Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

- Arthur Conan Doyle

"All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You just can't beat the person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

1. Maximizing the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 31, 2023

3. ‘Dare to fight’: Xi Jinping unveils China’s new world order

4. Defeating Russia Is the Best Way for the West to Defend Taiwan

5. ‘Lower the Rhetoric’ on China, Says Milley

6. The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) Hosts International Irregular Warfare Week

7. Ukraine Victory Unlikely This Year, Milley Says

8. Report: Chinese State-sponsored Hacking Group Highly Active

9. The Truth About The Philippines’ New Strategy Against China

10. Taiwan, like Ukraine, is fighting for democracy, Tsai says in New York

11. How a Ukrainian Soldier’s Final Act of Defiance Made Him a Hero

12. The Dollar Rules the Financial Universe. China Can’t Change That.

13. France Joins AUKUS Submarine Program - Naval News

14. Marine commandant warns U.S. lacking in key capability for war with China

15. Russia Fears This Rocket Launcher. Here’s Why.

16. Opinion | Yes, TikTok is a threat to America. But so are U.S. social media companies.

17. Rediscovering Geostrategy

18. Opinion | How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

19. Ukraine is Forming Three New Army Corps—Should it Bring Back Divisions Too?

20. Elbridge Colby: China is more dangerous than Russia

21. Zelensky's gambit puts China's Xi on the spot

22. Russia to outline ‘contours of a new world order’ as UN Security Council chair

23. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Learning Lessons from a Lost War

25. Athena Has Arrived

1. Maximizing the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition

Our 4th article on irregular warfare.

Maximizing the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition

BY CHARLES T. CLEVELAND, DANIEL EGEL, DAVID MAXWELL AND HY ROTHSTEIN, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 03/31/23 5:30 PM ET

The Hill · by Dominick Mastrangelo · March 31, 2023

The United States lacks the concepts and associated doctrine for its irregular warfare capabilities to achieve their potential in strategic competition.

This challenge was articulated in 2013 in a hallmark collaboration of Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno, Marine Corps Commandant James Amos, and U.S. Special Operations Commander William McRaven. Center to their critique was the observation that the Pentagon’s concept of competition does not reflect the fundamental reality that “competition and conflict are about people.” They concluded that the “growing problem in linking military action to achieving national objectives” was in significant part because the Pentagon tends to “focus on the clash and lose sight of the will” of the population.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon has done little in the intervening decade to address their concerns.

One of their explicit recommendations that the Pentagon ignored was the examination of the concept of the “human domain” as a new warfighting domain encompassing the “physical, cultural, and social environments.” This failure may limit the ability of the United States to use its irregular warfare capabilities effectively in strategic competition.

In sharp contrast, the Chinese, Russians, and other U.S. antagonists are actively embracing new approaches that embrace this concept for warfighting. Both China’s unrestricted warfare and Russia’s hybrid warfare recognize the “human domain as the critical area of competition,” as does Iran’s use of surrogates in Lebanon and elsewhere.

The recently signed Joint Concept for Competing represents a significant step in addressing the Pentagon’s role in the complex and increasingly lethal space below the threshold of traditional war. However, it does not fully address the persistent focus on the physical domains — of air, land, sea, and space — that has led the Pentagon to “overlook, and underinvest in, the more important aspects of war and warfare — those best defined as human.”

The other challenge facing the Joint Concept for Competing is that it does not assign a lead command or service to take responsibility for the needed reforms. It took a combination of senior-level support within the Pentagon and Congress’s Goldwater-Nichols Act for the Pentagon to fully embrace joint operations, and Congressional leadership via the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to build the special operations capabilities that the nation needed. Without comparable support, the concepts in the Joint Concept for Competing may not be operationalized.

Either the president or U.S. Congress may need to take action to address this critical national security gap. Indeed, despite the advocacy of the most senior leadership of the Army, Marine Corps, and special operations a decade ago, the Pentagon has made little progress in embracing the human domain and its underlying precepts.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 56 as a call-to-arms for the United States to develop the concepts and structures necessary for success in complex contingency operations. This reflected a recognition that the nation was not prepared for “multi-dimensional operations composed of such components as political/dynamic, humanitarian, intelligence, economic development, or security.” The conceptual underpinnings of Clinton’s complex contingency operations are similar to the challenge that the United States faces in addressing strategic competition in the human domain, and a presidential directive to update these concepts for the 21st century could do much to address this national security gap.

An alternative option could be for the U.S. Congress to update the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to assign the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict responsibility for Pentagon efforts in the human domain. This office, which was created by the 1987 Nunn-Cohen Amendment, already has responsibility for policy related to the human domain, given its mandate to oversee the Pentagon’s low-intensity conflict efforts. Assigning it the responsibility for the human domain and giving it the service authorities it would need to accomplish these responsibilities could address many of the challenges faced in previous iterations.

It is time that the United States develop the concepts and associated doctrine, commands, field operating agencies, and personnel to maximize the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition. The failures of the United States to achieve its strategic objectives in low intensity conflicts and in protecting its interests against adversaries who elect to fight below the threshold of conflict pursuing a strategy of exhaustion can no longer be afforded or ignored.

Lt. Gen. Charles T. Cleveland (Ret.) is an adjunct researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a senior mentor to the Army War College.

Daniel Egel is a senior economist at RAND.

Col. David Maxwell (Ret.) is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Global Peace Foundation and a senior advisor to the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.

Col. Hy Rothstein (Ret.) is a recently retired faculty member of the Naval Postgraduate School.

The Hill · by Dominick Mastrangelo · March 31, 2023

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 31, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-31-2023

Key Takeaways

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new Russian Foreign Policy Concept on March 31 that likely aims to support the Kremlin’s attempts to promote a potential anti-Western coalition.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko continues to use high-profile public statements to portray Belarus as a sovereign state despite its current de-facto occupation by Russian forces.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov promptly rejected Lukashenko’s suggestion of a ceasefire and indicated that the Kremlin is not interested in serious negotiations.
Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev leveraged comments about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine to continue information operations that portray the West as escalatory.
Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces made gains within Bakhmut and Ukrainian forces regained positions in the Bakhmut area.
Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline.
Ukrainian strikes against Russian concentration areas in southern Ukraine are likely causing the Russian grouping in the area to change tactics to avoid the risk of strikes.
Russian officials continue to state that Russian forces have no plans for a formal second wave of mobilization.
Russian officials continue to send Ukrainian children to camps in Russia.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 31, 2023

Mar 31, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 31, 2023

Riley Bailey, George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan

March 31, 6:30pm ET

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

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new Russian Foreign Policy Concept on March 31 that likely aims to support the Kremlin’s attempts to promote a potential anti-Western coalition. The new Foreign Policy Concept paints the West as an anti-Russian and internationally destabilizing force to a far greater extent than Russia’s previous 2016 Foreign Policy Concept and explicitly states that the US and its “satellites” have unleashed a hybrid war aimed at weakening Russia.[1] The new document also heavily stresses Russia's goal of creating a multipolar world order and subordinates under that goal Russia’s broad foreign policy objectives, which include ending the United States’ supposed dominance in world affairs.[2] The document asserts that most of humanity is interested in constructive relations with Russia and that a desired multi-polar world will give opportunities to non-Western world powers and regional leading countries.[3] Putin previously used meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 20 through 22 to increase attempts to rhetorically rally the rest of the world against the West, and the new document likely aims to support the Kremlin’s attempts to intensify proposals to non-aligned countries to form a more coherent anti-Western bloc.[4] ISW assessed that Putin’s proposal to form an anti-Western bloc during Xi’s visit to Moscow was not positively received as Xi refused to align China with Putin’s envisioned geopolitical conflict with the West.[5] Russia’s declining economic power and degraded military effort in Ukraine continue to offer little incentive to countries to express serious interest in the proposal. The Kremlin likely decided to release the new Foreign Policy Concept on the eve of assuming the presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in order to set informational conditions for future rhetorical efforts at the UN aimed at forming an anti-Western coalition.[6] ISW previously assessed that Russia will likely weaponize its presidency of the UNSC as a method of Russian power projection.[7]

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko continues to use high-profile public statements to portray Belarus as a sovereign state despite its current de-facto occupation by Russian forces. Lukashenko reiterated boilerplate rhetoric about how he is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s equal partner in defense of Russia and Belarus by explicitly painting Belarus as the target of a Western hybrid war – a narrative Lukashenko has promoted since 2020.[8] Lukashenko stated that he and Putin mutually agreed to deploy Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus to protect Belarus’ ”sovereignty and independence.”[9] Lukashenko also stated that he and Putin mutually decided to partially deploy elements of the Union State’s Regional Grouping of Troops (RGV) to an unspecified area.[10] Lukashenko stated that nobody should worry that Russia ”captured something” in Belarus and stated the Russian forces training in Belarus under Belarusian officers are subordinated to Belarusian forces’.[11] Lukashenko likely seeks to use the narrative that Belarus is a fully sovereign state and Russia’s equal partner in the Union State so that he can use informational leverage to request that Russian forces leave Belarus after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine concludes. Lukashenko also stated that he supports peace negotiations “as soon as possible” and offered to help mediate negotiations.[12]

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov promptly rejected Lukashenko’s suggestion of a ceasefire and indicated that the Kremlin is not interested in serious negotiations. Peskov responded to a question about Lukashenko’ suggestion on March 31 and stated that Russian forces will continue to carry out their missions in Ukraine.[13] Peskov emphasized that Russian military operations in Ukraine are the only means by which Russia can achieve its goals.[14] Peskov likely aimed to leave open the possibility for launching new information operations about Russian interests in a ceasefire by stating that Putin and Lukashenko may discuss the proposal for a truce in Ukraine.[15] The Kremlin may decide to promote ceasefire narratives in coming weeks in an attempt to freeze the frontlines in Ukraine out of fears that a Ukrainian counteroffensive could result in Ukrainian forces liberating more territory.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev leveraged comments about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine to continue information operations that portray the West as escalatory. Medvedev likely responded to Viktor Orban’s March 31 statements regarding alleged European discussions about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine and stated that Russian forces would target the hypothetical peacekeepers.[16] Medvedev argued that a Western-led peacekeeping mission to Ukraine would end in tragedies reminiscent of Yugoslavia and other conflicts.[17] There are no indications outside of Orban’s comments that Western officials are seriously discussing such a proposal, and Medvedev likely used Orban’s comments to construct a straw man proposal to paint the West as trying to escalate the war in Ukraine.

Key Takeaways

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new Russian Foreign Policy Concept on March 31 that likely aims to support the Kremlin’s attempts to promote a potential anti-Western coalition.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko continues to use high-profile public statements to portray Belarus as a sovereign state despite its current de-facto occupation by Russian forces.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov promptly rejected Lukashenko’s suggestion of a ceasefire and indicated that the Kremlin is not interested in serious negotiations.
Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev leveraged comments about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine to continue information operations that portray the West as escalatory.
Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces made gains within Bakhmut and Ukrainian forces regained positions in the Bakhmut area.
Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline.
Ukrainian strikes against Russian concentration areas in southern Ukraine are likely causing the Russian grouping in the area to change tactics to avoid the risk of strikes.
Russian officials continue to state that Russian forces have no plans for a formal second wave of mobilization.
Russian officials continue to send Ukrainian children to camps in Russia.

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

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

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on March 31. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Stelmakhivka (15km northwest of Svatove), Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna), Kreminna itself, Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna), Kuzmyne (3km southwest of Kreminna), Hryhorivka (9km south of Kreminna), Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna) and Berestove (30km south of Kreminna).[18] Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast Military Administration noted on March 31 that Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in 20 skirmishes in this direction over the past day.[19] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks towards Stelmakhivka and Nevske (20km northwest of Kreminna).[20] Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselev posted footage reportedly of snipers of the 3rd Separate Special Purpose (Spetsnaz) Brigade of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU) operating near Kreminna.[21] Circulation of footage of the 3rd Spetsnaz Brigade over the past few may suggest they deployed to this area more recently and are helping support exhausted Western Military District (WMD) elements that have been committed to decisive operations in this area since the beginning of 2023.[22] Footage released by Ukrainian soldiers in late February 2023 shows the aftermath of Ukrainian troops repelling an attack by the 237th Guards Airborne Regiment (76th Guards Air Assault Division) near Kreminna.[23] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces (Central Military District) defeated Ukrainian troops near Dibrova.[24]

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut and have made gains within the city as of March 31. Geolocated footage posted on March 31 shows a Wagner Group flag on a building in the center of Bakhmut within a few blocks (within 400 meters) of the city administration building.[25] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner forces continued attacks in northern and southern Bakhmut and unsuccessfully attempted to attack westwards towards Khromove.[26] One prominent milblogger noted that Wagner is failing to make significant progress in Bakhmut and that all attacks in and around the city are without success.[27] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that there are no signs that Ukrainian troops are leaving Bakhmut, claimed that Wagner does not report out on the full extent of its own gains in Bakhmut, and called for conventional Russian forces around Bakhmut to continue to hold the flanks and support Wagner’s operations within the city.[28] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops continued storming the city of Bakhmut and conducted additional unsuccessful offensive operations northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (12km northwest).[29]

Ukrainian troops regained positions around Bakhmut, and Ukrainian officials continue to emphasize the importance of Ukraine’s continued defense in this area on March 31. Geolocated footage posted on March 31 indicates that Ukrainian troops conducted a counterattack southwest of Bakhmut and regained lost positions south of Ivanivske (about 7km southwest of Bakhmut).[30] Deputy Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on March 31 that Ukraine’s committed defense of Bakhmut has made it ”the most expensive” Russian effort of the war and noted that ”the time, weapons, equipment, and huge number of casualties spent by the enemy on the capture of Bakhmut do not justify themselves from the point of view of military expediency.”[31] Malyar’s statement supports ISW assessment that the Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut remains strategically sound as long as Ukrainian troops force Russian troops to attrit manpower and equipment without Ukrainian troops suffering excessive losses.[32] Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi relatedly reported on March 31 that Russian forces in certain sectors of Bakhmut are noticeably nervous because time is against them, and they have fewer human resources with which to storm Ukrainian positions.[33]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline on March 31. Geolocated footage published on March 31 indicates that Russian force advanced in Vesele (6km north of Avdiivka).[34] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults near Stepove (9km northwest of Avdiivka) and Keramik (15km northwest of Avdiivka) and launched offensive operations on western parts of Avdiivka.[35] The milblogger claimed that battles continued near Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka) and that Russian forces stormed Ukrainian positions in western Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[36] The milblogger also claimed that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) ”Somalia” Battalion of the 1st Army Corps is operating near Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka) and that Ukrainian forces conducted assaults in the direction of Pisky (9km southwest of Avdiivka).[37] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka itself; within 14km northwest of Avdiivka near Novobakhmutivka, Novokalynove, and Stepove; and within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Vodyane, Pervomaiske, Krasnohorivka, and Marinka.[38]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on March 31. Russian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Aleksandr Gordeev claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian reconnaissance-in-force operations in unspecified areas of western Donetsk Oblast.[39] A Russian milblogger claimed that BARS-23 (Russian Combat Reserve of the Country) elements are fighting near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[40]

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

Ukrainian strikes against Russian concentration areas in southern Ukraine are likely causing the Russian grouping in the area to change tactics to avoid the risk of strikes. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated on March 31 that Russian forces in this area are spreading themselves out and dispersing troops and equipment to avoid presenting targets.[41] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command also noted that Ukrainian aviation and missile and artillery units hit two Russian concentration areas over the last day.[42] Geolocated footage posted on March 30 shows a Ukrainian strike against a Russian electronic warfare (EW) system in Nova Kakhovka.[43] Russian sources claimed that Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in mutual shelling across the Dnipro River and that Ukrainian forces shelled Russian positions on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast.[44]

Russian forces continued routine fire in Kherson, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts on March 31.[45] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast officials noted that Russian troops used Shahed drones to strike Nikopol on the evening of March 30.

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

Russian officials continue to state that Russian forces have no plans for a formal second wave of mobilization. Head of the Department of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the Russian General Staff Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, claimed on March 31 that the Russian General Staff is not planning to conduct a second wave of mobilization because volunteers and currently mobilized personnel are enough to perform all necessary tasks.[46] Tsimlyansky also claimed that the number of Russian citizens who decided to become contract soldiers has “increased significantly” and that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) increased the number of military instructors to train contract soldiers. Tsimlyansky also claimed that the Russian MoD will conduct military registration and enlistment through electronic summonses for the first time and announced the creation of a database which registered over 700,000 Russians aged 18 to 27.[47] Russia, however, continues to conduct mobilization using alternative methods in order to avoid conducting another formal mobilization call-up. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Representative Andrii Chernyak stated that Russian forces continue crypto-mobilization efforts recruiting up to 20,000 per month.[48] Russian President Vladimir Putin additionally signed a decree on March 30 to authorize the conscription of 147,000 Russians between April 1 and July 15.[49] ISW has assessed that Putin remains unlikely to deploy newly conscripted troops to Ukraine due to concerns over the stability of his regime and noted that Putin did not deploy conscripts from the spring 2022 conscription cycle at scale to Ukraine.[50]

A Russian milblogger claimed that some mobilized Russian personnel train in occupied Ukraine. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian mobilized personnel train with the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Somalia Battalion in occupied Ukraine.[51] The training of Russian mobilized personnel within DNR units, which have previously been accused of abuse and mistreatment of mobilized servicemen from all across Russia, is likely to continue to generate frictions within such units.[52]

US National Security Spokesperson John Kirby stated on March 30 that Russia is looking to procure weapons from North Korea.[53] Kirby stated that the Kremlin may be attempting to trade food and other commodities for over 24 types of weapons and munitions and wants to send a delegation to North Korea to pursue this offer. Kirby reported on December 22, 2022, that the Wagner Group received an arms shipment from North Korea and reported on November 2, 2022, that North Korea covertly supplies artillery shells to Russia.[54]

Ukrainian and Russian sources claim that Russian actors continue to form new private military companies. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Representative Andrii Chernyak stated that Russia is forming private military companies (PMCs) in Crimea in preparation for fighting there. ISW has previously reported on the formation of the “Convoy” PMC by Crimean occupation head Sergey Aksyonov.[55] Chernyak stated that Russian state-owned energy corporation Gazprom is creating a PMC to secure looted property and provide personal protection and referenced Russian PMC Yastreb posted a recruitment advertisement on Russian social media site Vkontakte on March 8 encouraging men and women from Russia and ”other friendly countries” to join Yastreb.[56] The post outlines positions open and the qualifications necessary to join. Yastreb claimed that it would provide bonuses of up to 15 million rubles (about $194,000) to individuals who destroy Western equipment such as Leopard tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and HIMARS. Yastreb claimed on its website that it is not associated with the Wagner Group or its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and was founded in 2014.[57] ISW has not observed Yastreb forces operating in Ukraine.

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

Russian occupation authorities continue to intensify pressure on vulnerable communities to obtain Russian passports. The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Penitentiary Service claimed on March 31 that convicts in the pre-trial detention center #2 prison of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service in Luhansk Oblast received Russian passports, allowing convicts to receive social benefits from Russia upon their release as well as to register for employment services.[58]

Russian officials continue to send Ukrainian children to camps in Russia. The Kherson Oblast Occupation Ministry of Labor and Social Policy claimed on March 31 that Ukrainian children returned from the “Day After Tomorrow” camp in Moscow.[59] Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Maria Lvova-Belova continues to claim that “Day After Tomorrow” camps seek to provide psychological support for Ukrainian children affected by hostilities.[60] ISW continues to assess that Russian officials and occupation authorities are using the guise of psychiatric services and medical rehabilitation to bring Ukrainian children deeper into Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine or deport them to Russia.[61]

Russian occupation authorities continue to paint greater integration of occupied territories into the Russian economy as advantageous for the average Ukrainian citizen. Zaporizhia occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky claimed on March 31 that residents in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast will receive compensation for housing and personal property lost as a result of hostilities.[62] Balitsky claimed that Russia has already provided 34 billion rubles to those claiming damage to their homes and personal property since October 2022, and stated that all proposals for compensation are due by April 1.[63] Occupation Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed on MAR 31 that he awarded 11 families in occupied Crimea housing certificates as part of a broader effort to allow young families to buy or build houses or close a mortgage.[64] The Kherson Oblast Occupation Ministry of Agriculture claimed on March 31 that farmers in occupied Kherson Oblast expect to produce 1,300 tons of strawberries by August 2023, of which 400-500 tons will go directly to Russia.[65]

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

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

Belarusian and Russian troops continued training in Belarus. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that elements of the Belarusian Special Operations Forces completed training and that Russian troops continue training at Belarusian military facilities.[66] Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated on March 31 that 500 Belarusian officers are training some of the Russian forces that have been conducting training rotations in Belarus since fall 2022.[67]

Belarusian maneuver elements continue conducting exercises in Belarus. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that elements of the 103rd Vitebsk Separate Guards Airborne Brigade is conducting brigade-level tactical exercises at the Losvido Training Ground in Vitebsk Oblast.[68] The Belarusian MoD additionally stated that logistics elements of the Minsk-based 120th Separate Mechanized Brigade went on alert to perform planned combat and equipment storage tasks.[69]

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

[1] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70811

[2] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70811

[3] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70811

[4] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032023

[5] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032023

[6] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032123

[7] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032123

[8] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/belarus-warning-update-for...

