-Palestinian dispute since Israel was established in 1948. The purpose of this article is simply an attempt to provide a basic summary of the core principles of IHL, which are contained in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977, and to point out some of the difficulties in applying these principles to the facts on the ground.

As an initial matter, there is no doubt that IHL applies to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Whether Hamas is viewed as a terrorist group, a non-state actor, or something else, the current fighting in Gaza can be characterized as a non-international armed conflict and IHL principles clearly apply. Israel’s military action against Hamas following the horror of October 7 clearly and legitimately is based on Israel’s right to self-defense. Given the high level of support that the United States has provided and will continue to provide to Israel, it is in America’s national security interest to ensure that the IDF follows the principles of IHL. Additionally, there is a high degree of asymmetry involved, since the military wing of Hamas is a terrorist organization that unapologetically and with impunity defies every aspect of IHL—not only in its horrific October 7 attack, but in its entire military strategy, which is based on hiding itself within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Israel, on the other hand, remains sufficiently committed to the core principles of IHL that, even in the midst of a brutal war, it investigates its actions, and admits to mistakes (e.g., recently admitting that its bombing of the Maghazi refugee camp caused “unintended harm to uninvolved citizens” as a result of using weapons that were unsuitable for the nature of the military action).

Conflict in Gaza: The Law of War and Irregular Warfare in Urban Terrain - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Jim Petrila

Bottom Line

• International Humanitarian Law, generally called the Law of Armed Conflict in the United States, applies to the current fighting in Gaza. These core principles are outlined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols of 1977.
• The four basic principles of International Humanitarian Law are distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and humanity. These principles acknowledge that civilian casualties will occur during armed conflict and seek to provide a legal framework under which armed forces will strive to limit such collateral damage to Exboth people and property to the greatest extent possible.
• While these principles are easily described, the implementation of International Humanitarian Law in practice involves difficult and controversial judgments that weigh military necessity against likely collateral damage, including civilian deaths. There is a built-in asymmetry when the conflict occurs in densely populated areas where one party to the conflict does not view itself as constrained by International Humanitarian Law.
• Given the high level of support that the United States has provided and will continue to provide to Israel, it is in America’s national security interest to ensure that the Israel Defense Forces follows the principles of International Humanitarian Law.

Note from Philip Wasielewski, director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare:

The conflict in Gaza is a classic example of irregular warfare, a form of warfare in which one side fights another to achieve political goals via indirect methods such as insurgency, subversion, and terrorism and the methods used by the other side to defeat that effort. For the terrorist group Hamas, the tactic of hiding amongst civilians allows it to fight the much stronger state actor, Israel, on almost an equal footing. Israel’s political goal in Gaza, to destroy the force that massacred its citizens on October 7, is complicated by both Gaza’s urban terrain and Hamas’ tactics. Hamas has ensured via its tunnel system under civilian housing, use of protected sites (e.g., hospitals, mosques, etc.), and refusal to meet the standards of lawful combatants (e.g., wearing of uniforms, adhering to the Laws of Armed Conflict, openly carrying weapons), that any military action against them will result in substantial civilian casualties. While losing many fighters and civilians in the tactical fight, its tactics may cause Israel to lose the strategic contest by turning world opinion against it and ending a peace process between Israel and various Arab neighbors.

Although the United States faced a similar problem of irregular warfare in an urban environment in Iraq, particularly with its own soldiers fighting in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramada, and in Mosul in an advisory capacity, it has yet to face the sheer scale of urban warfare that Israel does now. The entire campaign is being conducted in urbanized terrain twice the size of Washington D.C., containing over two million people.

This is not a unique problem nor one that will go away for Israel or the United States. According to UN data, over half of the world’s population is urbanized and there are now over eighty-one cities with populations of over five million people. Furthermore, many cities and mega-cities in low-income countries consist not only of a large built-up central area but are also surrounded by sprawling encampments or suburbs that can cover a hundred square miles or more.

Therefore, Israel’s dilemma in Gaza today may become America’s dilemma tomorrow. The United States should pay close attention to determine what its military might have to do in a similar situation and refine its doctrine, tactics, techniques, and training for irregular warfare in an urban environment. Most importantly, the United States should consider beforehand what its strategy might be to deal with the conundrum that terrorists force the government into when operating in dense urban terrain.

As a beginning of the process to develop that strategy, James Petrila, a national security lawyer with extensive experience at the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency, has written the article below discussing the legal requirements and ramifications of conducting military operations in an urban environment against a foe that does not follow the Geneva Conventions and purposely imbeds itself within the civilian population. Understanding these requirements for a society guided by the rule of law is the first step in developing a politico-military strategy to fight terrorist forces embedded in a major urban area. Petrila’s work not only describes those legal requirements for the layman, but hopefully will also guide the future policymaker. The four basic elements of International Humanitarian Law—distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and humanity—that Petrila describes cannot be fully implemented unless the fighters on the ground have a strategy to guide them regarding a political end state, which will help them make decisions under the extreme stress of combat what is necessary, proportional, and humane.

As Clausewitz informs us, the trinity of war consists of primordial violence, chance, and reason. A proper strategy can provide armed forces with the reason and clarity to use violence for a political end and not for its own sake alone. Otherwise, a nation’s strategy to eventually end the war will be left to chance. The below article on the legal ramifications of fighting under such difficult circumstances can hopefully guide future discussions on this very complicated and emotional subject.

– Philip Wasielewski

Since Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, the Israeli response in Gaza over the past several months has led to scrutiny on whether Israel has violated the core principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). These core principles of IHL (in the United States generally referred to as the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC) have developed over time and aim to govern the conduct of states and individuals during both international and non-international armed conflict. These principles of distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and humanity are easily summarized, but applying these principles under current conditions in Gaza is exceedingly difficult.

Israel has consistently asserted that its military actions in Gaza are consistent with IHL. As the number of civilian casualties continues to grow (currently estimated at 30,000 deaths and twice that number wounded), and the number of well-publicized incidents (e.g., the recent incident involving an aid convey in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of over a hundred people; attacks on the Maghazi refugee camp and the tragic killing of three shirtless hostages waving white flags) there are increasing public challenges to Israeli assertions, particularly regarding the principles of distinction and proportionality. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), on the other hand, continues to produce evidence to support their claims that Hamas deliberately has put civilians at risk by using otherwise protected areas such as hospitals, mosques, and schools, for military purposes. The extent of Israeli compliance with IHL during its current military campaign against Hamas and Hamas’ violation of it by deliberately putting civilians at risk will most certainly enter the long list of charges and countercharges that have characterized the Israeli-Palestinian dispute since Israel was established in 1948. The purpose of this article is simply an attempt to provide a basic summary of the core principles of IHL, which are contained in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977, and to point out some of the difficulties in applying these principles to the facts on the ground.

As an initial matter, there is no doubt that IHL applies to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Whether Hamas is viewed as a terrorist group, a non-state actor, or something else, the current fighting in Gaza can be characterized as a non-international armed conflict and IHL principles clearly apply. Israel’s military action against Hamas following the horror of October 7 clearly and legitimately is based on Israel’s right to self-defense. Given the high level of support that the United States has provided and will continue to provide to Israel, it is in America’s national security interest to ensure that the IDF follows the principles of IHL. Additionally, there is a high degree of asymmetry involved, since the military wing of Hamas is a terrorist organization that unapologetically and with impunity defies every aspect of IHL—not only in its horrific October 7 attack, but in its entire military strategy, which is based on hiding itself within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Israel, on the other hand, remains sufficiently committed to the core principles of IHL that, even in the midst of a brutal war, it investigates its actions, and admits to mistakes (e.g., recently admitting that its bombing of the Maghazi refugee camp caused “unintended harm to uninvolved citizens” as a result of using weapons that were unsuitable for the nature of the military action).

The Four Basic Principles of International Humanitarian Law

Distinction

The principle of distinction, added to the Geneva Conventions by the 1977 Additional Protocols, requires parties to a conflict to distinguish at all times between the civilian population and combatants, civilian objects and military objects, and to direct operations only against military targets. An uncomfortable underpinning of IHL is that it contemplates that civilians will be killed in warfare. Distinction is the most humanitarian of the basic principles, in that it requires military forces at all times to distinguish between military and non-military personnel and military and non-military targets.

The IDF faces an immediate dilemma in that Hamas forces do not wear uniforms, but instead hide within the population of Gaza. Hamas’ military infrastructure also is deeply embedded within the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, making it difficult to make the distinction between military and civilian targets. In fact, the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is the primary source of information about casualties in Gaza, does not distinguish between civilian and militant deaths and injury.

The issue of identifying legitimate targets is not unique to the current situation in Gaza. The United States has faced this issue since the 9/11 attacks, both in terms of “unlawful combatants” detained at Guantanamo Bay, but particularly in the use of drone signature strikes against al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and related terrorist targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Yemen, and Syria.

Of perhaps greater relevance to the current fighting in Gaza, US armed forces faced these issues in close combat in Iraq. During the Second Battle of Fallujah, a city of approximately 250,000 persons, an estimated 800 civilians died, even when US forces were able to evacuate or encourage much of the civilian population to leave before combat operations began. During the fighting to retake Mosul, a city of over 1.5 million people, the Islamic State did not allow the population to flee, and consistently used the local population as human shields. The result was a much higher level of civilian casualties; most estimates of civilians killed are between 9,000 and 10,000, though the actual number likely will never be known because of the massive destruction of buildings and the likelihood that many people were buried in the rubble.

The Israeli Supreme Court confronted the issue of targeted killings by Israeli armed forces during the Second Intifada. In a decision handed down in 2006 in a case brought by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, the Israeli Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether preventive strikes against Hamas targets were legal. A critical issue before the court was whether terrorists involved in the Intifada were combatants, unlawful combatants, or civilians. In reviewing the current state of IHL, the court rejected the argument put forward by the Israeli government (as the defendant in the case) that there is a separate category of “illegal combatant.” The court instead held that there are only two categories: combatants and civilians. The court held that terrorists, to include those fighting for Hizballah and Hamas, are not combatants as defined by international law because they do not follow the laws and customs of war. As civilians, however, who take direct part in hostilities, they are not protected from being military targets. The court then provided a broad definition of what it means to take direct part in military activities, including such activities as collecting intelligence, transporting fighters to or from places where hostilities are taking place, operating or servicing weapons, or serving in a command position. Note that the Israeli supreme court’s definition largely mirrors the United States definition of material support to terrorism found at 18 USC Section 2339B, though the US definition of “material support includes financial support as well.”

This decision is important in that it provides the Israeli legal basis for military actions in Gaza, even though the current scale of military action far exceeds the targeted killings that were part of the Israeli defense against the widespread terrorist attacks that the Second Intifada directed against Israeli civilians and resembles more the level and type of combat in Fallujah and Mosul.

The principle of distinction covers not only people but also places. Certain areas, including hospitals, are presumed to be civilian in nature and protected from military attack. Protected sites lose their protected status, however, if they are used for military purposes. In such cases, the burden is on the side conducting the attack to make the case that the site has lost its protected status. To be consistent with IHL, this determination must be made based on information available before the attack.

The Israeli government has claimed that the military’s decision to engage in action against the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was based on credible and convincing intelligence information that Hamas was using the hospital for military purposes. While the Israelis have released some information justifying their attack, they have not released their full justification, since it appears that at least a portion of their justification relied on sensitive intelligence sources or methods of collection. The United States recently declassified a limited amount of intelligence, concluding that the al-Shifa Hospital had in fact been used operationally by Hamas. Several Western press reports, including by the Washington Post, have assessed that the information publicly released to date by Israel has not made that case.

To ensure consistency with the Israeli legal interpretation of IHL, planned targets of the Israeli military campaign must be assessed under the principle of distinction, which is a significant challenge in a fast-paced and relentless bombing campaign in a dense urban environment against an enemy whose tactics are based on hiding among the civilian population. The current campaign potentially has raised new issues. For instance, news reporting has indicated that the IDF has been relying on artificial intelligence programs to assist in military targeting. It is unclear how artificial intelligence programs are being used and whether artificial intelligence assists, or has replaced, human decision-making in the targeting process. If the news reports are accurate, the IDF may be breaking new ground in terms of how its use of artificial intelligence fits into the concept of distinction.

Military Necessity

Military necessity allows all measures necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose so long as these measures are not otherwise prohibited by IHL. It is a legitimate military purpose to defeat the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible, but military necessity does not allow disproportionate or indiscriminate targeting, nor does it allow activities whose purpose is to spread terror among a civilian population. As stated in Article 54 of the Additional Protocol, an attacking force is not permitted to destroy “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.” Within the framework of military necessity, the IDF has imposed a significant blockade of Gaza, has limited relief supplies and has periodically cut electricity and communications within Gaza. The dilemma faced by the IDF is that efforts to degrade Hamas’ fighting capability also render hardship to the civilian population. The longer the armed conflict goes on, the greater the harm to the civilian population, and the greater the likelihood that Israel will face increased international pressure to shift its military tactics to ease the hardship so far imposed on the civilian population of Gaza.

Proportionality

Proportionality recognizes that incidental harm will occur to civilians during military operations. It should be noted that the focus of IHL is on limiting the inevitable civilian deaths that occur in military action. A detached discussion of the principles and the unfortunate realities of war does not in any way lessen the suffering and sense of loss that occurs with each civilian death or injury. As with the principle of distinction, proportionality as a concept asks the question of whether anticipated harm to the civilian population is “excessive” relative to the military advantage that is anticipated from the military action.

In general, proportionality requires judging each attack on its own merits. In a campaign as massive as Israel’s current military efforts, proportionality judgments must be made countless times each day, and each command decision ultimately is a judgment call that is linked to specific rules of engagement. Because proportionality assumes collateral damage, both to civilians and to property, an objective assessment becomes very difficult. The trade off in a decision to bomb in an urban environment—projected military advantage versus anticipated civilian death and injury—inherently leads to decisions that will be controversial.

At the tactical street level in an urban environment, snap judgments must be made, often with tragic consequences, as in the case of the three hostages who were killed by Israeli troops. The IDF has taken steps to attempt to limit civilian damage, such as issuing evacuation orders before launching military strikes. In the midst of the current military campaign, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of these steps. The concept of proportionality is particularly difficult in the current situation in which the majority of the population of Gaza has been largely displaced. As the military action continues and intensifies, it is reasonable to assume that the number of civilian deaths, already estimated at 30,000, will continue to mount.

Humanity

The fourth IHL principle is humanity, found in Article 35, which has two major provisions. The first prohibits the use of weapons intended to cause “superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” The second prohibits employing methods intended or likely to cause widespread and long-term severe damage to the natural environment.

Moving Forward

Israel’s military action in Gaza is an understandable reaction to the horrific Hamas actions of October 7, but the length and extent of the military action also will shape the reactions of Palestinians for the foreseeable future. Both October 7 and the Israeli response will enter the realm of historical memory. The periodic fighting between Israel and Hamas, particularly since Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007, should not inspire confidence in anyone that a lasting peace is a likely outcome. An adherence to IHL, however, is a necessary component to enhance the chances of a longer lasting political settlement once the current military campaign ends.

It also is clear that the necessity of adhering to IHL is one that should apply to all parties in the conflict. If the collective and extensive experience in counterterrorism operations since the 9/11 attacks has demonstrated anything, it is that terrorist organizations such as Hamas will continue to ignore IHL with impunity. This creates an obvious asymmetry in the conduct of the war, but it is a reality with which the IDF must live.

There has been reporting that the Biden administration has insisted that Israel begin to think about possible political solutions for “the day after.” For years, Gaza has been a small strip of land inhabited by some two million people, most of whom are legally stateless. The view of the Biden administration seems to be that this situation is not sustainable in the long term, particularly after so much of the civilian infrastructure within Gaza has been damaged or destroyed.

This view, however, does not appear to be shared by the Israeli government. In a recent op-ed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu listed three goals that his government hoped to achieve through military action. They include the destruction of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, and the deradicalization of Palestinian society. Recent reporting on current tensions between the United States and Israel has focused on the differences in what “the day after” might look like in Gaza. These differing views can be reflected in military tactics and the amount of collateral damage that is viewed as consistent with IHL.

Absent the complete obliteration of Gaza, it is unlikely that Hamas, an organization that is politically and militarily enmeshed within Gaza society, will be totally destroyed. Israeli military action certainly can significantly degrade Hamas’s capabilities and military necessity can justify actions to destroy Hamas’s military infrastructure, including its massive network of tunnels. But is the total destruction of Hamas militarily and politically an achievable goal? The demilitarization of Gaza is a goal well worth achieving, but absent a meaningful political solution that does not involve Israeli occupation of Gaza, is that an achievable goal in either the short or long term? Finally, it is difficult to see the path to the deradicalization of Palestinian society under the current circumstances.

On the other side of the ledger, how much of the current Israeli strategy is intended to cause sufficient pain and suffering to the people of Gaza so they turn on Hamas as the cause of the military conflict? Intentional infliction of damage on civilian populations is inconsistent with the principle of distinction, since civilian populations not directly engaged in hostilities by definition are not legitimate targets. Does the Netanyahu government believe that the only way to “deradicalize” Palestinian society is through the current tactics being deployed in Gaza? In either case, adherence to IHL requires serious efforts to continue to distinguish between military and non-military targets and to ensure that military necessity and proportionality judgments continue to be made so long as this conflict continues.

The Israeli government has been consistent in stating that it is prepared for a long war in Gaza. Since Israel’s stated goals will be extremely difficult to achieve in the short term, the logical conclusion is that the war will continue for an extended period of time. As the IDF tries to root out Hamas strongholds in an increasingly degraded urban landscape, it will become increasingly difficult to adhere to the requirements of distinction and proportionality. As capable and well-trained as Israeli forces are, urban warfare against a determined enemy for whom IHL is meaningless will continue to be an exceedingly difficult task, but one to which the IDF nonetheless must remain committed.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Jim Petrila

Jim Petrila retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2018, where he practiced in the Office of General Counsel for 25 years. During his last several years at the CIA, he was responsible for the management and oversight of attorneys within the CIA’s Operations Directorate. Petrila served as Deputy Legal Advisor at the National Security Council from 2013 to 2015.

Image: (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Reuters)

fpri.org · by Jim Petrila

5. Navy SEAL Museum in San Diego Coming Soon | SOF News

Navy SEAL Museum in San Diego Coming Soon | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · March 8, 2024

The Navy SEAL Museum San Diego (NSMSD) has signed a lease at 1001 Kettner Boulevard in Downtown San Diego to build a museum to honor the history and heritage of the U.S. Navy SEALs. This location was formerly utilized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Scheduled to open in late 2024, the 10,000-square-foot NSMSD will be within walking distance of the San Diego bayfront and serve as the preview of a larger, world-class museum to be built in the coming years. This showcase museum will engage visitors of all ages through immersive storytelling and galleries, activated artifacts, engaging digital media and interactive exhibits.

This will be the second location of the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, located in Fort Pierce, Florida. Established in 1985, at the birthplace of modern-day SEALs during World War II, it remains the only museum dedicated solely to preserving the history of the U.S. Navy SEALs and their predecessors.

“This museum has been several years in the making, and we’ve secured the ideal space in the heart of San Diego–an iconic location for an iconic force–near Naval Base Coronado, where all Navy SEALs are trained and led, and in a region where more than 600,000 military veterans reside,” said retired SEAL Master Chief Rick Kaiser, the Navy SEAL Museum’s Chief Executive Officer.

“The museum will be both educational and emotional with moments of excitement and reflection that we believe will inspire visitors of all ages to a life of service, patriotism, and an appreciation of our military. Perhaps a few of the next generation will aspire to become Navy SEALs,” he added.

The NSMSD promises to be a major tourist draw in the San Diego and greater Southern California region, bringing additional visitors and revenue to the surrounding areas. It also plans to be an active partner in the region and will invest in educational programs to provide benefit to public schools and local communities.

“The San Diego Tourism Authority has long supported the Navy SEAL Museum San Diego and sharing San Diego’s rich military history with our visitors,” said Julie Coker, president & CEO, San Diego Tourism Authority. “The museum’s location will contribute to the vibrancy of downtown, while creating jobs, volunteer opportunities and resources for veterans. This project aligns with our mission to enhance the destination experience and support the local economy.”

The Navy SEAL Museum San Diego (NSMSD) is the second museum, with its sister location located in Ft. Pierce, Florida, dedicated solely to preserving the history of the U.S. Navy SEALs and their predecessors. NSMSD will create a venue of inspiration, reverence, and education that honors the service of the Frogmen, from World War II to the present day, central to the Naval Special Warfare Command. Built to honor the men who served with fortitude and ingenuity, the main objective of the Museum is educating the public by providing the opportunity to explore the history of the Navy SEALs and their predecessors through interactive exhibits, while honoring the fallen at the Navy SEAL Memorial and caring for those warriors’ families through Trident House Charities Program. For more information, visit navysealmuseumsd.org.

This press release by the Navy SEAL Museum was published March 5, 2024.

sof.news · by SOF News · March 8, 2024

6. The Terrifying A.I. Scam That Uses Your Loved One’s Voice

A PSA we all need to take seriously.

The Terrifying A.I. Scam That Uses Your Loved One’s Voice

A Brooklyn couple got a call from relatives who were being held ransom. Their voices—like many others these days—had been cloned.

By Charles Bethea

March 7, 2024

The New Yorker · by Charles Bethea · March 7, 2024

On a recent night, a woman named Robin was asleep next to her husband, Steve, in their Brooklyn home, when her phone buzzed on the bedside table. Robin is in her mid-thirties with long, dirty-blond hair. She works as an interior designer, specializing in luxury homes. The couple had gone out to a natural-wine bar in Cobble Hill that evening, and had come home a few hours earlier and gone to bed. Their two young children were asleep in bedrooms down the hall. “I’m always, like, kind of one ear awake,” Robin told me, recently. When her phone rang, she opened her eyes and looked at the caller I.D. It was her mother-in-law, Mona, who never called after midnight. “I’m, like, maybe it’s a butt-dial,” Robin said. “So I ignore it, and I try to roll over and go back to bed. But then I see it pop up again.”

She picked up the phone, and, on the other end, she heard Mona’s voice wailing and repeating the words “I can’t do it, I can’t do it.” “I thought she was trying to tell me that some horrible tragic thing had happened,” Robin told me. Mona and her husband, Bob, are in their seventies. She’s a retired party planner, and he’s a dentist. They spend the warm months in Bethesda, Maryland, and winters in Boca Raton, where they play pickleball and canasta. Robin’s first thought was that there had been an accident. Robin’s parents also winter in Florida, and she pictured the four of them in a car wreck. “Your brain does weird things in the middle of the night,” she said. Robin then heard what sounded like Bob’s voice on the phone. (The family members requested that their names be changed to protect their privacy.) “Mona, pass me the phone,” Bob’s voice said, then, “Get Steve. Get Steve.” Robin took this—that they didn’t want to tell her while she was alone—as another sign of their seriousness. She shook Steve awake. “I think it’s your mom,” she told him. “I think she’s telling me something terrible happened.”

Steve, who has close-cropped hair and an athletic build, works in law enforcement. When he opened his eyes, he found Robin in a state of panic. “She was screaming,” he recalled. “I thought her whole family was dead.” When he took the phone, he heard a relaxed male voice—possibly Southern—on the other end of the line. “You’re not gonna call the police,” the man said. “You’re not gonna tell anybody. I’ve got a gun to your mom’s head, and I’m gonna blow her brains out if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

Steve used his own phone to call a colleague with experience in hostage negotiations. The colleague was muted, so that he could hear the call but wouldn’t be heard. “You hear this???” Steve texted him. “What should I do?” The colleague wrote back, “Taking notes. Keep talking.” The idea, Steve said, was to continue the conversation, delaying violence and trying to learn any useful information.

“I want to hear her voice,” Steve said to the man on the phone.

The man refused. “If you ask me that again, I’m gonna kill her,” he said. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“O.K.,” Steve said. “What do you want?”

The man demanded money for travel; he wanted five hundred dollars, sent through Venmo. “It was such an insanely small amount of money for a human being,” Steve recalled. “But also: I’m obviously gonna pay this.” Robin, listening in, reasoned that someone had broken into Steve’s parents’ home to hold them up for a little cash. On the phone, the man gave Steve a Venmo account to send the money to. It didn’t work, so he tried a few more, and eventually found one that did. The app asked what the transaction was for.

“Put in a pizza emoji,” the man said.

After Steve sent the five hundred dollars, the man patched in a female voice—a girlfriend, it seemed—who said that the money had come through, but that it wasn’t enough. Steve asked if his mother would be released, and the man got upset that he was bringing this up with the woman listening. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “Baby, I’ll call you later.” The implication, to Steve, was that the woman didn’t know about the hostage situation. “That made it even more real,” Steve told me. The man then asked for an additional two hundred and fifty dollars to get a ticket for his girlfriend. “I’ve gotta get my baby mama down here to me,” he said. Steve sent the additional sum, and, when it processed, the man hung up.

By this time, about twenty-five minutes had elapsed. Robin cried and Steve spoke to his colleague. “You guys did great,” the colleague said. He told them to call Bob, since Mona’s phone was clearly compromised, to make sure that he and Mona were now safe. After a few tries, Bob picked up the phone and handed it to Mona. “Are you at home?” Steve and Robin asked her. “Are you O.K.?”

Mona sounded fine, but she was unsure of what they were talking about. “Yeah, I’m in bed,” she replied. “Why?”

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing seemingly every aspect of our lives: medical diagnosis, weather forecasting, space exploration, and even mundane tasks like writing e-mails and searching the Internet. But with increased efficiencies and computational accuracy has come a Pandora’s box of trouble. Deepfake video content is proliferating across the Internet. The month after Russia invaded Ukraine, a video surfaced on social media in which Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, appeared to tell his troops to surrender. (He had not done so.) In early February of this year, Hong Kong police announced that a finance worker had been tricked into paying out twenty-five million dollars after taking part in a video conference with who he thought were members of his firm’s senior staff. (They were not.) Thanks to large language models like ChatGPT, phishing e-mails have grown increasingly sophisticated, too. Steve and Robin, meanwhile, fell victim to another new scam, which uses A.I. to replicate a loved one’s voice. “We’ve now passed through the uncanny valley,” Hany Farid, who studies generative A.I. and manipulated media at the University of California, Berkeley, told me. “I can now clone the voice of just about anybody and get them to say just about anything. And what you think would happen is exactly what’s happening.”

Robots aping human voices are not new, of course. In 1984, an Apple computer became one of the first that could read a text file in a tinny robotic voice of its own. “Hello, I’m Macintosh,” a squat machine announced to a live audience, at an unveiling with Steve Jobs. “It sure is great to get out of that bag.” The computer took potshots at Apple’s main competitor at the time, saying, “I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an I.B.M. mainframe: never trust a computer you can’t lift.” In 2011, Apple released Siri; inspired by “Star Trek” ’s talking computers, the program could interpret precise commands—“Play Steely Dan,” say, or, “Call Mom”—and respond with a limited vocabulary. Three years later, Amazon released Alexa. Synthesized voices were cohabiting with us.

Still, until a few years ago, advances in synthetic voices had plateaued. They weren’t entirely convincing. “If I’m trying to create a better version of Siri or G.P.S., what I care about is naturalness,” Farid explained. “Does this sound like a human being and not like this creepy half-human, half-robot thing?” Replicating a specific voice is even harder. “Not only do I have to sound human,” Farid went on. “I have to sound like you.” In recent years, though, the problem began to benefit from more money, more data—importantly, troves of voice recordings online—and breakthroughs in the underlying software used for generating speech. In 2019, this bore fruit: a Toronto-based A.I. company called Dessa cloned the podcaster Joe Rogan’s voice. (Rogan responded with “awe” and acceptance on Instagram, at the time, adding, “The future is gonna be really fucking weird, kids.”) But Dessa needed a lot of money and hundreds of hours of Rogan’s very available voice to make their product. Their success was a one-off.

In 2022, though, a New York-based company called ElevenLabs unveiled a service that produced impressive clones of virtually any voice quickly; breathing sounds had been incorporated, and more than two dozen languages could be cloned. ElevenLabs’s technology is now widely available. “You can just navigate to an app, pay five dollars a month, feed it forty-five seconds of someone’s voice, and then clone that voice,” Farid told me. The company is now valued at more than a billion dollars, and the rest of Big Tech is chasing closely behind. The designers of Microsoft’s Vall-E cloning program, which débuted last year, used sixty thousand hours of English-language audiobook narration from more than seven thousand speakers. Vall-E, which is not available to the public, can reportedly replicate the voice and “acoustic environment” of a speaker with just a three-second sample.

Voice-cloning technology has undoubtedly improved some lives. The Voice Keeper is among a handful of companies that are now “banking” the voices of those suffering from voice-depriving diseases like A.L.S., Parkinson’s, and throat cancer, so that, later, they can continue speaking with their own voice through text-to-speech software. A South Korean company recently launched what it describes as the first “AI memorial service,” which allows people to “live in the cloud” after their deaths and “speak” to future generations. The company suggests that this can “alleviate the pain of the death of your loved ones.” The technology has other legal, if less altruistic, applications. Celebrities can use voice-cloning programs to “loan” their voices to record advertisements and other content: the College Football Hall of Famer Keith Byars, for example, recently let a chicken chain in Ohio use a clone of his voice to take orders. The film industry has also benefitted. Actors in films can now “speak” other languages—English, say, when a foreign movie is released in the U.S. “That means no more subtitles, and no more dubbing,” Farid said. “Everybody can speak whatever language you want.” Multiple publications, including The New Yorker, use ElevenLabs to offer audio narrations of stories. Last year, New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, sent out A.I.-enabled robocalls in Mandarin and Yiddish—languages he does not speak. (Privacy advocates called this a “creepy vanity project.”)

But, more often, the technology seems to be used for nefarious purposes, like fraud. This has become easier now that TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram store endless videos of regular people talking. “It’s simple,” Farid explained. “You take thirty or sixty seconds of a kid’s voice and log in to ElevenLabs, and pretty soon Grandma’s getting a call in Grandson’s voice saying, ‘Grandma, I’m in trouble, I’ve been in an accident.’ ” A financial request is almost always the end game. Farid went on, “And here’s the thing: the bad guy can fail ninety-nine per cent of the time, and they will still become very, very rich. It’s a numbers game.” The prevalence of these illegal efforts is difficult to measure, but, anecdotally, they’ve been on the rise for a few years. In 2020, a corporate attorney in Philadelphia took a call from what he thought was his son, who said he had been injured in a car wreck involving a pregnant woman and needed nine thousand dollars to post bail. (He found out it was a scam when his daughter-in-law called his son’s office, where he was safely at work.) In January, voters in New Hampshire received a robocall call from Joe Biden’s voice telling them not to vote in the primary. (The man who admitted to generating the call said that he had used ElevenLabs software.) “I didn’t think about it at the time that it wasn’t his real voice,” an elderly Democrat in New Hampshire told the Associated Press. “That’s how convincing it was.”

Predictably, technology has outstripped regulation. Current copyright laws don’t protect a person’s voice. “A key question is whether authentication tools can keep up with advances in deepfake synthesis,” Senator Jon Ossoff, of Georgia, who chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter last year, told me. “Can we get good enough fast enough at discerning real from fake, or will we lose the ability to verify the authenticity of voices, images, video, and other media?” He described the matter as an “urgent” one for lawmakers. In January, a bipartisan group introduced the QUIET Act, which would increase penalties for those who use A.I. to impersonate people. In Arizona, a state senator introduced a bill that would designate A.I. as a weapon when used in conjunction with a crime, also allowing lengthier sentences.

The Federal Trade Commission, which investigates consumer fraud, reported that Americans lost more than two million dollars to impostor scams of various kinds in 2022. Last year, the F.T.C. put out a voice-cloning advisory, noting, “If the caller says to wire money, send cryptocurrency, or buy gift cards and give them the card numbers and PINs, those could be signs of a scam.” But it, too, has not yet created any guidelines for the use of voice-cloning technology. Even if laws are enacted, policing them will be exceedingly difficult. Scammers can use encrypted apps to execute their schemes, and calls are completed in minutes. “By the time you get there, the scam is over, and everybody’s moved on,” Farid said.

A decade ago, the F.T.C. sponsored a competition to counter the rise of robocalls, and one of its winners went on to create Nomorobo, a call-blocking service that has helped to reduce—but not eliminate—the phenomenon. Late last year, the commission offered a twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize for the development of new ways to protect consumers from voice cloning. It received around seventy-five submissions, which focus on prevention, authentication, and real-time detection. Some of the submissions use artificial intelligence, while others rely on metadata or watermarking. (Judging will be completed by April.) Will Maxson, who is managing the F.T.C.’s challenge, told me, “We’re hoping we’ll spur some innovators to come up with products and services that will help reduce this new threat.” But it’s not at all clear how effective they will be. “There are no silver bullets,” he acknowledged.

A few months ago, Farid, the Berkeley professor, participated in a Zoom call with Barack Obama. The former President was interested, he said, in learning about generative A.I. During the Zoom call, Farid found himself in an increasingly familiar online state of mind: doubt. “People have spent so much time trying to make deepfakes with Obama that I spent, like, the first ten minutes being, like, I don’t know, man, I don’t think this is him,” he said, laughing. In the end, he determined that it was the real Obama. Still, the experience was unnerving. “Shit’s getting weird,” he said.

One Friday last January, Jennifer DeStefano, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, got a call while walking into a dance studio where the younger of her two teen-age daughters, Aubrey, had just wrapped up a rehearsal. The caller I.D. read “unknown,” so DeStefano ignored it at first. Then she reconsidered: Brianna, her older daughter, was on a ski trip up north, and, DeStefano thought, maybe something had happened. She took the call on speaker phone. “Mom, I messed up!” Briana’s voice said, sobbing in her uniquely controlled way. A man with a Spanish accent could be heard telling her, “Lay down and put your head back.” Then Briana said, “Mom, these bad men have me. Help me, help me, help me.” One of the men took the phone, as Briana sobbed and pleaded in the background. “I have your daughter,” he said. “If you seek any help from anyone, I’ll pump her stomach so full of drugs.” He’d have his way with her, he continued, and then he’d leave her for dead.

DeStefano ran into the dance studio and screamed for help. Three other mothers responded: one called 911, one called DeStefano’s husband, and one sat with DeStefano while she talked on the phone. First, the man demanded a million dollars, but DeStefano said that wasn’t possible, so he lowered the sum to fifty thousand. As they discussed how to get the money to him, the mother who’d called 911 came back inside and said that she’d learned that the call might be a scam. DeStefano, who considers herself “pretty savvy,” was unconvinced. “I talked to her,” DeStefano replied. She continued speaking to the man, who decided that he wanted to arrange a physical pickup of the money: a white van would meet DeStefano somewhere, and someone would put a bag over her head, and bring her to him. She recalled, “He said I had better have all the cash, or else we were both dead.”

Soon, though, the second mother hurried over. She had located DeStefano’s husband, who confirmed that he was with Briana. DeStefano eventually got ahold of her older daughter. “I have no idea what’s going on, or what you’re talking about,” Briana told her. “I’m with Dad.” Eventually, DeStefano returned to her phone call. “I called the guys out for being the lowest of the low,” DeStefano said. “I used vulgar words. Then I just hung up.”

DeStefano went public with her experience, eventually testifying about it before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Other victims reached out. Another mother at the dance studio had a cousin who’d been scammed just two weeks earlier. “The call came in from her daughter’s phone, and she actually sent fifteen hundred dollars,” DeStefano said. She told me that a friend had received a call from what sounded like her nine-year-old son: “He’d been kidnapped, he said. But she’d just tucked him in bed after reading a story, so she knew it wasn’t true.”

RaeLee Jorgensen, a thirty-four-year-old teacher’s aide, contacted DeStefano. Last April, while waiting for her two youngest children to get out of school, she received a phone call from her oldest son’s number. “Hey, Mom,” her fourteen-year-old son’s voice said. “This is Tate.” He was using his family nickname. “And it was his voice,” Jorgensen told me. “But I could tell something was wrong. I asked what it was.” Then another voice said, “I have your son and I’m going to shoot him in the head.” Jorgensen panicked and she hung up. Ten minutes later, she received confirmation from Tate’s school that her son was safe, and now sitting in the principal’s office. Even DeStefano’s mother received a scam call. Months before DeStefano’s ordeal, someone had called her mother claiming to be DeStefano’s brother, and asking for money to pay a hospital bill related to a car accident. But DeStefano’s mother could sense that something was off. “She’s hard of hearing, but she’s still sharp,” DeStefano said. “She hung up.”

Robin and Steve, in Brooklyn, eventually got their money back from Venmo. Today, they’re able to joke about some aspects of the ordeal: the pizza-emoji instruction, for example. “But we told everyone we knew to be aware of this very sophisticated thing,” Robin said. The family has created a plan for the next time. “It doesn’t seem like this scam is going to stop anytime soon,” Robin told me. “So we came up with an extended-family password. If one of us is in trouble, others can verify that it’s really them.” When I recently called up Mona, her mother-in-law, though, she confessed that she’d already forgotten the family password: “I’m going to have to go over it.” She added that it took her a while to accept one aspect of the call. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “I still can’t believe that’s all I was worth.”

The New Yorker · by Charles Bethea · March 7, 2024

7. Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports

Unrestricted Warfare. Might be worth another read.

Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports

Lawmakers’ discovery has fueled worries in Washington that the China-built equipment could be a national-security threat at America’s ports

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/espionage-probe-finds-communications-device-on-chinese-cargo-cranes-867d32c0?st=89ftx6phi395ytj&utm

By Dustin Volz

Follow

Updated March 7, 2024 4:02 pm ET

Container cranes at the Port of Los Angeles. PHOTO: DAVID SWANSON/REUTERS

WASHINGTON—A congressional probe of Chinese-built cargo cranes deployed at ports throughout the U.S. has found communications equipment that doesn’t appear to support normal operations, fueling concerns that the foreign machines may pose a covert national-security risk.

The installed components in some cases include cellular modems, according to congressional aides and documents, that could be remotely accessed.

The discovery of the modems by lawmakers, which hasn’t been previously reported, has added to concerns in Washington about port security and China. The Pentagon and intelligence officials at other agencies in the Biden administration have grown increasingly alarmed by the potential threat of disruption and espionage presented by the giant cranes built by ZPMC, a China-based manufacturer that accounts for nearly 80% of ship-to-shore cranes in use at U.S. ports. 

The Chinese government “is looking for every opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and position themselves to exploit vulnerabilities by systematically burrowing into America’s critical infrastructure, including in the maritime sector,” said Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which has been investigating Chinese maritime security threats. “The United States has clearly overlooked this threat for far too long.”

Over a dozen cellular modems were found on crane components in use at one U.S. port, and another modem was found inside another port’s server room, according to a committee aide. Some of the modems had active connections to operational components to the cranes, the aide said.

U.S. lawmakers’ discovery of communications modems in giant cranes has led to alarm about the threat of disruption and espionage. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

While it isn’t unusual for modems to be installed on cranes to remotely monitor operations and track maintenance, it appears that at least some of the ports using the ZPMC-made equipment hadn’t asked for that capability, according to congressional investigators and documents seen by The Wall Street Journal. One port with modems told lawmakers in a December letter that it was aware of their existence on the cranes, but couldn’t explain why they were installed.

ZPMC, a Chinese state-owned company, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Liu Pengyu, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington, didn’t address specific questions about the modems but said claims that China-made cranes pose a national-security risk to the U.S. is “entirely paranoia” and amounted to “abusing national power to obstruct normal economic and trade cooperation.”

Concerns about ZPMC’s cranes have been building steadily in Washington for years. In 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found intelligence-gathering equipment on board a ship that was transporting cranes into the Baltimore port, the Journal previously reported. 

Last month, the Biden administration announced it would invest more than $20 billion over the next five years to replace foreign-built cranes with U.S.-manufactured ones. The money will go toward supporting the building of cranes by a U.S. subsidiary of 

Mitsui, a Japanese company, marking what officials said would create a domestic option for ports for the first time in 30 years.The administration also rolled out a suite of maritime cybersecurity measures, which comes amid rising fears that Chinese hackers have been pre-positioning themselves to disrupt American critical infrastructure in the event of open hostilities, such as a military conflict over Taiwan. 

ZPMC cranes at the Port of Baltimore. PHOTO: JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Those actions by the Biden administration followed a Wall Street Journal investigation last year that revealed U.S. fears that cranes made by ZPMC in use at a number of America’s ports could present an espionage and disruption risk. More recently, there has been a surge of warnings from top U.S. officials about the potential threat to American lives posed by the infiltration of the nation’s critical infrastructure by Chinese hackers.

The new focus on cranes and broader maritime security “has been a wake-up call for many western countries,” Wille Rydman, minister of economic affairs for Finland, said in an interview. Finland, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last year, has been seeking to expand the market share of its maritime industry globally amid the rising concerns about Chinese technology supply chains. 

The Finnish company 

Konecranes, for example, supplied four large container cranes to the port in Savannah, Ga., last summer.

Biden administration officials say the Chinese cranes have security shortcomings that should worry ports. “We have found, I would say, openings, vulnerabilities, that are there by design,” Rear Adm. John Vann, who leads the Coast Guard cyber command, said during congressional testimony about the cranes to Green’s committee last week. Vann added that officials had not found instances thus far of “malware or Trojan horse-type software.”

The American Association of Port Authorities has said there have been no known security breaches due to the presence of Chinese cranes at U.S. ports. “Our ports proactively work with the U.S. Coast Guard, other federal law enforcement, and private sector experts to mitigate risks through inspections and defensive measures,” Cary Davis, the group’s president and chief executive, said in a statement Thursday.

In a partially redacted December letter to the committee seen by the Journal, an unidentified U.S. port operator said that the modems weren’t part of an existing contract, but that the port had been aware of their installations on the cranes and that they were intended for a “mobile diagnostic and monitoring” service the port didn’t enroll in.

“We are unsure who installed the modems as they were on the cranes when we first saw them in China,” the letter to the committee said. The modems, according to the letter, were believed to have been installed around June 2017, around the time of the cranes’ manufacturing and assembly, and removed in October of last year.

Ship-to-shore cranes supplied by Finnish company Konecranes, at the Port of Savannah, in Georgia. PHOTO: STEPHEN B. MORTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

It couldn’t be determined what prompted the port to take action on the modems or who did so. A committee aide said information collected by the panel indicated the modems had been physically disabled, but not yet fully removed.

“These components do not contribute to the operation of the (ship-to-shore) cranes or maritime infrastructure and are not part of any existing contract between ZPMC and the receiving U.S. maritime port,” the Republican-controlled committees said in a letter sent to the company last week.

The letter to ZPMC said that lawmakers found that many cranes at U.S. ports were built at the company’s Changxing base adjacent to a shipyard on the Shanghai island where the Chinese navy builds advanced warships. It also said lawmakers had learned from briefings with ports and U.S. law-enforcement agencies that ZPMC had repeatedly made requests for remote access to U.S.-based cranes and other maritime infrastructure.

ZPMC cranes entered the U.S. market around two decades ago, offering what industry executives described as good-quality cranes that were significantly cheaper than Western suppliers. In recent years, ZPMC has grown into a major player in the global automated-ports industry, working to connect equipment and analyze data in real time.

Green, the committee chairman, said that the additional components discovered on some cranes “are just one example of the worrisome findings in our investigation.” 

The panel intends to finish its probe, which is being done jointly with the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, next month. A public report will focus on ZPMC, its suppliers, and potential threats posed by equipment and technology at U.S. ports that were manufactured in China, a committee aide said.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

8. Chinese-Made Surveillance Cameras At Romanian Military Sites Raise Security Concerns

Unrestricted warfare is not just applied against the US but its allies as well.

Chinese-Made Surveillance Cameras At Romanian Military Sites Raise Security Concerns

March 07, 2024 20:43 GMT

By Ionut Benea and

Reid Standish

rferl.org · by Ionut Benea · March 7, 2024

BUCHAREST -- A seemingly mundane purchase by the Romanian military on January 16 for Chinese-made surveillance equipment could have far-reaching national-security implications.

For less than $1,000, a Romanian Defense Ministry employee ordered an eight-port switch and two surveillance cameras for the security network at a military base in the sleepy southern village of Deveselu that is home to NATO's Aegis Ashore, land-based, missile-defense system.