[9] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/poslanie-aleksandra-lukashenko-belorusskomu-narodu-i-nacionalnomu-sobraniyu-sostoitsya-31-marta

[10] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/poslanie-aleksandra-lukashenko-belorusskomu-narodu-i-nacionalnomu-sobraniyu-sostoitsya-31-marta

[11] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/poslanie-aleksandra-lukashenko-belorusskomu-narodu-i-nacionalnomu-sobraniyu-sostoitsya-31-marta

[12] https://president.gov dot by/ru/events/poslanie-aleksandra-lukashenko-belorusskomu-narodu-i-nacionalnomu-sobraniyu-sostoitsya-31-marta

[13] https://tass dot ru/politika/17416823

[14] https://tass dot ru/politika/17416823

[15] https://tass dot ru/politika/17416823

[16] https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/301 ; https://www.newsweek.com/euro...

[17] https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/301

[18] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02aPK1kXjJg4BsAZ4HnM...

[19] https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/9578

[20] https://t.me/wargonzo/11686

[21] https://t.me/kommunist/16709

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

[23] https://twitter.com/Danspiun/status/1641833527309205504?s=20; https://twitter.com/Danspiun/status/1641837086931054592?s=20

[24] https://t.me/mod_russia/25251

[25] https://twitter.com/War_cube_/status/1641856051224903690?t=6dOmcvhwrxIOQ...

[26] https://t.me/orchestra_w/5881; https://t.me/basurin_e/448; . https://...

[27] https://t.me/wargonzo/11686

[28] https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2969; https://t.me/concordgroup_official/670...

[29] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02ZYpcMJzGe2SnzeuGHt...

[30] https://twitter.com/herooftheday10/status/1641764485202411521; https://twitter.com/auditor_ya/status/1641784570604339201

[31] https://www.unian dot ua/war/boji-za-bahmut-sogodni-u-minoboroni-ukrajini-poyasnili-chomu-chas-graye-proti-rosiyan-12199866.html; https://armyinform.com dot ua/2023/03/31/u-bahmuti-chas-graye-proty-voroga-ganna-malyar/

[32] https://isw.pub/UkrWar03052023; https://isw.pub/UkrWar021423

[33] https://t.me/osirskiy/29

[34] https://twitter.com/neonhandrail/status/1641818307237126144 https://twi... https://twitter.com/cyber_boroshno/status/1641821711204069376

[35] https://t.me/wargonzo/11686

[36] https://t.me/wargonzo/11686

[37] https://t.me/wargonzo/11686

[38] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02aPK1kXjJg4BsAZ4HnM...

[39] https://t.me/mod_russia/25253

[40] https://t.me/wargonzo/11700

[41] https://www.facebook.com/OperationalCommandSouth/posts/pfbid02f9qB1gifJs...

[42] https://www.facebook.com/OperationalCommandSouth/posts/pfbid02f9qB1gifJs...

[43] https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1641533378288558106?s=20; ht...

[44] https://t.me/kommunist/16710; https://t.me/readovkanews/55832

[45] https://t.me/Yevtushenko_E/3065; https://t.me/mykola_lukashuk/3987; ht...

[46] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/17413401

[47] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/31/rossiyskie-voenkomaty-budut-rassylat-elektronnye-povestki; https://telegra dot ph/Brifing-nachalnika-upravleniya-Glavnogo-organizacionno-mobilizacionnogo-upravleniya-GSH-VS-RF-kontr-admirala-Vladimira-Cimlyansk-03-30

[48] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/velykyi-nastup-obernuvsia-dlia-rosii-pshykom.html; https://www.ukrinform dot ua/rubric-ato/3689399-andrij-cernak-predstavnik-golovnogo-upravlinna-rozvidki-minoboroni.html

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

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

[51] https://t.me/wargonzo/11697

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

[53] https://apnews.com/article/russia-north-korea-ukraine-weapons-87af089d66...

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

[55] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032423

[56] https://archive dot is/x9Pnf; https://vk dot com/wall-192365486_667

[57] https://peregovorschik dot com/stati/otvety-chastye-voprosy-po-povodu-raboty-u-nas/

[58] https://t.me/uinmvdlnr/179; https://t.me/mvdlnr_official/2651

[59] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8203; https://t.me/socialpolitics_ks/1050

[60] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8203;%20https://t.me/socialpolitics_ks/1050

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

[62] https://t.me/BalitskyEV/919

[63] https://t.me/BalitskyEV/919

[64] https://t.me/razvozhaev/2406

[65] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8214 https://t.me/APKKherson/508

[66] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02ZYpcMJzGe2SnzeuGHt...

[67] https://t.me/modmilby/24984

[68] https://t.me/modmilby/24976

[69] https://t.me/modmilby/24997

Defeating Russia Is the Best Way for the West to Defend Taiwan

Republican presidential contenders are wrong: Protecting Ukraine isn’t a distraction from the rivalry with China.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-31/ukraine-war-beating-russia-is-the-best-way-to-defend-taiwan?sref=hhjZtX76#xj4y7vzkg

ByHal Brands

March 31, 2023 at 4:00 AM MST

Can the US help Ukraine while preparing to defend Taiwan? The answer, according to some likely Republican presidential aspirants, is no. If America fights an “endless proxy war in Ukraine,” says Senator Josh Hawley, it may fail “to deter China from invading Taiwan.” Giving Kyiv a “blank check,” argues Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is no way to beat Beijing.

This argument sounds rigorously strategic, at first: Statecraft is about making hard choices. Yet statecraft also involves grasping complex truths. In this case, America is unlikely to succeed against China if it cuts Ukraine adrift — and supporting Kyiv in the current war may help the US get ready for the next one.

Begin with what should be obvious: Reducing support for Ukraine means increasing the odds of Russian victory. Ukraine can’t hold off Russian forces without arms and ammunition from the Western world; without the US, no combination of countries can provide the necessary support. That is indeed a sad commentary on the state of European defenses. It’s also a matter of realism.

If Russia imposes an unfavorable peace on Ukraine — one that leaves it controlling large chunks of Ukrainian territory — it will have the ability to renew aggression when it chooses. It will also create grave insecurity in Eastern Europe, which will, in turn, create more demands on US military power.

Yes, Washington could respond by leaving Europe to the Europeans. But that would negate 80 years of American grand strategy. It would turn the US into a regional power amid intensifying global competition. It surely wouldn’t elicit much cooperation, whether military, diplomatic or economic, from the world’s largest bloc of liberal democracies — Europe — in confronting the threat from Beijing.

The greatest challenge to American security is in Asia, but the US will struggle to prevail without a relatively secure, supportive Europe on its side.

To be clear, resources and attention are finite. A long war in Ukraine will impose costs, measured in munitions and in distraction, on the US. Yet the tradeoff between Ukraine and Taiwan doesn’t have to be zero-sum.

If Ukraine is distracting America, it is devouring Russia. Moscow’s losses, in men and materiel, are shredding its ground forces. The more those losses mount, the less threat President Vladimir Putin will pose to Eastern Europe — and the more focus Washington can responsibly shift to Asia.

Moreover, the war in Ukraine is serving as a proving ground for concepts and capabilities that can help win a war over Taiwan. This conflict is delivering an education in the demands of defending against drones and cruise missiles. It is showcasing long-range strike capabilities that the US and its friends could use to turn the Western Pacific’s “first island chain” — the string of features running from the Korean Peninsula down to Indonesia — into a death trap for Chinese warships. It is yielding new insights, for the US, into how AI can improve intelligence collection and decision-making, and for Taiwan, on how decentralized command practices and whole-of-society resistance can make all the difference.

Finally, an extended war in Ukraine offers America a chance to truly get serious about defense. The present weakness of the so-called defense industrial base is appalling. It may take years to rebuild the stocks of Javelin missiles America has given Ukraine. In a war against China, the Pentagon would run out of some munitions in days, with no easy way to replace them — let alone the ships, planes and submarines that might be lost. By making the scale and severity of the problem clear, the Ukraine war may also help Washington find the urgency to fix it.

There is historical precedent. In 1940-41, Americans debated whether providing lend-lease aid to Britain would simply squander resources the US needed for itself. Yet it turned out that this wasn’t an either/or proposition. Spending on weapons destined for Britain helped stimulate America’s then-feeble arms industry, reducing the time it took the US to mobilize after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“We are buying, not lending,” said Secretary of War Henry Stimson: America was putting industry on a war footing while the country was still at peace.

The question is whether the US will do something similar today. President Joe Biden’s administration is, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks explains, buying key munitions “to the limits of the industrial base.” The Pentagon can use multiyear procurement contracts that give firms incentive to invest; it is learning, from the Ukraine experience, how to knife through red tape. But no one can really claim America is moving with wartime urgency when Biden continues to propose defense budget “increases” that don’t even keep pace with inflation.

The “Asia First” contingent is right about one thing: If the US conducts business as usual, then aid to Ukraine may come at Taiwan’s expense. Yet if the US conducts business as usual, it wouldn’t be able to defend Taiwan even if it abandoned Ukraine tomorrow.

America faces real challenges in two theaters simultaneously. Its best chance to succeed involves using the stimulus provided by one to prepare for the other.

‘Lower the Rhetoric’ on China, Says Milley

We’re not on the “brink of war” with China, and Taiwan is not so easy to conquer, says the top U.S. general.

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

Watch Kevin Baron's interview with Gen. Mark Milley, part of Defense One's State of Defense series, here.

Everyone needs to calm down about war with China, Gen. Mark Milley said on Friday.

The Joint Chiefs chairman warned against the rise of “overheated” rhetoric of a looming U.S. war with China, and he said he doubts China’s chances of “conquering” Taiwan. But, he added, the United States should continue to quicken arms shipments to the self-governing nation and its own military capabilities, just in case.

Following this year’s Chinese balloon scare, the China heat is on. In the last two weeks, members of Congress in hearings aimed a list of concerns about China—everything from nuclear weapons to computer chips, invading Taiwan, and allying with Russia—at Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Milley has taken to telling lawmakers that war with China—and Russia—is “not imminent or inevitable.” It’s part of an effort to lower the heat, he said.

“I think there's a lot of rhetoric in China, and a lot of rhetoric elsewhere, to include the United States, that could create the perception that war is right around the corner or we’re on the brink of war with China,” Milley said in an interview with Defense One.

“And that could happen. I mean, it is possible that you could have an incident or some other trigger event that could lead to uncontrolled escalation. So, it's not impossible. But I don't think at this point I would put it in the likely category,” said Milley. “And I think that the rhetoric itself can overheat the environment.”

Still, Milley said he agrees with calls for the United States to send arms into Taiwan as quickly as possible, to beat China’s Xi Jinping to any punch.

Xi has said he wants the People’s Liberation Army armed and ready to take Taiwan by force, if necessary, by 2027. “So if you think about it, that's only four years away,” Milley said. “So, one of the elements of deterrence is to make sure that your opponent knows that the cost exceeds the benefit. So, for Taiwan, we've—my guess is we've got three or four years to get Taiwan in a position where they will create the perception in the minds of the Chinese decision makers that the cost exceeds that.”

Milley said Taiwan needs air defense, anti-ship cruise missiles, and anti-ship mines. But he said the island itself, its population of 23 million—including 170,000 active duty military and 1-to-2 million reserves,—and China’s lack of experience make a takeover unlikely. “It favors the defense. It would be a very difficult island to capture,” he said.

“For the Chinese to conduct an amphibious and airborne operation to seize that island—to actually seize it?—That's a really difficult operation. But Xi put the challenge out there, and we'll see where it goes.”

Fears of a China-Russia alliance are also premature, Milley indicated. “We want to have a geostrategic approach that does not drive Russia and China into each other's arms to form an actual military alliance,” he said. “There's some indications that this conversation is ongoing. But that's a whole lot different than actual alliances and military lines.”

In the meantime, Milley said, “I think it's incumbent upon us, the United States, to make sure that we have an incredibly powerful military that is capable,” that China knows it, and that China believes the U.S. will use it if necessary.

Instead of how the China threat is discussed today, he said, “I’d prefer to go back to what Teddy Roosevelt said, which is, you know, ‘speak softly, carry a big stick’ sort of thing. So: Have our military really, really strong [and] lower the rhetoric a little bit with the temperature.”

Milley likes to cite history, and on China he argues that Marxism and determinism points to a foreboding future. “My understanding and my analysis of China is that at least their military, and perhaps others, have come to some sort of conclusion that war with the United States is inevitable. I think that's a very dangerous thing.”

“I don't believe war is inevitable. I don't think it's imminent. But I do think that we need to be very, very pragmatic and cautious going forward. And we will reduce the likelihood of war if we remain really, really strong, relative to China, and China knows that we have the will to use it, if necessary.”

“I just think that it needs to be a little bit more realistic and a little bit less, perhaps, emotional, I suppose. But also on the China side…I just think, for us, the United States, approach this with some steely-eyed, cold-eyed realism. Get the military up to the level of dominance relevant to China, in all the domains. And if they know that, and they know we have a will to use it, then you're probably gonna deter them more from the start.”

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

6. The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) Hosts International Irregular Warfare Week

Excerpts:

The IWC serves as the central mechanism for developing the Department of Defense’s (DOD) irregular warfare knowledge and advancing the Department’s understanding of irregular warfare concepts and doctrine in collaboration with key allies and partners.

The Center’s foundation is built upon three Lines of Effort:

AMPLIFY and collaborate to build an innovative and adaptable global networked IW community of interest.
Strategically ILLUMINATE current and future irregular threats, crises, and obstacles.
ADDRESS current and future irregular threats to the US, allies, and partners by providing optionality to leaders.

Through these LOEs, the Irregular Warfare Center addresses current and emerging security concerns and challenges with world-class research, rigorous analysis, top-tier strategic education and training for U.S. and international partners.

The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) Hosts International Irregular Warfare Week – Irregular Warfare Center

irregularwarfarecenter.org

March 29, 2023

The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) Hosts International Irregular Warfare Week

The newly established Irregular Warfare Center hosted its second IW-themed event, International Irregular Warfare Week, from March 16-17, 2023, in Arlington Va.

The IWC’s International Irregular Warfare Week was a follow-up event for the survey and interviews conducted by the IWC Engagements Department with the intent to compare and contrast the conceptualization of IW between different European institutions.

“The first thing that attracted me to this event was the brand new Irregular Warfare Center and its mission,” said LT COL Daniel Gomez, Army Reserves and Instructor at Joint Special Operations University. “I definitely wanted to experience the Center and meet everyone from the organization while taking the opportunity to learn great things about irregular warfare and network with a variety of IW experts across the European theatre.”

The 2-day event included a variety of guest speakers and irregular warfare SME’s, various briefs on IW-related topics, question and answer sessions, as well as wargaming activities.

The value of the event is to expose U.S. stakeholders involved in the development of the new definition of IW and/or in IW activities to the European conceptualization of IW to better understand differences and potential connection points enabling more effective international cooperation.

The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the Secretary of Defense to establish the IWC as the security cooperation hub for Irregular Warfare. In July 2022, Secretary Austin directed its formation, and the IWC began operations on October 1, 2022. Among one of its first initiatives, the IWC aims to engage and coordinate with Federal departments and agencies and with academia, nongovernmental organizations, civil society, and international partners to discuss and coordinate efforts on security challenges in irregular warfare.

International Irregular Warfare Week directly contributes to the successful execution of the IWC`s task prescribed in the FY23 NDAA as “engage and coordinate with Federal departments and agencies and with academia, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and international partners to discuss and coordinate efforts on security challenges in irregular warfare.”

“At the culmination of the event international guests expressed gratitude and stressed the importance of continued cooperation in the field of IW,” said Dr. Sandor Fabian, Chair of Engagements, Irregular Warfare Center. “The IWC will publish the full study and event report on its website and will continue exploring the conceptualization of IW in other regions important for U.S. national security to improve U.S. government and DoD effectiveness in addressing IW threats and challenges.”

The Center’s foundation is built upon three Lines of Effort:

AMPLIFY and collaborate to build an innovative and adaptable global networked IW community of interest.
Strategically ILLUMINATE current and future irregular threats, crises, and obstacles.
ADDRESS current and future irregular threats to the US, allies, and partners by providing optionality to leaders.

irregularwarfarecenter.org

7. Ukraine Victory Unlikely This Year, Milley Says

Ukraine Victory Unlikely This Year, Milley Says

“I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it's a very difficult task,” says top U.S. general.

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

Watch Kevin Baron's interview with Gen. Mark Milley, part of Defense One's State of Defense series, here.

Ukraine is unlikely to expel all Russian forces from its territory this year, the top U.S. officer said Friday, giving a grim reality check to the expressed goal and hopeful ambitions of policymakers, diplomats, and defense leaders from Washington to Kyiv.

“I don't think it's likely to be done in the near term for this year,” Gen. Mark Milley said Friday in an interview with Defense One.

“Zelenskyy has publicly stated many times that the Ukrainian objective is to kick every Russian out of Russian occupied Ukraine. And that is a significant military task. Very, very difficult military task. You're looking at a couple hundred thousand Russians who are still in Russian-occupied Ukraine. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it's a very difficult task,” the Joint Chiefs chairman said. “But that is their objective. They certainly have a right to that, that is their country. And they are on the moral high ground here.”

In November, Milley said in a press conference that the probability Ukraine was going to retake Crimea and expel all Russian forces “anytime soon is not high.” His comment stirred speculation that the United States was pressuring Zelenskyy toward negotiating territorial concessions with Russia.

On Friday, Milley said Russia “has failed” strategically, operationally, “and now they’re failing tactically, as well.” That followed his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee that Russian forces were “getting slaughtered” by Ukrainian troops, due in part to poor training and human-wave tactics.

Milley was asked whether the ATACMS long-range missile would become the latest advanced weapon initially withheld from and later sent to Ukraine.

“Well, there's a policy decision to date not to, so far. And I would never predict anything on the table, off the table, for the future. But from a military standpoint, we have relatively few ATACMS, we do have to make sure that we maintain our own munitions inventories, as well. And the range of the weapon—I think there's a little bit of overstating of what an ATACMS can do and can't do. You're looking at a single shot, so think of a musket versus a repeating rifle. Whereas the GMLRS fires six shots, and ATACMs fires one. Now the range of the ATACMS is longer, but there's other systems they can get you that range. There’s UAVs, for example, that could do it, and the Brits have a couple of systems. So, those are some things that we're looking at to give them a little bit more legs. But right now, we're not providing the ATACMs.”

Why It’s Hard to Double GMLRS Production

Lawmakers, many fulfilling campaign promises, have stepped up their inquiries into U.S. pledges of bottomless support for Ukrainian forces. The greatest pressure has come from the new crop of House GOP leaders, including far-right Republicans who oppose the effort entirely. But even moderate GOP committee leaders pressed Milley and Austin this month on the effect on U.S. munitions stockpiles.

Milley warned the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the Ukraine conflict has revealed “the incredible consumption rates of conventional munitions” in wartime.

“If there was a war in the Korean Peninsula or a great power war between the United States and Russia, or the United States and China, the consumption rates would be off the charts,” he said.

On Friday, Milley said the services are reassessing what the U.S. needs for future conflicts.

“We're going back and we're reviewing all of our estimates for logistical estimates, for all of the key ammunitions or munitions that are required for the various contingency plans,” he said.

Milley said it will take the U.S. defense industry “probably several years” to backfill all that has been spent and ramp up production to meet what the Pentagon needs.

“We have some indications, and that will probably have to increase over time, it's not going to be done by magic overnight. But this is something that's going to be very expensive. And it's going to have to be a deliberate program. It'll take probably several years to do it,” he said. “We have sufficient ammunition in our inventory today to do what we need to do. But if you're involved in a significant great-power war, it's best not to underestimate how much munitions you're going to need.”

defenseone.com · by Kevin Baron

8. Report: Chinese State-sponsored Hacking Group Highly Active

Report: Chinese State-sponsored Hacking Group Highly Active

Insikt Group says RedGolf has close overlaps with groups tracked by other security companies under the names APT41 and BARIUM, suggesting a close affiliation.

thediplomat.com · by David Rising · March 30, 2023

A Chinese hacking group that is likely state-sponsored and has been linked previously to attacks on U.S. state government computers is still “highly active” and is focusing on a broad range of targets that may be of strategic interest to China’s government and security services, a private American cybersecurity firm said in a new report Thursday.

The hacking group, which the report calls RedGolf, shares such close overlap with groups tracked by other security companies under the names APT41 and BARIUM that it is thought they are either the same or very closely affiliated, said Jon Condra, director of strategic and persistent threats for Insikt Group, the threat research division of Massachusetts-based cybersecurity company Recorded Future.

Following up on previous reports of APT41 and BARIUM activities and monitoring the targets that were attacked, Insikt Group said it had identified a cluster of domains and infrastructure “highly likely used across multiple campaigns by RedGolf” over the past two years.