The cameras were made by Hikvision, a partly state-owned Chinese company with alleged links to the country's military whose equipment has been blacklisted by the United States and Britain due to data and security vulnerabilities.

While there's no evidence the cameras at Deveselu have resulted in any breaches, a monthslong investigation by RFE/RL's Romanian Service shows that surveillance equipment made by Hikvision and Dahua -- another company that is partly owned by the Chinese government -- is used by at least 28 military facilities in the country. The equipment is also used by hundreds of other public institutions involved in national security, ranging from the coast guard to sites operated by the intelligence service.

Unlike the United States, Britain, or some other NATO partners, there is no prohibition on the use of Hikvision or Dahua equipment in Romania and the country's Defense Ministry and other national-security institutions using the brands told RFE/RL they were on closed-circuit systems that do not have cloud or Internet connections and that strict security protocols are followed.

But experts say their use in Romania raises critical questions about national security and the potential compromise of sensitive information. Vulnerabilities in firmware could allow remote access, control of cameras, data interception, and network attacks by state and nonstate groups alike. While these concerns are not unique to Hikvision and Dahua, questions over how both companies store their data, their connections to the Chinese government, and a growing catalogue of security vulnerabilities make both companies higher-risk.

A Hikvision camera mounted near a Chinese national flag.

"There's still a risk, even if something isn't connected to the Internet," Conor Healy, the director of government research at IPVM, a surveillance-industry research firm, told RFE/RL. "There are examples of closed-camera systems being hacked through other systems connected to the Internet."

Hikvision and Dahua are among the world's leading providers for closed-circuit television and surveillance systems and their products remain popular across Europe. There are no EU restrictions against them, but the European Parliament has removed equipment manufactured by the company from its premises. Both companies have denied allegations that their Chinese state links make them a security risk and say they regularly patch any glitches that can lead to vulnerabilities.

SEE ALSO:

'The Network Wars Have Begun': China's Digital Silk Road Ignites Hi-Tech Competition

Dahua did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment, but Hikvision said the bulk of its devices are sold by third-party distributors and that it cannot access any of its cameras after they are sold to customers, and that the company has "a robust process to quickly address suspected vulnerabilities."

"Hikvision cameras comply with the laws and regulations applicable in Romania and the EU and are subject to strict security requirements," a Hikvision spokesperson told RFE/RL.

There is no specific prohibition in Romania against purchasing Hikvision or Dahua equipment, although politicians like Catalin Tenita, a Romanian parliament member and critic of the use of the companies by Romanian security services, says a legal basis for a ban already exists but has not been fully enforced.

Tenita told RFE/RL that existing legislation could "open up the possibility of eliminating offers that do not comply with established security standards," but that the government has decided not to apply this to Hikvision and Dahua, despite precedents set by partners such as the United States.

Romanian lawmaker Catalin Tenita (file photo)

Eyes On Deveselu

The Romanian Defense Ministry said that due to the equipment being on closed systems that are not connected to the Internet, they can't be infiltrated from the outside and only operate on secure internal networks.

"All video-surveillance systems installed in military units, including the hardware part -- including video cameras and network and storage equipment, as well as the software applications through which they are operated -- go through strict testing, evaluation, and approval procedures," a ministry spokesperson told RFE/RL.

A spokesperson for the Deveselu Naval Facility, which is operated by U.S. forces responsible for the missile-defense system, told RFE/RL that it would be "inappropriate" to comment on Romanian military purchases but that they are "committed to a strong partnership" with their Romanian counterparts and will "continue to work together to support and promote security throughout the region and in NATO's collective defense."

In response to questions about concerns over the use of Hikvision and Dahua equipment at the Romanian base, a NATO official told RFE/RL that the military alliance followed "robust measures to ensure the security of our staff and facilities throughout the Euro-Atlantic area."

"We do not provide specific details on security infrastructure, but NATO continues to count on allies to ensure that products used at military sites do not pose a potential risk to security," the official said.

The alliance has not issued any formal ban on the use of third-country equipment, but NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned in September 2023 against the use of Chinese technology in critical infrastructure.

"We have seen the results of relying on Russia for our energy supply. We should not repeat this mistake by relying on China to provide the technology for our critical networks," he said.

While the Romanian Defense Ministry insists that keeping the equipment disconnected from the Internet will prevent any security risks, a similar situation was enough to help launch the ban against Hikvision in the United States.

A Hikvision camera mounted on the building of a military unit in Romania, whose location has not been disclosed for security reasons.

As Hikvision first came under intense public scrutiny in the United States in early 2018, a military base in Missouri removed cameras on a closed network made by the company as a preventive measure.

A year later, U.S. lawmakers put Hikvision on a sanctions list, effectively blocking American companies from selling to it due to security concerns and human rights issues over its role in developing special technology to surveil and track Uyghurs and other minorities in China's Xinjiang Province.

The Lithuanian Defense Ministry scrutinized Hikvision and Dahua in 2021 and reported nearly 100 vulnerabilities in Hikvsion's firmware and concluded that the equipment posed "a chance [of] cyberattacks...or malicious code insertion [being] carried out."

No specific "direct cybersecurity vulnerabilities" were found in Dahua, the report concluded, but testing did show that cameras from the company periodically sent packets to servers in five different countries, including China.

Healy, the expert from IPVM, said that while keeping cameras on a closed network may provide extra security, "the extensive list of vulnerabilities" documented in Hikvision and Dahua makes them more susceptible to hacks by organized crime groups, nonstate actors, and groups associated with rival governments.

He notes that cameras disconnected from the Internet can still be accessed, as shown in an FBI report released in January that said it had shut down a China-backed hacking group called Volt Typhoon. The group was targeting critical infrastructure and, according to a report released by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, it was able to gain access to closed camera systems by hacking into a computer's operating system online and then being able to infiltrate into offline networks.

Dahua, Hikvision Spread In Romania

Romania is the EU's largest market for Hikvision equipment, but neither Hikvision nor Dahua directly participate in public procurements. Instead, local security firms act as intermediaries, acquiring and redistributing these technologies to the country's public institutions.

RFE/RL's investigation shows the companies' equipment in prevalent use across both national and local levels by Romanian police, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, the border police, and the country's gendarmerie, which is tasked with high-risk and specialized law enforcement duties.

Procurement records seen by RFE/RL also show that Hikvision and Dahua equipment is ubiquitous in courts, town halls, and universities across Romania, as well as at the national parliament in Bucharest.

Romanian police, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, the border police, and the gendarmerie all told RFE/RL that their Hikvision and Dahua equipment was purchased legally on the basis of national legislation on public procurement and that it "fully meets the required technical specifications."

The institutions added that equipment from the two Chinese firms was not connected to the Internet or computer programs and cloud networks provided by Hikvision or Dahua.

RFE/RL also found that the Romanian Intelligence Service's headquarters in the northeastern city of Iasi, near the border with Moldova, also uses Hikvision and Dahua equipment.

"The video-surveillance systems at the level of our institution are part of a larger system that is protected, secured on a closed-circuit network, and is permanently subject to technical risk analyses that ensure an optimal degree of operational security and prevent risks to any stored data," a Romanian Intelligence Service spokesman told RFE/RL.

Two cameras on the outside of the Roman Intelligence Service's headquarters in Iasi

Marian Ghenescu, a video-systems specialist and security-systems engineer at Softrust Vision Analytics, a Romanian company specializing in the security of video-surveillance systems, told RFE/RL that keeping networks offline and regularly conducting cybersecurity maintenance can limit any possible vulnerabilities. He says that in Romania, Hikvison and Dahua are often chosen because they are the most affordable option available for budget-conscious local institutions and may not always be installed with the maximum security settings in place.

Alexandru Anghelus, a cybersecurity expert and founder of the consultancy Pro Defense, told RFE/RL that all surveillance equipment is subject to security risks, not just Chinese brands. He adds that Hikvision and Dahua's history of vulnerabilities could warrant additional scrutiny, pointing to a Hikvision security glitch in 2021 that is believed to have affected more than 100 million cameras globally.

In the meantime, some Romanian lawmakers are calling for further investigation.

Adrian Trifan, a senator who serves as the deputy chairman of the Communications, Information Technology, and Artificial Intelligence Committee, says that he wants the cameras removed from parliament and wants to know why Hikvision and Dahua equipment is being used so prevalently at national-security sites.

"It's a serious situation that should be clarified immediately by the relevant institutions," he told RFE/RL. "And it still needs to be clarified how these purchases passed the [Romanian Supreme Council of National Defense's] screening procedures."

rferl.org · by Ionut Benea · March 7, 2024

9. Army intelligence analyst charged with selling military secrets to contact in China for $42,000

Oh no. He was from my old regiment when I was in the Infantry (506th)

What was he thinking?

Army intelligence analyst charged with selling military secrets to contact in China for $42,000

By Robert Legare, Eleanor Watson

Updated on: March 7, 2024 / 7:51 PM EST / CBS News

CBS News

Army intelligence analyst charged with selling military secrets to contact in China for $42,000 - CBS News

Watch CBS News

Soldier sold military secrets to China, feds say

U.S. soldier charged with selling military secrets to China 01:55

Washington — An active duty Army soldier and intelligence analyst spent over a year selling sensitive military documents related to the U.S. defense of Taiwan, weapons systems, and missile defense systems to China, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed Thursday and obtained by CBS News. 

Sergeant Korbein Schultz is accused of using his top secret security clearance to download classified U.S. government records at the behest of an unnamed individual who claimed to live in Hong Kong, allegedly amassing $42,000 in the process.

Sgt. Korbein Schultz was arrested for conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information and other charges. Photo released March 7, 2024 by the U.S. Army. U.S. Army photo

He was arrested Thursday and charged with six counts including conspiracy and bribery. According to court filings, Schultz was a sergeant and intelligence analyst and assigned to the 506th Infantry Battalion. The Army said Schultz, 24, of Willis Point, Texas, has been in the service since November 2018.

The charging documents don’t name the Chinese government as the recipient of the information or as perpetrators of the scheme, but much of the military information Schutlz is accused to have passed on relates to that country. 

Beginning in June 2022, prosecutors said Schultz and his co-conspirator began communicating online and via encrypted messaging applications. He was instructed to prioritize passing along “original and exclusive documents” to his handler, including information related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the “operabitly of sensitive U.S. military systems and their capabilities,” court documents said.

The pair allegedly agreed to enter into a long-term partnership. 

By July 2022, investigators alleged Schultz was sending information about High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, the type of systems the U.S. has been sending to Ukraine to use against Russia. He is also accused of transmitting sensitive documents about hypersonic equipment and summaries of U.S. military drills in August 2022. 

Court documents detailed a months-long exchange in which the unnamed co-conspirator asked for specific documents and Schutlz complied, selling dozens of sensitive records for thousands of dollars at a time. 

Money appeared to be his motivation. In one message, Schultz allegedly told his handler, “I need to get my other BMW back.” 

“I will just keep sending you an abundance of information,” he wrote to the coconspirator, according to prosecutors, later expressing a desire to compare himself to Jason Bourne, the fictional spy created by author Robert Ludlum.

By August of 2023, Schultz — whose job was in part to instruct others on the proper handling of classified information — discussed with his Chinese handler the separate arrests that month of two U.S. Navy sailors accused of transmitting sensitive information to China. 

Schultz’s co conspirators advised him to be careful, court papers revealed. 

And in November 2023, prosecutors alleged the handler asked Schultz to discuss work “for the next year.” 

The charges come days after Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Texeira pleaded guilty to illegally posting classified military records on an online gaming platform in one of the military’s most damaging leak campaigns. 

And on Tuesday, an Air Force employee was charged with leaking classified information related to Russia’s war in Ukraine to an individual over a foreign dating site. 

It was not immediately clear if Schultz had an attorney. His first court appearance will be Friday.

Robert Legare

Robert Legare is a CBS News multiplatform reporter and producer covering the Justice Department, federal courts and investigations. He was previously an associate producer for the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.”

CBS News

10. Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.

A left handed compliment for DOD from the INtercept. They are correct in that the military does look for its mistakes. And the Institute of Defense Analysis (IDA) does very good work.

Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon.

A 2007 Defense Department study found glaring problems with America’s Horn of Africa campaign plan. The U.S. military plunged ahead anyway.

Nick Turse

March 7 2024, 1:40 p.m.

The Intercept · by Nick Turse · March 7, 2024

The Pentagon has known of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa for nearly 20 years but has nonetheless forged ahead, failing to address glaring problems, according to a 2007 study obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

“There is no useful, shared conception of the conflict,” says the Pentagon study, which was obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and has not previously been made public. “The instruments of national power are not balanced, which results in excessive reliance on the military instrument. There is imbalance within the military instrument as well.”

The 50-page analysis, conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a private think tank that works solely for the U.S. government, is based on anonymized interviews with key U.S. government officials from across various departments and agencies. It found America’s nascent war in the Horn of Africa was plagued by a failure to define the parameters of the conflict or its aims; an overemphasis on military measures without a clear definition of the optimal military strategy; and barriers to coordination between the military and other government agencies like the State Department and local allies like the Somali government.

“Damn, this almost could have been written yesterday.”

After more than 20 years of U.S. efforts, the Pentagon’s own metrics show that America’s war in the region was never effectively prosecuted, remains in a stalemate or worse, and has been especially ruinous for Somalis.

“Damn, this almost could have been written yesterday,” said Elizabeth Shackelford, a former State Department Foreign Service officer who served in Somalia, after The Intercept shared the full IDA analysis with her. “I’ve known these problems have persisted throughout my career with the U.S. government, but I didn’t quite expect this has been thoroughly studied, by DoD, with these issues conclusively identified and yet not addressed for two decades now.”

From the Vietnam War of the 1960s and ’70s to the U.S. war in Afghanistan from the 2000s to the 2020s, the Pentagon — and the Office of the Secretary of Defense in particular — has taken an active interest in investigating its failures, even as it has publicly claimed progress. Like the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret history of the Vietnam War commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and the Afghanistan Papers, a collection of internal interviews and memos documenting problems with the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, the IDA study demonstrates that U.S. officials were aware of structural defects in American efforts in Africa from the earliest days of the conflict.

In 2002, the U.S. military established the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa, or CJTF-HOA, to conduct operations in support of the global war on terror in the region. That same year, U.S. Special Operations forces were dispatched to Somalia. They were followed by conventional forces, helicopters, surveillance aircraft, outposts, and drones.

Commissioned by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted from 2003 to 2007, the IDA analysis, “Achieving Unity of Effort: A Case Study of US Government Operations in the Horn of Africa,” was designed to understand the “national security challenges” faced by the U.S. government writ large in the Horn of Africa and improve policies and their implementation.

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In 2007, the year the IDA report was completed and U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, began operations, the U.S. conducted its first declared airstrike in Somalia. Since then, it has carried out more than 280 air attacks and commando raids, aimed primarily at the terrorist group al-Shabab, while the CIA and elite troops created local proxy forces to conduct low-profile operations on behalf of the United States. At the same time, the U.S. has provided Somalia with billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance.

All this went on despite deep-seated problems identified by IDA researchers at the beginning of the conflict. Interviews with senior U.S. government officials about the Global War on Terror convinced the IDA team of flawed coordination between U.S. government agencies and a need for a unified strategy.

The IDA study team “could not find documentation for a ‘whole of government’ U.S. strategy that would compel the coordination of all USG efforts in the region of the Horn.” Lacking an “organizing principle” for U.S. efforts there, roles and missions were murky, and agencies were sometimes “in conflict over ends, ways, and means” to prosecute the war. The team also found that counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies were “competing rather than complementary in the Horn.”

“Establishing a combatant command in Africa puts too much emphasis on the military arm of U.S. foreign policy.”

The IDA researchers not only interviewed senior government officials but also rank and file personnel working on the ground in the Horn of Africa for the military, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some interviewees told the research team that “establishing a combatant command in Africa puts too much emphasis on the military arm of U.S. foreign policy.” But the Pentagon pressed ahead, establishing AFRICOM “to work with Africans to bring peace and security to their continent.”

In 2010, the Government Accountability Office examined CJTF-HOA and found a host of problems akin to those mentioned in the IDA study. The task force was “generally not setting specific, achievable, and measurable goals for activities”; had made “cultural missteps” that undermined U.S. efforts and put additional burdens on other government agencies; and was not doing enough to determine whether its efforts were “having their intended effects or whether modifications are needed to best align with AFRICOM’s mission.”

In a 2016 interview with researchers for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, James Dobbins, a former senior U.S. diplomat who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, offered a frank assessment of U.S. military aims there. “We don’t invade poor countries to make them rich,” he said. “We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.”

The same could be said of Somalia. The IDA study lamented the “presence of al-Qaeda” in the Horn of Africa and the “failed state of Somalia.” Both remain realities despite two decades of forever war. Twenty years after the IDA’s research began, AFRICOM called al-Shabab “the largest and most kinetically active al-Qaeda network in the world.” The Fund for Peace’s most recent “fragile states index,” which effectively measures “failed state” status, ranked Somalia first.

The 9/11 Wars

America’s “objective is to produce a level of security and stability that denies sanctuary and opportunity to our enemies,” said the IDA study. But two decades into the conflict, security and stability have been in short supply for Somalis. Death and destruction have, however, been on the rise. Last year, deaths in Somalia from Islamist violence hit a record high of 7,643 — triple the number in 2020, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution.

In addition to a 22 percent rise in fatalities from terrorism in Somalia from 2022 to 2023, violence has increasingly bled across the border into Kenya which saw deaths from al-Shabab attacks double over the same span.

In a conference call with The Intercept and other reporters last month, the Biden administration’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Michael Hammer, said the United States is “focused on trying to alleviate the suffering that we’ve seen throughout the Horn,” adding that “we are prepared to remain very much engaged, not only to end the conflicts but also to help Africans in the Horn of Africa build a better future for themselves.”

Related

Rep. Matt Gaetz, Progressives Jointly Call for U.S. Military to Leave Somalia

The IDA study offers answers about why the United States is still “trying” to alleviate suffering and end conflicts in the Horn of Africa after 20 years of effort and billions of U.S. tax dollars. Experts say that lawmakers in both parties need to come together to end America’s failed campaign there.

“It will surprise no one to hear that the U.S. lacked an achievable or coherent strategy in this region from the beginning. But it’s still stunning when new information reveals just how adrift the policy has been,” said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy. “With so many pressing crises in the world, it’s deeply disturbing that this failed and counterproductive approach could easily continue for another decade or more. Hopefully, after 20 years, there can be some bipartisan consensus to rein in this war and bring it to a close.”

Contact the author:

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The Intercept · by Nick Turse · March 7, 2024

11. TikTok ban: Furious Congress plows forward with China bill after user revolt

Counter-subversion?.

TikTok ban: Furious Congress plows forward with China bill after user revolt

axios.com

Updated 14 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Furious Congress plows forward with TikTok bill after user revolt

• Zachary Basu,
• Maria Curi

Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios

Members of Congress are being flooded with calls from angry constituents after TikTok launched a new campaign warning its users that the Chinese-owned app was at risk of being shut down in the U.S.

Why it matters: A key House committee voted unanimously Thursday afternoon to advance bipartisan legislation that would force ByteDance — TikTok’s Chinese parent company — to divest its ownership of the app within 165 days.

State of play: The highly unusual 50-0 vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee — which unveiled the bill two days ago alongside the China Select Committee — reflected the level of anger among some members about TikTok’s pressure campaign.

• House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) announced Thursday he would bring the “critical national security bill” to the House floor for a vote next week.
• The White House has indicated that President Biden would sign the bill, injecting new urgency — and aggression — into TikTok’s campaign to counter the yearslong efforts to address the app’s national security risks.

Zoom in: The flood of calls to congressional offices, which began Wednesday night, was triggered by a notice on the TikTok app warning users of a “total ban” that would “damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”

• After asking users to enter their ZIP code, TikTok then directed them to call their representative in Congress to let them “know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.”
• “Phones are completely bogged down hearing from students, young adults, adults, and business owners who are all concerned at the option of losing their access to the platform,” a senior GOP aide told Axios’ Juliegrace Brufke.

Screenshot via TikTok

Zoom out: The authors of the bill responded furiously to what they called a “massive propaganda campaign,” emphasizing that TikTok would not be banned if Bytedance divests its ownership.

• “TikTok is characterizing it as an outright ban, which is of course an outright lie,” House China Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) told reporters.
• “I guess if you’ve got a bajillion dollars, you can come up with some crazy public affairs strategies,” a senior GOP aide told Axios’ Andrew Solender. “But it’s backfiring as members are livid about all the calls and misinformation.”
• “So bad we turned phones off … Which means we could miss calls from constituents who actually need urgent help with something,” a senior Democratic aide added.

The intrigue: TikTok is banned on federal devices and Biden administration officials helped with the bill’s technical language — but the Biden campaign joined the app last month in an effort to reach young voters.

• The White House also briefed around 70 digital content creators and influencers — many who are prominent on TikTok — ahead of Biden’s State of the Union speech on Thursday, WIRED first reported.
• Multiple polls have found TikTok to be the top source of news for Gen Z, and an increasingly popular source for Americans overall.

What they’re saying: “We are going to try to meet the American people where they are,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked if the campaign’s embrace of TikTok sent a conflicting message.

• “It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to try to figure out how to protect our national security,” she added.

The big picture: The bill marks the latest effort in what has become one of Washington’s longest-running tech dramas, which began in August 2020 when then-President Trump ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok.

• That effort was held up in court, and for most of the Biden administration the company’s fate in the U.S. has hinged on a long-awaited and still-pending decision from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
• Last year, the White House National Security Council threw its support behind the RESTRICT Act, a different bill aimed at TikTok that has languished in the Senate.

What to watch: Gallagher called on Biden to address the threat posed by TikTok’s Chinese ownership in his State of the Union address.

• “It’s incumbent upon him to talk about our foremost national security threat, which is the Chinese Communist Party. And this is part of that threat,” Gallagher said.
• “I think the president would be wise to focus squarely on what we can do together — as Republicans, as Democrats, as Americans — to stand up to increasing Communist aggression.”

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect that TikTok asked users to manually enter their ZIP code (it did not use geolocation) before directing them to call their representative.

axios.com

12. TikTok campaign against ban backfires

TikTok campaign against ban backfires | Semafor

semafor.com · by Mathias Hammer

Updated Mar 7, 2024, 5:48pm EST

North America

TikTok campaign against ban backfires

Insights from The New York Times, Financial Times, and CNN

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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The News

A House committee unanimously advanced legislation that would force ByteDance to divest the social media app TikTok, despite congressional offices being bombarded with calls from TikTokers who were urged by the platform to call their representatives to protest the bill.

“Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO,” a pop-up message on the app said, imploring users to “stop a TikTok shutdown.”

Aides from multiple congressional offices told Semafor that they were getting flooded with calls pushing back on the legislation Thursday. Some offices reported getting as many as 50 phone calls. One office received a message from a caller threatening suicide if the app was taken down, a Politico reporter posted on X.

But later Thursday afternoon, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously advanced the legislation in a 50-0 vote. The bipartisan House bill introduced Tuesday would force ByteDance to sell off TikTok or face it being banned in the United States, over national security concerns associated with Chinese ownership of the app, which TikTok says is used by 170 million Americans. House majority leader Steve Scalise said the bill would come to the floor next week.

“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”

The bill was proposed by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the top lawmakers on the House select committee on China, and quickly received support from the White House and Speaker Mike Johnson.

“Here you have an example of an adversary-controlled application lying to the American people, and interfering with the legislative process in Congress,” Gallagher said in response to the calls. “In a weird way it almost proves the point that we’ve been making here.”

The phone campaign may be “backfiring” as it has enraged legislators who were previously undecided, Politico reported.

SIGNALS

Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.

Conservative groups and human rights organizations alike back the bill

Sources:

The New York Times, Semafor

The legislation has received support from a broad coalition, ranging from conservative lobbying groups to human rights organizations. Heritage Action, an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation – one of the most influential Republican lobby groups –gave its backing on Thursday. “We strongly encourage your boss to support this bill in committee today as an important step toward addressing the root problem and getting the [Chinese Communist Party] out of the pockets of hundreds of millions of Americans,” Heritage said in a letter sent to legislators that was shared with Semafor’s Kadia Goba. Human rights groups who are focused on abuses by the Chinese government have also backed the bill, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant reported.

Will Congress be able to pass TikTok legislation this time around?

Sources:

The Guardian, Financial Times, CNN

Previous efforts to ban TikTok last year came up short, after some lawmakers raised concerns that a ban would infringe on free speech, something congressional aides told the Financial Times this bill was aimed at circumventing. The barrage of calls to Congress — many of which are from teenagers who would otherwise not engage in national-level politics — may be just the first round of Gen Z discontent about the bill. “I think it’s very much going to be taken personally,” Annie Wu Henry, who ran Senator John Fetterman’s popular TikTok account, told New Republic last year. The bill also comes after President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign started using TikTok last month — despite both the Biden administration and the Trump administration have described the app as a national security risk.

US officials have long warned of national security concerns over TikTok

Sources:

Associated Press, Texas Monthly, ABC News, Financial Times

Many top national security officials have voiced concerns about the popular video sharing application. FBI Director Chris Wray warned that China could control the app’s algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” A top Pentagon official called the app a “potential threat vector,” citing concerns that the app could be used for surveillance or information operations. TikTok has strongly denied the accusations, and has said it has made efforts to keep all American user data on servers in the U.S. “We don’t have smoking-gun evidence,” one expert told ABC News, but added that if the Chinese government requested data from TikTok, “they would be compelled to provide it and we also probably wouldn’t know if they did.” ByteDance has previously admitted to using the app to spy on journalists who were reporting on the app.

semafor.com · by Mathias Hammer

13. U.S. Troops in Syria Are Critical For Multiple Missions: Keep Them On

Again, I head ASD SO/LIC Maier describe how these operations are protecting Iraq's west flank.

Excerpts:

But an even more critical argument against the United States withdrawing is its engagement in strategic competition for the future of the international order, as laid out in the 2022 National Security Strategy. The dramatic international response to the Afghanistan withdrawal made clear that pulling back American troops from a battlefield, however justified (and the arguments for leaving Afghanistan were better than those for leaving Syria), tanks American credibility and ultimately deterrence. Would the U.S. government really, in the midst of a near-conflict with Iran and questioning of America’s commitment to Ukraine, want to pull the plug on what has been a successful, low-cost mission, despite the recent casualties?

Washington to be sure should do better in explaining the rationale for the Syrian presence and own up to the mission of containing Iran. But in the end, regardless of justification, Americans will remain skittish about under-fire presence missions, and calls to end deployments, including in Syria, will continue. Thus, the public needs to know the “end game” for those troops. That would require calming, through implementation of the 2015 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, the underlying Syrian conflict that has produced ISIL, Iranian intervention, and various threats to American partners. The United Nations as well as the Arab League have been pressing Assad to implement that resolution, so far in vain. But the Assad government and its most potent backer, Russia, face a frozen conflict and an ever-worse Syrian economy. The United States could engage forcefully with Moscow to back United Nations and Arab efforts using leverage, from sanctions and diplomatic efforts to an eventual troop withdrawal offer, to work a comprehensive deal.

In the interim, Washington and Ankara, now enjoying improved relations, could better coordinate policies toward Syria, including the U.S. presence and the future of the Syrian Democratic Forces. This could include deepening of the October 2019 ceasefire involving the United States, Turkey, and the Kurds, ultimately returning to the coordination against ISIL among the three in 2014–15, and thereby allow withdrawal of much of the U.S. force while maintaining each actor’s key security interests.

U.S. Troops in Syria Are Critical For Multiple Missions: Keep Them On - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by James F. Jeffrey · March 8, 2024

The Middle East has long been defined by complex conflicts, yet pride of place is likely Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. U.S. forces, operating there since 2014, officially against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), are involved in one of the more perplexing elements of that conflict.

The long-standing debate within and outside of recent administrations over whether those forces should remain has gained new life with the Iranian-backed militia attack on Tower 22, a support base in Jordan for U.S. Syria forces operating just over the border. Following that attack, Thanassis Cambanis, writing in these pages, urged that those forces all be withdrawn from Syria. Unlike others who advocate for withdrawal, he recognizes the continued threat from ISIL, but he discounts fully the other geostrategic purpose for the force presence: contesting Iran.

I served as then-Secretary of State Pompeo’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State. I believe that Cambanis’ solution for combating ISIL after the withdrawal of U.S. forces will not work.

Become a Member

I also believe Cambanis is wrong about Iran and is too certain of the inevitability of a U.S. withdrawal from Syria. I do agree with his recommendations on reducing somewhat the U.S. presence in Iraq. In Syria, the United States should maintain its forces, withdrawing only when the underlying Syrian situation that led to their deployment improves. As an interim measure, Washington should work with Ankara on a reduced, sustainable American presence and more stable relations between the United States, Turkey, and America’s Kurdish-led allies.

The U.S. Presence in Syria

U.S. troops in Syria are officially part of an 80-nation American-led Defeat Islamic State Coalition headquartered in Iraq. They operate legally under the 2001 Congressional Authorization for Use of Force resolution. American troops first entered northeast Syria in 2014. Their mission was to back a Syrian Kurdish force known as the Peoples’ Protection Units and, later, the Syrian Democratic Forces, battling the Islamic State after the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost control of that region. The scope and role of the U.S. deployment from the get-go have been confusingYet the U.S. war effort has been enormously successful in fighting ISIL, as well as in contesting Iranian and Russian ambitions in Syria and beyond. This confusion begins with the Assad regime’s opposition to the deployment, even though its mission was to fight the Islamic State, which the Assad regime was also ostensibly fighting. The U.S. partnership with the Syrian Kurds was also problematic because the People’s Protection Units are the local branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Turkish Kurdish terrorist/separatist movement. The U.S. deployment was at first tolerated, then opposed, by the Turkish government.

U.S. forces, with their Syrian partners, soon controlled all of northeast Syria, along with a small garrison along the Iraqi and Jordanian borders dubbed Tanf. This garrison is supported by the troops at Tower 22, some of whom were recently killed in the Iranian-linked attack. I believe that the U.S. presence at Tanf and Tower 22 has effectively blocked the Assad regime from completing the defeat of the anti-government opposition in the Syrian desert. The base has also cut ground transportation links with Iran. But it is this secondary outcome that has gained both significance and controversy with the outbreak of Iranian surrogate attacks following Oct. 7.

A Better Way Forward in Syria

Cambanis makes three key points in support of his call for U.S. forces to be withdrawn from Syria. The first point is that a partnership between Assad and the U.S. partner force, the Syrian Democratic Forces, could assume the counter-ISIL role. The challenge here is that any such compromise would not allow for the survival of the U.S. partner forces’ autonomous governance and security entity in northeast Syria. The dissolution of Kurdish governance would, of course, be welcomed in Turkey but would complicate broader U.S. efforts to pressure Iran.

Cambanis also argued that United States does not have a role in containing Iran in Syria and that a U.S. withdrawal is inevitable sooner or later. “The clock is ticking,” he writes, predicting that either a Donald Trump administration or even President Joseph Biden within the next year would pull the troops. I disagree with his first two points and believe that the United States in the end could well keep troops in Syria, and certainly should.

A U.S. ground presence in northeast Syria is vital for keeping ISIL under control, not only in that large area, but also throughout Syria, a mission that Cambanis acknowledges is still important. The U.S. government uses northeast Syria as its platform for intelligence collection and for raids against the Islamic State’s leadership in parts of Syria controlled by Assad. It also justifies the critical mission of controlling airspace over northeast Syria and at Tanf based on providing force protection to the troops on the ground below.

The United States and its local partners also detained 5,000 ISIL prisoners and 50,000 indoctrinated ISIL family members capable of reigniting the group’s growth if somehow freed. None of this could be effectively accomplished if the U.S. military was not on the ground, based on real-world analysis in which this writer participated when the Trump administration weighed withdrawal in 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, a U.S. military withdrawal would open the northeast to Russian, Iranian, and Assad forces. Under such conditions, the Syrian Democratic Forces would be hard pressed to survive, let alone effectively fight ISIL.

Cambanis’ solution, a possibly American-brokered Assad–Syrian Kurdish partnership against ISIL, is not feasible. I know this from my experience. The Syrian Kurdish leadership has been negotiating for years with Damascus on day-after American withdrawal scenarios with no progress. The Assad regime, be it with the Syrian Democratic Forces or the Syrian Arab-majority opposition, has shown no flexibility at any point over the past 13 years of internal strife with much of its population. Moreover, the Assad regime has been notoriously feckless fighting ISIL, and that terrorist group effectively holds terrain in the Badiya desert south of the Euphrates River despite joint Assad, Russian, and Iranian counter-terrorism operations.

Furthermore, ethnic Sunni Arab concentrations in northeast Syria such as Raqqa and Deir as Zor now controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces were the breeding ground for the group initially. Moreover, the United States stumbledmiserably the last time it tried diplomacy with Assad, in 2013, concerning chemical weapons use. Recent diplomatic initiatives on Syria by the Arab League and Turkey to find common ways forward on Syria’s myriad problems also have come to naught, due again to Assad’s terminal inflexibility.

The Challenges with a Withdrawal

A U.S. withdrawal would also undercut the security interests of many of America’s most important European and Middle Eastern partners. NATO member states in the Defeat Islamic State Coalition raised highest level concerns with the U.S. government when the Trump administration twice ordered the troops withdrawn, arguing that they could again face devastating ISIL attacks on their populations as seen in 2015 and 2016 in Paris, Cannes, Brussels, and Berlin. As Omer Ozkizilcik recently wrote for the Atlantic Council, the vacuum in northeast Syria following an American withdrawal would be a security nightmare for Ankara, a critical partner against both Iran and Russia, with the Syrian Democratic Forces and associated Kurdistan Workers’ Party, ISIL, Iranian, Russian, and Assad regime elements all vying for control. Even worse, a possible Turkish military move to fill that vacuum, leading likely to combat with the Kurds, would violate a ceasefire signed in October 2019 and spark another huge crisis with Washington.

The commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, in a February interview with Asharq al Awsaat, underlined the importance of a continued U.S. presence in northeast Syria, warning of “chaos in the region” if the United States did pull out. He also rejected out of hand the possibility of an accommodation with Assad, denying that the Biden administration was pressuring him to do so, and described the bad relations between the Syrian Kurds and the government in Damascus. His words bear special weight, given his extraordinary success as an American partner against ISIL, and the esteem in which he is held in Washington and elsewhere.

Cambanis is correct in a formal sense in arguing that the United States is not in Syria to fight Iran (although the Iranian regime believes that it has long been in an irregular war against America largely through surrogates to overthrow the regional security system). But a military deployment does not have to fight to have an impact on security, particularly given the centrality of the Iranian threat to the region, above all since Oct. 7. In fact, most of America’s military operations since World War II have involved not fighting but presence missions, to deny terrain, buttress allies, and show commitment and forward readiness for combat. This presence-not-necessarily-fight approach remains the recipe for much of today’s strategic competition and extended deterrence as promulgated in the Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy.

The Case for Pushing Back Against Iran

The military presence in Syria, along with coordination with Israeli airstrikes and Turkish military operations in northwest Syria begun by the Trump administration and continued by President Biden, has undercut Iranian ambitions. This includes blocking Iran’s efforts to turn Syria into a second southern Lebanon full of missiles aimed at Israel, and freezing the Syrian civil war short of an Assad victory, thereby requiring continuing costly Iranian economic and military support to the regime. Finally, the U.S. presence in Tanf on the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border cuts one of the main Teheran-to-Beirut land corridors.

Anyone questioning the value of this secondary mission should ask why Washington’s regional adversaries have been so eager to end it, ranging from numerous attacks by Assad’s forces from 2017 on, to the Wagner mercenary assault across the Euphrates in 2018 and the more recent Iranian surrogate attacks that Cambanis describes.

One reason Cambanis and others question the efficacy, even the reality, of this mission is that it involves indirect quasi-political action characteristic of presence missions, as opposed to direct combat such as against ISIL. But ambiguity about America’s regional deterrence mission against Iran, and its application to Syria, further complicates analysis. While U.S. Central Command lists Iran as its number one challenge, the Biden administration has not been clear, either in policy or in actions, on contesting Iran’s march through the region, from Gaza and Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. Absent such clarity, U.S. forces on the ground in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, and coalition partners all focus on the counter-ISIL effort and not on containing Iran and proxies, for reasons ranging from practical military to political, in the case of Baghdad, loosely aligned with Iran.

Don’t Leave — Rather, Adjust and Leverage

Cambanis is correct in asserting that the administration is eying withdrawal, but a final decision to do so should not be assumed. Plans for withdrawal first bubbled up in 2018 but were quickly squashed. The Syrian Democratic Forces and the rest of the Defeat ISIL Coalition are opposed to withdrawal, as is the U.S. Senate, which in December voted down by 84 to 13 an initiative to withdraw troops. Analysts (including this writer) have been told no withdrawal decision has been taken, and Mazloum in the above-cited interview states he has been assured by U.S. officials about troops remaining.

But an even more critical argument against the United States withdrawing is its engagement in strategic competition for the future of the international order, as laid out in the 2022 National Security Strategy. The dramatic international response to the Afghanistan withdrawal made clear that pulling back American troops from a battlefield, however justified (and the arguments for leaving Afghanistan were better than those for leaving Syria), tanks American credibility and ultimately deterrence. Would the U.S. government really, in the midst of a near-conflict with Iran and questioning of America’s commitment to Ukraine, want to pull the plug on what has been a successful, low-cost mission, despite the recent casualties?

Washington to be sure should do better in explaining the rationale for the Syrian presence and own up to the mission of containing Iran. But in the end, regardless of justification, Americans will remain skittish about under-fire presence missions, and calls to end deployments, including in Syria, will continue. Thus, the public needs to know the “end game” for those troops. That would require calming, through implementation of the 2015 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, the underlying Syrian conflict that has produced ISIL, Iranian intervention, and various threats to American partners. The United Nations as well as the Arab League have been pressing Assad to implement that resolution, so far in vain. But the Assad government and its most potent backer, Russia, face a frozen conflict and an ever-worse Syrian economy. The United States could engage forcefully with Moscow to back United Nations and Arab efforts using leverage, from sanctions and diplomatic efforts to an eventual troop withdrawal offer, to work a comprehensive deal.

In the interim, Washington and Ankara, now enjoying improved relations, could better coordinate policies toward Syria, including the U.S. presence and the future of the Syrian Democratic Forces. This could include deepening of the October 2019 ceasefire involving the United States, Turkey, and the Kurds, ultimately returning to the coordination against ISIL among the three in 2014–15, and thereby allow withdrawal of much of the U.S. force while maintaining each actor’s key security interests.

Become a Member

James F. Jeffrey is the Slater Family fellow and chair, Middle East Program, at the Wilson Center. In a 37-year Foreign Service career, he served as ambassador to Albania, Turkey, and Iraq, chief of mission, Syria, envoy to the Defeat ISIL Coalition, and deputy national security advisor.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by James F. Jeffrey · March 8, 2024

14. China Intensifies Push to ‘Delete America’ From Its Technology

But I bet the Chinese intelligence services remain tasked to "acquire" US and other foreign technology.

China Intensifies Push to ‘Delete America’ From Its Technology

A directive known as Document 79 ramps up Beijing’s effort to replace U.S. tech with homegrown alternatives

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-technology-software-delete-america-2b8ea89f?st=hmmfyg8pbowr00e&utm

By Liza LinFollow

March 7, 2024 12:01 am ET

For American tech companies in China, the writing is on the wall. It’s also on paper, in Document 79. 

The 2022 Chinese government directive expands a drive that is muscling U.S. technology out of the country—an effort some refer to as “Delete A,” for Delete America.  

Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren’t allowed to make copies, people familiar with the matter said. It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027. 

American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country’s meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country’s long-term security.

The first targets were hardware makers. Dell, 

International Business Machines and Cisco Systems have gradually seen much of their equipment replaced by products from Chinese competitors. Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide the software—enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of 

Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in the field, one of the last bastions of foreign tech profitability in the country.The effort is just one salvo in a yearslong push by Chinese leader Xi Jinping for self-sufficiency in everything from critical technology such as semiconductors and fighter jets to the production of grain and oilseeds. The broader strategy is to make China less dependent on the West for food, raw materials and energy, and instead focus on domestic supply chains. 

The Huawei booth at the MWC Shanghai event last year. PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Officials in Beijing issued Document 79 in September 2022, as the U.S. was ratcheting up chip export restrictions and sanctions on Chinese tech companies. It requires state-owned firms to provide quarterly updates on their progress in replacing foreign software used for email, human-resources and business management with Chinese alternatives. 

The directive came down from the agency overseeing the country’s massive state-owned enterprise sector—a group that includes more than 60 of China’s 100 largest listed companies.

That agency, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the country’s national cabinet, the State Council, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Spending by China’s state sector topped 48 trillion yuan, or about $6.6 trillion in 2022. The directive leverages that purchasing power to support Chinese tech companies, which in turn can improve their products and narrow the technology gap with U.S. rivals.

State firms have dutifully ramped up their buying of domestic brands, even if the Chinese substitutes sometimes aren’t as good, according to a Wall Street Journal review of data and procurement documents, and people familiar with the matter. The buyers include banks, financial brokerages and public services such as the postal system.

Back in 2006, “China was the land of milk and honey, and intellectual property was the main challenge,” a former U.S. Trade Representative official involved in previous technology discussions with the Chinese said. “Now, there is a feeling that the sense of opportunity is off. Companies are merely hanging on.”

The push to localize tech is known as “Xinchuang,” loosely translated as “IT innovation” with a reference to technology that is secure and trustworthy. The policy has gained urgency amid an escalating tech and trade war with Washington, which has cut many Chinese entities off American technologies. 

A worker checked a display with the Mandarin words for ‘independence’ at a booth for Chinese supercomputer manufacturer Sugon at a Shanghai conference last year. PHOTO: NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Premier Li Qiang reiterated the push during China’s annual legislative sessions this week. China’s central government plans to increase its spending on science and technology by 10% to about $51 billion this year, according to a budget report released on Tuesday—up from a 2% increase last year.

At some trade fairs across the country, vendors tout homegrown tech as an alternative to foreign brands. One semiconductor equipment maker stall in Nanjing put it bluntly, offering to help buyers “Delete A” from their supply chain.

Domestically developed alternatives are growing more user-friendly. A local official recalled how in 2016, it took a whole day to open and close a spreadsheet on a computer with an operating system known as KylinOS, developed by a Chinese military-linked company. He compares the usability of the latest KylinOS version to Microsoft’s Windows 7, introduced in 2009—workable if not great.

As recently as six years ago, most government tenders sought hardware, chips and software from Western brands. By 2023, many were seeking Chinese tech products instead.

When the customs department in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo sought to purchase rack servers in 2018, it stated a preference for brands such as Dell and 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and for hardware powered by Intel’s Xeon central processing units. Five years later, the same agency asked for rack servers made by Chinese companies and equipped with Huawei chips.

These servers are typically assembled by state-owned tech manufacturers that barely sell equipment overseas, such as Beijing-based Tsinghua Tongfang. Tongfang’s controlling shareholder is a state-owned company in charge of China’s civilian and military nuclear programs.

Some government officials in China’s capital had their foreign-branded PCs replaced with those made by Tongfang and officials last year were told to use Chinese phones instead of Apple’s iPhones for work.

Xi Jinping visited a research institute workshop at China Electronics Technology Group last year. PHOTO: SHEN HONG/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

Losing orders

Over the past decade, Xi has repeatedly emphasized technological innovation and the use of trusted homegrown technology in government departments and industry. Revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 that U.S. authorities had hacked into Chinese mobile phone communications, universities and private companies strengthened Xi’s resolve. More recently, Xi has told senior officials that China should leverage its strengths and market to break bottlenecks in the development of essential software such as operating systems.

As China focused on replacing hardware, IBM’s China revenues have steadily declined. It downsized its China research operations in Beijing in 2021, more than two decades after it opened.

Cisco, once a technology powerhouse in China, said in 2019 that it was losing orders in the country to local vendors because of nationalist buying. American PC maker Dell’s market share in China almost halved in the past five years, to 8%, researcher Canalys said. 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, which makes servers, storage and networks, got 14.1% of its revenue from China in 2018, according to estimates from database provider 

FactSet. By 2023, that had fallen to 4%. In May, HPE said it would sell its 49% stake in its Chinese joint venture. The company continues to sell direct to certain multinational customers in China and sells selected products to the broader mainland market through its Chinese partner, a spokesman said.