“We believe this activity is likely being conducted for intelligence purposes rather than financial gain due to the overlaps with previously reported cyberespionage campaigns,” Condra said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press.

China’s Foreign Ministry denied the accusations, saying, “This company has produced false information on so-called ‘Chinese hacker attacks’ more than once in the past. Their relevant actions are groundless accusations, far fetched, and lack professionalism.”

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Chinese authorities have consistently denied any form of state-sponsored hacking, instead saying China itself is a major target of cyberattacks.

APT41 was implicated in a 2020 U.S. Justice Department indictment that accused Chinese hackers of targeting more than 100 companies and institutions in the U.S. and abroad, including social media and video game companies, universities, and telecommunications providers.

In its analysis, Insikt Group said it found evidence that RedGolf “remains highly active” in a wide range of countries and industries, “targeting aviation, automotive, education, government, media, information technology and religious organizations.”

Insikt Group did not identify specific victims of RedGolf, but said it was able to track scanning and exploitation attempts targeting different sectors with a version of the KEYPLUG backdoor malware also used by APT41.

Insikt said it had identified several other malicious tools used by RedGolf in addition to KEYPLUG, “all of which are commonly used by many Chinese state-sponsored threat groups.”

In 2022, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant reported that APT41 was responsible for breaches of the networks of at least six U.S. state governments, also using KEYPLUG.

In that case, APT41 exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in an off-the-shelf commercial web application used by 18 states for animal health management, according to Mandiant, which is now owned by Google. It did not identify which states’ systems were compromised.

Mandiant called APT41 “a prolific cyber threat group that carries out Chinese state-sponsored espionage activity in addition to financially motivated activity potentially outside of state control.”

Cyber intelligence companies use different tracking methodologies and often name the threats they identify differently, but Condra said APT41, BARIUM, and RedGolf “likely refer to the same set of threat actor or group(s)” due to similarities in their online infrastructure, tactics, techniques and procedures.

“RedGolf is a particularly prolific Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group that has likely been active for many years against a wide range of industries globally,” he said.

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“The group has shown the ability to rapidly weaponize newly reported vulnerabilities and has a history of developing and using a large range of custom malware families.”

Insikt Group concluded that the use of KEYPLUG malware through certain types of command and control servers by RedGolf and similar groups is “highly likely to continue” and recommended that clients ensure they are blocked as soon as they are detected.

GUEST AUTHOR

David Rising

David Rising reported for the Associated Press in Bangkok, Thailand.

thediplomat.com · by David Rising · March 30, 2023

9. The Truth About The Philippines’ New Strategy Against China

"Information Lawfare."

Excerpts:

The Philippines have adopted a strategy of information lawfare, the purposeful use of law to control the narrative of a conflict. The Philippines is purposefully undermining the legitimacy of China’s cause for aggressive actions—China’s unlawful claim of Chinese sovereignty over Philippine waters or waters in its EEZ—as well as the illegality of its disproportionately aggressive tactics. In doing so, the Philippines is able to catch China outright in its lies, publicize the illegality of Chinese actions, and bolster its own legitimacy before its own population and the world. Perhaps the Philippines is taking a cue from Ukraine, which has masterfully used its lawfare strategy as well as social media and media writ large to garner popular support from all over the world. In Ukraine, and now in the South China Sea, we may be witnessing the escalation of a new conflict, which will be fought in the information realm as much as on the battlefield.

As I have noted elsewhere, it is much easier to win a war when you have already prevailed in the court of public opinion. Hopefully, kinetic warfare will never occur in the South China Sea. But the players are getting ready by preparing the legal and information battlespace. To garner public support for a conflict, the parties will need to win in the courtroom and in the media both first and last. Ultimately, the courts of law and public opinion matter most for victory in the history books. Since its the landmark 2016 arbitration victory, the Philippines has been at the cutting edge of lawfare strategy. Its new strategy of combining lawfare with information warfare will make it more lethal for the long term.

The Truth About The Philippines’ New Strategy Against China

Jill Goldenziel

Contributor

I cover defense, security, law, political risk, and business threat.

Forbes · by Jill Goldenziel · March 31, 2023

... [+]AFP via Getty Images

You may have heard that tensions have been rising recently in the South China Sea. And they are—but you’re also hearing about them more often than you used to. The Philippine Coast Guard has launched a new strategy against China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea: publicizing the truth. By using video and eyewitness accounts to document China’s harassment of its personnel and civilian populations, the Philippines is placing diplomatic and public pressure on China, making it increasingly difficult for Beijing to defend its claims of peaceful action in the South China Sea. By highlighting the illegality of China’s actions alongside the facts, the Philippines is also using lawfare to undermine China’s legitimacy before the world.

Under the Philippines’ previous President, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines preferred to quietly handle many of China’s provocations, sometimes waiting weeks or months to release information that they occurred. Since last Spring’s election of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. who has proven less wiling to appease China, the Philippines has begun to more frequently publicize China’s aggressive actions. The Philippines has filed 461 diplomatic protests against China since 2016 over China’s aggression in what the Philippines terms the West Philippine Sea, the portion of the South China Sea that falls in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). As of the end of February, 77 of those protests had been made under the administration of Bongbong Marcos Jr.. Under Duterte’s administration, the Philippines would sometimes sit on information for weeks or longer before publicizing China’s transgressions. Now, the Philippine Coast Guard is more likely to spotlight the truth in real time, and diplomats are more likely to act accordingly.

Under Marcos, the Philippine Coast Guard has intensified patrols of the West Philippine Sea and made efforts to document and publicize China’s behavior. The Philippine Coast Guard Commodore, Jay Tarriela, has said that “I'd like to emphasize that the best way to address Chinese ‘gray zone’ activities in the West Philippine Sea is to expose it,” referring specifically to China’s use of ostensibly civilian research and fishing vessels, often part of its maritime militia, to perform military activities. He explained that the strategy, “allows like-minded states to express condemnation and reproach which puts Beijing in a spotlight,” he said. “Chinese actions in the shadows are now checked, which also forced them to come out in the open or to publicly lie." The Coast Guard has also invited Western journalists aboard its craft to witness Chinese aggression firsthand.

The Philippine Coast Guard has had plenty of opportunities to enact its new strategy, and has already seen results. On February 6, for example, a Chinese Coast Guard ship fired a military-grade laser against a Philippine patrol boat, temporarily blinding some crew members. The Philippine patrol boat was on its way to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit World War II-era warship that the Philippines grounded at Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 in order to reinforce its claim to the area, which is disputed by China. In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal found that Second Thomas Shoal is a low-tide elevation that falls squarely within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. While a low-tide elevation does not generate a territorial sea or claims of sovereignty, the Philippines has the exclusive rights to economic and natural resources in the area under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The tribunal invalidated China’s claims of sovereignty and economic rights over the area.

In response to the Philippines’ accusations, China countered that its coast guard acted “professionally and with restraint” within Chinese waters, and used a harmless laser to track the Philippine boat's movement. The Coast guard released a video of the incident, which told a different story. Many news outlets paired discussion of the video with mention of the arbitral proceedings, bolstering the legitimacy of the Philippines’ position. Armed with that footage, as well as the law, President Marcos Jr. summoned China’s ambassador to Manila over the incident. The U.S. also released a statement rebuking China for the incident and reminding China—and the world—of the arbitral decision and its defense treaty commitments to the Philippines.

Forbes · by Jill Goldenziel · March 31, 2023

10. Taiwan, like Ukraine, is fighting for democracy, Tsai says in New York

Taiwan, like Ukraine, is fighting for democracy, Tsai says in New York

By Meaghan Tobin and Ellen Nakashima

March 30, 2023 at 11:24 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Meaghan Tobin · March 31, 2023

Taiwan’s core values — freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law — are in peril in the face of increasing authoritarianism, the democratic island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, said on Thursday, drawing direct parallels between Taiwan and Ukraine.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call to us all, and served as a reminder that authoritarianism does not cease in its belligerence against democracy,” Tsai said at a private reception in New York City, which was closed to the press. The Post obtained a recording of her remarks.

At the event, Tsai was given this year’s global leadership award from the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington. Previous recipients include former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

As he presented Tsai with the award, Hudson Institute president John Walters praised her as a leader on the front line of the struggle to contain Chinese aggression in Asia.

“The Chinese Communist Party fears her because she and Taiwan are an inspiration for the Chinese people who aspire to be free and yearn for democracy,” Walters said, according to the tape. “Her battle — their battle — is our battle.”

Tsai delivered resolute remarks in the face of Beijing’s threats, insisting that Taiwan “will never bow to pressure.”

“Taiwan has also long endured the peril of living next to an authoritarian neighbor,” she said before a crowd of conservative luminaries at a hotel in Midtown. Taiwan does not seek conflict, said Tsai, reiterating her commitment to maintaining a peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

She is spending two days in New York on her way to Central America, but her visit is deliberately low-key — she has no media appearances while in the United States — to avoid antagonizing Beijing.

Her speech came at the end of a day spent exploring New York City’s culinary delights in meetings with Taiwanese American chefs and restaurant owners. Crowds of supporters and protesters followed Tsai around the city, some carrying signs with messages such as “Welcome, Taiwanese President” and others waving Chinese flags and banners calling Tsai “a big traitor to China.”

The visit, Tsai’s first in over three years, has done more than draw attention to New York’s restaurant scene. It has served as a reminder to Beijing that despite its global campaign to isolate Taiwan, few issues currently draw more support from both sides of the aisle in Washington than championing Taiwan’s democracy in the face of China’s aggression.

Uncertainty hangs over how China will respond to the visit. Beijing has threatened to retaliate if Tsai goes ahead with next week’s planned meeting in California with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who would become the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with a Taiwanese leader on American soil.

The visit was a pretext for “Taiwan independence separatist forces” to promote their cause in Washington, said a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning.

Washington has emphasized that Tsai is just passing through on her way to Central America. But her trip comes at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has heightened the focus of lawmakers in Washington on supporting Taiwan’s democracy in the face of China’s autocracy.

The planned meeting with McCarthy at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., is already a downshift from McCarthy’s original intention to visit Taiwan himself, following a visit by House Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan last year that sparked an aggressive military reaction from China that included a simulated blockade of the island.

The Biden administration has been trying to downplay Tsai’s trip. Last week, national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a call with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi to emphasize that the trip was routine.

But Beijing may interpret a meeting with an official as high-ranking as McCarthy to have even greater consequence than Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, said Jingdong Yuan, a professor focused on China’s defense policy at the University of Sydney.

“Meetings with senators and representatives are more or less routine, albeit limited in rank and numbers — so Tsai’s reportedly scheduled meeting with McCarthy would be something more significant,” Yuan said.

The military balance on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has changed dramatically in the past 30 years, Yuan added. “Between the U.S. deployment in the Western Pacific and the [People’s Liberation Army], it has undergone significant changes — with the Chinese military in possession of many ballistic and cruise missiles posing much greater threats to U.S. military assets,” Yuan said.

Under Washington’s “one-China policy,” which acknowledges but does not endorse Beijing’s claims that Taiwan is part of China and the Chinese Communist Party is its sole government, Tsai cannot go to the United States on an official state visit.

To stay in line with this policy, Tsai’s travels are coordinated between two organizations that function as embassies in all but name.

Tsai was greeted at John F. Kennedy International Airport by Laura Rosenberger, who recently left the National Security Council to lead the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial organization that manages relations between the United States and Taiwan. She has no other meetings planned with members of the Biden administration.

And Tsai on Thursday met with ambassadors from countries that recognize Taiwan at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. Known as Tecro, it donated over $100,000 to the Hudson Institute in 2021, according to the think tank’s most recent annual report.

Since then, Taiwan’s leaders have pushed the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable, yet still unofficial, activities in the United States. On a previous trip in 2019, Tsai met with members of Congress and even held a banquet for the United Nations representatives of Taiwan’s allies.

At a dinner on Wednesday night with the Taiwanese expatriate community, Tsai praised Taiwan as “a beacon of democracy in Asia.” The dinner was attended by New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, deputy speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly Raj Mukherji, New Jersey state Sen. Gordon Johnson and New York state Sen. Iwen Chu, all members of the Democratic Party.

Taiwan’s leaders have been engaged in an ongoing negotiation with Washington over their reception in the United States dating back to President Lee Teng-hui’s first transit through Hawaii in 1994 — when he wasn’t granted a visa and didn’t set foot off his airplane. A later visit by Lee would kick off escalating military aggression from China in what became known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.

This week, Tsai is in New York for two days on her way to shore up ties with Guatemala and Belize, two of the island democracy’s only remaining diplomatic allies.

At the same time, her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, has undertaken a landmark trip as the first former Taiwanese president to visit China, where he emphasized the shared history and connections between people on both sides of the Strait. Ma is from the opposition Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which favors closer ties with China.

While Beijing has welcomed Ma’s visit, it refuses to engage with Tsai.

The Washington Post · by Meaghan Tobin · March 31, 2023

11. How a Ukrainian Soldier’s Final Act of Defiance Made Him a Hero

Photos at the link.

How a Ukrainian Soldier’s Final Act of Defiance Made Him a Hero

No one knew how Oleksandr Matsievskiy died until video showed graphic certainty of his end

By Isabel ColesFollow and Ievgeniia Sivorka | Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The Wall Street Journal

March 31, 2023 6:01 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-ukrainian-soldiers-final-act-of-defiance-made-him-a-hero-e22f5288?fbclid=IwAR3VX1grrJ-63wrDmHLlCH7dDTlHWop9q4Z6qTX7OAN8_Esx6P-ogzkRYLg

NIZHYN, Ukraine—The Ukrainian platoon was digging in desperately along a tree line in this country’s east when grenades began exploding around it and Russian soldiers crept in from the left.

The 16 Ukrainians fought back as best they could but couldn’t stop the Russians from overrunning a position held by five of their number, including Pvt. Oleksandr Matsievskiy, a 42-year-old electrician who lived with his mother and was new to front-line combat.

As darkness fell, the platoon withdrew to more secure positions, reluctantly leaving the five behind, said some of the soldiers who were there. What happened next remained a mystery for more than two months, even after Pvt. Matsievskiy’s dead body was recovered and buried.

Then, a video surfaced on Russian social media showing an unarmed Pvt. Matsievskiy standing knee-deep in a pit, taking a drag on a cigarette and saying, “Glory to Ukraine.” His apparent captors then open fire, strafing his body with bullets and sending it crumpling to the ground.

Pvt. Matsievskiy’s unassuming defiance struck a chord in this nation that has resisted invasion by its larger neighbor for more than a year.

Every war throws up heroes who display uncommon physical strength or mental acuity to overcome the enemy. Ukraine decorated nearly 200 people with the title “Hero of Ukraine,” the state’s highest award, last year, the most in any year since declaring independence in 1991. But there are also everyman heroes who show courage and defiance in the face of certain death.

Pvt. Oleksandr Matsievskiy has been lauded as a hero since his killing by Russian soldiers was captured in a video.

“He showed that Ukraine’s spirit is unbreakable,” said Pvt. Matsievskiy’s mother, Paraskoviya Demchuk, who received the medal on his behalf. Her son’s stance galvanized Ukrainian resolve at a critical moment in the war as Russia’s onslaught takes an ever-heavier toll.

Pvt. Matsievskiy was born and raised in neighboring Moldova, then also part of the Soviet Union, where his mother was sent to work in a shoe factory.

The young Oleksandr was a sportsman with a willful streak, said Ms. Demchuk. After qualifying as an electrician, he moved to Russia for work, marrying a woman there from his mother’s hometown of Nizhyn in Ukraine. After eight years in Russia, they moved to Nizhyn in 2008 with a young son.

When they split, Pvt. Matsievskiy went to live with his mother, who had also returned to Nizhyn, about 90 miles north of Kyiv. They were living together in a modest house on the edge of the city of some 70,000 inhabitants when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

With Russian forces at the gates of Nizhyn, Pvt. Matsievskiy joined civilian volunteers in the Territorial Defense Force. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he was really determined,” said Ms. Demchuk.

They were deployed to hold checkpoints and secure villages as Russian troops withdrew last spring.

The demand for fresh units to hold the line in the east of the country grew as the war ground on. Pvt. Matsievskiy brought his mother groceries and a bouquet of flowers before deploying in December, telling her he was heading to the front line.

By Dec. 8, Pvt. Matsievskiy was in Bakhmut, the eastern city that has become a focus of the war, taking the lives of thousands of soldiers on both sides. It was the first real taste of combat for him and many other members of his 163rd Battalion, said Lt. Oleksandr Galystskiy, Pvt. Matsievskiy’s platoon commander.

As an electrician, Pvt. Matsievskiy put his skills to use each time they moved to a new place, rigging up a generator so they could charge their devices.

In a photograph taken in Bakhmut, Pvt. Matsievskiy appears, hand on weapon, with a Band-Aid over his eyebrow covering a cut received when he struck his head while unloading a train. He was obstinate, according to four of the men who served with him, and a heavy smoker. Staff Sgt. Vasyl Zamola, a driver before the war, recalled him declaring he would never be taken captive. Like many Ukrainians brought up in the Soviet Union, he mostly spoke Russian, Sgt. Zamola said.

On the morning of Dec. 30, Pvt. Matsievskiy and 15 others headed for a line of trees near the village of Krasna Hora to support a tank brigade defending the north of Bakhmut.

A road near the front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas area, a focus of recent fighting.

The men had been digging foxholes for cover for about 15 minutes when Russian forces attacked.

Branches began falling as mortars tore through the trees overhead. “It was getting more and more intense,” said Pvt. Vyacheslav Kovalyov, who took a bullet to the calf and was evacuated from the battlefield along with another soldier.

Russian forces were coming at them in waves, trampling over the bodies of those cut down in front of them, said Sgt. Zamola. Suddenly, he noticed Russian forces to his left, where Pvt. Matsievskiy and four others had been. They had been outflanked.

The men made several attempts to reach Pvt. Matsievskiy’s group as the battle raged through the day, but the gunfire was too intense.

Daylight was waning and their night-vision equipment wasn’t good enough to keep fighting in the dark. An order was given to fall back to better-fortified positions.

“If not, we would all have died,” said Sgt. Zamola.

Paraskoviya Demchuk said that her son showed that Ukraine’s spirit is unbreakable.

A photograph of Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Matsievskiy’s son on vacation before the Russian occupation is displayed in the home of his mother.

At home in Nizhyn, Ms. Demchuk had been trying to distract herself with housework. The last time she had spoken to her son on Dec. 29, he had seemed in good spirits.

He had previously told her not to worry if she didn’t hear from him because cellphone reception near the front lines is patchy. But as days went by without a word, Ms. Demchuk grew anxious. Pvt. Matsievskiy’s was out of service. She couldn’t get through to his company commander.

Rumors began swirling around Nizhyn that the 163rd Battalion had suffered heavy casualties. Ms. Demchuk went to the local enlistment office asking about her son. They didn’t provide any information. Nor did Pvt. Matsievskiy’s military base, nor the police.

The facts began to emerge after the 163rd Battalion returned to base in nearby Chernihiv in early January without Pvt. Matsievskiy. A member of his unit informed Ms. Demchuk her son was missing, likely dead. “How could you leave him there?” she recalled saying.

On Feb. 9, Ms. Demchuk received a call from the police. At a morgue in Kyiv, she was confronted with the bullet-ridden corpse of her only son, recovered as part of an exchange with Russian forces. Part of his head was missing, she said, but there was no mistaking the gash over his eyebrow or the birthmark on his foot.

Lt. Oleksandr Galystskiy was Pvt. Matsievskiy’s platoon commander.

Days later, Ms. Demchuk buried her son, but questions about how he had died continued to assail her. “A mother needs to know—no matter how painful,” she said.

The answer came to her in the form of a video that flashed up on her phone when she returned home from work one evening and sat down at the kitchen table. It showed a man she recognized instantly as her son standing knee-deep in a ditch with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Film him!” a male voice off-camera commands in Russian.

Staring directly at the camera, Pvt. Matsievskiy takes a deep drag from his cigarette before saying in a calm, steady voice: “Glory to Ukraine.”

A BARRAGE OF AUTOMATIC GUNFIRE CUTS HIM DOWN.

The 12-second clip had surfaced on a Telegram channel affiliated with Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group and soon ripped across the internet, spawning memes and a hashtag that topped global Twitter trends. In Ukraine, it provoked an outcry.

In his address to the nation that night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to find the killers, rallying the nation with the man’s final words. “I want us all together, in unity, to respond: ‘Glory to the hero! Glory to heroes! Glory to Ukraine!’”

Pvt. Matsievskiy’s fellow soldiers had also recognized him immediately and informed their commander, but it took Ukrainian security services nearly a week to confirm his identity. During that time, the Ukrainian military identified the man in the video as a different missing soldier, sowing confusion.

Within hours of the confirmation, Mr. Zelensky had conferred the “Hero of Ukraine” award on Pvt. Matsievskiy.

The graves of soldiers killed while serving in the Ukrainian military alongside Pvt. Matsievskiy.

Russia didn’t comment on the video. Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin cast doubt on its authenticity and said there was no evidence his forces were involved.