In software, 

Adobe, Citrix parent Cloud Software Group and Salesforce have pulled out or downsized direct operations in the country over the past two years.Microsoft, the world’s biggest software provider, historically dominated computer operating systems in China. A Morgan Stanley poll of 135 chief information officers in China found that many expected the share of computers powered by Microsoft’s Windows operating system installed in their companies to fall over the next three years. They expected Linux-based UOS, or Unity Operating System, an effort co-led by a state-owned company, to gain in the shift.

Even as Microsoft’s top executives and its co-founder Bill Gates have frequently traveled to Beijing for high-profile meetings with senior Chinese leaders on subjects like cooperation on AI and U.S.-China trade relations in recent years, the company has decreased its offerings in China. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a subcommittee hearing last September that China made up just 1.5% of the company’s overall sales. The company posted sales of $212 billion in the last fiscal year.

A China Central Television news broadcast showed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates meeting with Xi Jinping last year. PHOTO: GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Microsoft declined to comment.

Some state-owned companies are dragging their feet on orders to replace foreign IT products that are essential to their core businesses, people familiar with company procurements said, over concerns about the stability and performance of domestic alternatives. 

But in addition to growing more advanced, China’s own technology is also well plugged into the local ecosystem. Providers of domestic business software allow interoperability with 

WeChat, a ubiquitous chat messaging app widely used in place of email among Chinese businesses.

The buy local policy is trickling down to privately run companies, which are showing greater inclination to buy domestic software, according to Morgan Stanley’s CIO survey. 

Homegrown shift

A shift toward hosting and managing data on cloud servers instead of servers on the premises has also allowed Chinese companies to narrow the gap. Oracle, IBM and Microsoft dominated the database software market in China in 2010. Since then, Chinese companies including 

Alibaba and Huawei have come up with their own database management products to replace American technology. China-based vendors took more than half of that market in China—worth $6.3 billion overall—for the first time in 2022, and continue to grow, according to researcher 

Gartner. Tenders examined by the Journal also show more state-linked entities and companies have opted for Huawei’s databases in recent years.China’s banks, brokerage firms and insurers have sped up procurement of homegrown databases, Yang Bing, chief executive of Chinese database company OceanBase, said at a Beijing conference in November. OceanBase, developed by Alibaba and its fintech affiliate Ant Group, replaced Oracle databases at Alibaba and Ant in 2016.

An Oracle office in Beijing in 2020. PHOTO: ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Western companies are being replaced not just by Chinese national champions such as Huawei but also more specialized companies. 

Yonyou Network Technology, a Shanghai-listed firm with a market value of $6 billion, provides systems to manage businesses’ human resources, inventory and finances.Yonyou has been gaining users at the expense of Oracle and SAP, which together used to dominate more than half the market, according to data from Chinese researcher Huaon Research Institute. By 2021, Yonyou had become the largest player in the market, holding 40%.

There continue to be pockets of opportunity in China for Western companies, especially in more advanced tech where China still lags behind and in sales to multinational companies operating there.

Looking forward, analysts say the preferential demand from China’s state sector could mean Western ones keep slipping further behind in the Chinese market.

“The growth of software requires continuous feedback from users,” said Han Lin, China head of the Asia Group, a business advisory firm, “and that will be the advantage of domestic providers.”

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Raffaele Huang and Yoko Kubota contributed to this article.

Write to Liza Lin at liza.lin@wsj.com

15. Time is Running Out in Ukraine

Excerpts;

To hold their positions in 2024, Ukrainian forces need urgent replenishment of ammunition and manpower. If reinforcements are coming, Ukraine can defend the frontline this year and regenerate combat strength while the West’s industrial base ramps up for 2025 and beyond. Western military assistance—specifically American aid—must be approved quickly to sustain critical ammunition supplies and to maintain existing combat systems. Next, Kyiv must generate and train personnel to replenish frontline units. Unfortunately, finding more soldiers will most likely require an unpopular mobilization. Aid delays make Kyiv’s dilemma even worse. Finally, Ukraine must accelerate the construction of prepared defensive positions.

Without these urgent steps, Ukraine’s rationing of ammunition will continue through the spring and summer. Facing continual Russian attacks, undermanned units could become increasingly hollowed out and lose the ability to defend themselves. Unless immediate changes are made, this is the path that Ukraine and the West are on.

The Russian military’s long-term weaknesses will not matter if Ukraine is not supported this year. Ukrainian frontline soldiers are in mounting jeopardy—not because they lack the will to fight or do not know their enemy’s weaknesses, but because of shortfalls in ammunition and manpower. If the West, specifically the United States, does not want to see the frontline in Ukraine continue to bend or—even worse—break, it must urgently approve aid. And if Kyiv wants to sustain its efforts, it has to make difficult choices about how to generate more manpower. Time is running out.

Time is Running Out in Ukraine

Kyiv Cannot Capitalize on Russian Military Weakness Without U.S. Aid

By Dara Massicot

March 8, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Dara Massicot · March 8, 2024

Two years after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine and its Western supporters are at a critical decision point and face a fundamental question: How can further Russian advances on the battlefield be stopped, and then reversed? After capturing the ruined city of Avdiivka, Russian forces are moving forward fitfully in other areas along the front. Russian advantages in manpower, materiel, and defense production have grown in the past year, whereas U.S. ammunition deliveries have been throttled and are at risk of being curtailed almost entirely because of an impasse over funding in the U.S. Congress. Supplies of critical munitions for frontline Ukrainian units are dwindling and soldiers are being forced to ration. Some units are experiencing significant manpower shortages.

The current battlefield dynamics have no single cause; they are mostly rooted in decisions that were made since the fall of 2022. When Russia mobilized its war economy, the West did not, and Ukraine could not. When Russia constructed a network of defensive fortifications hundreds of miles long and multiple layers deep, Ukraine did not. Russia obtained more than a million (by some estimates three million) artillery shells and thousands of drones from its partners, including Iran and North Korea. The West could not match that, having already reached the bottom of the barrel of similar resources. Moscow has gone to great lengths to regenerate personnel and replenish its forces, whereas Kyiv has yet to fully mobilize.

Without a surge in Western military aid and major changes to Kyiv’s strategy, Ukraine’s battlefield position will continue to worsen until it reaches a tipping point, possibly by this summer. On the present course, in which Ukrainian ammunition and manpower needs are not met, Ukrainian units are likely to hollow out, making Russian breakthroughs a distinct possibility. But this is no time for despair; it is time for urgent action. Russian forces have vulnerabilities that can be exploited and advantages that can be eroded over time, but only if Ukraine gets what it needs now.

DAMAGED BUT DANGEROUS

To create an effective strategy that capitalizes on Russia’s weaknesses, Western policymakers and observers need to see the Russian military for what it is now: not the hapless, broken, depleted force that many wished it would be by now but a still dangerous organization advancing in Ukraine. Understanding the current state of Russian combat power means processing contradictory information and answering a number of complex questions. Is the Russian military in decline, reliant on Soviet-era equipment, conscripted convicts, troops who abuse methamphetamines or other drugs, and foreign-supplied drones and artillery shells in order to push forward at high cost? Or is it an increasingly adaptive and well-resourced organization, able to overpower Ukrainian positions all along the frontline?

The trouble is that both descriptions are partly accurate. Perhaps the clearest and most practical view of the Russian military is an anecdote told by Ukrainian soldiers and recently shared with The New York Times: the Russian army is neither good nor bad, just long.

In the opening months of the war, the Kremlin was reluctant to admit that its initial blitz on Ukraine was a failure. By August 2022, damaged Russian units had become brittle, and when tested by Ukrainian forces they collapsed in Kharkiv and retreated from Kherson. But Russia has since come to terms with the requirements and costs of a prolonged conflict. Realizing that its war effort was in peril, the Kremlin did what it had not wanted to do previously: it mobilized 300,000 men, dramatically increased defense spending, and purchased essential weapons from its partners to bridge gaps.

The West has not kept pace with Russia’s ammunition production.

Kyiv now finds itself in a sustainment crisis similar to what Moscow experienced two years ago. But unlike Russia, Kyiv cannot mobilize its defense industry and quickly scale up production; it must rely on Western military assistance. Ukraine also has a smaller population than Russia, which means its casualties are felt more deeply.

When Ukrainian forces are sufficiently manned, supplied, and entrenched, however, they have shown that they can inflict high costs on Russian forces and frustrate Russia’s ability to convert its on-paper advantages into decisive gains. The battle for Avdiivka is the most recent case in point: using frequent airstrikes and committing up to 30,000 men across a dozen units, Russia still needed five months to capture the ruined town. Russia wanted Avdiivka badly, and it got Avdiivka … badly: in the course of the siege, it lost more than 600 armored vehicles and likely thousands of soldiers. The heavy losses underscore that Russia’s offensive capabilities are still deficient when trying to overwhelm prepared Ukrainian defenses.

There are few locations left across the frontline, however, that are as heavily defended as Avdiivka was, meaning that future Russian advances may come more easily. Furthermore, Russian weaknesses will matter very little if depleted Ukrainian units can no longer mount a defense, or if they cannot rapidly replicate the types of defenses that were constructed at Avdiivka over ten years.

THE LAST RIDE OF THE SOVIET ARMY

Russia’s two main advantages are its remaining weapons and manpower, though even these are not as strong as the Kremlin would like its enemies to believe. Take Russia’s vast reserves of armor: since 2022, its forces have lost at least 14,000 pieces of equipment. The Russian general staff has offset some of these losses by exhuming the grave of the Soviet army and refurbishing for use thousands of mothballed tanks and armored vehicles. In 2023, Russia revived 1,200 tanks and 2,500 armored vehicles that were previously in long-term storage while producing only 200 new or modernized tanks. But these stockpiles are not infinite. Some researchers have noted that Russia has already removed between 25 to 40 percent of its strategic reserves depending on equipment type, and the best equipment was probably pulled early on. What remains is likely to be in worse shape or even unsalvageable. If Russia continues at this rate, its remaining inventory will dwindle in the next couple of years, and their future options will be constrained as a result. This depends, of course, on whether Ukraine is resourced to mount an active defense and regenerate its own combat power.

The West has not kept pace with Russia’s ammunition production. Although Russia draws from its older ammunition stockpiles, it has also accelerated new artillery production. It is on track to produce two million 122-millimeter and 152-millimeter artillery shells by the end of this year, and has purchased an estimated one to three million rounds of artillery from North Korea and Iran. If the United States and the European Union hit their production goals, they intend to collectively produce about 2.6 million rounds, and not all of that will go to Ukraine. In early March, the Czech Republic announced that it could broker 800,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine from third parties, but delivery timelines are closely guarded.

Ukrainian air defenders have also had to ration their interceptor missiles. Russian missile attacks have grown more experimental and complex since late 2022, and Ukraine’s interception rates have declined as a result. In early January, Ukrainian officials said that lower-altitude air-defense systems around Kyiv could withstand only a few more large attacks.

The erosion of Russia’s equipment and ammunition advantages will matter very little if Ukraine is not resourced to defend itself in 2024. It will not matter if Soviet-era tanks are less capable and survivable if Ukraine is not given the supplies to destroy them. It will not matter if foreign artillery shells have a higher “dud rate” than domestic versions, if Russian forces can maintain a firepower advantage of around five to one, and Western production and delivery delays continue. It will not matter if Russian long-range precision-strike missile production has reached its zenith—or if, as Ukrainian officials say, Western sanctions are reducing the quality of Russian missiles—if Ukraine is not equipped to defend its skies. In this worst-case scenario, Russian heavy bombers could be used to destroy Ukraine’s cities and critical infrastructure.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Russia’s initial mobilization in 2022 was chaotic, with untrained personnel rapidly deployed to plug holes in frontline units. In the months that followed, however, the Russian military set up a pipeline for regenerating units at training ranges in occupied Ukraine and Belarus. Russia is now regenerating enough manpower to keep its lines stable and launch limited offensive operations through at least the rest of the year. After fending off Ukraine’s counteroffensive last fall, it introduced more troops into occupied Ukraine. For instance, Russian and Ukrainian forces in occupied Donetsk were roughly equal in September 2023; by February, Russia had a two-to-one advantage. Ukrainian commanders noted earlier this year that some Russian forces appeared better trained than they were last year; others still use crude tactics to simply overwhelm or exhaust Ukrainian troops.

Despite Russia’s capacity to recruit more soldiers, manpower is still a constraint on the Kremlin’s ambitions. Russia cannot easily translate its greater supply of men to superiority on the battlefield without risks. Although Russian military officials claim to have 25 million personnel available, they have in practice only what they can generate through volunteer pipelines. Out of concern for domestic stability and regime security, the Kremlin prefers not to call for another round of mobilizations if it can be avoided. Even if the Kremlin wanted to occupy larger swaths of Ukraine by 2026, it is far from certain whether it would be willing to accept the risks of staffing a force large enough to accomplish this aim.

Ukraine and Russia are both having difficulty enlisting sufficient troops in their 20s and early 30s, the preferred age range for infantry. For Kyiv, it is a matter of policy; only men who are 27 and older are mobilized. Although Russia has a larger overall population, its military-recruitment challenges are compounded by labor shortages and the emigration of hundreds of thousands of men since 2022. If Russia were to expand the scope of its offensive operations through 2024 and 2025, its pipeline of volunteers would be insufficient on its own, and the country would likely need more rounds of mobilization.

Russian soldiers in Yevpatoriya in occupied Crimea, February 2024

Alexey Pavlishak / Reuters

Russia uses cash incentives and expensive social guarantees to attract volunteers. To meet quotas, authorities also use coercive methods such as conducting raids on factories, dormitories, and even restaurants looking for men to enlist, and pressuring immigrants and inmates. Russia is recruiting foreign fighters—and soon possibly foreign felons—into its ranks as well. Recruiting convicts may have already passed the point of diminishing returns. Before the war, the population of Russia’s prison system was stable at around 400,000 to 420,000. By 2024, that number had declined to 266,000, almost certainly as a result of recruiting by the Russian military and by private mercenary companies such as Wagner.

The remaining convicts may not be available to enlist, either, because Russia typically employs around 100,000 prisoners at any given time to help with persistent labor shortages across the country. Russian authorities estimate a shortfall of 4.8 million domestic workers. These shortages extend across multiple industries and a majority of Russian regions. Labor pools that were tapped to resolve past shortages—migrants, prisoners, students—are now needed for the war or for conscription. Unfortunately, Russia’s looming manpower challenges in 2025 and beyond will matter very little if the brute-force tactics of Russian troops exhaust and overwhelm Ukrainian units in 2024.

HOW SOON IS NOW?

For much of the past five months, Russia’s strategy was to conduct multipronged attacks to deplete and exhaust Ukrainian forces along the frontline. Then it made Avdiivka its main target. Once the city fell, in mid-February, Russia immediately intensified its attacks in that direction and elsewhere. Russian forces have very few reasons not to continue their assaults. By persisting, they maximize momentum before the ground thaws and mud returns, take advantage of understrength Ukrainian forces as they ration equipment, and engaging Ukrainian forces before they have time to fully dig in, all while American aid is stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Overall, it is a bad sign for Ukraine and its supporters that Russia has enough confidence in both its own abilities and Ukraine’s precarious position that it is accelerating attacks in the run-up to the Russian presidential election, in mid-March. These offensives would likely not be authorized if the Kremlin was uncertain about its prospects for success. In other words, Russia is forecasting more battlefield wins.

Russia’s current objectives appear to be advancing to the boundaries of Donetsk and rolling back the results of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia. In Donetsk, they may be trying to reach the city of Pokrovsk in order to secure key road and rail networks and seize the remainder of the Donetsk oblast, or province, from which they could eventually attack the remaining Ukrainian strongholds near Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Russian forces will likely try to make headway in the Zaporizhzhia oblast as well, particularly around Orikhiv, where the terrain is open and fewer Ukrainian defensive positions have been prepared. In the north, Russian forces are trying to approach Kupiansk, which could act as a toehold in the Kharkiv region.

A full reoccupation of western Kherson seems unlikely given the difficulty of the terrain there, Russian manpower and force availability notwithstanding; furthermore, the destruction last year of the Kakhovka Dam now limits paved routes over the Dnipro River in Kherson. Nor are there signs that Russia is amassing the forces required to reoccupy the Kharkiv region by the end of 2024. For Russia to attempt a new offensive on the entire region, the rest of the frontline would need to be stable—with Ukrainian forces fixed in place or unable to redeploy—and Russia would need to generate at least another combined arms army but probably more (50,000 to 100,000 men, depending on the status of Ukrainian defenses). These circumstances do not exist today. But if conditions on the battlefield do not change, and if Russia generates sufficient force, this could be Ukraine’s future.

Ukrainian frontline soldiers are in mounting jeopardy.

To hold their positions in 2024, Ukrainian forces need urgent replenishment of ammunition and manpower. If reinforcements are coming, Ukraine can defend the frontline this year and regenerate combat strength while the West’s industrial base ramps up for 2025 and beyond. Western military assistance—specifically American aid—must be approved quickly to sustain critical ammunition supplies and to maintain existing combat systems. Next, Kyiv must generate and train personnel to replenish frontline units. Unfortunately, finding more soldiers will most likely require an unpopular mobilization. Aid delays make Kyiv’s dilemma even worse. Finally, Ukraine must accelerate the construction of prepared defensive positions.

Without these urgent steps, Ukraine’s rationing of ammunition will continue through the spring and summer. Facing continual Russian attacks, undermanned units could become increasingly hollowed out and lose the ability to defend themselves. Unless immediate changes are made, this is the path that Ukraine and the West are on.

The Russian military’s long-term weaknesses will not matter if Ukraine is not supported this year. Ukrainian frontline soldiers are in mounting jeopardy—not because they lack the will to fight or do not know their enemy’s weaknesses, but because of shortfalls in ammunition and manpower. If the West, specifically the United States, does not want to see the frontline in Ukraine continue to bend or—even worse—break, it must urgently approve aid. And if Kyiv wants to sustain its efforts, it has to make difficult choices about how to generate more manpower. Time is running out.

• DARA MASSICOT is a Senior Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was previously a Senior Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation and a Senior Analyst of Russian military capabilities at the Department of Defense.

Foreign Affairs · by Dara Massicot · March 8, 2024

16. The Day After—in Israel

Excerpts:

FROM CRISIS TO CONSENSUS

On October 7, the country’s security doctrine failed, and Israel’s efforts to dismantle Hamas will require a long-term commitment. The country has no choice but to make a significant further investment in its security—one that could result in a lost economic decade if the government is not cautious and if it bears the burden, which is already high for Israel, alone. Israel must therefore adopt a farsighted national strategy that not only strengthens its security but also enhances its alliances and international standing.

It is far from certain that the current government in Israel, largely influenced by political considerations and constrained by its ultra-right-wing members, can spearhead the necessary reforms. The unprecedented challenges confronting Israel will ultimately require a new government that is capable of fostering broad national consensus and navigating the country out of one of the most severe crises in its history.

The Day After—in Israel

Why the Country Needs a Better Security Doctrine, More Diplomacy, and Political Change

By Amos Yadlin

March 8, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Amos Yadlin · March 8, 2024

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel has found itself embroiled in a multi-front war for the first time in nearly 60 years. It is fighting in Gaza, countering armed groups in the West Bank, and facing missile strikes from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Israel seems less safe than most Israelis assumed it to be on October 6—and its leadership must now reshape the country’s national security policies accordingly.

For the moment, Israel’s priorities are to secure the release of the remaining hostages, eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities, and ensure the safe return of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens to their communities in both the north and south of the country. But Israel must also take more far-reaching steps to avoid another October 7. To that aim, the state must ramp up defense spending and reinforce its borders. Diplomacy with the Palestinians must be part of the picture, but any mutual arrangement for governing Palestinian areas will have to include strong provisions to prevent the emergence of a remilitarized Palestinian territories. Any progress on longer-term objectives, such as a two-state solution—which is presently perceived as unfeasible and even detached from reality by most Israelis—will require both the support of the United States and normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Even as the Israeli government remains focused on immediate military objectives, it must address the question of what happens when the fighting stops. A failure to plan for an alternative to Hamas risks prolonging the Israeli presence in Gaza and could lead to the imposition of military rule. A better future is possible, but it will require Israel to work with the United States and regional partners, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, to establish a provisional, technocratic Palestinian administration that engages in reconstruction, not terror.

ראש הטופסראש הטופסIn addition to reestablishing deterrence and strengthening its intelligence capabilities, Israel must also restore its moral standing as a progressive, democratic state, by defending and strengthening its democratic institutions, as well as its economy and technological innovation, and by further integrating with the region. If Israel is to rebound from the calamity of October 7, it must work on security, diplomacy, and political reform simultaneously and without delay.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

After five months of fighting in Gaza Israel Defense Forces have made impressive progress. The territory is one of the most complex combat zones in the world, with an intricate urban landscape and extraordinary population density, and an enemy that is operating within the civilian population, using an extensive network of tunnels and underground facilities. Nonetheless, IDF forces have been able to dismantle the nerve centers and organizational structures of Hamas in Gaza City and Khan Yunis and significantly degraded terrorist infrastructure in other parts of the Strip. And they have established a security buffer zone between Gaza and Israeli territory.

In doing so, Israel has largely neutralized the immediate ground threat to the towns and villages near Gaza, allowing residents to gradually return to their homes, which were evacuated following the October 7 massacre. Meanwhile, on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where daily skirmishes persist with Hezbollah, the IDF has gained the advantage, having eliminated more than 200 of the group’s commanders and operatives. And Israel has destroyed much of Hezbollah’s missile launch sites and military infrastructure along the border.

Realizing these difficult objectives has come at a high cost to the population of Gaza, and the humanitarian situation has raised pressure on Israel to limit its operations. And yet, calls for Israel to stand down are premature. Hezbollah persists in its aggression against Israel, preventing the return of residents to their homes along the northern border. Additionally, Israel cannot bring an end to the conflict in Gaza as long as Israeli hostages are held captive there. Without a hostage deal, Israel may be compelled to increase pressure on Hamas, potentially by extending operations to Rafah.

The solution to this complex situation lies first in a hostage deal that encompasses a temporary pause in the fighting. This should then be followed by a concerted effort by a coalition of partners, led by the United States, to bring a new and capable Palestinian administration to Gaza. Additionally, Israeli could signal its willingness to discuss a political process based on the two-state principle, even if it is evident to all parties that the realization of that process is likely impossible for the foreseeable future: such a signal will help ease tensions with the Biden administration and give all parties a long-term political horizon at which to aim.

As the intensity of the fighting in Gaza subsides, Israel, the United States, and their Arab partners must bolster political efforts to bring about a viable Palestinian alternative to Hamas, initially in the northern region of the strip. Such an alternative must be strong enough to prevent Hamas from regrouping and reasserting control. Failure to do so risks prolonging the fighting in Gaza and making it even harder to rebuild the strip.

MENDING DEFENSES

The defense and intelligence failures of October 7 have prompted calls from Israel’s military leaders for the development of a new security strategy. It is worth noting, however, that preliminary analysis by MIND Israel (of which I am president), suggests that the breakdown may also have been particular to the circumstances. Efforts should be directed towards identifying and rectifying the deficiencies that might have caused the specific failures rather than scrapping Israel’s overall security doctrine, which is premised on the principles of deterrence, early warning, defense, and decisive victory. Israel is now restoring deterrence through the IDF’s actions against Hamas and Hezbollah. In the months to come, Israel must learn from the intelligence lapses of October 7 to improve its early-warning system, and, in the event that the Gaza war expands to the north, enhance its military readiness to secure a decisive victory.

ראש הטופסIsrael’s most pressing need is to strengthen its defenses. Before hundreds of thousands of displaced Israeli citizens can safely return to their communities, the IDF will need to beef up its presence along its borders. That means establishing a second line of defense inside the border, fortify existing boundary outposts, and establish additional border stations. The country should also develop new, innovative strategies to secure border buildings against direct fire.

Israel will also need more powerful missile defenses. Both Hezbollah and the Houthis have deployed precision missiles and drones in their attacks, and although Israel has impressive defense capabilities against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, its defenses are not impenetrable. Israel must accelerate the development of anti-missile and anti-rocket laser systems. It should also move certain types of sensitive infrastructure, such as power stations and communications and data centers, to underground locations; and when that is not possible such facilities should receive enhanced physical protection. Finally, all public buildings must be equipped with secure spaces or underground shelters—starting with schools.

The best defense, of course, is a good offense, and Israel must revitalize the proactive approach —known as the “campaign between the wars”—that it has applied in Syria, where the IDF has been carrying out strikes on an ongoing basis since 2013 in order to degrade enemy capabilities and preempt emerging threats. Israel must also hold accountable, and when necessary, during large-scale escalations, retaliate militarily against countries such as Lebanon that host terror organizations. And Israel must expand its military options for attacking Iran’s nuclear program should global efforts to curb that program fail.

All public buildings in Israel must be equipped with secure spaces or underground shelters—starting with schools.

A proactive and preemptive policy also demands that Israel be prepared for military escalation in multiple theaters at once. This, in turn, requires Israel to build up its forces to levels that surpass those it had on October 7. Israel responded to the attack using its reserve army, which mobilized quickly and has fought effectively. But to deter its adversaries—and, if needed, fight a multi-front war—it must increase the size of the standing IDF, including by recruiting more from the country’s ultra-Orthodox community, whose members are currently exempt from military service. Israel can also increase its fighting force by giving female soldiers an expanded role in combat operations.

Additionally, the IDF needs more Iron Dome interceptors, precision air munitions, tank and artillery ammunitions, and infantry fighting vehicles. And given Hamas’s extensive network of tunnels, the IDF must urgently develop and acquire new advanced technology to destroy underground infrastructure. To that aim, Israel must build up its defense industrial base.

MORE FRIENDS, MORE SECURITY

In parallel with dismantling Hamas in Gaza, Israel must collaborate with both regional and international partners to establish a new reality in the region. Israel has no interest in occupying or assuming full responsibility for Gaza. But as long as Gaza remains militarized and attacks against Israeli territory persist, Israel will be compelled to maintain overriding security control. Consequently, Israel must work with a coalition comprising the United States and moderate Arab countries to build a technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza under an international mandate. This committee should be guided and overseen by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, working in cooperation with a reformed and revitalized Palestinian Authority.

This interim arrangement could be reviewed after 5 to 10 years, contingent on the Palestinian administration’s progress on security and stability. As long as Israel's security needs remain unmet—as long as the Gaza Strip remains militarized and there continues to be terrorist infrastructure either above and below ground, and attacks against Israeli territory persist— Israel will be compelled to maintain overriding security control.

At the same time Israel has no interest in ruling over millions of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank and must not annex those territories. It must also take legal measures against violence by Jewish extremists, dismantle illegal outposts, and halt the construction of new settlements, while promoting advanced infrastructure projects for Palestinians, including in Area C, which is presently under Israeli control.

Finally, the international institutions that operate in Gaza need to reform. On January 26, Israel presented evidence indicating that at least twelve United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers partook in the October 7 massacre, causing an uproar among UN members and major donor states, leading some of them to suspend their funding. Subsequently, the IDF uncovered a Hamas military command center beneath a UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City. In March, a United Nations report found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas militants committed sexual violence, including gang rape, on October 7. In early March, the IDF released a recording of UNRWA employees boasting about their part in kidnapping young Israeli woman. As of this writing, the UN’s response has been to investigate specific individuals, rather than viewing UNRWA as a failed enterprise.

In the short-term, international aid organizations and the moderate Arab states should provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. After the war, Donor states must consider reforming or replacing UNRWA with uncompromised institutions that are dedicated to the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian refugee crisis.

REBUILDING THE AMERICAN BULWARK

The United States’ status as Israel’s main strategic partner will not change, despite a widening gap between Netanyahu’s government and the Biden administration with respect to how the war is being prosecuted. Washington has largely stood by Israel’s side even as Israel has come under withering international criticism. Still, in order to secure its future, Israel must deepen its engagement with the United States on a host of diplomatic and economic initiatives, and to allay U.S. concerns about the humanitarian costs of the war in Gaza.

Israel must work with Washington to resolve the conflict in Gaza. The two countries should also develop a coordinated strategy to make sure that Hezbollah obeys Security Council Resolution 1701—which requires the group to put down its weapons in southern Lebanon and withdraw from the border region—and rally support for an Israeli military operation in Lebanon if diplomatic efforts fail. They must also coordinate policies to counter Iran's malign activities by applying direct economic and military pressure on Tehran, rather than solely focusing on its proxies. Additionally, concerted efforts are needed to halt Tehran's nuclear advancements. And the two nations can exert pressure on Qatar to curb Hamas by severing the group’s financial support.

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States should work to strengthen support for peace and normalization in the Middle East. They can do so by paving the way for a grand bargain with Saudi Arabia, in which the latter normalizes ties with Israel in exchange for a U.S. security treaty, a United States-supplied civilian nuclear program, and a commitment from Israel to the principle of a two-state solution. This agreement should be coupled with the resumption of political negotiations involving a reformed Palestinian Authority. Simultaneously, any agreement must include U.S. assurances to Israel that Saudi Arabia’s access to a civilian nuclear program should adhere to the so-called Gold Standard—the protocol set out by the United States in 2009 that does not permit any enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear material without a further negotiated agreement—rather than to the looser standards of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. Furthermore, these assurances must ensure that Saudi Arabia’s capabilities do not compromise Israel’s ability to maintain its qualitative military edge, or superiority in defense technologies and capabilities over other regional powers.

Israel and the United States can preserve Israel’s advantage by launching an official technological alliance. For example, they could jointly commit to investing billions of dollars in collaborative projects and startups that develop artificial intelligence, quantum computing, chip technology, space exploration, and drones. Along with helping Israel, this cooperation will also advance American interests in the United States’ technological rivalry with China.

In exchange for more U.S. aid, Israel should adjust its policies toward Beijing, as well as its relationship with Russia. Although Israel should not turn China into an enemy, it must reduce and mitigate ties that create dependence on Beijing or expose Israel to Chinese espionage and technological threats. When it comes to Russia, Israel must consider taking more steps to help support Ukraine, potentially by enhancing its capabilities to counter the threat posed by Russia’s Iranian-made suicide drones, as well as publicly endorsing Western efforts to help safeguard Kyiv’s sovereignty.

FROM CRISIS TO CONSENSUS

On October 7, the country’s security doctrine failed, and Israel’s efforts to dismantle Hamas will require a long-term commitment. The country has no choice but to make a significant further investment in its security—one that could result in a lost economic decade if the government is not cautious and if it bears the burden, which is already high for Israel, alone. Israel must therefore adopt a farsighted national strategy that not only strengthens its security but also enhances its alliances and international standing.

It is far from certain that the current government in Israel, largely influenced by political considerations and constrained by its ultra-right-wing members, can spearhead the necessary reforms. The unprecedented challenges confronting Israel will ultimately require a new government that is capable of fostering broad national consensus and navigating the country out of one of the most severe crises in its history.

• AMOS YADLIN is a retired Major General in the Israeli Air Force and served as the head of Israel’s Defense Intelligence from 2006 to 2010. He is Founder and President of MIND Israel, a consulting firm.

Foreign Affairs · by Amos Yadlin · March 8, 2024

17. Lawmaker who claims to be a retired rear admiral was actually demoted

Sigh.....

Lawmaker who claims to be a retired rear admiral was actually demoted

militarytimes.com · by Geoff Ziezulewicz · March 7, 2024

A retired Navy medical officer who served for years as a top White House physician has touted himself as a retired rear admiral during his post-service political career.

But after he retired, Rep. Ronny Lynn Jackson, R-Texas, was bumped down to the rank of captain, or O-6, nearly two years ago, according to service records and a defense official.

Jackson retired from the Navy in December 2019 and was elected to represent Texas’ 13th Congressional District in 2020.

The Navy said in a statement Thursday that the service “took administrative action in July 2022″ following substantiated allegations in a Defense Department Inspector General investigation that delved into Jackson’s conduct while leading the White House Medical Unit.

That administrative action involved Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro changing Jackson’s “retirement grade determination” and reducing his rank to O-6, a defense official granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters told Navy Times Thursday.

Jackson’s official service record now lists him as a retired captain.

Navy records show U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, is a retired Navy captain, not a retired rear admiral, as his congressional website claims. (Navy)

The Washington Post first reported discrepancies in Jackson’s official retirement rank and the rank which he claims to hold.

Officials with Jackson’s office did not immediately provide comment, but as of Thursday afternoon, the retired captain’s official site still touted him being a retired flag officer.

“As a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service I understand the commitment and sacrifices made by servicemen and servicewomen to serve our country,” the two-term lawmaker’s congressional website states.

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson's congressional site states that he is a retired Navy rear admiral. But records show he was retroactively demoted to captain in 2022 and is retired as an O-6. (Screenshot)

The move to change Jackson’s retirement rank in 2022 followed the findings of a Pentagon IG report that was released to the public in 2021.

The report, spurred by a dozen IG hotline complaints in spring 2018 after President Donald Trump nominated him to be Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, found that Jackson, who had also served in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, presided over a toxic command climate at the White House Medical Unit and drank alcohol while on duty during official, international travel, but not that he ever damaged government property in doing so.

Jackson declined to respond to the IG’s findings before it finalized its report. Its recommendations called for the Navy secretary to take “appropriate action” against Jackson.

“We concluded that [Rear Adm.] Jackson’s overall course of conduct toward subordinates disparaged, belittled, bullied, and humiliated them, and fostered a negative work environment by failing to treat subordinates with dignity and respect,” according to a Pentagon IG statement at the time of the report’s release. “We also concluded that [Rear Adm.] Jackson failed to conduct himself in an exemplary manner in his treatment of subordinates throughout his tenure at WHMU. His treatment of subordinates created a negative work environment that witnesses said made an unfavorable impact on the overall command climate.”

RELATED

Former White House doc denies allegations, says scathing IG report is result of his support for Trump

The Defense Department inspector general recommends that the Navy take action against Rep. Ronny Jackson.

That included Jackson knocking on a female subordinate’s hotel room door in the middle of the night and drunkenly declaring, “I need you,” according to the report.

Jackson has in the past pushed back on such allegations, accusing Democrats of resurrecting old Obama-era rumors “because I have refused to turn my back on President Trump.”

When the IG report was released in 2021, Jackson’s office provided Military Times with a “fact sheet,” pointing out that then-President Barack Obama promoted him to rear admiral in 2016 following the alleged alcohol incidents, calling those who reported him in 2018 “disgruntled subordinates.”

The IG interviewed 60 White House employees, 56 of whom said they were the target of or were aware of Jackson “yelling, screaming, cursing or belittling subordinates.”

“I’m proud of the work environment I fostered under three different presidents of both parties; I take my professional responsibility with respect to prescription drug practices seriously; and I flat out reject any allegation that I consumed alcohol while on duty,” Jackson said in a statement. “I also categorically deny any implication that I was in any way sexually inappropriate at work, outside of work, or anywhere with any member of my staff or anyone else. That is not me and what is alleged did not happen.”

About Geoff Ziezulewicz

Geoff is the editor of Navy Times, but he still loves writing stories. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.

18. Army creating deep sensing cross-functional team

Cross functional teams are the combined arms organizations of the information era.

Army creating deep sensing cross-functional team

Army Futures Command will establish the new group, according to Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George.

BY

MARK POMERLEAU

MARCH 7, 2024

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · March 7, 2024

The Army will be establishing a deep sensing cross-functional team in the coming weeks, the service’s top officer said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the McAleese Defense Programs Conference, Gen. Randy George, chief of staff, said Army Futures Command will be creating the new group. He declined to offer significant details, deferring to AFC.

Deep sensing is a top priority for the Army and Secretary Christine Wormuth.

“The first operational imperative for the Army of 2030 is really to be able to see and sense farther and more persistently at every level across the battlefield than our enemies,” she said at last year’s McAleese event. “We’ve got to be able to collect and analyze unprecedented quantities of raw data from many different sources, and that’s why we are modernizing our aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.”

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Long-range precision fires has been the highest modernization priority for the Army in the past few years. In order to shoot across thousands of miles, the service must be able to see and sense the targets it needs to hit.

There had been rumblings that the Army would establish a deep sensing cross-functional team, however, officials typically demurred on that prospect until now.

The deep sensing portfolio consists of a variety of platforms from high-altitude balloons to the high-altitude jet the Army is developing to its next-generation ground station.

George noted that the Army will be looking at what capabilities are right and in what formations they should exist.

Written by Mark Pomerleau

Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for DefenseScoop, covering information warfare and cyberspace.

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · March 7, 2024

19. Targeting time shrinks from minutes to seconds in Army experiment

Targeting time shrinks from minutes to seconds in Army experiment

The latest edition of Project Convergence streamlines processes and adds new tech.

BY SAM SKOVE

STAFF WRITER

MARCH 7, 2024 11:21 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

CAMP PENDLETON, California—Soldiers found targets in a tiny fraction of the normal time by streamlining procedures and speeding up data processing during a recent experiment, Army officials said Tuesday.

The Army is seeing a “two orders of magnitude” increase in the speed at which data is passed to weapons crews since the first Project Convergence, said Alex Miller, a senior science and technical advisor to Army Chief of Staff Randy George. In certain cases, processes that previously took minutes took just seconds, Miller said during a media day for this year's Project Convergence, one of the service’s marquee technology-testing events.

Miller said the success was due in part to simplifying procedures.

“A lot of it was just making sure we didn’t over-classify things,” allowing soldiers to send information to foreign partners and other services without routing data through a human, he said.

The Army also tried a “kanban”-like system for targeting, which provides a shared view of information and tasks instead of the laborious system of PowerPoint slides and dashboards usually used to share targeting data, Miller added. Kanban processes are frequently used in software development to encourage collaboration.

Systems used in the experiment were “able to pass an amount of data that we had not seen before,” said Lt. Gen. Ross Coffman, deputy commander of Army Futures Command.

Miller also said the Army made use of the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) targeting station and the Army’s Aerial Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS) jets. On Wednesday, the Army announced it awarded Palantir with a $178 million contract to deliver 10 TITAN prototypes.

Project Convergence began in 2020 as a way to test experimental Army technology, from artificial intelligence to robotics. In the years since, the Army added in other services, as well as other countries, like Australia and Great Britain.

The event also became a critical way to evaluate the technology and processes designed to quickly share data across services and between nations. The connect-everything concept and related technology is known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2.

The Defense Department recently launched an initial version of the CJADC2 capability, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said Feb. 24. That version is now being tested at Project Convergence, which ends March 20.

Military leaders see sharing targeting data as particularly vital in battles where all services are engaged in tracking and firing on enemy forces.

Services and allied nations all have some form of long-range intelligence collection, and have weapons they can use based on that intelligence. But unless they share information, multiple units could dogpile on the same target—or else waste precious time determining who will fire what.

“If we can't connect ourselves together, then we're going to build individual stovepipe plans,” said Vice Adm. Michael Boyle. “And we may end up double targeting or triple targeting.”

Data sharing will also help ensure the military doesn’t waste its missiles. That has become a key consideration following a think tank analysis that shows the U.S. would struggle to produce enough long-range precision missiles for a protracted war.

“With that common operational picture, we’ve identified the one shooter so we don’t waste missiles needlessly,” said Coffman.

China and Russia are also working on systems to quickly distribute intelligence to military units. China is developing a concept called Multi-Domain Precision Warfare, while Russia has dubbed its version Automated Control Systems.

Even without advanced network-based targeting, Russian targeting can be swift and deadly, with Russian forces honing their skills over two years of intense combat in Ukraine. Thanks to their reconnaissance drones and other targeting tools, some Russian artillery crews can target Ukrainian positions within three minutes of spotting them.

The speed of the U.S. targeting process is competitive with adversaries, Miller said. But potential adversaries have so many missiles in their stockpiles that the U.S. must focus on knocking out enemy launchers rather than shooting individual missiles out of the air, Coffman said.

“We need to ensure that offensive fires would defeat their capabilities on the ground, so that we're not trying to shoot things out of the air, but rather shooting them before they get into launch,” Coffman said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

20. Urgent Air Lift Abroad – New Thinking on Existing Capabilities

Excerpts:

Fortunately, options for ready go airlift rescue do exist, and they have been proven effective in numerous parts of the world. Here, the U.S. Dept. of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Air Wing stands out. INL’s Air Wing is both interesting and noble. Its original mission was – and to some extent, still is – to help battle vicious narcotics cartels operating around the globe. Understanding the critical role of aviation in combatting drugs and related threats, INL’s fleet has served valiantly in helping partner countries tackle drugs, transnational crime, and terrorism.

...

It is for all these reasons that decision-makers in DC should consider enhancing the INL Air Wing with modern, reliable, safe, cost-effective, and efficient rotary-wing aircraft. Recognizing the rumbling levels of instability around the world and understanding the importance of the Air Wing to the Dept. of State and to overall U.S. foreign policy, the importance of having a robust and diverse set of airlift options for urgent contingency response is real.

Urgent Air Lift Abroad – New Thinking on Existing Capabilities

By Miguel Alejandro Laborde

March 08, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/03/08/urgent_air_lift_abroad__new_thinking_on_existing_capabilities_1016958.html?mc_cid=8cc6b9ce60&mc_eid=70bf478f36

The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East following the October Hamas attacks has completely upended conventional policy hopes for the region and has forced the global community to deal with yet another geopolitical crisis. As hostilities continue to flare, new thoughts have been stimulated on everything from preparedness, personal security, travel awareness, and contingency planning.

Of course, it is no big secret that the U.S. and our allies have been facing a looming rise in global uncertainty for several years now – a widening set of threats and issues that only seems to ratchet up by the month. Perpetual instability seems to be the norm, with long-held assumptions about security and reliability being challenged and shattered on a regular basis around the globe. Moreover, this brewing tempest of concerns and tensions – from the Taiwan Strait, to Ukraine, to Africa, to the Levant – shows little sign of receding, and argues for increased degrees of acuity, alacrity, and innovation in both responding to and managing various crises.

In fact, the assault by Hamas is the second time in just two years where a major unconventional quasi-military force – well-trained, well-equipped, and motivated – took the world community by surprise with a well-planned operation. The other was the Taliban’s lightning charge across Afghanistan in 2021, a campaign that resulted in the complete takeover of the country.

In both cases – as well as in Sudan in 2023 which saw the evacuation of roughly 1,000 Americans – a major politico-military problem rapidly escalated, quickly sweeping up civilians in a chaotic and uncertain situation, leaving little room for planning, accurate information gathering, or deliberate response. Indeed the threat moved so swiftly in Afghanistan that the U.S. government advised citizens to leave immediately, but that they should “not plan to rely on U.S. government flights.” Those folks jammed in the tumult were left to figure it out for themselves.

After watching these types of situations on repeat, where thousands of innocent people around the world – including Americans – get caught up in violence and chaos abroad and have few options for escape, one is forced to ask questions about how such situations can be avoided. Moreover, we must ask what might be needed in the way of more responsive rescue or transport options in the event of political upheaval, humanitarian crisis, or natural disaster.

In places where entire systems of travel are broken down or impeded in the wake of instability, the need for more urgent and flexible capabilities is especially important. Urgent travel to an airport might be difficult enough – if air travel isn’t an option because flights are canceled or the airport is inoperable, the situation rapidly degrades and appears bleak. But even if transport avenues remain in-country – and are simply focused on moving personnel away from danger until more extensive travel arrangements out of a country can be made – all these recent global events suggest that more novel thinking is needed.

In all of this, airlift options are key – and policymakers in Washington DC focused on global security may need to start thinking about how elements of the U.S. government (beyond the U.S. military) may be more closely pre-positioned in specific regions to ensure that rapid extraction options exist for Americans in need of immediate evacuation.    

Fortunately, options for ready go airlift rescue do exist, and they have been proven effective in numerous parts of the world. Here, the U.S. Dept. of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Air Wing stands out. INL’s Air Wing is both interesting and noble. Its original mission was – and to some extent, still is – to help battle vicious narcotics cartels operating around the globe. Understanding the critical role of aviation in combatting drugs and related threats, INL’s fleet has served valiantly in helping partner countries tackle drugs, transnational crime, and terrorism.