For his mother, there is some solace in the phone calls, letters and poems she receives extolling Pvt. Matsievskiy’s bravery, and thanking her for raising a patriot. There are plans to rename a street in Nizhyn after him and erect a monument in his honor.

Despite the graphic certainty of his end, questions remain about the moments leading up to it: When and where exactly did it happen? Did Pvt. Matsievskiy’s words prompt his killers to open fire, or were they about to shoot him anyway?

The fate of two of the soldiers who went missing with Pvt. Matsievskiy is also unknown.

The other two whose remains were recovered with Pvt. Matsievskiy’s are buried near him in Nizhyn, alongside 81 other men from the city who have been killed in action since Russia’s invasion.

“Every fighter in the Ukrainian army has such a spirit,” said his mother. “Perhaps many others said such words, but they weren’t recorded.”

Pvt. Matsievskiy’s unassuming defiance struck a chord in this nation that has resisted invasion by Russia for more than a year.

Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

12. The Dollar Rules the Financial Universe. China Can’t Change That.

Is this analysis correct?

Concussion:

Yet the yuan’s sphere of influence is poised to expand. While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drove eastward after the Soviet Union collapsed, China’s BRI extended its reach into the soft underbelly of central Asia. And now it seems that Russia will be in the yuan’s orbit as a cost of Putin’s Ukraine folly. Chinese companies have moved into the vacuum left by the withdrawal of Western companies. At best, a yuan bloc is in the early stages of forming to include Russia, North Korea, and Iran. They didn’t quit the dollar bloc but were fired from it. The fate of the dollar lies in Washington, not Beijing.

The Dollar Rules the Financial Universe. China Can’t Change That.

Barron's · by Marc Chandler

The confiscation of Russia’s central bank reserves and potential plans to use them to help Ukraine were thought to cut the dollar’s attractiveness. The U.S.’s increasing reliance on sanctions and weaponizing access to the dollar have escalated the talk of alternatives. The banking failures in the U.S. renewed questions about its susceptibility to destabilizing financial crises. Meanwhile, China’s ties with Saudi Arabia have led to speculation of a petro-yuan that displaces the petrodollar.

There are two ways the dollar could lose its place in the world economy: encroachment, in which another currency supplants the dollar, as the dollar replaced sterling a century ago, or abdication, where the U.S. pursues policies that shrink back from the global role it previously sought. Concerns about China fall into the encroachment camp, but little substance exists. The more significant threat is self-immolation. Those who see the dollar’s role as an exorbitant burden, not a privilege, want to abandon it. That would be a type of financial disarmament in the great game of international influence that extends beyond prices and quantities.

China may be Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer, but there’s no sign that Saudi Arabia will price oil in yuan. It makes no sense on several levels, including that the Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar. When the Federal Reserve changes interest rates, the Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority and several other Middle Eastern countries typically quickly match the move.

The Chinese yuan is simply not convertible. It isn’t a question of technology but policy. China’s foreign-exchange rate is closely managed and purposefully opaque. Its capital markets are developing but aren’t sufficiently transparent. Including the yuan in the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights in 2015 was supposed to spark growth in yuan reserves, but as of the end of the third quarter of 2022, the yuan’s share of international reserves was about 2.75%. The yuan’s share of Swift transactions briefly rose above 3% early last year, but by February 2023, its share had slumped to about 2.2%.

Listening to some U.S. commentary about a rising yuan, you’d get the sense that America is being victimized. But China has hardly abandoned the dollar. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, once considered a challenge to the World Bank, has struck a cooperative accord with it. The AIIB takes U.S. dollar subscriptions and has been joined by U.S. allies, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Israel.

Even China’s Belt and Road Initiative, seen as a power projection exercise, cannot be divorced from the dollar. Initially, China made yuan loans, but recipients quickly swapped into dollars. So now, Chinese banks finance BRI loans with dollars.

Moreover, focusing on how oil transactions are denominated confuses the key to the dollar’s role in the world economy. It also misunderstands what has happened over the past 40 years. Put simply, if crudely, the market for money outstrips the market for goods by magnitudes.

The Bank for International Settlements estimates that the daily turnover in the foreign-exchange market is $7.5 trillion daily. Global trade for all of last year was about $32 trillion. The dollar is on one side of 88% of currency trades, little changed from 1989 (when the dollar was one part of 90% of currency trades). China may be the most important trade partner for more countries than the U.S., but the dollar’s role remains paramount.

The pricing of oil and many other commodities in dollars isn’t the cause of the greenback’s role in the world economy but a reflection of it. The U.S. capital markets’ depth, breadth, and transparency are its bedrock and are overlaid by its military dominance and legal system.

Nor is the diversification of reserves toward the euro, sterling, yen, or Canadian and Australian dollars a threat to the dollar. The financial sanctions on Russia were imposed broadly, if not universally, and those countries and regions are deeply entrenched in the dollar-centric world. Also, as technology has improved and reduced the barriers to entry, several new payment systems have arisen over the past couple of years. They are small and fragmented.

U.S. sanctions have created niche opportunities for unlikely alternatives, including the United Arab Emirates’ dirham, which India has begun using to pay for Russian oil. India, not China, has emerged as the largest buyer of Russian oil, and New Delhi wants to avoid the yuan, given the rivalry.

Yet the yuan’s sphere of influence is poised to expand. While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drove eastward after the Soviet Union collapsed, China’s BRI extended its reach into the soft underbelly of central Asia. And now it seems that Russia will be in the yuan’s orbit as a cost of Putin’s Ukraine folly. Chinese companies have moved into the vacuum left by the withdrawal of Western companies. At best, a yuan bloc is in the early stages of forming to include Russia, North Korea, and Iran. They didn’t quit the dollar bloc but were fired from it. The fate of the dollar lies in Washington, not Beijing.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback to ideas@barrons.com.

Barron's · by Marc Chandler

13. France Joins AUKUS Submarine Program - Naval News

(please note the date)

France Joins AUKUS Submarine Program - Naval News

navalnews.com · by Naval News Staff · April 1, 2023

The French government has joined the previously trinational AUKUS submarine program. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are already involved in the 368 billion dollar project. The plan is to build and deliver a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarine for the respective navies. Now the French Navy (Marine Nationale) could receive up to four submarines under the plans.

The AUKUS submarine deal was announced in a joint session by British, the American and Australian leaders on September 18 2021. A follow-up announcement on March 13 2023 confirmed that the British SSN(R) program would form the basis of the AUKUS design. It is unclear whether the French boats will be exactly like their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, or slightly slimmer.

Design Influences

There were already indications that this new partnership was imminent. It may explain why some official images of the then-called AUKUS submarine, released March 14, appear to show it with a French style sail. The sail depicted closely resembled the Barracuda class submarine which is now entering service with the French Navy.

In anticipation of cost overruns with the interior design of the crew accommodation and galley spaces, the submarines will be built for-but-not-with (FBNW) torpedo tubes. The new arrangement could save millions in operating costs. This is according to an anonymous source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

The torpedo tube situation would not be permeant. “In the event of increased tensions or the outbreak of hostilities” the source added “the submarines could be rebuilt with torpedo tubes in just a matter of years”. It should be remembered that a 4 year overhaul is considered short in submarine terms. Especially in Canada.

The submarine service remains silent on the new deal.

Joint Construction Key To Success

It is understood that the submarines will be built in a new facility exactly halfway between Southampton and Cherbourg. The latter is the home of French submarine building. Such a political decision was widely expected. It is the hallmark of international collaborations in the defense arena. Australia’s submarines will be built locally in Australian yards, and assembled in France and the United Kingdom. The completed submarines will then be shipped by rail via the Suez Canal to Australia.

The upgraded program will be renamed FUKUS after France joins. Following the expected formal announcement, the submerge à trois will become a submerge à quatre. Boris Johnson, who was among the leaders who originally announced the AUKUS program, is said to be keen to join the celebrations. A Downing Street spokesperson has preemptively denied the existence of the planned catered business meetings.

It is understood that Canada will not be allowed to join FUKUS for common decency reasons.

navalnews.com · by Naval News Staff · April 1, 2023

14. Marine commandant warns U.S. lacking in key capability for war with China

Excerpt:

"The ultimate goal is to prevent conflict and manage crisis in the region," he added, "and amphibious capability is critical to that goal."

Marine commandant warns U.S. lacking in key capability for war with China

Newsweek · by Naveed Jamali · March 30, 2023

The highest-ranking member of the U.S. Marine Corps has told Newsweek that his forces are lacking in a key capability that could prove critical in deterring a conflict with China or in successfully waging one should such a war erupt in the Pacific.

"The People's Republic of China is the only competitor capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, and technological power to challenge the stable and open international system that we enjoy," General David Berger, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, told Newsweek.

"The ultimate goal is to prevent conflict and manage crisis in the region," he added, "and amphibious capability is critical to that goal."

Amphibious capability refers to ships tasked with carrying ground support forces such as Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) and their vehicles across sea to land. This role is crucial in the context of the Pacific, but Berger and other senior Marines say their state of readiness has fallen to its lowest level in recent years, down to 35 percent of what was needed to mount three Amphibious Readiness Groups (ARG) at all times.

General Berger said the situation could serve as an opportunity for Beijing as it seeks to highlight its own growing capabilities.

"When available, amphibious ships allow the U.S. to 'outcompete' PRC influence by providing rapid crisis response—which includes humanitarian assistance and disaster relief—to our regional allies and partners," General Berger said. "If amphibious ships are not available, we cannot rapidly provide self-sustaining crisis response services on behalf of the U.S., and our competitors will fill that gap."

He added that the assessed shortcoming is particularly significant and could affect the performance of other U.S. military branches as, "in the case of conflict, amphibious ships enable Marines to operate as part of a wider naval campaign."

Currently, these plans are put into play as part of a three-phase rotation that first involves pre-deployment and training, then deployment and, finally, return and maintenance. This delicate balance ensures that the Marines have enough battle-ready personnel and equipment to respond in the event of a crisis.

"Any lack of availability affects that rotation," General Berger said, "which could mean that there are not ships available to maintain currency and proficiency when not deployed,"

"Also, if there was a need to surge follow-on forces to reinforce a deployed ARG/MEU," he added, "it's possible there wouldn't be ships to surge or the requisite training for the Marines and Sailors to provide the capability for the combatant commander."

A Newsweek photo illustration showing General David Berger, Commandant of the US Marine Corps and US marines watch vehicles driving off their Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) after landing ashore during the "Ssangyong 2023 Exercise" joint landing operation by US and South Korean Marines in the south-eastern port of Pohang on March 29, 2023. Newsweek; Source photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images

This could prove to be a substantial setback should the world's two most powerful nations come to blows amid rising tensions in the Pacific, where China has amassed a rapidly growing military presence. Already capable of mobilizing the world's largest army, Chinese naval capabilities have begun to rapidly close the gap with those of the U.S., even eclipsing them in some key categories.

Among these categories is a ship-building industry that is unmatched by any other power in the world and includes an expanding amphibious fleet. The People's Liberation Army has regularly put such craft on full display in exercises demonstrating the Chinese armed forces' ability to project power to nearby islands, including politically contested Taiwan.

Over the past month alone, units of the People's Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command and Southern Theater Command have conducted such amphibious drills, with participation from the PLA Ground Force, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The PLA Rocket Force also frequently trains on how to destroy enemy assets at sea, with the Pentagon finding in its annual report last November that China conducted more missile launches throughout 2021 than every other country combined outside of actual warzones.

Marines train like we fight, and there is nothing that can prepare Marines for amphibious operations better than operating aboard amphibious ships alongside their Navy counterparts.

General David Berger, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps

As for the U.S. Marines, however, their focus on these tactics, which have not been put into action at such scale since World War II, has been relatively recent.

"After two decades of land-focused wars and counterinsurgency operations, coupled with the gradual reduction of amphibious platform availability, our Marines have had less exposure to amphibious operations," General Berger said. "Although the Marine Corps is more than capable of fighting and winning right now, there is a lot to be gained from increased training and education for amphibious operations and a renewed focus on naval integration within the Department of the Navy."

"Marines train like we fight, and there is nothing that can prepare Marines for amphibious operations better than operating aboard amphibious ships alongside their Navy counterparts," he explained. "Fewer amphibious ships, naturally, detracts from the Navy and Marine Corps' ability to train as a true naval expeditionary force."

And yet, one senior U.S. Marine official told Newsweek that "amphib readiness has declined over the last decade, and ship procurement has been 'paused.'" This readiness, now at 35 percent, was as high as 55 percent in 2012 and declined to its previous lowest level of 39 percent in 2015. The 10-year average level is 46 percent.

What this means is that the U.S. Marines, at present, are unable to meet their goal of three Marine Expeditionary Unit-manned Amphibious Readiness Groups, "and haven't been in recent years due to the inconsistent readiness of our amphibs," according to the senior Marine official.

This was also General Berger's message Wednesday when he testified in front of lawmakers of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Speaking to Newsweek following the hearing, Defense Appropriations Chair Senator Jon Tester of Montana acknowledged that "the amphib issue is an important one and an expensive one."

"We will take a look at the budget. I think the budget has one in it, then we'll try to figure out how we're going to do it for this year and years coming because there has to be predictability," Tester said. "So, I get it, and it's a big issue, and it's a serious issue. But we have to live somewhat within our means, so we'll massage that through the process."

Amphibious armored vehicles of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy's Marine Corps make their way to a beachhead during an exercise in this photo published November 25, 2022. Chinese People's Liberation Army

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also commented on the Marines' concerns regarding the readiness of their amphibious forces.

"I think what this is signaling is we have to look carefully at the roles and missions of the Marine Corps and provide them the appropriate number of platforms to accomplish it," Reed told Newsweek.

"But I think the Chinese are probably much more concerned about our submarines, and our air capability and all the other capabilities we bring to bear," he added.

Also speaking to Newsweek after the meeting on Capitol Hill, General Berger argued that the U.S. still had "a much greater capability and much greater capacity" in terms of military power, but having the right number of the proper tools could give the Marines an absolute advantage in the event of a conflict.

"We're not in a deficit. We're not behind at all," General Berger said. "But like I mentioned in the hearing, we're not in favor of a fair fight. We need to make sure we have all the advantages possible and being able to operate from the sea, with everything that we bring on amphibious ships, we can pick and choose where to operate day and night."

"There's nobody on the planet that does amphibious operations anywhere close to the level the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps does," he added. "We don't want that to go down at all. We don't want that capability to go down. But there's no gap between us—we have a huge advantage."

Should this capability continue to degrade, however, he warned it could serve as an impetus for the People's Liberation Army to step up its efforts to reclaim territory it views as its own in the Pacific.

"What the Navy and the Marine Corps do with amphib ships is deter," General Berger said. "You have lower inventory, deterrence impact goes down, your ability to respond to a crisis decreases."

"We don't want to do anything to make China think 'maybe today is the day'—absolutely not," he added. "We don't want to give them that thought to need the inventory to do it."

Newsweek · by Naveed Jamali · March 30, 2023

15. Russia Fears This Rocket Launcher. Here’s Why.

Russia Fears This Rocket Launcher. Here’s Why.

Although Ukraine hopes for tanks and jets, the country has seen great success using the HIMARS rocket launcher against Russian advances.

BY HOPE HODGE SECKPUBLISHED: MAR 31, 2023

Popular Mechanics · March 31, 2023

A few days after Thanksgiving 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense tweeted a head-on photograph of an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launcher, its headlights illuminating a rainy night. Painted wide across the front of the truck and its open doors was a menacing, reptilian smile. With its pair of squat windshield portholes standing in for eyes, the weapon looked distinctly like a creature from Tim Burton’s classic film The Nightmare Before Christmas.

“In anticipation of Christmas, a smiling Himars [sic] collects occupiers under Christmas trees,” the caption read.

The barb, full of the insolent bravado that has made Ukraine’s social media accounts globally popular, played up the near-celebrity status that the HIMARS mobile rocket launcher has achieved among Ukraine’s supporters. Sweatshirts announcing “It’s HIMARS O’Clock” and stickers emblazoned with an image of the coffin-shaped launcher loaded and aimed skyward all offer a winking way to taunt Russian invaders. In October, the launcher was crowned “The Coolest Thing Made in Arkansas” by that state’s chamber of commerce, beating out Frito-Lay’s Cheetos, the iChill Mattress, and aviation fuel cells.

While it may seem strange for a mobile weapons system designed to send a barrage of destructive missiles dozens of miles at more than twice the speed of sound to achieve the popularity of a movie character or a meme, the adulation of HIMARS makes sense in light of the destruction it has unleashed on the Russian army. Since the U.S. Defense Department delivered the first four HIMARS trucks to Ukraine at the end of June 2022, reports of their effectiveness have been steady, if not always verifiable. In late July, HIMARS was reportedly responsible for destroying the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnipro River near the Russian-occupied port city of Kherson, which would be retaken by Ukrainian forces a few months later. In October, Ukrainian forces distributed aerial footage showing HIMARS rocket launchers stealthily moving through a forest near the occupied region of Luhansk, and then systematically obliterating a Russian tank convoy. As of September, U.S. defense officials said Ukraine has hit more than 400 Russian targets with HIMARS, while Russia has been unable to retaliate effectively. As of November, none of the 20 launchers in Ukrainian hands had been destroyed.

HIMARS’s star turn in Ukraine sparked a rush among U.S. allies to equip themselves with the system and coincided with NATO’s launch of a new HIMARS logistics support structure as a keystone in its defense against Russia. The U.S. military, meanwhile, is busy developing new ways to employ HIMARS and expand its capabilities. Amid the furor hangs a question: Why is HIMARS so good? Has it merely maximized a determined Ukraine’s effectiveness against a Russia unprepared for a modern conflict, or do the weapon’s unique capabilities and design portend an even greater value on future battlefields?

The Soviet Union’s Katyusha was a pioneering multiple-rocket launcher system developed during World War II.

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HIMARS may be newly famous, but it’s not new. The system entered service for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in 2005 after a decade of development by its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. It is the most recent advance in a chain of weapons that can fire multiple rockets in quick succession, a game of weaponry one-upmanship that was born out of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union was among the first nations to invest significantly in rocket artillery, fielding the first truck-mounted multiple-rocket launchers during World War II. The Katyusha launchers delivered blanketing destruction rather than precision hits. Early versions, including the 132mm BM-13s, were nicknamed “Stalin’s Organs” because their rows of rocket tubes resembled the piped instrument. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union further developed the Katyusha platform, debuting the BM-21 Grad in 1963. This 122mm launcher, mounted on a 4.5-ton truck chassis, could fire a barrage of 40 rockets in as little as 20 seconds, and reload again in three minutes. Russians had a nickname for this one too: “Hail,” for the way its rockets rained down on an enemy position.

The U.S. military, by contrast, continued to rely on its arsenal of howitzer cannons, which were seen as more reliable and accurate, even if they lacked the range and volume of multiple-rocket launchers. But when the Soviet Union began exporting the BM-21 to other nations, and those nations used the multiple-rocket launchers in their own battles—particularly the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Arab and Israeli forces—the U.S. saw how potent the weapon was, and questioned whether its own forces could defend against it.

In a potential land battle between the U.S. and Russia featuring multiple-rocket launchers, “the Russians were going to come and they were going to last forever,” says John Ferrari, a retired Army major general and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recalling the growing concern among American military planners. Howitzers, as steady and accurate as they were, couldn’t sufficiently counter the range and destruction of Russia’s rocket launchers.

The U.S.’s belated answer was the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, known as MLRS, which it developed in the mid-1970s. The launcher had space for 12 rockets atop a Bradley Fighting Vehicle—a heavy-duty tracked vehicle resembling a tank. The hulking 26-ton weapon first proved itself in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. campaign to free Kuwait from Iraqi invaders. Recent reporting suggests that the effectiveness of the “steel rain” from the MLRS’s unguided M26 fragmentation rockets was overblown by Army officials to boost future investments in long-range artillery. But Ferrari, who deployed to Kuwait as an executive officer with the Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment, remembers being awed by the MLRS during nighttime missions.

The Soviet Union continued development of multiple-rocket launchers throughout the Cold War, while the U.S. invested in shorter-range but more accurate howitzers. In the ’70s, realizing they were undergunned, the U.S. began work on its own MLRS systems.

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“It alters your life when one of those things fires—it’s so fantastic and big and loud and noisy,” he says. “It’s like being at Cape Canaveral.”

HIMARS came next. Developed in the 1990s, it was built to fire improved MLRS munitions: A six-pack pod of bullet-shaped guided rockets called GMLRS with ranges of more than 43 miles and accuracy within a few feet. While the MLRS mounted on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle chassis can reach top road speeds of 40 miles per hour, HIMARS can hit nearly 60 mph, and accelerate significantly faster than its predecessor. The idea, as always in artillery operations, is to launch a payload and then clear out of the area before an enemy can locate the projectile’s point of origin and respond. The Army calls this tactic “shoot and scoot,” and no ground-based weapon does it better than HIMARS.