Here in early 2024, the INL Air Wing – if it properly resourced and capitalized – may be leveraged to address some of these wider search, rescue, and contingency transportation issues. In fact, the INL Air Wing has performed many rescue missions in the past, often on a fast-turn basis. The Air Wing put in major flight hours in Afghanistan to help move people around out of harm’s way on the eve of the Taliban’s takeover in mid-2021. Clearly, the team at INL and their Air Wing have proven to be a can-do force multiplier for contingency operations in high-risk or sensitive regions.

Despite its great legacy and record of performance, the INL Air Wing is getting advanced in age – especially its rotary-wing fleet. A significant portion of the fleet is over a half-century old and the wear and tear from decades of flying is taking its toll on the Wing’s ability to execute their mission. That said, the mission and the requirements for the Air Wing remain in place. For example, the Air Wing continues to perform an important diplomatic transport mission in several nations – having more assets on-hand to help more Americans in need might be increasingly important moving ahead. Looking across the global landscape, the potential for future crisis situations to flare up and necessitate an all-hands response is more likely than not.

It is for all these reasons that decision-makers in DC should consider enhancing the INL Air Wing with modern, reliable, safe, cost-effective, and efficient rotary-wing aircraft. Recognizing the rumbling levels of instability around the world and understanding the importance of the Air Wing to the Dept. of State and to overall U.S. foreign policy, the importance of having a robust and diverse set of airlift options for urgent contingency response is real.

Miguel Alejandro Laborde is a former NCO in the 160th SOAR (A), and a subject matter expert on defense aviation programs, capabilities, and platforms, with decades’ worth of experience in the aerospace industry supporting the joint force.

21. The U.S. Air Force's New Mission: Beat China In a War At All Costs

Excerpts:

How badly has Air Force readiness degraded over the years? It is hard to say, particularly when senior leaders like General Allvin do little more than brag about an Air Force is the best in the world. He did, however, further the need for this reorganization with an analogy of a championship football team – one that had been optimized to run an outdated formation which would make it harder to win future championships.

A better football analogy would involve the Detroit Lions. In 2020, the Lions could have humiliated any roster a third-world nation could put together. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the foundation, the blocking and tackling skills essential to competing with its peers in the NFL. After a series of losses, the Lion’s leadership installed a new coach who began to rebuild that foundation, but it took Dan Campbell two years to elevate that team’s readiness to a point where the Lions could effectively compete with its peers.

The stakes with China are much, much higher. It will take an exceptionally driven and talented leader at least two years, if not longer, to prepare the Air Force to dominate that looming fight. Let’s hope the Service’s leadership doesn’t wait for a series of losses before it starts that process.

The U.S. Air Force's New Mission: Beat China In a War At All Costs

In mid-February, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall delivered a blunt warning about China’s 20-year effort to build a military that can deter and defeat the United States. The Air Force is now making trying to make big changes to address the threat - but under tough circumstance. 

The National Interest · by John Venable · March 7, 2024

Summary: Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has signaled an urgent need for the Department of the Air Force to reorganize in response to China's growing military capabilities. Commissioning McKinsey & Company to spearhead a transformative study, the plan involves 24 initiatives aiming to optimize the Air Force for great power competition. Despite the ambitious plan, concerns about the Air Force's current state of readiness loom large. Declines in training standards, promotion processes, and operational capabilities suggest a significant readiness deficit. The reorganization seeks to address readiness, power projection, capabilities development, and personnel management. However, achieving high levels of readiness amidst organizational changes and budget constraints presents a formidable challenge.

How the Air Force Plans to Outmaneuver China

In mid-February, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall delivered a blunt warning about China’s 20-year effort to build a military that can deter and defeat the United States: “We are out of time.” Indeed, he added, “we are involved in an enduring competition that could turn to conflict at any given time.”

This obviously makes his plan to reorganize the Department of the Air Force to meet that challenge all the more important. It’s incredibly complex, and while many elements are well thought out, the entire scheme will be impaired without the foundation of readiness.

Let’s start with the plan itself.

Last fall, Kendall commissioned McKinsey & Company, a defense contractor that specializes in organizational change, to lead a study on what transformative steps the Department of the Air Force should take to optimize itself for great power competition.

McKinsey reportedly engaged over 1,500 Airmen and Guardians and used business tools and best practices to frame the service’s reorganization based on what it learned. It conducted progress reviews, exercises, and stakeholder engagements to refine the effort into 24 initiatives within a reorganization that Secretary Kendall framed during his remarks.

Effecting change in a small business unit can take several years to implement, but reorganizing an enterprise the size of the Department of the Air Force is much, much more complicated. Experts in the field estimate that implementing change in such a large organization could take up to six years and involve, in McKinsey’s own words, process and budget disruptions that will generate organizational tension and friction throughout implementation.

I was raised in an Air Force that was organized, postured, and trained to the highest levels of readiness for a face-off with the Soviet Union. As a major, I was part of the initial cadre for the first Air Land Composite Wing in North Carolina and, near the end of my career, I was on the receiving end of some 48 Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) squadrons and elements as an Expeditionary Group Commander during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.

The transitions and friction associated with the composite wing and AEF reorganizations were disruptive, to put it mildly, but the Air Force weathered it well because its foundational processes and functions were incredibly sound.

The accessions and promotion process were competitive and screened for high levels of talent. Training pipelines held high standards and filled operational units with incredibly competent and competitive airmen. And the service’s operations and maintenance (O&M) budget ensured every squadron and every operational airman therein, received “reps and sets” in the air and on the ground that far exceeded the minimum number required to be considered ready.

Unfortunately, the Air Force is not in the same place today. The drive for efficiencies in the 1990s, coupled with recent moves to inject diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the Air Force, have removed the merit and character screening elements that were once resident in the officer selection process.

Every Air Force captain without legal or ethical issues has been promoted to Major since 2017. In 2021, just 0.27 (point two-seven) percent of flight school candidates were eliminated because of performance, and screening for competence beyond flight school is effectively non-existent. In a war with China, the Air Force could generate just 32 percent of the fighter and bomber capacity it could in 1987. To top it all off, today’s aircrews are getting roughly half the number of sorties that mission-ready pilots received at the height of the Cold War.

The training statistics for aircrews, maintainers, and the professionals beyond the flight line point to an Air Force that has lost focus on mission execution. It is now, in fact, at the lowest state of readiness in its history. Mission capable rates for fighter, bomber, and tanker aircraft have hovered at historic lows throughout Secretary Kendall’s tenure, and the number of sorties, flight hours and mission simulators Air Force aircrews have received would, in no way, would allow a single squadron to be considered mission ready against a peer adversary.

It is hard to imagine a more precarious position to start a major reorganization, but here we are.

Secretary Kendall framed his 24 initiatives within the Department’s four focus areas: readiness, power projection, capabilities development and people. While readiness headlines the four, understanding where it really stands within the list of priorities takes some analysis.

General Dave Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF), highlighted readiness in at least two of 15 priorities that Kendall set for the Air Force. The first is to establish the “Mission Ready Command,” which will reside under Airman Development Command (formerly Air Education and Training Command). Unlike its title, Mission Ready Command is not in charge of operational unit readiness. Instead it will give individual Airman the training and skillsets required to transition from one part of the service to another without needing to relearn new systems, and ensure they have the tools required to succeed in the new role.

Evaluating operational readiness was a second readiness priority that focuses on what Allvin referred to as the Service’s reoperating concept: fighting to get out of town, fighting to get into theater, and then fighting to get airborne. The Chief went on to say evaluating that level of readiness would need to involve multiple parts of the Air Force, that it should be part of a unit’s inspection cycle, and that the results and findings of those assessments will be key to the reallocation of assets within service’s limited budget.

While that would imply that evaluating operational readiness was the most important of the 15 Air Force priorities, he went on to admit the service does not actually have a plan, much less the standing structure with which to execute such an evaluation scheme.

The operational readiness inspection (ORI) process in place during the Cold War was incredibly effective at sustaining high levels of readiness. The organization resources, authorities, phases of evaluation, accompanying schemes and schedules, and the reporting structure took years to develop, which impacted virtually every operational and support organization within Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), US Air Forces Europe (USAFE) and what is now Air Combat Command.

But as both Kendall and Allvin conveyed, today’s operating environment is much more complex than the one in play during the Cold War. Building an evaluation scheme that encompasses those complexities will take years to develop and implement. Once it’s in place, there is little doubt its iterations will extend both the duration and the operational dysfunction associated with this reorganization.

But the impact the delay will have on service readiness cannot be overstated.

Applying General Alvin’s words about asset allocation, one must assume the Air Force budget will remain relatively constant until that inspection program is in place. In FY 2024, the Department of the Air Force funded the fewest number of flight hours in Service history, furthering a drought in reps and sets that is now seemingly entrenched within the corporate Air Force. While masked by the service’s current method of accessing readiness, the cumulative effects of that drought have undoubtedly impaired the Air Force’s ability to “fight tonight.”

How badly has Air Force readiness degraded over the years? It is hard to say, particularly when senior leaders like General Allvin do little more than brag about an Air Force is the best in the world. He did, however, further the need for this reorganization with an analogy of a championship football team – one that had been optimized to run an outdated formation which would make it harder to win future championships.

A better football analogy would involve the Detroit Lions. In 2020, the Lions could have humiliated any roster a third-world nation could put together. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the foundation, the blocking and tackling skills essential to competing with its peers in the NFL. After a series of losses, the Lion’s leadership installed a new coach who began to rebuild that foundation, but it took Dan Campbell two years to elevate that team’s readiness to a point where the Lions could effectively compete with its peers.

The stakes with China are much, much higher. It will take an exceptionally driven and talented leader at least two years, if not longer, to prepare the Air Force to dominate that looming fight. Let’s hope the Service’s leadership doesn’t wait for a series of losses before it starts that process.

In mid-February, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall delivered a blunt warning about China’s 20-year effort to build a military that can deter and defeat the United States. The Air Force is now making trying to make big changes to address the threat - but under tough circumstance.

About the Author

A retired U.S. Air Force commander and combat fighter pilot, John “JV” Venable is a senior research fellow for The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense.

The National Interest · by John Venable · March 7, 2024

22. Kill the zombies: Army on mission to make soldiers better writers

Is writing an anachronism? Old school and old think? I think not.

I would argue that in addition to outfighting our enemies we need to out-think them. Communicating is critical in warfighting as well as in information and influence.  Writing is one important way to develop the cognitive skills to out-think our enemies but also to communicate across the spectrum of conflict as well as for effective influence operations.

Kill the zombies: Army on mission to make soldiers better writers

armytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · March 8, 2024

Professor Trent Lythgoe was well familiar with the slog of trying to read Army doctrinal publications.

Before becoming a professor at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, he’d served for 22 years as an aviation officer.

But he didn’t realize just how dense and unwieldy Army prose was until he subjected it to the Flesch Reading Ease test, an analysis that generates a readability score from 1–100.

The thesis of the Army’s Field Manual 3-0 scored just 9.3 on the test, putting it in the bottom 10% for ease of reading. Army Doctrinal Publication 6-0 didn’t do much better, with a score of 14.9. These scores meant the material was best understood by those with college or post-graduate degrees.

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By comparison, an academic article describing the discovery of the Higgs boson particle by theoretical physicist Brian Greene scored 50.6% on the test ― the equivalent of a tenth-grade reading level.

The contrast was a shock and a wake-up call for Lythgoe: a sign that something needed to change.

“Maybe we can’t write about quantum physics at tenth-grade level, like [Greene] does,” Lythgoe said. “But maybe, maybe we can write about multidomain operations at a high school level. I think that’s in the realm of the achievable.”

Lythgoe’s ongoing study of Army writing and its shortfalls ― undertaken in the hope of introducing new tools to make soldiers better communicators ― comes as a new project under the direction of the chief of staff of the Army aims to revitalize the service’s professional publications and encourage more soldiers to write.

Another mini-analysis by Lythgoe may help explain why clear and simple writing is such a rarity in the Army. Using the same doctrinal publications from the Flesh test, he tallied up “zombie nouns,” or nouns created from other parts of speech.

“In Army writing, zombie nouns often come from verbs,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post about his findings. “For example, “plan” becomes “planning,” and “prepare” becomes “preparation.” While, he noted, these words are not inherently wrong, overuse leads to “wordy, abstract writing.”

In Lythgoe’s analysis, the Army’s FM 3-0 Operations section was 12% zombie nouns. ADP 6-0 Mission Command had 11%. Greene’s article on the Higgs boson, by comparison, had just 4%.

One sentence from FM 3-0 illustrates the problem: “Systems warfare is the identification and isolation or destruction of critical subsystems or components to degrade or destroy an opponent’s overall system.”

The zombies in this sentence ― identifications, isolation, destruction ― “cannibalize” the verbs they come from and leave the sentence cluttered and abstract, Lythgoe explained in a Substack post.

This is more than just a style problem, Lythgoe argues. Unnecessarily dense writing, he said, can also hide weak or undeveloped ideas.

“It’s this very dense style of writing that, I think, tries to lend itself credibility by being dense, and by using big words,” he said. “I think removing that kind of scares people a little bit. If I strip away all the embellishment, and all the zombie nouns, and I just say, with verbs and nouns, what we’re doing, do I still have good ideas? And that’s the whole point.”

Lythgoe has an eight-page article with his initial findings pending publication: “Army Writing and the Zombie (Noun) Apocalypse.”

Beyond diagnosing the problem, though, Lythgoe wants to help soldiers write better.

At Command and General Staff College, which provides post-graduate degrees to military officers, he already has helped develop a new writing guide. In the coming year, he said, the college is rolling out a new writing skills test that includes both a self-assessment and an external evaluation to help students better understand their strengths and shortfalls.

“Longer-term, it’s just expanding on this research and getting a better idea of why Army writing is difficult, both from a skill standpoint and a culture standpoint, and then how can we make it better,” Lythgoe said.

As his research continues, a new Army initiative known as the Harding Project is working to make the service’s roughly 18 professional journals better and smarter.

Headed up by Maj. Zachary Griffiths, a special assistant to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, the project aims to make the journals a go-to and accessible resource by, for example, digitizing decades’ worth of paper archives, and get more soldiers contributing as writers and editors.

Launched in September 2023, it’s named for Maj. Edwin “Forrest” Harding, who was nicknamed “the poet laureate” of the Army’s 15th Infantry Regiment, and led a 1934 journal revamp.

As part of the project, Harding’s team is producing a series of unit how-to guides about writing articles and professional discourse. They’re in close communication with Lythgoe and keeping an eye on work to improve military writing at Command and General Staff College.

“We can look into whether that should be scaled across the whole Army,” Griffiths told Army Times. “We can also look into doctrine and regulations, and just see if there’s an opportunity to emphasize the importance of education in writing.”

Behind the project is the idea that soldiers at all levels do have good ideas worth sharing, they just need the skills and the confidence to communicate them clearly in writing.

“I think everyone knows there’s really important insights that come from all levels,” Griffiths said. “And so the key is to help the Army gather those insights.”

About Hope Hodge Seck

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter covering the U.S. military and national defense. The former managing editor of Military.com, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Politico Magazine, USA Today and Popular Mechanics.

23. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 7, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-march-7-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Gaza Strip: Western media reported that the United States will establish a temporary port in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid.
• Iran: Iranian military and security leaders are increasingly discussing the need to expand the Iranian military presence around the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq appears to have refocused its attacks to target primarily Israel rather than US forces for the moment.
• West Bank: Unidentified Palestinian fighters detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeting Israeli forces around Tubas.
• Iraq: Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said that the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias must refrain attacking US forces so that Baghdad can negotiate a timeline for the US withdrawal.
• Yemen: Houthi-affiliated media claimed that the United States and the United Kingdom conducted two airstrikes targeting Hudaydah.

IRAN UPDATE, MARCH 7, 2024

Mar 7, 2024 - ISW Press

Iran Update, March 7, 2024

Amin Soltani, Andie Parry, Peter Mills, Johanna Moore, Alexandra Braverman, Ahmad Omid Arman, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00pm ET

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

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

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

Western media reported on March 7 that the United States will establish a temporary port in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid.[1] US President Joe Biden is expected to announce the project during his State of the Union address on March 7. White House officials disclosed that the United States plans to build a temporary port off the coast of the Gaza Strip before moving the structure closer to shore. Western reporting noted that the project would require up to thousands of US service members stationed off the Mediterranean coast. Palestinian militias have previously condemned US humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip as insufficient and creating chaos.[2] CTP-ISW will follow up with additional details on the proposed temporary port in future updates.

Iranian military and security leaders are increasingly discussing the need to expand the Iranian military presence around the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi—a senior military adviser to the Iranian supreme leader—stated on March 6 that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy and Aerospace Force should “focus” on the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea.[3] Safavi described the Mediterranean Sea as part of Iran’s strategic depth and that Tehran must accordingly “increase [its] strategic depth [by] 5,000 kilometers,” which would extend to the Strait of Gibraltar.[4] Safavi’s remarks come after IRGC Coordination Deputy Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi threatened in December 2023 that Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” could someday disrupt maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea and around the Strait of Gibraltar.[5] The Iranian desire to develop a military presence, especially a naval one, around the Mediterranean Sea and its periphery is not entirely new, as senior military officials have discussed the idea since at least 2016.[6]

The remarks from Safavi and Naghdi are noteworthy, nevertheless, given recent Iranian efforts in the area. Western media reported on March 3 that Iran requested Sudanese permission to establish a permanent naval base on the Red Sea, which would support Iranian out-of-area naval operations and attacks on international shipping.[7] Separately, Israel was likely responsible for an airstrike that killed an IRGC Navy colonel around the coastal city of Baniyas, Syria, on March 1.[8] An Israeli social media account observed that the naval officer may have worked on coastal missile defenses and/or electronic warfare.[9]

Iran would probably use an expanding military presence around the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea to threaten commercial traffic, as Iran has long done so around the Persian Gulf and is currently supporting Houthi attacks on global commerce. Iran has invested in recent years in building surface vessels that are capable of hosting fast attack craft, drones, helicopters, and missiles. These vessels would not likely survive conventional engagements against the US Navy or other modern militaries—but they are optimized for the sort of commerce raiding that has long been a feature of Iranian regional strategy.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—appears to have refocused its attacks to target primarily Israel rather than US forces for the moment. The group has claimed four attacks targeting Israel in the first week of March, compared to three attacks targeting Israel in the month of February.[10] The group has contrastingly not claimed any attacks targeting US forces since February 4.[11] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq described its three most recent attacks as part of the “second phase of operations to . . . support our people in Gaza.”[12] Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders have praised the Islamic Resistance in Iraq attack targeting Kiryat Shmona Airport on March 6 as the beginning of this second phase, which involves targeting Israeli airports and ports.[13] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq released a statement on March 6 stating that it means to expel US forces from Iraq and support Palestinian militias by continuing attacks targeting Israel until there is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.[14]

• The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed three drone attacks targeting industrial and military locations inside Israel on March 5–7.[15] The IDF reported on March 4 that it intercepted a drone entering from Syria.[16] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed three attacks in February 2023 targeting unspecified Israeli targets near Eilat, the Golan Heights, and the Dead Sea.[17]
• Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada Secretary General Abu Alaa al Walai called for a second phase of attacks targeting Israel on January 23.[18] Walai specifically called for targeting Israel’s ports. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed on March 3 that the group launched drones targeting the Haifa port.[19] Israeli journalists reported that the IDF intercepted a drone near Haifa on February 29.[20]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed on March 7 that it launched drones targeting an IDF military airport near Safed, Israel.[21] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) separately claimed on March 7 that it intercepted a drone that resembles drones previously launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.[22] A Syrian social media account stated that the intercepted drone was an Iranian-made Shahed-101 and speculated that the SAA could have intercepted the drone by mistake.[23]

Key Takeaways:

• Gaza Strip: Western media reported that the United States will establish a temporary port in the Gaza Strip to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid.
• Iran: Iranian military and security leaders are increasingly discussing the need to expand the Iranian military presence around the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq appears to have refocused its attacks to target primarily Israel rather than US forces for the moment.
• West Bank: Unidentified Palestinian fighters detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeting Israeli forces around Tubas.
• Iraq: Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said that the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias must refrain attacking US forces so that Baghdad can negotiate a timeline for the US withdrawal.
• Yemen: Houthi-affiliated media claimed that the United States and the United Kingdom conducted two airstrikes targeting Hudaydah.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Palestinian militias continued to claim attacks on Israeli forces in the Zaytoun area of southern Gaza City on March 7. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) targeted Israeli armor operating in Zaytoun with an improvised explosive device (IED).[24] PIJ also mortared Israeli infantry on Road 10 in southern Zaytoun.[25]The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) concluded a two-week-long operation in Zaytoun on March 2 to re-clear Palestinian fighters there.[26] Palestinian militia attacks may be targeting semi-permanent Israeli checkpoints in southern Gaza City or Israeli forces building an east-west road in between Gaza City and the central Gaza Strip rather than forces actively clearing the northern Gaza Strip.[27] Ongoing Palestinian attacks in the area suggest that Israeli forces did not fully clear Zaytoun and that Palestinian militias in southern Gaza City retain some capacity to fight.

The IDF Nahal Brigade (162nd Division) killed at least 10 Palestinian fighters in the central Gaza Strip on March 7.[28] The brigade directed an airstrike on a squad loading military equipment and ammunition on a vehicle near Israeli forces.

Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in northern Khan Younis on March 7. The IDF Maglan and Egoz units (89th Commando Brigade) and the IDF Navy Shayetet unit conducted “secret and precise” raids in Hamad. The Commando forces clashed with and detained Palestinian fighters in high-rise towers in Hamad. The IDF 7th Brigade (36th Division) raided militia infrastructure in Hamad, including Hamas offices, tunnel shafts, and a weapons factory.[29] The IDF Bislamach Brigade killed six Palestinian fighters entering a building known to house Hamas infrastructure in Qarara.[30]

Palestinian militias continued to defend against Israeli clearing operations in Hamad, northwestern Khan Younis. Three militias conducted ambushes with explosive devices targeting Israeli armor and dismounted infantry operating in Hamad.[31] Hamas detonated a building rigged with anti-personnel IEDs targeting over 20 Israeli soldiers on March 6.[32] PIJ claimed a nearly identical attack on March 7.[33] Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine targeted Israeli armor with an IED in Hamad on March 7.[34] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the self-proclaimed military wing of Fatah and aligned with Hamas in the war, claimed two additional clashes with Israeli forces in Hamad.[35]

Cairo-based ceasefire talks concluded on March 7 without an agreement. A senior Hamas official stated that Israel rejected on March 7 Hamas’ ceasefire counterproposal, which required a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a permanent ceasefire, and the return of displaced Gazans without restrictions.[36] Hamas confirmed its delegation left Cairo on March 7.[37] Unspecified senior Biden administration officials blamed Hamas for holding up a proposed six-week ceasefire deal by refusing to release the ”vulnerable“ category of hostages whom it holds in the Gaza Strip.[38] This breakdown in talks indicates that a deal is unlikely to be reached before the March 10 deadline that high-level Israeli officials set to reach a deal before conducting an offensive into Rafah.[39] Israeli officials have signaled since February 18 that the IDF may delay its operation into Rafah to evacuate the displaced civilians currently sheltering there.[40] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on March 7 his intent to expand Israeli operations into Rafah.[41]

PIJ fired a rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip targeting Nahal Oz on March 7.[42]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters at least five times in the West Bank since CTP-ISW's last data cut off on March 6.[43] The IDF detained 29 wanted individuals in the West Bank overnight.[44]

Unidentified Palestinian fighters detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) targeting Israeli forces around Tubas on March 7.[45] This event marks the second VBIED attack that CTP-ISW has recorded in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war. Palestinian media posted footage on January 5 showing a VBIED detonate in Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm.[46] These attacks suggest the presence of a VBEID factory in the northern West Bank.

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least seven attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel on March 7.[47] Hezbollah conducted at least two attacks targeting IDF bases in the Golan Heights.[48] Israeli media reported that Hezbollah is using its indirect fire attacks to test Israeli air defenses and identify the location of Iron Dome batteries.[49]

Hezbollah separately claimed that it conducted two attacks targeting towns in northern Israel in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.[50] The IDF targeted Hezbollah observation posts and unspecified military infrastructure near the Israel-Lebanon border on March 6.[51]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said that the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias must refrain from renewing their attack campaign against US forces in Iraq so that the Iraqi federal government can negotiate a timeline for the US withdrawal.[52] Neither the Islamic Resistance in Iraq nor any Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have claimed any attacks targeting US forces in Iraq since February 4.[53] The United States and Iraq have held a series of ”working group” meetings since January 2024 to discuss the International Coalition’s mission in Iraq as well as to present an assessment of the capabilities of Iraqi Security Forces and of the threat posed by ISIS.[54] These meetings are a precursor to negotiations that Baghdad seeks to use to transition from a multilateral security relationship between Iraq and the International Coalition to unspecified bilateral relationships between Iraq and individual coalition member countries.[55]

The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)-controlled Muhandis General Company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chinese National Machinery Industry (SINOMACH) on March 7.[56] The MOU encompasses reconstruction, engineering, trade services, and energy-related projects across multiple Iraqi provinces. SINOMACH is a Chinese state-owned company whose business activities encompass heavy machinery manufacturing, overseas infrastructure construction, and financial services. SINOMACH has been contracted by the Iraqi federal government for multiple construction projects for oil and gas facilities in Basra and Baghdad.[57]

The Muhandis General Company was established in February 2023 and is nominally under the control of the PMF.[58] PMF Chairman Faleh al Fayyadh is the signatory of the Muhandis General Company’s articles of incorporation and was seen at a ceremony for the company with PMF Chief of Staff Abdul Aziz al Mohammadawi.[59] The Muhandis General Company is modeled after the IRGC’s parastatal organization Khatam ol Anbiya Construction headquarters, an engineering and development firm that oversees large-scale construction projects and helps Iran circumvent sanctions.

Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee member Yasser Iskandar claimed that Iraq must strengthen its air defense capabilities to eliminate vulnerabilities in Iraqi security.[60] Iskandar said that air defense capabilities are necessary to prevent violations of Iraqi airspace. He also claimed that the United States has prevented Iraq from developing air defense capabilities to retain its own freedom of movement.

Houthi-affiliated media claimed that the United States and the United Kingdom conducted two airstrikes targeting Hudaydah on March 7.[61] US CENTCOM separately acknowledged airstrikes targeting two Houthi unmanned aerial vehicles inside Houthi-controlled Yemen on March 6.[62]

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian discussed the Israel-Hamas war in a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah on March 5.[63] Abdollahian called on Muslim countries to pressure Israel and the United States to end the Israel-Hamas war. Abdollahian blamed the United States for prolonging the war by vetoing resolution calling for a ceasefire on the UN Security Council.

Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan continued his official visit to Tehran to discuss regional security cooperation on March 7.[64] Papikyan met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after having previously met with Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani on March 6.[65] Raisi reiterated his criticism regarding alleged extra-regional interference in the Caucasus, referring to the long-held Iranian assertion that Israel and Turkey are expanding their geopolitical influence there via Azerbaijan.[66] The Iranian regime has historically accused Baku of allowing Israel to use Azerbaijani territory to launch operations against Iran.[67] Iran has provided security assistance, including drone sales, to Armenia previously as part of its effort to contain Azerbaijan.[68] Papikyan may have been further discussing increased cooperation with Iranian officials on March 6 and 7.

24. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 7, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-7-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia has the capability to continue sustaining the current tempo of its war in Ukraine and will likely have the capability to gradually expand its military capabilities in the near term.
• Lithuanian intelligence also assessed that Russia is unlikely to abandon its long-term objectives of subjugating Ukraine even if Russian fails to achieve these objectives through military means.
• Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia is preparing for confrontation with NATO in the long term while also waging its war in Ukraine.
• Sweden formally joined NATO on March 7, becoming the 32nd member of the alliance.
• The governor of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, met with Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko in Russia on March 7 as Moldovan authorities announced that a criminal case against Gutsul will soon go to court.
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Chinese calls for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on March 7; Russia will likely continue to use such calls to promote long-standing information operations aimed at prompting Western concessions.
• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on March 7 that it neutralized an Islamic State (IS) terrorist cell that had been preparing an attack on synagogues in Moscow.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk and Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 7.
• Russian intelligence services likely continue to source and operate sanctioned precision machine tools and dual-use components to produce Russian military equipment.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 7, 2024

Mar 7, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 7, 2024

Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Christina Harward, Riley Bailey, and George Barros

March 7, 2024, 6:25pm ET 

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:00pm ET on March 7. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the March 8 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. 

Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia has the capability to continue sustaining the current tempo of its war in Ukraine and will likely have the capability to gradually expand its military capabilities in the near term.[1] Lithuanian intelligence published its 2024 national threat assessment on March 7 wherein it assessed that Russia has the manpower, material, and financial resources to sustain its war effort in Ukraine in the near term. Lithuanian intelligence noted that Russia reconstituted and increased its deployed manpower in Ukraine in 2023 despite suffering heavy losses but continues to prioritize quantity of manpower and materiel over quality of forces. Lithuanian intelligence also assessed that Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) has become a driving force within the Russian economy at the expense of other economic sectors and that Russia had allocated at least 10.8 trillion rubles (about $119 billion) to military spending in 2023. The Lithuanian intelligence assessment stated that Russia’s economy is doing better than expected due to high oil prices and Russia’s ability to offset Western sanctions. Lithuanian intelligence caveated that short-term factors are driving Russia’s economic growth and that Russian structural problems, which impose limits on Russia’s short-term capacity, are only likely to deepen in the long term. Lithuanian intelligence also assessed that the Kremlin views Russia’s upcoming March 2024 presidential election as a significant event to legitimize Russian President Vladimir Putin and that Putin will be more likely to make unpopular decisions (potentially such as mobilization) after the election, which could allow the Kremlin to address some potential constraints on its long-term war effort.

Lithuanian intelligence also assessed that Russia is unlikely to abandon its long-term objectives of subjugating Ukraine even if Russia fails to achieve these objectives through military means. Lithuanian intelligence assessed that “Russia shows no intention of de-escalating" its war against Ukraine and that Russia is unlikely to abandon its operational objectives in the long-term, even if Russia suffers a military defeat in Ukraine.[2] Lithuanian intelligence stated that Russia will continue to pursue its goal of completely undermining Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty, enforcing Ukraine’s neutral status, and destroying Ukraine’s military potential in the long term, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia will also continue efforts to expand the Russian state’s administrative control to the administrative borders of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in the short term. Recent Russian official statements underscore that the Kremlin’s maximalist objectives in Ukraine have remained unchanged since the beginning months of the full-scale invasion and likely will not change, despite Russian information operations that aim to persuade Western audiences and leaders that Russia has limited objectives in Ukraine to seduce the West to support negotiations that favor Russia.[3]

Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia is preparing for confrontation with NATO in the long term while also waging its war in Ukraine. Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia has allocated substantial resources to the war in Ukraine but maintains the means to prepare for a long-term confrontation with NATO in the Baltic Sea region.[4] Lithuanian intelligence stated that Russia has deployed forces and assets from its western border areas to Ukraine and has thus had to increasingly rely on air and naval capabilities for security and deterrence purposes on NATO’s eastern flank. Lithuanian intelligence reported that Russia deployed Kalibr missile carrier ships on combat duty in Lake Ladoga near St. Petersburg for the first time in 2023, likely in response to Finland’s accession to NATO, and increased the number of Tu-22M3 heavy bomber flights over the Baltic Sea from none in 2022 to five in 2023. The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (VLA) also recently assessed that the Russian military is forming the Leningrad Military District (LMD) and Moscow Military District (MMD) in part to posture against Finland and NATO.[5]

Russian military thinkers are openly discussing how Russia can go to war against NATO in the near future. Russian General Staff Military Academy Head Colonel Vladimir Zarudnitsky claimed in a recent article in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) journal Military Thought that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a large-scale war in Europe and that the end of hostilities in Ukraine will not lead to the end of confrontation between the West and Russia.[6]

Sweden formally joined NATO on March 7, becoming the 32nd member of the alliance. The US State Department announced that Sweden fulfilled the conditions of NATO membership and formally entered the alliance.[7]

The governor of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, met with Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko in Russia on March 7 as Moldovan authorities announced that a criminal case against Gutsul will soon go to court. Gutsul met with Kiriyenko at the World Youth Festival in Sochi and reportedly discussed “the support that Russia can provide to Gagauzia” and the “political situation” in Moldova.[8] Gutsul asked Kiriyenko to help Gagauz people open Russian bank accounts “for social projects,” to lift the Russian embargo on imports from Gagauzia, and to help negotiate with Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom on the supply of gas to Gagauzia at a preferential price. Kiriyenko is reportedly in charge of multiple Kremlin committees that run information operations and hybrid operations against the West, including Moldova.[9] Moldovan Acting Prosecutor General Ion Munteanu stated on March 7 that Moldovan authorities have enough evidence to demonstrate Gutsul’s involvement in unspecified criminal acts, are finalizing a criminal case against Gutsul and will soon take the criminal charges to court.[10] Moldovan authorities opened a criminal case against Gutsul for illegal financing and bribing voters during her electoral campaign in 2023.[11] Gutsul previously ran as a candidate of the now-outlawed Shor Party led by US-sanctioned pro-Kremlin Moldovan politician Ilan Shor.[12] Shor denied on March 7 that he illegally financed Moldovan political parties and claimed that Moldovan authorities will arrest Gutsul upon her return to Moldova.[13] Gutsul claimed on March 7 that she will return to Moldova soon and that she will “speak in detail at a briefing” in Chisinau on an unspecified date.[14] Gutsul met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on March 6 where Putin reportedly “promised to support Gagauzia and the Gagauz people in defending [their] legitimate rights, powers, and positions in the international arena.”[15] The Kremlin’s intensified focus on relations with Gagauzia after a recent rhetorical focus on Moldova’s other pro-Russian region, the breakaway republic of Transnistria, continues to indicate that the Kremlin hopes to use both these regions to justify hybrid operations aimed at destabilizing and further polarizing Moldova ahead of Moldova’s EU accession negotiations and the Moldovan presidential election later in 2024.[16]

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Chinese calls for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on March 7; Russia will likely continue to use such calls to promote long-standing information operations aimed at prompting Western concessions.[17] Wang stated that China maintains an objective and impartial position on the war in Ukraine, rhetoric that is part of China’s long-standing efforts to cast itself as an independent mediator in an envisioned aspirational negotiations process.[18] Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hiu met in Moscow on March 2 to discuss China’s desire to facilitate peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.[19] China has not publicly expounded upon the specifics of a vague 12-point peace plan that it released in early 2023, and Russian officials will likely continue to engage with Chinese calls for negotiations to promote Kremlin information operations about peace negotiations.[20] Galuzin and Li noted that it is “impossible” to discuss a settlement in Ukraine without Russia’s participation and without “taking into account [Russia’s] interests in the security sphere,” claims that the Kremlin routinely uses to place the onus for negotiations on the West.[21]

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on March 7 that it neutralized an Islamic State (IS) terrorist cell that had been preparing an attack on synagogues in Moscow.[22] The FSB stated that it neutralized the IS cell in Kaluga Oblast but did not specify its size.[23] The Russian Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) announced on March 3 that the FSB conducted a localized counter-terrorism operation against alleged IS militants in Karabulak, Republic of Ingushetia.[24] Russian law enforcement has routinely attributed terrorist activity in Russia, and specifically the north Caucasus, to the Islamic State when militants may be affiliated with IS or a different terrorist organization.[25]

Key Takeaways:

• Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia has the capability to continue sustaining the current tempo of its war in Ukraine and will likely have the capability to gradually expand its military capabilities in the near term.
• Lithuanian intelligence also assessed that Russia is unlikely to abandon its long-term objectives of subjugating Ukraine even if Russian fails to achieve these objectives through military means.
• Lithuanian intelligence assessed that Russia is preparing for confrontation with NATO in the long term while also waging its war in Ukraine.
• Sweden formally joined NATO on March 7, becoming the 32nd member of the alliance.
• The governor of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, met with Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko in Russia on March 7 as Moldovan authorities announced that a criminal case against Gutsul will soon go to court.
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Chinese calls for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on March 7; Russia will likely continue to use such calls to promote long-standing information operations aimed at prompting Western concessions.
• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on March 7 that it neutralized an Islamic State (IS) terrorist cell that had been preparing an attack on synagogues in Moscow.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk and Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 7.
• Russian intelligence services likely continue to source and operate sanctioned precision machine tools and dual-use components to produce Russian military equipment.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces recently marginally advanced northeast of Kupyansk amid continued positional fighting on the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 7. Geolocated footage published on March 7 shows that Russian forces recently marginally advanced in the northern outskirts of Synkivka (northeast of Kupyansk).[26] Positional fighting continued southeast of Kupyansk near Tabaivka; west of Kreminna near Terny and Yampolivka; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[27] Elements of the Russian 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People's Republic [LNR] Army Corps [AC]) continue operating in the Bilohorivka area.[28]

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

Positional fighting continued in the Bakhmut area on March 7. Ukrainian sources stated that Ukrainian forces advanced near Bohdanivka (northwest of Bakhmut), although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of recent Ukrainian advances in the area.[29] Positional fighting continued west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka; and south of Bakhmut near Pivdenne and Niu York.[30] Elements of the Russian 106th Airborne (VDV) Division are reportedly operating near Soledar (northeast of Bakhmut).[31]

Positional fighting continued in the Avdiivka area on March 7. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces successfully counterattacked near Berdychi (northwest of Avdiivka) and pushed Russian forces out of unspecified positions, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[32] Positional fighting continued northwest of Avdiivka near Stepove and Berdychi; west of Avdiivka near Tonenke and Orlivka; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske.[33] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Dmytro Lykhovyi stated that Russian forces are particularly focusing their offensive operations in the direction of Tonenke.[34] Elements of the Russian 25th and 30th motorized rifle brigades (both of the 2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]) are reportedly operating near Stepove and Berdychi, elements of the 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps [AC]) and the 55th Motorized Rifle Brigade (41st CAA, CMD) are reportedly operating near Tonenke, and elements of the 1st Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR AC) and 35th Motorized Rifle Brigade (41st CAA, CMD) are reportedly operating between Tonenke and Vodyane (southwest of Avdiivka).[35]

Russian forces recently advanced west and southwest of Donetsk City amid continued positional fighting in the area on March 7. Geolocated footage published on March 6 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in southern Heorhiivka (west of Donetsk City) and in southwestern Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City).[36] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced further along Pishchana Street in Heorhiivka and that Russian forces with armored vehicles support advanced up to the westernmost point in Novomykahilivka.[37] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the Russian 102nd Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]) pushed Ukrainian forces from positions north of Novomykhailivka along the O05131 Marinka-Vuhledar highway. ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these Russian claims. The Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Press Service published footage on March 7 of Ukrainian forces repelling mechanized assaults near Novomykhailivka on March 6 and reported that Ukrainian forces destroyed 12 Russian armored vehicles in the area.[38] Positional fighting continued west of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Krasnohorivka on March 7.[39] Elements of the Russian 20th Motorized Rifle Division (8th CAA, SMD) and 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade (68th AC, Eastern Military District [EMD]) are reportedly operating near Novomykhailivka, and elements of the 163rd Tank Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th CAA, SMD), the 33rd Motorized Rifle Regiment (8th CAA, SMD), and the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) are reportedly operating southwest of Donetsk City along the Slavne-Novomykhailivka and Solodke-Vodyane lines.[40]

Positional fighting occurred near Vodyane (east of Velyka Novosilka) in western Donetsk Oblast on March 7.[41] Elements of the 36th CAA (EMD) are reportedly operating near Novoukrainka (east of Velyka Novosilka).[42]

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

Positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on March 7, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne).[43] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced up to one kilometer near Verbove, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) systems are complicating Russian forces’ usage of drones in the Zaporizhia direction.[45] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Dmytro Lykhovyi stated that Russian forces have increased their use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to transport infantry, especially over minefields, in the Zaporizhia direction.[46] Elements of the Russian 503rd Motorized Rifle Regiment (19th Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) and elements of the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating in the Zaporizhia direction; elements of the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Robotyne; and elements of the 247th Airborne (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) are reportedly operating near Verbove.[47]

Positional engagements continued in left (east) bank Kherson Oblast near Krynky on March 7.[48] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions in the dacha area near the Antonivsky roadway bridge.[49]

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

The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated on March 7 that Ukrainian forces shot down a Kh-59 missile over Poltava Oblast on the night of March 6-7.[50] Ukrainian officials stated on March 7 that Russian forces struck civilian infrastructure in Sumy City with unspecified missiles and a Ukrainian State Emergency Service training ground in Kharkiv Oblast with drones.[51] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk stated on March 7 that Russian forces launched a Kh-31P anti-radar missile towards Odesa Oblast but that the missile malfunctioned before hitting its intended target.[52]

Ukrainian Navy Commander Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa stated on March 6 that Russian forces have launched 880 drones and 179 missiles at port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast since July 2023.[53]

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

Russian intelligence services likely continue to source and operate sanctioned precision machine tools and dual-use components to produce Russian military equipment. Lithuanian intelligence reported on March 7 that Russian intelligence services are importing such sanctioned goods and equipment into Russia.[54] Russian defense industrial base (DIB) companies reportedly provide Russian intelligence with “shopping lists” of Western equipment or components to acquire via sanctions loopholes or third-country intermediaries. Lithuanian intelligence reported that Russia will likely increase efforts to procure Western equipment as sanctions increasingly target Russia’s DIB. Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii reported on March 7 that the sanctioned “Kurganmashzavod” enterprise, a subsidiary of Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec, recently published footage showing its workers operating Japanese precision machinery to produce Russian infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, and other military equipment.[55] Vazhnye Istorii noted that Kurganmashzavod is the only enterprise in Russia that specializes in producing infantry fighting vehicles. Vazhnye Istorii also reported that Russian DIB enterprises purchased 360 million rubles’ ($3.97 million) worth of UK-produced machine tools, mainly from third party actors, in 2023.[56]

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on March 7 that 38,529 Russian servicemen, including 16,430 Chechens, have trained at that Russian Spetsnaz University in Gudermes, Chechnya since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[57] Kadyrov also claimed that over 8,000 servicemen from Chechnya are currenting fighting in Ukraine.

Kadyrov also denied recent Western reporting that Chechen units are purchasing Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) on a “black market” to conduct their own POW exchange with Ukraine.[58] Kadyrov claimed that there are no “black markets” for exchanging POWs in Russia or Chechnya and called Western reporting on the issue a “fake story.”

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

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

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

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

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

ISW is not publishing coverage of activities in Russian-occupied areas today.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated a longstanding Russian information operation denying Ukrainian identity and sovereignty.[59] Putin claimed on March 6 that the “spiritual reunification” of Russia and Ukraine will occur “sooner or later” and that Russia must eradicate “disgusting manifestations of nationalism” for this reunification to occur.[60] Putin’s statements are in line with boilerplate Kremlin rhetoric that rejects all notions of an independent Ukrainian national identity or state sovereignty independent of Russia.

Senior Russian officials continue efforts to portray the West as an existential threat to Russia to justify Russia’s long term war effort and to deter further Western military aid provisions to Ukraine. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev accused the West and NATO of preparing for direct military confrontations with Russia and of sowing internal instability in Russia, particularly in the Northern Caucasus Federal Okrug.[61] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and State Duma Committee to Investigate Foreign Interference Chairperson Vitaly Piskarev accused US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy of supporting entities hostile to Russia and of attempting to interfere in the upcoming March 2024 Russian presidential election.[62]

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

Lithuanian intelligence reported on March 7 that Belarusian intelligence to increase activities in Lithuania and that Russian military support to Belarus has increased Belarusian military potential.[63] Lithuanian intelligence emphasized that Belarusian intelligence is particularly focused on Lithuania due to a growing Lithuania-based Belarusian opposition movement that Minsk perceives as a threat to its own regime and because Lithuania has a significant Belarusian diaspora from which Belarusian intelligence can recruit agents. Lithuanian intelligence reported that Belarusian intelligence also interrogates people traveling from Lithuania to Belarus to collect information and identify potential recruitable agents. Lithuanian intelligence reported that Russia’s transfer of Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, armored personnel carriers, S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, and Mi-35M attack helicopters to Belarus have augmented Belarus’ military potential. These deliveries likely increase Belarusian forces’ interoperability with Russian forces in joint activities and increase Belarusian forces’ ability to train Russian forces that deploy to Belarus.

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

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com