Nicknamed “the 70-kilometer sniper rifle,” HIMARS is so accurate that it can hit a single room in a building dozens of miles away. GMLRS rockets are the most common HIMARS payload, and more than 50,000 of them have been made in three variants. The original one, called the Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions rocket (DPICM), is now out of service. The GMLRS Unitary has a 200-pound warhead for precision strikes in urban environments. And the GMLRS Alternative Warhead (AW) has a 200-pound explosive warhead that detonates about 30 feet above a target area and rains down 182,000 preformed tungsten fragments. Images posted to Twitter indicate that Ukraine has received both the Unitary and AW rockets. Lockheed Martin also is developing an extended-range version of the GLMRS, which it claims will hit targets more than 90 miles away.

And then there’s the thicker MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missile, another HIMARS munition, which comes one to a pod and has a 190-mile range. Because the missile could be used by Ukraine to hit targets far inside Russia, the U.S. has so far refused to provide the missiles to the embattled nation.

A predecessor to HIMARS, the M270 MLRS rode atop a tanklike Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The U.S. first deployed it in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm.

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Nikki Rizzi, who was among the first group of female officers the Army permitted to attend field artillery school in 2010, deployed with HIMARS to the operations hub of Kandahar, Afghanistan, as a battery platoon leader in 2011. Rizzi says her artillery battery was tasked with supporting missions from Joint Special Operations Command that required urgent precision and speed: It would be used to target an enemy compound rigged with improvised explosive devices, for example, or to level a terrain feature providing cover to insurgents.

Multiple echelons of command had to sign off on the strike, and airspace had to be cleared to account for the payload’s flight time; rockets could take several minutes to reach their target. Often, Rizzi recalls, the HIMARS unit would coordinate with an A-10 Thunderbolt close-air support aircraft, dropping bombs and firing rockets on the same target.

Inevitably, a HIMARS fire mission would draw a crowd in the tactical operations center where Rizzi worked. The choreography of aviation and ground elements and the precise moment-by-moment communication would culminate in the payload’s release in a concussive plume of smoke through which the streak of rocket fire could be seen. The sound would follow an instant later, an epic crack as warheads capable of reaching velocities 2.5 times the speed of sound hurtled upward. After the GMLRS rounds had disappeared over the horizon, to be tracked from the operations center to their final destination, platoon members liked to search for the shoebox-sized plastic end caps that the spent rockets left behind, saving them for souvenirs or gifts.

“Everyone was always very curious about how it worked. Whenever there was a HIMARS mission, everyone was watching it unfold,” Rizzi says. At the end of her nine-month deployment, her platoon had fired about a dozen missions—more, she says, than any of the platoons that had come before.

Rizzi says the Ukrainian military’s success with the system is amazing, particularly because they operate it without some of HIMARS’s most important guidance systems. The U.S. military’s Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), for example, largely eliminates the need for human calculation: Contained within rugged laptops and communications terminals, the system evaluates target locations, coordinates air and ground elements, and monitors missions in progress. A control panel in the cab of the truck, integrated with HIMARS onboard systems, calculates the elevation and azimuth (a measurement of horizontal direction) of the launcher based on the desired target, and manages the actual arming and firing process. AFATDS leaves little for the crew to do except park the system at the desired location, load the rounds, elevate and rotate the launcher into the prescribed position, and, once safely within the cab, discharge the payload on orders from a fire-direction center.

Without the benefit of AFATDS, a proprietary U.S. military system not included with the launchers sent to Europe, Ukrainian HIMARS operators have had to use drones supported by SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications network for target identification and reconnaissance, and off-the-shelf radios or cellphones for communication to plan a strike. (SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has objected to this use of the technology and taken steps to curb it.) In some cases, the Ukrainians have resorted to the Meta-owned smartphone application WhatsApp to order missions when other comms go down and have created their own smartphone apps for battlefield coordination. (As of December, the Army is seeking to develop an international version of AFATDS that Ukraine can use.)

Once Ukrainian forces identify a target location, aiming HIMARS—even without AFATDS—is quite easy. Troops only have to manually enter grid coordinates, and then fire.

“The simplicity of it in combination with the highly effective weapon system is why they’re being wildly successful with it,” says retired Army Col. John Cochran, a former acting director of the Pentagon’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force.

In July 2022, Ukrainian forces used HIMARS launchers to take out the the Antonivskyi Bridge over the Dnipro river in Kherson, Ukraine. The bridge was part of a crucial supply line that had allowed Russia to occupy the city. Unable to hold the territory, Russia pulled back its forces in November.

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The alchemy of Ukrainian success with HIMARS, multiple observers have noted, has three key elements: the existential nature of their fight, their aptitude and familiarity with artillery operations, and an uncommon understanding of how their invader operates.

“The Ukrainians, their senior leaders, all grew up in the Soviet-style system,” says Scott Boston, a senior defense analyst with the RAND Corporation and a former artillery officer. “I think that they inherited ... that Soviet prioritization of how to use fires, but also a really deep understanding of how Russians were going to operate. I think that if you put Ukrainian officers in a position where they can see a Russian formation, they’re going to know where to look for a headquarters, where to look for ammo dumps, where the artillery might be hiding in a way that would not necessarily be as intuitive to people who didn’t grow up in that system.”

As the Ukrainian military has become more comfortable employing HIMARS, it’s using the weapon to keep Russian troops disorganized, uncertain, and on the defensive.

“So now the Russians have to expend precious resources to defend. It prevents them from massing on Ukraine’s eastern front, which is what you want,” says Ferrari, the retired Army major general. “You want them to be looking 360 degrees, and to be worried.”

The Russian military has proven itself catastrophically inept at the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, that could help them defend against nimble Ukrainian launcher trucks. The pair of spy satellites Russia relies on may be nearing the end of their service lives, and battlefield artifacts indicate that Russian troops have sometimes had to rely on paper maps of Ukraine dating from as far back as the 1960s. Ukrainian troops, taking advantage of U.S. and allied intelligence and operating from the territory they hold in the west that’s not as well known to the invaders, can broadly pummel Russian defenses with longer-range, less accurate Soviet missiles in their arsenal—the Tochka-U, with a range of 74 miles, for example—then deliver HIMARS rockets for a precise hit on a high-value target.

When needed, HIMARS can deliver a lot of those precise hits. Part of what makes it so successful in Ukraine is how quickly crews can reload its rockets. A well-trained HIMARS team can remove a spent missile pod and reload the launcher within five minutes of firing. The most limiting factor are the pods themselves, which are about the size of a small sedan and most often carried in pairs on the bed of a hulking three-axle transport, with another two towed behind on an attached trailer. With that setup, HIMARS crews can fire up to 30 rockets in minutes before needing to resupply.

That pace of fire has contributed to growing concerns over Ukraine’s ammunition supplies. U.S. officials say they’ve provided “thousands” of GMLRS rockets to Ukraine, but that’s a fraction of the country’s needs. A senior U.S. official said in November that Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery rounds daily—from all available weapons, not just HIMARS—as it tries to hold off withering fire from Russia.

Ironically, it was Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 that convinced the U.S. military to increase its inventory of HIMARS at a time when they weren’t in demand. Ferrari credits retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, a former deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and, briefly, National Security Adviser under President Donald Trump, with the initial push. McMaster had commissioned a report, called the Russian New Generation Warfare study and published in 2017, that sounded an alarm at the Pentagon.

“[McMaster] essentially came back and said, ‘Hey, land war in Europe is not obsolete,” Ferrari recalls. “And we don’t have any air defense ... and rocket artillery to speak of.”

Military planners acted quickly. The Defense Department’s 2019 fiscal budget request called for a dramatic increase in rocket artillery: 9,733 GMLRS rockets, up from the prior year’s 6,474; 404 ATACMS rockets, more than double the number bought in 2018; and 171 HIMARS launchers, up from just 41 the year before.

The Marines are reducing the number of howitzer batteries and adding more HIMARS-equipped groups, based on the weapon’s success in Ukraine and elsewhere.

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As vital as HIMARS is in Ukraine, the Marines have just one active-duty battalion dedicated to the weapon—the California-based 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, known as 5/11. In December, the troops took part in the annual combined arms exercise Steel Knight, which unfolds on training ranges, along coastlines, and in the skies around San Diego. During the exercise, two of the Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster aircraft, capable of remaining airborne indefinitely with aerial refueling, flew roughly 500 miles from Camp Pendleton in Southern California to Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The transport planes inserted a HIMARS team, which hit the ground, executed a six-round mission with practice rockets, and loaded back up for the return journey.

HIMARS is a critical weapon as the Marines seek lighter, more mobile weapons. Already the service has gotten rid of all the heavy tanks it deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s shutting down several of its conventional infantry battalions in favor of highly maneuverable “littoral regiments” that are built for operating near coastlines. The Marines plan to shutter 14 heavy howitzer batteries in favor of 14 new rocket-artillery batteries, seven of which will be HIMARS units.

In light of this larger strategy, Marine HIMARS operators emphasize arriving swiftly and stealthily and then disappearing before the enemy can identify their missiles’ point of origin. This technique, known as HIMARS Rapid Infiltration, or HIRAIN, would be critical in a fight complicated by the yawning oceans and smaller landmasses of the Pacific, and by the sophisticated reconnaissance and targeting tools of a peer enemy like China.

Some tactics can be remarkably simple: Marines still rely on nets and vegetation to hide launchers from aerial surveillance, for example, or take advantage of walls and buildings in urban environments. Camouflage jobs can resemble art more than science. “When [other people] can’t find the launcher, then we know we did our job,” says Marine Sgt. Adrian Curfman, a HIMARS section chief with 5/11.

Operating despite jammed or intercepted communications presents a more complex problem—something Ukrainian forces are all too familiar with. Standard HIMARS operations rely on GPS positioning and dependable, secure communications between the crew and a fire-direction center. In the future, HIMARS crews may take advantage of the military’s new Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), a narrowband satellite communications network that originated with the Navy and offers faster, more resilient, and reliable worldwide comms.

And later this year, a new HIMARS rocket will enter service. The Army’s Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, will deliver what manufacturer Lockheed Martin describes as “pinpoint” accuracy at an eye-watering range of more than 300 miles. A 2020 video advertisement from Lockheed, which makes both the munition and the jet, shows a pair of stealthy F-35s approaching a refueling station for enemy aircraft defended by surface-to-air missiles. The jets relay the coordinates to operators on the ground, who then deliver them to a HIMARS battalion located well behind friendly lines. The launcher fires off a twin pod of the 13-foot PrSMs. The first obliterates the refueling station, and the second detonates over the missile site, blanketing the location with explosive fragments.

Though it’s a fictional portrayal, the sharing of data between stealthy jets and ground-based rocket launchers like HIMARS is the type of sophisticated operation we might expect in a future conflict. Countries like Taiwan that seek HIMARS to boost their defenses should not expect them to come with the cornucopia of tactical gifts that Ukraine has enjoyed, including an adversary with flawed intelligence, friendly borders (such as Poland’s) across which to transport weapons, and allies that can provide accurate targeting information. But HIMARS may still have a role to play against a more sophisticated enemy with robust defenses. Its stealth, agility, and range will be required against such an adversary, and current HIMARS operators are demonstrating how the system can become stronger in all three aspects. HIMARS’s secret strength, in fact, may be its adaptability.

Popular Mechanics · March 31, 2023

16. Opinion | Yes, TikTok is a threat to America. But so are U.S. social media companies.

Excerpts:

Despite the potential cost, Biden needs to show the political courage to act against TikTok. But Congress also needs to show the political courage to take on U.S. social media apps that are also a threat to our nation’s well-being. We need legislation to create rigorous standards on data privacy, algorithmic transparency and moderation for all social media, foreign or domestic.

To cite just one example of the larger threat, researchers have found that, since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there has been a surge of accounts promoting the Islamic State, white supremacy and QAnon. Yet when Meta tried to alert Twitter about accounts associated with Russian and Chinese influence campaigns, it got no response. Twitter, too, is potentially subject to Chinese coercion, because China is a major manufacturing and sales hub for Tesla, a company Musk leads. Musk’s “business and fortune are beholden to the whims of an authoritarian government,” P.W. Singer of the think tank New America pointed out to me.

That would be a good subject for a future House hearing. But of course Republicans are not eager to investigate Musk, perhaps because so many of the conspiracy theories he peddles are popular in their own ranks. It’s much easier to beat up on a Chinese company. That’s not a defense of TikTok. It’s a plea — futile, no doubt — for lawmakers to show some consistency in taking on all of Big Tech, not just one foreign pariah.

Opinion | Yes, TikTok is a threat to America. But so are U.S. social media companies.

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · March 27, 2023

To ban or not to ban? That is the difficult question confronting the U.S. government as it struggles to figure out how to handle TikTok, the wildly popular Chinese social media platform that has at least 150 million active users in the United States.

I’m sympathetic to the arguments for forcing TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform — and to ban it if ByteDance refuses. But I still found myself exasperated by the show trial staged on Thursday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The hearing, which featured the first congressional testimony from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, revealed no semblance of debate or doubt or serious discussion. Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) kicked off the day by telling Chew, “Your platform should be banned. TikTok is a grave threat of foreign influence in American life.” Verdict first, trial later.

Many of the pieces of “evidence” that the committee members cited to indict TikTok were misleading or outright false. No, Liang Rubo, the chief executive of ByteDance, is not a member of the Chinese Communist Party. No, TikTok hasn’t removed all mentions of the Uyghur genocide or the Tiananmen Square massacre. No, TikTok doesn’t collect precise location data — unlike a lot of U.S. social media apps.

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More broadly, most of the complaints about TikTok — that it is harmful to children, that it spreads misinformation and that it collects private data — are just as applicable to U.S. competitors. For example, Facebook, the company now known as Meta that also owns Instagram, agreed in 2019 to pay a record $5 billion fine after the Federal Trade Commission alleged that it violated users’ privacy. Facebook was also used by Russian trolls to influence the 2016 election. Now Meta has been quietly lobbying to turn the public against TikTok, because Instagram and Facebook have been losing ground to TikTok, especially among teens.

Lawmakers spent five hours verbally pummeling Chew as if he were the personification of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, as he pointed out, he’s not even Chinese. He’s an American- and British-educated military reservist in U.S. ally Singapore. Chew showed considerable patience in handling the panel’s attacks, with their undertone of nativism. But he did not have good answers, even on those rare occasions when he was allowed to get in a word edgewise.

Chew repeatedly cited Project Texas, TikTok’s plan to migrate its American data to U.S. servers owned by Oracle. He claimed this would protect the privacy of Americans. But the issue isn’t where the servers are located; it’s who has access to them. And he could offer no guarantees that Chinese employees — who are subject to Chinese state coercion — would not have access to the data or would not be able to manipulate the platform’s algorithm to spread Chinese disinformation.

“A big problem is TikTok has not been very transparent, and several things they have said about data access and management structures have proven to be false — ByteDance has more say and control than was being discussed publicly,” Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert, told me. “Managers in China exert a huge amount of influence.”

Put another way, even those who are hauled before a kangaroo court are sometimes guilty as charged.

You can easily discount the hyperventilating of politicians parading before the cameras. But FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has also raised “national security concerns” about TikTok: “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose, or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it an opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices.”

That is why President Biden has reached the same conclusion that President Donald Trump did — namely, that TikTok should be sold to a U.S. buyer or shut down altogether. But momentum to do something about TikTok petered out when federal courts ruled that Trump did not have the authority to ban it by executive order, the Chinese government made clear it would not agree to a sale, and Trump got cold feet just before the 2020 election for fear of offending young people and suburban moms.

The easiest objection to address is the lack of executive authority to ban TikTok. That can be provided by bipartisan legislation recently introduced in the Senate. But unless Beijing reverses itself and approves a sale (which it shows no sign of doing), Biden could be in the unenviable position of banning an app that is beloved by millions of young voters.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo recently said of a TikTok ban: “The politician in me thinks you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35, forever.” It strikes me that a lot of Republican politicians would be happy for Biden, rather than Trump, to pay the political price of a ban — and that they won’t lift a finger to defend him from the inevitable backlash.

Despite the potential cost, Biden needs to show the political courage to act against TikTok. But Congress also needs to show the political courage to take on U.S. social media apps that are also a threat to our nation’s well-being. We need legislation to create rigorous standards on data privacy, algorithmic transparency and moderation for all social media, foreign or domestic.

To cite just one example of the larger threat, researchers have found that, since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there has been a surge of accounts promoting the Islamic State, white supremacy and QAnon. Yet when Meta tried to alert Twitter about accounts associated with Russian and Chinese influence campaigns, it got no response. Twitter, too, is potentially subject to Chinese coercion, because China is a major manufacturing and sales hub for Tesla, a company Musk leads. Musk’s “business and fortune are beholden to the whims of an authoritarian government,” P.W. Singer of the think tank New America pointed out to me.

That would be a good subject for a future House hearing. But of course Republicans are not eager to investigate Musk, perhaps because so many of the conspiracy theories he peddles are popular in their own ranks. It’s much easier to beat up on a Chinese company. That’s not a defense of TikTok. It’s a plea — futile, no doubt — for lawmakers to show some consistency in taking on all of Big Tech, not just one foreign pariah.

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · March 27, 2023

17. Rediscovering Geostrategy

Excerpts:

The United States must counter this resurgence of Chinese and Russian geopolitical thought with its own revival of geostrategy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton, was an emblematic example of how this is still possible. His attention to geostrategy contributed to his far-sightedness during a time of American complacency. “The exercise of American global primacy must be sensitive to the fact that political geography remains a critical consideration in international affairs,” Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard. “Thus, focusing on the key players and properly assessing the terrain has to be the point of departure for the formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America's Eurasian geopolitical interests.”

As government agencies restructure their departments and funnel resources to regional bureaus to prepare for an era of great power competition, it will be crucial to combine today’s newfound focus on regional expertise and language acquisition with geographic literacy. This will demand considerable reform in the American education system, where international relations theory has constrained itself to an inflexible triangle and universities no longer teach geography. Assembling student groups for the purpose of studying geostrategy is a start.

Finally, this will also require State Department training for diplomats and field officers deployed abroad so that they can understand the historical forces at play in their geographic region of specialty. The Nazi, Russian, and Chinese subversion of Anglo-Saxon geostrategy should not prevent American students from rediscovering this branch of global affairs. On the contrary, the process is more valuable than ever before. As war rages in Europe and tensions coalesce in Spykman’s rimland, American statesmen must revive the study of geography before it gets completely appropriated by their adversaries.

Rediscovering Geostrategy

By Axel de Vernou

April 01, 2023

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/04/01/rediscovering_geostrategy_891302.html

The United States has a geography problem. Fortunate enough to be “bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish,” as Otto Von Bismarck quipped, contemporary American leaders have forgotten the foundational emphasis on geography espoused by the founders and frontiersmen responsible for the nation’s success. This negligence has closed off a crucial branch of American statesmanship while Russian and Chinese intellectuals draw from Western geostrategic thought to justify the creation of a new world order. Without an attention to geography, the United States will be limited in its ability to develop a strategic response to military and energy-based threats.

Even before the Declaration of Independence was signed, colonists understood the importance of securing arable land before Spanish, British, and French settlers did. The founders remained deliberately vague about the nation's frontiers as they established institutions easily transferable to new states joining the union. Indeed, when Gouverneur Morris was asked in 1803 to “recollect with precision all that passed in the Convention” to confirm whether the Louisiana Purchase was constitutional, he wrote back that he had not inserted a territorial limitation clause because “all North America must at length be annexed to us.”

The source of America’s thalassocratic power was a desire to defend its ports, rivers and trading posts from outside powers. In Federalist 11, Alexander Hamilton skillfully articulated the necessity of an indivisible union for the creation of a navy. To resist Spain’s penetration into the Mississippi and France and Britain’s interest in American fisheries, Hamilton argued, state navies would be insufficient. Each geographic region of the United States is endowed with its own resources and population: “Some of the Southern and…the Middle States yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive.” When fused together, Hamilton predicted, a “great American system” would be born.

A rich topography would also be a curse for the United States. An often overlooked part of George Washington’s Farewell Address is his prescient concern for the union’s durability rooted in individuals’ tendency to embrace a geographic rather than a common American identity. Foremost among “the causes which may disturb our union,” Washington explained, is the danger of “geographical discriminations—Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western—whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views.” Washington’s enumeration of the agricultural, navigational, and commercial differences between the United States’ four geographic poles would come back to haunt the nation during the Civil War.

Americans discovered more about the vast continent which lay to their west through the Lewis and Clark expeditions, independent explorers, and land-hungry settlers. Although the spiritual concept of manifest destiny justified their westward push, resources and territory were at the heart of the movement. Westward expansion was precisely a recognition that the country’s future would be rooted in the territorial gains made by those who inherited the country’s unparalleled geographic fortune. Frederick Jackson Turner, a prominent historian at the end of the 19th century, cited the origins of American identity in this malleable, continually westward moving frontier. “American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier,” he wrote. “This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character.”

The early republic’s domestic and international pre-eminence thus became inextricable from geographic considerations. The United States further took advantage of its distance from the reigning European powers of the time with the Monroe Doctrine. The policy ejected Europe from the Western Hemisphere and established Washington as a guarantor of Latin American security despite its relative military weakness compared to Britain, France, and Spain. The doctrine granted the United States a special role over the Americas based primarily on its geographic proximity, stating that “we are of necessity more immediately connected” to what happens in the Western Hemisphere. Washington sustained this ascension throughout the 19th century by deploying a North Atlantic Squadron responsible for facilitating trade, deterring piracy, discovering new canals, and intervening in Latin American wars that risked destabilizing the continent.

The founders’ acute attention to the United States’ geographic advantages did not translate to the development of a body of geopolitical thought as occurred in Europe. Americans had little motivation to introduce the Earth’s natural features to their political education. Even though geography had been the source of the United States’ prosperity, for the Atlantic Ocean and the sparsely populated regions to the north and south enabled the union to mature industrially and economically without interruption, American political thinkers understandably focused more on the exceptional political institutions that had emerged from the founding period. Geography is predestined, while the Declaration of Independence is a historical outlier.

There are several notable exceptions, however, which can guide the United States back to a more holistic approach toward military strategy and global affairs. One is Alfred Thayer Mahan. Among the six prerequisites for achieving naval influence in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, three of them are inherently limited by the territory that a country occupies: geographic position, physical conformation, and the extent of one’s territory. There is little a country can do to influence these elements beyond undertaking wars of conquest and purchasing land, both of which have become less relevant in a world where every corner of the Earth has been settled. The other half of Mahan’s conditions are, upon scrutiny, also intimately related to a country’s geography. For example, the size of one’s population depends on available land. Moreover, what Mahan calls the “character of the people” is also strongly shaped by the three geographic factors outlined above. A quasi land-locked country such as Germany is less likely to show interest in China’s naval activities in the Indo-Pacific than France or Britain, both of which have outward-facing navies that have dictated their navigation for centuries.

While Mahan’s doctrine certainly assumes that there are some natural circumstances beyond a country’s control, it does not argue that geographic misfortune entails irremediable failure. After reading Mahan and romanticizing the Royal Navy he had grown up with as Queen Victoria’s grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered an unprecedented naval build-up to reverse centuries of German history that had consigned the state to a tellurocratic position. Although he failed to defeat the Royal Navy during WWI, he demonstrated that a state can still work to overcome its geographic fate by swaying its national character through propaganda campaigns and domestic reform.

In any case, it is important to remember that an American thinker led the way in what would later become known as geostrategy, though it was not defined as such at the time. The British followed closely behind. The couple dozen miles separating Britain from France at the English Channel go far in explaining the country’s history: its cautious involvement in mainland Europe’s systematic conflicts, the construction and maintenance of the world’s most formidable navy, and the formation of an unparalleled financial system that started, in part, as speculation in the ships that left British ports. Consequently, it was unsurprising that they would take such an interest in Mahan’s school of thought.

Sir Julian Corbett, a naval historian whose Some Principles of Maritime Strategy may have influenced Admiral John Fisher during the Royal Navy’s period of reform at the turn of the 20th century, framed his work around the central thesis that “command of the sea…means nothing but the control of maritime communications, whether for commercial or military purposes.” British gunpoint diplomacy was the real-world manifestation of such a strategy. Vessels patrolled every corner of the Earth that Britain found valuable and applied pressure on regimes that failed to bend appropriately to the British crown. Corbett’s emphasis on strategic chokepoints, shipping routes, and blockades shows a similar attention to the Earth’s geography which American statesmen would benefit from studying today. Mahan would come to the same conclusion in his later works, explaining that the objective “of a blockade proper is to embarrass the finances of a country by shutting its ports to foreign commerce, thus deranging one main feature of its general markets.”

The British geostrategist who has been the subject of renewed attention of late is Halford Mackinder. In the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, repeated denial of cereal exports from the Black Sea, and increased presence in the Arctic Sea, one question from Mackinder’s seminal 1904 speech, The Geographical Pivot of History, should occupy policymakers’ minds: “Is not the pivot region of the world’s politics that vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to ships, but in antiquity lay open to the horse-riding nomads, and is to-day about to be covered with a network of railways?” Maybe so, but for all his strengths, Mackinder’s legacy has been far from flawless. Most of Ukraine, the Black Sea, and the Taiwan Strait are not included in Mackinder’s Heartland.

Perhaps the greatest but most often ignored geostrategist is Nicholas J. Spykman, who taught international relations at Yale University from 1928 to 1943—his life cut short by an early death. Not only did he prophetically correct Mackinder by identifying the “rimland” as the true source of world domination, he also presented a roadmap for American geopolitical interests that offers guidance for the warning signs Washington should look out for in the decades to come.

In response to Mackinder’s generous description of Russia’s natural tellurocratic strength, Spykman retorted: “The actual facts of the Russian economy and geography make it not at all clear that the heartland is or will be in the very near future a world center of communication, mobility, and power potential.” An underperforming military, increasing ostracization from global markets, and a lack of soft power compared to countries that Mackinder had placed in the periphery give more credibility to Spykman’s analysis than his predecessor.

Spykman’s exhaustive and insightful overview of the topography that has shaped states’ behavior builds up to his predictions for the future of geopolitical relations which have become particularly pertinent today. These cannot be understood without his geostrategic backdrop which, unfortunately, has faded from international relations theory in the current problematic trifecta between realism, liberalism, and constructivism.

Writing during the second World War, Spykman explained that “[t]he region which has the most immediate concern for the United States is the contact area between the littoral of Eurasia and the string of marginal seas which surrounds it.” This fact remains true today. Taiwan, the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Strait of Malacca are all included in the pitch black ring which Spykman draws around the Eurasian landmass. Instead of replicating Mackinder’s exclusive focus on the Russian heartland as the center of civilizational struggle, Spykman anticipated that the surrounding regions would be the targets of pressure applied from the inside out.

Spykman also foresaw the danger of disequilibrium on the European continent and the essential role that the United States must play in maintaining stability there. Recent tensions between France and Germany over energy, industrial exports, and the Inflation Reduction Act should concern Washington. “Germany, which controls the largest single power potential on the [European] continent, must be balanced by the power of France and that of Eastern Europe, but no one of the three regions can be allowed to gain complete control,” Spykman warned.

He rejected theories at the time positing that the best mechanism for the United States to gain access to the Old World would be through the Arctic Sea, and fell back on a recommendation which brings Corbett to mind: “the United States will have to depend on her sea power communications across the Atlantic and Pacific to give her access to the Old World. The effectiveness of this access will determine the nature of her foreign policy.” In the 21st century, this translates to a well-funded Navy conducting exercises with European and Asian countries, maintaining a strong presence in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and shipping LNG through the former ocean to those in Europe detaching from Russian energy dependence.

Indeed, Russia took quite literally the opposite path from the one Spykman advised when the Soviet Union was still an Ally, and the effects are quite obvious today. “[A]s long as she does not herself seek to establish a hegemony over the European rimland, the Soviet Union will be the most effective continental base for the enforcement of peace,” Spykman said. A few years later, the Soviet Union was already pushing beyond the rimland into the heart of Europe, something even Spykman could not have predicted in 1944. However, he keenly foresaw its demise if it attempted such an expansionist strategy. “At the same time, her own strength, great as it is, would be insufficient to preserve her security against a unified rimland,” Spykman warned.

Russia and the United States’ failure to pursue a united vision for world order even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, driven primarily by the former’s rejection of joining defense and commercial alliances, leads to Spykman’s prognostications regarding China. “Russia’s strength in the north will be the only continental balance to China,” he wrote. At the present moment, this is off the table. Where does that leave Washington? “If the Western Powers are to retain any influence at all in [Asia], they will have to establish island bases for their power,” Spykman explained. To some extent, the United States has heeded his advice. Naval bases, support centers, and facilities dot the ring that hugs the Eurasian mainland in Japan, Guam, Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean.

The problem is that these outposts have limited utility if the vessels and submarines they harbor do not receive enough funding to keep pace with Chinese and Russian modernization. Before lawmakers overrode its sharp cuts, the Biden Administration’s FY 2022 budget would have significantly decreased the number of U.S. destroyers while holding small frigates constant. The joint U.S.-UK Diego Garcia military base, strategically located right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, inched closer to China’s reach after the UK inexplicably began negotiations to hand over the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius, which is heavily indebted to the Chinese. With regards to airpower, Spykman would be equally disappointed. The United States’ nocturnal abandonment of the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan is one of several blows that Washington has taken to its influence in the rimland.

During Spykman’s time, it seemed obvious that American “bases [would] probably be sufficient to counterbalance any future attempt of China to dominate the Far East completely.” This is no longer the case. These bases must be paired with reliable allies located in Spykman’s rimland, vigilance toward Chinese espionage into American military capabilities, and the extension of diplomatic and economic incentives to important Asian actors such as India. In other parts of the world, the United States has more closely followed Spykman’s advice. For example, Washington established naval bases in Dakar, Iceland, and Greenland in the second half of the 20th century—three areas specifically named by Spykman as ways to increase American oversight of the Atlantic, African, and near Arctic regions.

On a macroscopic level, Spykman’s counsels could have been written this year. He urged American policymakers to “recognize…permanently, that the power constellation in Europe and Asia is of everlasting concern,” advice which went unheeded after the end of the Cold War. Since the founding, there has been what Spykman described as “a strange provincialism,” or a desire to turn “our gaze inward, and bec[o]me occupied with the internal development of an unconquered wilderness.” The United States harshly felt the repercussions of this detachment from global politics during World War II. Today, it must fight against a similar temptation.

American political scientists and policymakers have handled geopolitics begrudgingly since it was grotesquely sabotaged by the German thinkers who informed Nazi ideology. Fusing their own tradition of geographic analysis stretching back to the early 18th century with Mackinder and Mahan, German professors and political strategists during the Weimar Republic sought to articulate a school of thought that would energize the German people to challenge Britain’s vast colonial holdings.

These thinkers, many of whom joined the Nazi party and influenced Hitler’s decision-making, distorted the principle that geography is an indispensable discipline. They developed a concept called Lebensraum, or living space, which depicted the state in anthropomorphic terms. The state constantly needs to be fed with new territory to sustain a burgeoning population, which, in turn, multiplies further when additional resources are introduced by more conquered space. Boundaries are flexible and ambiguous, meant to be thrust outward to give citizens more breathing room on the Earth’s surface.

Advocates of this outlook, including Karl Haushofer, a German professor who supposedly inspired a chapter in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, latched onto Mackinder’s idea of land- and sea-based powers. They did not seek to emulate Britain’s dominion of the waves, for they knew that she would be replaced by a rising United States. They instead believed that Germany needed to implacably expand to become the world’s greatest tellurocratic power, breaking free from the confines of its claustrophobic position in Europe while absorbing its racially pure neighbors in the process. This was a gross deviation of Mackinder’s categorization which permanently polluted geostrategy once the true extent of Hitler’s global ambitions were revealed after 1945.

Spykman saw Haushofer for who he really was: a professor claiming to perpetuate a rich geopolitical tradition even if, in reality, his only objective was to justify ceaseless territorial expansionism. “Haushofer,” Spykman wrote, “took over [Mackinder’s] interpretation… and adapted it to his own peculiar needs.” More specifically, Haushofer, like all the other German political scientists who supported Lebensraum, did not “give the really important facts about topography which, in a geopolitical analysis, are indispensable.” Unlike the American statesmen who used their understanding of geography’s value to predict the future course of the United States, German political thinkers in Hitler’s circle were justifying conquest with flimsy geographic explanations.

Haushofer’s obsession with the difference between land- and sea-based powers as a fundamental principle in statecraft did not dissolve after the Nazis surrendered. Carl Schmitt, a dishonored Nazi legal theorist, continued to develop the idea by positing that the world is divided between land and sea people who each have their own nomos, which he defines as the appropriation, distribution and production of resources. “Where do we stand today?” Schmitt asked in 1950. Still unequivocally in support of the regime that shaped him, Schmitt argued that the “[t]he earlier balance, based on the separation of land and sea, has been destroyed. Development of modern technology has robbed the sea of its elemental character.” Strangely, he cited the cataclysmic clash of arms between Napoleon and the Russian army in 1812 as proof that nature and the balance of universal forces favor land.

This perversion of Mackinder’s worldview which Spykman warned against thrives in Russia and China today. Alexander Dugin is a case in point. An adjunct professor at Moscow State University and frequent commentator on Russian state television channels, his book, Last War of the World-Island, bends Mackinder’s theories to propose a path that the Kremlin can take to reassert global dominance. While his direct influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin can be questioned—it is uncertain whether the two have ever even met—his ideas have undoubtedly shaped the minds that compose Moscow’s premier political circles.

“Russian geopolitics is by definition the geopolitics of the Heartland; land-based geopolitics,” Dugin declares upfront. To maintain unity over this expansive Heartland, the “conservatism” and “collective anthropology” of Putin’s presidency are vital, Dugin explains. As a result of Russia’s unique geopolitical position, he adds, the country is inevitably “doomed to conflict with the civilization of the Sea… embodied today in the USA and the unipolar America-centric world order” [emphasis in the original].

The existential crisis Russia is dealing with today, then, is how to reconcile the fact that its land-based might has proven to be much less impressive than it was thought to be just a year ago. To make up for these deficiencies, Russia is attempting to catch up on its naval front. Putin recently developed a new naval doctrine and announced plans to establish naval bases in the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the Indo-Pacific. The Kremlin aims to boost Russia’s shipbuilding and introduce new submarines to its Baltic Fleet. Moscow knows it cannot take down the West alone, however, so it has chosen to heavily lean on China as the latter pioneers its own unprecedented military build-up.

Chinese thinkers have also taken up the mantle of adapting Mackinder to their needs. Recent naval encroachment in the Pacific Islands, the Indian Ocean, the coasts of Africa, and Latin American ports highlight Beijing’s desire to make the transition from being a thalassocratic to a tellurocratic power. This is especially important for China as it turns its eyes toward Taiwan, fabricates and lays claim to artificial islands in the South China Sea, and seeks to plunge island nations once allied with the West into economic debt. Historically reluctant to venture beyond the Asian continent since the abrupt termination of Zheng He’s voyages in the 15th century, Beijing knows that it must focus on its naval leg to challenge what Dugin called “the civilization of the Sea.”

In that spirit, Jiang Shigong, a prominent law professor at Beijing University who has advised the Chinese Communist Party, used Mackinder’s address to articulate a worldview that bears little resemblance to the text he draws from. Mackinder divided world history into different ages of technological development to capture how various civilizations were able to exert their will on crucial pivot points like the Heartland. Technological, institutional, and financial development allowed the United States to shape the world order unlike any other country in this competitive system. From this idea, Jiang concludes that national sovereignty is a lie, since the United States is now at the top of a world order that dictates every action taken by the countries forced into this hierarchy, including those who disagree with it, like Russia and China. “The reason that [American] economic sanctions, based on domestic law, can achieve the results they do, is because the world has been organized in such a way as to cater to this single ‘world empire,’” Jiang claims in his 2020 piece, Empire and World Order.

China’s responsibility in the decades to come, according to Jiang, is to construct an entirely new world order outside of the Western framework by leveraging its economic and technological might. There is a noteworthy overlap between these theoretical ideas and the points Xi Jinping raises in his national addresses. Jiang is to Xi as Dugin is to Putin. Neither Jiang nor Dugin exert direct influence on their respective leader, especially since they operate in top-down authoritarian systems, but their modification of Western geopolitical thought is undoubtedly guiding Chinese and Russian policy in the 21st century.

The United States must counter this resurgence of Chinese and Russian geopolitical thought with its own revival of geostrategy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton, was an emblematic example of how this is still possible. His attention to geostrategy contributed to his far-sightedness during a time of American complacency. “The exercise of American global primacy must be sensitive to the fact that political geography remains a critical consideration in international affairs,” Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard. “Thus, focusing on the key players and properly assessing the terrain has to be the point of departure for the formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America's Eurasian geopolitical interests.”

As government agencies restructure their departments and funnel resources to regional bureaus to prepare for an era of great power competition, it will be crucial to combine today’s newfound focus on regional expertise and language acquisition with geographic literacy. This will demand considerable reform in the American education system, where international relations theory has constrained itself to an inflexible triangle and universities no longer teach geography. Assembling student groups for the purpose of studying geostrategy is a start.

Finally, this will also require State Department training for diplomats and field officers deployed abroad so that they can understand the historical forces at play in their geographic region of specialty. The Nazi, Russian, and Chinese subversion of Anglo-Saxon geostrategy should not prevent American students from rediscovering this branch of global affairs. On the contrary, the process is more valuable than ever before. As war rages in Europe and tensions coalesce in Spykman’s rimland, American statesmen must revive the study of geography before it gets completely appropriated by their adversaries.

Axel de Vernou is a sophomore at Yale University studying Global Affairs and History. He is a Research Assistant at the Yorktown Institute.

18. Opinion | How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

This 33 page report is referenced in this OpEd: SHIELDING DEMOCRACY Civil Society Adaptations to Kremlin Disinformation about Ukraine https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/NED_FORUM-Shielding-Democracy.pdf

Excerpts:

Also in Ukraine, more than 20 organizations, along with the National Democratic Institute in Washington, had created a disinformation debunking hub in 2019 that has played a key role in the battle against the onslaught of lies. A recent report from the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy identified three major efforts that paid off for Ukraine in the fight against Russian disinformation as war began. One was “deep preparation” (since Russia was recycling old claims from 2014, they were ready); active and rapid cooperation of civil society groups; and use of technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to help sift through the torrents of Russian disinformation and rapidly spot malign narratives.

Governments can’t do this on their own. Free societies have an advantage that autocrats don’t: authentic civil society that can be agile and innovative. In the run-up to the Ukraine war, all across Central and Eastern Europe, civil society groups were sharpening techniques for spotting and countering Russian disinformation.

Plain old media literacy among readers and viewers — knowing how to discriminate among sources, for example — is also essential.

Open societies are vulnerable because they are open. The asymmetries in favor of malign use of information are sizable. Democracies must find a way to adapt. The dark actors morph constantly, so the response needs to be systematic and resilient.

In a world that connects billions of people at a flash, the truth may have only a fighting chance against organized lying. As an old saying has it: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Opinion | How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · March 29, 2023

Annals of Autocracy

Opinion How Russia turned America’s helping hand to Ukraine into a vast lie

By the

March 29, 2023 at 7:45 a.m. EDT

Information is the world’s lifeblood. It pulsates in torrents of facts and images. We are swamped with it.

But information can be poison, a dangerous weapon. Disinformation, or organized lying, can be used to wage political warfare. As the historian Thomas Rid wrote in “Active Measures,” his book on the subject, disinformation can weaken a political system that places its trust in truth. “Disinformation operations, in essence, erode the very foundations of open societies,” he wrote.

A disinformation operation now being waged by Russia shows in stark detail how this malevolence works. Taking a program by the United States that was intended to make people healthier and safer in the former Soviet Union, a program it had welcomed and participated in for 22 years, Russia twisted facts into a cloud of falsehoods. The campaign, rooted in decades-old traditions of disinformation by the Kremlin, has intensified during Russia’s ruinous war on Ukraine in the last year.

In a previous editorial in this series, we examined how young people who posted freely on social media have been wrongly arrested and sentenced to years in prison by authoritarian regimes. This editorial looks at disinformation as a tool of dictatorship. Disinformation is not just “fake news” or propaganda but an insidious contamination of the world’s conversations.

And it is exploding.

A helping hand

On Aug. 29, 2005, Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois, and Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, visited a laboratory at Kyiv’s Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station in Ukraine. This facility was not well secured and, by the nature of its public health work, held dangerous pathogens. Andy Weber, a U.S. Defense Department official, showed Mr. Obama a tray of small vials: samples of Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax. “I saw test tubes filled with anthrax and the plague lying virtually unlocked and unguarded — dangers we were told could only be secured with America’s help,” Mr. Obama recalled.

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There was deep concern after 9/11 that terrorists could obtain such materials. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma asked the United States to check the security of his nation’s chemical and biological facilities, and Mr. Weber, who had helped uncover the illegal Soviet biological weapons system, spent two weeks with a small team scrutinizing Ukraine’s facilities in late 2001. The lab in Kyiv that Mr. Obama visited held pathogens that cause not only anthrax but also tularemia, brucellosis, listeriosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhoid and others.

On the day of Mr. Obama’s visit, Ukraine signed an agreement with the United States to upgrade and modernize the labs. For example, cattle in Ukraine occasionally became naturally infected with anthrax and the Ukrainian scientists had been culturing the anthrax bacillus for diagnostic purposes, which meant they kept cultures of it, a potential target for terrorists. The U.S. assistance would help them move toward using safer molecular diagnostic methods, such as polymerase chain reaction and antigen testing. The United States also pledged to improve the locks on the doors and beef up capabilities so they could detect disease outbreaks sooner, as well as spot the cause.

The agreement with Ukraine grew out of the 1992 Nunn-Lugar legislation, sponsored by Mr. Lugar and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to clean up the Cold War legacy of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union, an effort that became known as Cooperative Threat Reduction. In the 1990s, thousands of nuclear warheads and missiles were liquidated, followed by vast stocks of chemical weapons. Later, the Nunn-Lugar program expanded into reducing biological threats in Russian laboratories, as well as other former Soviet republics. Among other efforts, a public health reference laboratory — named the Lugar Center — was opened in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2011. Pathogens stored in a Soviet-era research institute in the center of Tbilisi were moved to a purpose-built, secure facility.

The Nunn-Lugar program was partially in the U.S. interest. But it was also an act of benevolence. The sole remaining superpower extended a hand to nations that were weak and struggling, providing about $1 billion a year to the former Soviet republics. Since 2005, the U.S. agreement with Ukraine has led to $200 million in aid for 46 biomedical and health facilities. The assistance was not forced on anyone — it was designed to make people safer and healthier. The recipients were eager for it. The aid to Russia was terminated by President Vladimir Putin in 2014 but continued elsewhere.

Turning the truth upside down

The Cold War never became a hot war between the superpowers, but the competition was fought intensely in the shadows. Disinformation was a Soviet tactic from 1949 to 1988. One major effort, carried out by the Soviet Union, China and North Korea during the Korean War, between 1951 and 1953, claimed the United States had released bacteria and infected insects into North Korea and China. The charges were fabricated but received wide circulation and were only proved false in 1998 by Soviet Central Committee documents published by University of Maryland scholar Milton Leitenberg. He obtained a copy of a cable to Mao Zedong, sent after Joseph Stalin’s death, that read, “The Soviet Government and the Central Committee of the [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] were misled. The spread in the press of information about the use by the Americans of bacteriological weapons in Korea was based on false information. The accusations against the Americans were fictitious.”

In another disinformation campaign, the Soviet Union pushed a false story in the 1980s that the United States had genetically engineered the virus that causes AIDS at Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army biomedical facility. Another lie was added that the virus was released in Africa to kill Africans. The KGB planted the story in news media around the globe. Polls later showed that the campaign had been successful: A compilation of 20 public opinion surveys of African Americans between 1990 and 2009 showed that an average of 28 percent of respondents believed that genocide was involved in the origin of HIV.

In more recent years, the Nunn-Lugar program became a frequent target of Russia’s disinformation campaigns. Because the funding came partially through the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Russia frequently claimed that military research was underway in the recipient facilities. The Lugar Center was a major focus. In December 2009, an item in the Russian newspaper Pravda claimed “biological weapons are being secretly developed on Georgia territory.” The article contained no fewer than nine discrete false allegations.

In 2018, Russia aimed a fresh burst of disinformation at the Lugar Center. On Jan. 16, South Front, a website connected to Russian intelligence agencies, posted a 49-page document titled “The Pentagon Bio-Weapons.” It was a subtle mix of authentic historical documents describing the pre-1969 U.S. biological weapons program — before a 1972 treaty outlawed germ warfare — with falsehoods implying that the United States was continuing work on bioweapons at the Lugar Center. In September, a former KGB officer and onetime Georgian security official, Igor Giorgadze, appeared on Russian television channels RT and Sputnik with documents that he claimed showed the Lugar Center “could be a cover for a bioweapons lab” doing experiments on humans. He also alleged the U.S. government had granted patents for biological weapons devices. Soon after, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said the United States was using the Georgian people “as guinea pigs.” Then, Russian Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense forces, announced that the Lugar Center had been “testing a highly toxic chemical or highly lethal biological agent under the guise of treatments.”

These claims were fictitious, but they made headlines. On May 26, 2020, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a three-page statement about the Lugar Center containing no less than 16 false statements, some absurd, such as about the germ warfare “patents.”

The Lugar Center’s mission was to protect people from disease. Nine Russian scientists had visited it since 2016, and some of them had actually worked there. The Russian government knew its allegations were lies but used them to create a disinformation bomb about biological weapons. The Russian effort, Mr. Leitenberg concluded, “repeatedly displays a brazen, disdainful, spit-in-your-eye character.”

‘Firehose of falsehoods’

As Putin’s troops stormed into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s disinformation warriors used the same approach as they had in Georgia.

The Russian defense ministry announced on March 6 that it had obtained documents from workers at Ukrainian laboratories showing that dangerous pathogens were destroyed on the day of the invasion. Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the documents “confirm that components of biological weapons were developed in Ukraine bio laboratories in close proximity from the territory of Russia.” He said the pathogens, such as plague, anthrax, tularemia and cholera, were destroyed to conceal the U.S. involvement.

This was a total fiction. But thanks to social media, the claims raced around the globe at the speed of light. On March 8, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian repeated the Russian lies, saying the United States “has 26 bio-labs and other related facilities in Ukraine, over which the U.S. Department of Defense has absolute control,” and, “the biological military activities of the U.S. in Ukraine are merely the tip of the iceberg,” with 336 biological labs in 30 countries. He called on the United States to “fully clarify its biological militarization activities both inside and outside its borders.” Within hours, at least 17 Chinese state media outlets posted his accusations, and on China’s Weibo social media, the topic gained more than 210 million views.

Also on the Editorial Board’s agenda

The misery of Belarus’s political prisoners should not be ignored.
Biden has a new border plan.
The United States should keep the pressure on Nicaragua.
America’s fight against inflation isn’t over.
The Taliban has doubled down on the repression of women.
The world’s ice is melting quickly.

Ihar Losik, one of hundreds of young people unjustly jailed in Belarus for opposing Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, attempted suicide but was saved and sent to a prison medical unit, according to the human rights group Viasna. Losik, 30, a blogger who led a popular Telegram channel, was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year prison term on charges of “organizing riots” and “incitement to hatred.” His wife is also a political prisoner. Read more about their struggle — and those of other political prisoners — in a recent editorial.

The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.

Some 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners left that Central American country for the United States in February. President Daniel Ortega released and sent them into exile in a single motion. Nevertheless, it appears that Mr. Ortega let them go under pressure from economic sanctions the United States imposed on his regime when he launched a wave of repression in 2018. The Biden administration should keep the pressure on. Read recent editorials about the situation in Nicaragua.

Inflation remains stubbornly high at 6.4 percent in January. The Federal Reserve’s job is not done in this fight. More interest rate hikes are needed. Read a recent editorial about inflation and the Fed.

Afghanistan’s rulers had promised that barring women from universities was only temporary. But private universities got a letter on Jan. 28 warning them that women are prohibited from taking university entrance examinations. Afghanistan has 140 private universities across 24 provinces, with around 200,000 students. Out of those, some 60,000 to 70,000 are women, the AP reports. Read a recent editorial on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

A new study finds that half the world’s mountain glaciers and ice caps will melt even if global warming is restrained to 1.5 degrees Celsius — which it won’t be. This would feed sea-level rise and imperil water sources for hundreds of millions. Read a recent editorial on how to cope with rising seas, and another on the policies needed to fight climate change.

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On March 9, Fox News host Tucker Carlson picked it up, too. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland had told a Senate hearing that it was important the invading Russian troops not take over the Ukraine research facilities. A Russian spokeswoman said Ms. Nuland’s comment confirmed the United States’ “illegal and criminal activity on Ukrainian soil.” Mr. Carlson then pounced, saying the Russian account of the biological weapons laboratories “is, in fact, totally and completely true. Whoa.” He also said, “We would assume ... they were working on bioweapons.”

On March 10, Gen. Kirillov announced that the documents obtained by Russia showed that the United States was trying to “develop bioagents capable of targeting various ethnic groups,” such as ethnic Slavs. No such effort, of course, existed.

The next day, Russia called a meeting of the Security Council to air the lies it had concocted. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said, “There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States — not near Russia’s border, or anywhere.”

“Let me be clear,” said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines at a Senate hearing, “we do not assess that Ukraine is pursuing either biological weapons or nuclear weapons.”

On March 16, Mr. Putin made the disinformation charge directly. “A network of dozens of laboratories operated in Ukraine, where military biological programs, including experiments with samples of coronavirus, anthrax, cholera, African swine fever and other deadly diseases, were carried out under the supervision and financial support of the Pentagon,” he said, claiming that “they are now strenuously trying to cover up the evidence of these secret programs.”

On March 18, Russia again called a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss its claims. But the U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, said the United Nations “is not aware of any such biological weapons programs.”

Surprisingly, a Russian biologist, Yevgeny Levitin, posted an open letter online, with some other scientists, titled, “Stop the lies on Ukrainian bioweapons!” The letter said the Russian documents were “obviously false” and do not describe biological weapons. Asked why he spoke out, Levitin said, “Because they wrote pure lies. This is a deliberate lie, which is not justified in any way. This will become obvious to any person who takes the trouble to simply carefully read the documents.”

Russia relentlessly stoked the lies. On March 31, it submitted formal statements repeating the bioweapons charge to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. On April 4, the two houses of the Russian parliament voted to launch a special parliamentary inquiry into the Ukrainian laboratories. On May 13, Russia called for a U.N. Security Council meeting for a third time; a top U.N. official said there was still no evidence of biological weapons programs in Ukraine. On May 27, Gen. Kirillov delivered another briefing with wide-ranging allegations of U.S. and Ukrainian involvement in biological weapons. Russia charged that the Ukraine laboratories were preparing to send migratory birds and bats with disease into Russia, an echo of the false “infected insects” supposedly sent into China 70 years earlier. By summer, the claims reached bizarre sci-fi levels: Russian officials said in July that Ukrainian soldiers were subjected to “secret experiments” that “neutralized the last traces of human consciousness and turned them into the cruelest and deadliest monsters” and “the most cruel killing machines.”

In September, Russia kept up the drumbeat by triggering a formal review under the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, for only the second time in the treaty’s history. The overwhelming number of states involved in the review rejected the allegations. In October, Russia filed a long complaint, accompanied by a draft resolution calling for an investigative commission, with the U.N. Security Council. The resolution failed to gain enough support to pass.

At the Security Council on Oct. 26, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield admonished the Russians for calling yet another meeting that “is a colossal waste of time.”

“We all know these claims are pure fabrications, brought forth without a shred of evidence,” she added.

The Russian disinformation strategy is not to be ashamed or shy, but to pump out more. At Mr. Putin’s Moscow summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on March 21, the two leaders did it again, expressing “serious concern” about the biological military activities of the United States, both inside and outside the country.” In April, the Russian parliament commission is expected to deliver its report, another chance to spread the contamination. Russia’s authoritarian system is able to exploit many instruments — security services, cutouts, websites, diplomats and state-controlled media — to create an ecosystem for disinformation. Rand Corp., the think tank, a few years ago called Russia’s strategy a “firehose of falsehoods.”

The threat of biological weapons inspires public anxiety and fear, even more so after a catastrophic pandemic. Both Cold War superpowers researched biological weapons, which were outlawed in the 1972 treaty. The Soviet Union signed the treaty but then secretly built the largest biological weapons program the world had ever seen, including standby factories to create germ warfare agents in the event of war. The Soviet program was exposed after the Cold War ended. It was especially pernicious for Russia to throw this charge at the United States.

Why Russia does it — and how to strike back

The Kremlin’s disinformation casts the United States — and Ukraine — as villains for creating germ warfare laboratories, giving Mr. Putin another pretext for a war that lacks all justification. The disinformation undermines the biological weapons treaty, showing that Mr. Putin has little regard for maintaining the integrity of this international agreement. The disinformation attempts to divert attention from Russia’s barbaric onslaught against civilians in Ukraine. In 2018, the Kremlin may have been seeking to shift attention from the attempted assassination of former double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain, or from the Robert S. Mueller III investigation that year of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign.

The biological laboratories are just one example of Russia’s wider disinformation campaigns. Data shared by Facebook shows Russians “built manipulative Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter pages, created pro-Muslim and pro-Christian groups, and let them expand via growth from real users,” says author Samuel Woolley in “The Reality Game.” He adds, “The goal was to divide and conquer as much as it was to dupe and convince.” During the pandemic, Russia similarly attempted to aggravate existing tensions over public health measures in the United States and Europe. It has also spread lies about the use of chemical weapons, undermining the treaty that prohibits them and the organization that enforces it. In the Ukraine war, Russia has fired off broadsides of disinformation, such as claiming the victims of the Mariupol massacre were “crisis actors.” Russia used disinformation to mask its responsibility for the shoot-down of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 over Ukraine in 2014.

The disinformation over Ukraine, repeated widely in the Russian media, plays well with social groups that support Putin: the poor, those living in rural areas and small towns, and those being asked to send young men to the front. Mr. Putin so tightly controls the news media that it is difficult for alternative news and messages to break through.

Does the disinformation persuade anyone outside of Russia? It is impossible to know how much is accepted or changes minds. But a survey in Germany suggests that the drumbeat of lies takes a toll. In a nationwide public opinion poll by CeMAS, respondents were asked whether they agree, disagree or partially concur with the statement: “Ukraine, together with the U.S., has operated secret biolabs for the production of biological weapons.” The poll in April found 7 percent agreed, 79 percent disagreed and 14 percent said some of each. By October, 12 percent said they agreed, 67 percent disagreed and 21 percent said some of each.

The pollsters called the results “quite worrying” and pointed out that “anti-democratic actors use disinformation campaigns not only to convince, but also to sow doubt among the population.”

This is the key point: Disinformation is a venom. It does not need to flip everyone’s, or even most people’s, views. Its methods are to creep into the lifeblood, create uncertainty, enhance established fears and sow confusion.

The best way to strike back is with the facts, and fast. Thomas Kent, the former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has pointed out that the first hours are critical in such an asymmetrical conflict: Spreaders of disinformation push out lies without worrying about their integrity, while governments and the news media try to verify everything, and take more time to do so. Mr. Kent suggests speeding the release of information that is highly likely to be true, rather than waiting. For example, it took 13 days for the British government to reach a formal conclusion that Russia was behind the poisoning of Mr. Skripal, but within 48 hours of the attack, then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told Parliament that it appeared to be Russia, which helped tip the balance in the press and public opinion.

In Ukraine, when Russia was on the threshold of invasion, government and civil society organizations rapidly coordinated an informal “early warning system” to detect and identify Russia’s false claims and narratives. It was successful when the war began, especially with use of the Telegram app. In a short time, Telegram use leapt from 12 percent adoption to 65 percent, according to those involved in the effort

Also in Ukraine, more than 20 organizations, along with the National Democratic Institute in Washington, had created a disinformation debunking hub in 2019 that has played a key role in the battle against the onslaught of lies. A recent report from the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy identified three major efforts that paid off for Ukraine in the fight against Russian disinformation as war began. One was “deep preparation” (since Russia was recycling old claims from 2014, they were ready); active and rapid cooperation of civil society groups; and use of technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to help sift through the torrents of Russian disinformation and rapidly spot malign narratives.

Governments can’t do this on their own. Free societies have an advantage that autocrats don’t: authentic civil society that can be agile and innovative. In the run-up to the Ukraine war, all across Central and Eastern Europe, civil society groups were sharpening techniques for spotting and countering Russian disinformation.

Plain old media literacy among readers and viewers — knowing how to discriminate among sources, for example — is also essential.

Open societies are vulnerable because they are open. The asymmetries in favor of malign use of information are sizable. Democracies must find a way to adapt. The dark actors morph constantly, so the response needs to be systematic and resilient.

In a world that connects billions of people at a flash, the truth may have only a fighting chance against organized lying. As an old saying has it: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · March 29, 2023

19. Ukraine is Forming Three New Army Corps—Should it Bring Back Divisions Too?

Excerpts:

Of course, it’s ultimately up to Ukrainians to decide how their armed forces are best organized. While it has benefitted greatly from western training and advising, there’s also a risk that foreign advisors try to push templates from their ostensibly more modern advanced military culture that may actually be ill-suited to the context and realities of their advisees.

Ukraine’s armed forces have so far blended their Soviet-military tradition with an influx of Western methods and technologies. Time will tell whether that ongoing adaptation leads to the reintroduction of additional higher headquarter units like Kyiv’s new corps that standardize support services to frontline units, or sticks closer to the ad-hoc approach Ukraine’s military relied on in 2022.

Ukraine is Forming Three New Army Corps—Should it Bring Back Divisions Too?

Ukraine’s armed forces have so far blended their Soviet-military tradition with an influx of Western methods and technologies. Time will tell whether that ongoing adaptation leads to the reintroduction of additional higher headquarter units like Kyiv’s new corps that standardize support services to frontline units, or sticks closer to the ad-hoc approach Ukraine’s military relied on in 2022.

19fortyfive.com · by Sebastien Roblin · March 31, 2023

How should Ukraine organize its forces? The most important fighting units in Ukraine’s massive ground war to roll back the Russian invasion are the armed forces’ dozens of brigades of infantry and armor, each of which counts between 1,000 to 4,000 personnel.

Ukraine Corps Strategy

Organizationally, the prominence of the brigade is in line with most 21st-century armies. But what’s unusual is that Ukraine’s brigades aren’t assigned any permanent headquarters in a higher organizational echelon—like divisions, corps, or field armies. Instead, they’re shuffled between Ukraine’s four regional commands, which then undertake to provide vital logistical and combat support.

This wasn’t always the case. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s armed forces inherited 14 divisions as well as three Army Corps HQs (two formed from former Soviet 6th and 8th Tank Armies) which were disbanded in 2004, 2013, and 2015.

The retirement of these large formations, unlikely to maneuver together on the battlefield, probably seemed practical and forward-thinking at the time. And the regional model seemed to work during the first year of Russia’s large-scale invasion, as Ukraine harnessed its secure interior lines of communication to rapidly shuttle its best brigades from one end of the country to the other, slotting in to stamp out operational crises or mount local counter-offensives, then rotating out as they got ground down from combat.

But with Ukraine’s armed forces massively expanded for this big war, some Western and Ukrainian experts think Kyiv might be better served to reintroduce higher HQs to ensure frontline troops are properly supported.

Richard Hooker, former dean of the NATO Defense College, wrote last August that the regional commands: “… lack true battle staffs that can integrate airspace, deep fires, logistics, intelligence, and higher-level command and control.”

It’s not that nobody is trying to do those things, but rather that’s happening in a more improvised and uncoordinated manner than is ideal, as the more embattled regional commands have to meet the demands of a very horizontally-broad organizational chart. That may work to the detriment of Ukrainian combat units lacking an enduring relationship and continual services from the same higher headquarters.

Hooker argued Ukraine should convert its four territorial commands into Corps, each divided into two or three divisions. He also suggested the formation of a fifth corps of offensive armor and mechanized divisions held in reserve for counter-offensive operations.

Ukraine’s Powerful New “Corps”

Some changes along these lines are now happening, as Ukraine has announced the formation of three new corps. According to The Economist, each will have six frontline combat brigades, some outfitted with newly received Western armored vehicles, that may be employed for its Spring counter-offensive. The six maneuver brigades will doubtlessly be complemented by supporting brigades or battalions of artillery, air defense, combat engineers, and so forth under the control of the Corps HQs.

A corps (also known as “field corps” or “army corps”) is a large military unit ordinarily composed of two or more divisions (each usually with around 15,000 personnel), supported by a Corps HQ and various specialized support units.

There are of course other military uses of the words ‘corps’ to denote a specialized body of personnel (like the Marine Corps, or the ‘NCO corps’ etc.) but that’s not the usage of corps we’re talking about here.

Corps tend to be less standardized than divisions or brigades, but average 40,000 to 60,000 persons though sizes well above or below aren’t uncommon historically. Multiple corps can be grouped together into an even larger unit known as an army or “field army.”

In practice, Russian “armies” are more comparable to a Western corps in composition, though Russia’s military retains some army corps in their force structure that is smaller than the Western equivalent. They’re generally a specialized regional grouping of brigades or regiments equivalent to or slightly larger than a division. These notably include:

22nd Army Corps (Crimea area, heavily engaged in initial Russian offensive)
11th Army Corps (defending the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad)
68th Army Corps (defending Sakhalin and Kurile islands)
14th Army Corps (defending the Arctic Murmansk)
3rd Army Corps (formed 2022 from volunteers looking to fight in Ukraine, has had little battlefield success)

Those not deployed to Ukraine, incidentally, have been reduced to shadows of their former selves as personnel from their sub-units have been stripped away to fight in Ukraine.

An additional advantage of Ukraine’s news corps, compared to regional commands, is that they can shift their areas of responsibility across regional boundaries. However, the new corps still appear to lack the echelon in between corps and brigade: the division, which typically has two-to-four maneuver brigades each and usually numbers 10,000 to 15,000 personnel.

Ukraine and the downsides of horizontal organization

A Ukrainian officer posting by the Twitter handle Tatarigami commented on social media: “We need a larger structure, such as divisions, especially for large offensives. Another benefit is that you get specific people responsible for logistics, communication and synchronization, rather than ambiguous roles and duties that we have right now on that level.”

It is likely that the sheer number of units brigades attached to each regional command limits how effective and attentive it can be. Back in the 1950s, the U.S. Army adopted ‘Pentomic’ divisions, which traded a force structure based on units of three for one organized around units of five. But this resulted in a degradation of quality because commanders simply couldn’t manage the larger number of sub-units as effectively.

Having so many subunits also results in a competition for resources that often favors “rock star” units over those with less glamorous reputations who may get caught in a vicious spiral of failure and heavy losses.

Glenn Grant, a British defense analyst and advisor to Ukraine’s military, wrote that he fears the current structure lends itself to this: “There are simply too many organizations working separately from each other and even at times in opposition. This creates pockets of “first, second and third “divisions of quality where some units are equipped and trained properly, and others are not… This lack of a common concept encourages organizational arrogance where some parts of the military system are considered better or more important than others and are both treated and act so. This attitude risks sending soldiers and volunteers to their death early because the system has not valued them sufficiently to prepare them properly for the realities of battle.”

Adding a divisional HQ, then, would guarantee a higher-level staff dedicated to providing various services for a smaller number of brigades. That usually includes mid-to-high ranking officers dedicated individually to functional roles: personnel, intelligence, operations and training, and logistics—and often also civil affairs, signals/cyber, and medical. It’s like how corporate leadership often includes functionally tasked CTOs, COOs, and CFOs.

The division would also dispose of support assets reserved for their frontline brigades—typically a brigade/regiment of artillery, and full battalions of other types of support troops.

To be fair, siloing resources this way may make it harder to redistribute them when mass is required. And a downside to more robust support and HQ presence is that this shifts personnel away from frontline roles to support/admin/and logistics jobs, a balance known as teeth-to-tail. The Russian/Soviet tradition favors a high ratio of teeth, while Western militaries emphasize robust logistical tails.

The teeth-first approach guarantees more bodies and vehicles on the frontline—though they’re also more likely to get ‘spent’ due to casualties and logistical exhaustion. The argument for investing in the tail is that by ensuring frontline troops are better supported, a smaller number can remain effective for longer and with lighter casualties.

Though the new organization may require more support personnel, Hooker argues there may be a larger pool of human resources that can handle many of the non-combat tasks, meaning the reduction to combat troops might not be on a strictly zero-sum basis.

Grant, though not in favor of a larger ‘tail’, nonetheless argues the Ukrainian Army should induct more civilians to take on support and administration roles, ensuring military personnel are channeled toward functions only they can be trained to perform.

Not everyone agrees that re-introducing larger formations is vital, however. Konrad Muzyka, a Polish defense analyst wrote to me: “Kharkiv Offensive showed [Ukraine’s military] had a flexible approach. They created new tactical-operational commands, which ran 4-5 brigades in their respective Areas of Responsibility (AORs).”

In other words, creating temporary equivalents of divisions or Corps to execute a highly successful maneuver operation. That might draw from the Soviet doctrine of the Operational Maneuver Group, a temporary grouping of powerful mobile forces created to penetrate deep into enemy lines.

Konrad also pointed out that on the frontline, Ukraine’s army fights side-by-side with other branches of the armed forces like Marines, Territorial Defense Forces, etc.—units that couldn’t ordinarily be inducted into a permanent division or corps-level formation of the Ukrainian Army.

Of course, it’s ultimately up to Ukrainians to decide how their armed forces are best organized. While it has benefitted greatly from western training and advising, there’s also a risk that foreign advisors try to push templates from their ostensibly more modern advanced military culture that may actually be ill-suited to the context and realities of their advisees.

Sébastien Roblin has written on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including 19FortyFive, Popular Mechanics, The National Interest, MSNBC, CNN, Forbes.com, Inside Unmanned Systems, and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.

19fortyfive.com · by Sebastien Roblin · March 31, 2023

20. Elbridge Colby: China is more dangerous than Russia

Excerpts:

FS: The alternative historical analogy is the First World War, which some historians would say that we would have been better off not having and was the worst case for everybody.

EC: The worst case was what happened. The second-worst case would have been German dominance of Europe, which would clearly have turned against British interests very quickly. The best case, and it is directly analogous, is that Britain — and I think Britain actually behaved really admirably from a strategic perspective — reoriented its whole military and strategic policy. The historic enmity with France — it settled that issue. It settled the enmity with Russia; it cut deals with the Japanese. It cut deals with the Americans, who — for all this Special Relationship stuff — saw Great Britain as our primary opponent in the 19th century. Britain settled that as well and focused on Germany.

The problem is it didn’t go far enough. In the decisive moment in the July Crisis, instead of Britain saying clearly it was committed to the alliance with France, it equivocated and hedged. And, more than that, if the British had the military forces already generated and ideally deployed on the continent — that’s the lesson Nato learned in the Cold War — I think the Germans could have been dissuaded. The lesson here is that getting 90% of the way there, or 85% of the way there, is not the same as getting 100% of the way there. You have to get 100% of the way there.

Elbridge Colby: China is more dangerous than Russia

unherd.com · by Freddie Sayers · March 31, 2023

Since writing Donald Trump’s National Defense Strategy in 2018, Elbridge Colby has become one of the most influential conservative defence thinkers in America. If a Republican wins the presidency in 2024 — whether Trump or DeSantis — he is likely to be at the centre of power once again. His perspective thus gives a glimpse of possible American foreign policy in the very near future.

When we spoke earlier this week, he set out a radically different focus for the American military — away from Ukraine, and towards a conflict with China that he believes could come as soon as 2027. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.

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FS: You’re neither a full isolationist, nor a full maximalist — what’s your vision for American strategy?

EC: My perspective is that the right equilibrium for America, but certainly for a Right-of-centre political movement, is to ask what is in the American people’s concrete interest.

If you look at the voting bloc of the Republican Party — not to say that foreign policy should only serve them — but it’s made up of working- and middle-class Americans. I don’t think our foreign policy has served them. We’ve had this maximalist foreign policy that has proved disastrous. Americans are really tired of the “forever wars”. If you watch Fox News over the course of the day, the ad that leaves the most impressions, though maybe not the most common, is the one that’s for wounded warriors, people who were horribly wounded during Iraq or Afghanistan, or were killed in 9/11, or their widows. That is the mindset of a lot of Republican voters. I think there’s a real distrust and discontent about that foreign policy establishment, which is often the same people making the same arguments that got us into Iraq and the long war in Afghanistan. So what I’m saying is: let’s be unashamed in asking, “What’s in Americans’ interests?”

FS: And what is in their interests — let’s start by asking if America is too committed to the defence of Ukraine.

EC: The way you frame it is exactly the problem — we should be starting with China. It’s very revealing because a lot of not only the Biden administration but many Republicans of that above-the-waterline iceberg agree with you. I think that is the problem, because China is clearly by far the most significant challenge to the concrete, regular American interest. It’s far more formidable economically, but now also militarily.

The way I look at Ukraine is not in a vacuum or separate from China, but precisely through the lens of China, and through the lens of the recognition that we are neglecting the scale of the challenge posed by China. Through the defence strategy that I worked on, and other efforts, we have become more attuned to China, but it’s not a self-referential exercise. It’s more like a business. If you’re GM in the Seventies and you’re changing to adapt to Toyota, but you don’t do enough, you’re going to go out of business — or IBM vis-à-vis Microsoft.

In that context, I would say, yes, we are focusing way too much on Ukraine. I’m not in favour of just simply cutting the Ukrainians off. I think what Russia did and is doing is evil. That’s not the issue. But if our foreign policy is about Americans’ concrete interests, then we’re doing too much. We’ve already spent over $100 billion. We’ve sent equipment, which is not easily replaceable, which is relevant to the potential fight over Taiwan, and certainly the implications as it reverberates through our defence industrial base is very relevant. This stuff sounds arcane, but it’s not. For want of a shoe, the kingdom can be lost. Why are we taking risks on the most significant challenge to the US position in the world and our interest in the world in 150 years? We were a much larger economy than the Soviet Union. We alone were larger than the three Axis Powers, let alone with the British Empire and the Soviet Union. That’s the right way to look at this.

FS: But what does that mean, practically? If you were Senior Advisor to the President right now, what would you tell him to do?

EC: I would say, “I don’t want to talk about Ukraine right now. We’re going to talk about Taiwan and China and Asia first, and once we fix that problem to a satisfactory degree, we’ll spend time and political capital and resources on Ukraine.” I think we should put a lot more pressure and encouragement on Europe to step up and take the primary role. Why is the United States providing the vast majority of military and financial support to Ukraine — certainly in the military context, but also in the civilian area? That makes no sense. Europe is a vastly larger economic area than Russia. It has enormous latent military advantages vis-à-vis Russia. A lot of people have been celebrating US policy saying “American leadership is back” — I actually think this is bad. This is a failure, because if anything, it’s suffocated any effort by Europeans to stand up and say, “We’re going to take leading responsibility.” My basic attitude would be that Americans need to focus on China. We’re not just going to cut the Ukrainians off, but we are going to get the Europeans to do what we’ve been trying to get the Europeans to do since Dwight Eisenhower.

FS: But European countries have stepped up — Germany famously has torn up its postwar neutral position.

EC: No, the Germans haven’t, sorry.

FS: They are committing to vast amounts of increased expenditure on arms. Even if they were committing as much as you want, it’s going to take years or even decades for them to get the kind of military that you would need. You need American power there anyway, don’t you?

EC: Let’s get to the nub of the matter, which is: we don’t have time. It’s the assessment of the US intelligence community that Xi Jinping has ordered the Chinese military to be ready for a successful attack on Taiwan by 2027. It’s not a prediction, but that’s about as much warning as you can expect in the tough world of international politics. So we don’t have time. That’s four years away — in defence planning terms, that’s yesterday. We actually have very limited things that we can do.

The Germans deconstructed their military, not as a result of World War Two, but as a result of the end of history and the peace dividend. They had a very large and impressive military when the Federal Republic was seeking to defend itself against the Soviets and the Eastern Bloc. This has been a matter of policy, particularly under former chancellor Merkel — whose legacy will be ashes in her mouth. But the question is: can Germany do it? They’re not stepping up. Their military budget is going to be way below 2% of GDP again this year. The country that deserves applause, in this respect, is Poland, which is committed to almost 5%, and is actually putting its money where its mouth is.

FS: What about the UK?

EC: I give it a lot of credit for its ambition. Under Boris Johnson, it almost committed to 3% but I think that figure has been knocked down over time. My view is it’s great that Britain is more engaged on the continent, precisely because we are going to have to shift to Asia and the UK has very limited ability to project serious military power. if we’re looking at it from the enlightened, self-interested point of view invented in the United Kingdom, then we can’t get China and Asia wrong.

If China takes over Asia, in a hegemonic situation, which I think is its goal, our interests are going to suffer far more than they would suffer because Asia is a much, much larger economic area than Europe. China is a much larger and more formidable power than Russia is. So the question is, who’s going to bear the cost?

If Europe presents a future administration with “we just can’t do it, it’s going to take us too much time”, then, I’m sorry, you have to bear the consequence of that decision and inability. If you want to change that, we will help you, but we, the American people, are not going to allow China to take over Asia because you won’t take the steps needed to be able to defend yourselves. I think this administration is — and this is the point I made in UnHerd last year — actually not helping Europeans by providing a false sense of assurance about what the United States can and will offer in the future.

FS: Does that mean that attempting to keep back the Russian line in Ukraine or even push it further east is a dead project?

EC: I don’t think that’s true. Obviously, you can do things at the same time. The point is that at the political level, we need to make sure that everything that is even remotely needed for a Taiwan fight is allocated — that the resources go there. We gave a bunch of Abrams tanks to Ukraine — it is pretty hard to imagine Abrams tanks being useful in a fight with China. F16s and F35s are going to have trouble against the Chinese. So I don’t see why we couldn’t give F16s potentially to the Ukrainians. But also the Russians are having real trouble. They’re not ten-feet tall; this is not the Red Army of 1945. The notion that they’re just going to roll over the Ukrainians — you don’t have to accept that, Europe. You’re a huge economic area. The problem is that Europe is not stepping up.

FS: Where does Nato stand in this new world?

EC: During the Cold War, the relative balance of expenditures on defence between America and Europe was closer to 50%. I think we should go back to basics, which is: it’s not about the United States. And this is where that establishment and Europe’s interests do align, because the establishment in Washington loves to be the global leader — the Madeleine Albrights, George W. Bushes. “We stand taller; we’re the indispensable nation.” That’s great for that Washington establishment, but that is not what serves the people who are watching the wounded warriors. Why are the American people spending 3.5% of their GDP? It’s really insane when you think about it, that the Americans in Duluth, or Dubuque, or Denver are spending 3.5% while the Germans — who have more responsibility to provide for collective defence than anybody by orders of magnitude — spend 1.5%. And people say: “Germans don’t feel threatened.” Do you think Americans do? The only way to make this sustainable is to have a more balanced approach. I’m not advocating that the United States get out of Nato — to the contrary. I think the treaty is great. But if you go back and look at the ratification in 1949, this was not supposed to be the outcome — in fact, this was the concern.

FS: The treaty holds that “an attack on one is an attack on all”. That, if Russia invades Poland or Lithuania, it should be treated by America as an attack on America, and therefore would call on all of its defence capabilities.

EC: That’s not actually what the treaty says. And, of course, we would not treat an attack on a European ally the same way as an attack on the United States itself. The whole Nato strategy during the Cold War was explicitly about not doing that. That was why we developed flexible response, because there was a difference between an attack on Western Europe and an attack on the American homeland. Obviously there’s a rhetorical level at which that happens. The good thing is the Russians are not sufficiently threatening to make that a problem, because they can’t threaten European Nato, given the attrition that they’ve had in Ukraine, at least for some time.

That is a problem, much more of a problem, with China, which is, in a sense, the new Soviet Union. The point about Nato is that it’s got this post-Cold War model. We need to go back to something closer to the Cold War model, not the post-Cold War model, which is, basically, America takes care of everything. That benefited the Washington old guard, and benefited a lot of Europeans who could disarm. That doesn’t benefit the regular American people. If Nato continues in this direction, it risks breaking. My approach is designed to sustain Nato over the long term.

FS: What makes you so sure that China is actually planning some kind of attack on Taiwan?

EC: I don’t think it’s much of a debate anymore. The leader of the most unified Chinese government since Mao Zedong has explicitly given instructions to the party-army to be ready to attack Taiwan by 2027. And the Chinese pretty much assume that the Americans would come to Taiwan’s defence. That would mean war. That’s not a prediction, but if you go back to some old British wisdom represented in the Crowe Memorandum before World War One, usually aggressive powers won’t give you a precise date and time on which they’re going to move. And Xi Jinping has actually given us that. So we can never say we haven’t been warned.

The other thing is: it ain’t just rhetoric. Look at the military they’re building: it is obviously designed to take on, not just Taiwan, but the United States, Japan. They’re clearly developing a global military that looks like the American military: aircraft carriers, space satellites, nuclear powered submarines. Their basing architecture: Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Pakistan, Equatorial Guinea, which is on the Atlantic coast of Africa. This is the future. I don’t make any predictions; I have no idea what Xi Jinping is going to decide to do. But if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, maybe it’s a duck.

FS: Do you think it would actually be an attack rather than just a blockade?

EC: One of the lessons of Ukraine is: don’t screw around; don’t pussyfoot around. If you’re going to do something, do it right. If you’re going to send two missiles, send six. I think the Chinese are clearly developing the capability to do just that. Yes — it’s difficult to mount and sustain an amphibious and air invasion across the strait, 100 miles. It’s not impossible. We’ve been able to do it over the last 75 years. With the exception of the Persian Gulf War, we haven’t, but everybody knew that we could drop marines pretty much where we wanted in large parts of the world, and that nobody could do anything about it. That’s one thing we have in our favour, the difficulties of such an operation.

To go back historically: the Wehrmacht was much more powerful than the remaining British Army after Dunkirk, but the Germans couldn’t find a way to get across the Channel and sustain it. That’s the model to think about. But the reason I think they’re not going to do a blockade — which I think they could, it’s not impossible, and that could succeed — is that it would leave a lot to chance. It leaves a lot in the hands of the Taiwanese; it leaves a lot in the hands of the Americans. It cedes the initiative, it cedes the element of surprise, and I just don’t think the Chinese are likely to do that. I think they’re at least as smart as we are — probably smarter given our foreign policy over the last 25 years — and so I would expect them to take the most advantageous approach: something that would move below the threshold of our response.

FS: But China is actually quite a cautious state. Why risk plunging the whole world into war?

EC: I don’t know how the Chinese have gotten this reputation. They won the Civil War through the most brutal means possible. Then they seized Tibet through invasion. They invaded Hainan Island as part of the conclusion of the Civil War, and they were planning on invading Formosa before they directly intervened in the Korean War with huge amounts of troops and fought the Americans and the British to a standstill. They also directly attacked Vietnam in 1979 — their ambitions were to go a lot further.

Why would they do it now? I think they actually feel that they need to. Xi Jinping is saying that the United States is trying to strangle China. You see what he’s doing with Vladimir Putin and Russia — they regard us as being in an almost existential struggle, which is very dangerous. The reason they would use military force is to secure their place as the world’s top economy, and a large guaranteed geo-economic sphere, because they can see what’s happening with things like Aukus and so forth. There’s a lot of balancing behaviour to check China’s overweening ambitions, and if they want to get out from under that, they have a strong incentive to use military force, and they’re preparing to do so.

FS: Let’s say that attack does happen. What do you want the American response to be?

EC: This is a situation where being “half-pregnant” is almost the worst approach. My preferred policy — which is, of course, designed to deter and avoid a war, rather than get into it — is for the United States to act decisively and expeditiously to defeat a Chinese invasion, which would involve anti-ship, anti-air, attacking Chinese ground forces that land on the islands. It almost certainly would involve selective attacks on the Chinese mainland that would be constrained to try to help manage escalation, which would be an uncertain endeavour. The best thing in this situation is to be as prepared as humanly possible, and not to get close to the marginal edge of a conventional fight — and that’s what we’re not doing right now. I think the problem is that if we half-bake it, we could get a situation in which the Chinese do it, and we offer an unsatisfactory or unavailing response, which means we’re at war with China, but we’ve lost. That’s the worst outcome, and that’s actually going to be worse for Europe, because in that situation, there’s going to be a giant sucking sound of every US resource going to the primary theatre.

FS: And that means greater investment in military hardware and deterrence around the South China Sea?

EC: No, actually the reverse. I’m in the “speak softly and carry a big stick” department. I think we are peacocking right now, and probably with the strength of a peacock. It’s mostly for show. Forgive the analogy: if you remember the movie Rocky 4, but Dolph Lundgren is the Soviet boxing star who was all business and quiet, and then you have Apollo Creed in the American flag dancing around, then Dolph Lundgren kills him in the ring. That’s my fear of the situation that we’re heading into.

I actually want us to really focus on sharpening that stick, making it a bigger stick, if you will, and doing less in the way of publicity. All these people are on the island and making all these statements about Taiwan — “the CCP is evil” and all this stuff. Sure, the CCP is evil. I sympathise with Taiwan’s freedom. But we are in a super dangerous situation and should focus on hitting the gym. In Europe — I’m not picking on Ukraine — we’re not anywhere near as disciplined as we want. There’s waste in the defence budget. There are difficulties in resuscitating the defence-industrial base. But that’s the world we have to live in. We have to live in the world of now. By the way, the American people are not showing a lot of interest in dramatic increases in defence spending. This is not 1980.

FS: Isn’t that a problem? If the American people aren’t interested and regard this as another “forever war”, they may not be with you on Taiwan.

EC: That’s exactly the problem and that’s one of the reasons I’m so worried about Ukraine. People say we can walk and chew gum — no, we should be husbanding the voters’ resolve. We should be very careful with their money. I think we can do it. We’re already spending almost a trillion dollars on the defence budget. But then, if we’re going to do that, we can’t think we can fight a proxy war with Russia indefinitely. I’m acutely conscious of whether the American people will support a defensive Taiwan. And the Taiwanese are not helping the cause by spending less per capita on defence than the American people do, which is insane. We are really on a knife edge.

FS: And you don’t buy the reverse argument that weakness on Ukraine would signal weakness on Taiwan?

EC: It’s such a tendentious argument. There’s a group now, particularly more on the Left, of people who are Ukraine hawks, who are starting to call for détente with China. I actually appreciate that, because at least we’re seeing a choice. You find this particularly among hawks, who say, “We’re going to do Ukraine, and it’s going to show China and then we’re going to pivot.” It’s a “we’re going to win the lottery” sort of strategy.

Obviously China is looking to some extent, but China’s main calculation is going to be the balance of military forces vis-à-vis Taiwan, and how resolute the American government and the American people are vis-à-vis this specific conflict. It’s the same argument that defenders of the Vietnam War used: that, if we don’t win in the rice paddies of Vietnam, we’re not going to win in Europe. Europeans at the time were saying: “We actually think this is a waste; we think you’re eroding American people’s support.” And in the wake of Vietnam, initiatives like the Mansfield Amendment tried to pull US forces back from Europe. You have the Robert Kagans of the world, who just constantly harangue the American people to “fight the jungle”, and about “global liberal hegemony”. And they’re tuned out. Of course they’re not going to do that kind of thing. So what we really need to do is be much more careful and respectful and husbanding of the American people’s resolve.

FS: Is there a chance you could make conflict more likely by anticipating it?

EC: It’s a very serious worry. We are now in a situation, because of our neglect of Taiwan, where the Chinese clearly want to subordinate Taiwan. That is not the issue — we are not going to catalyse something that they did not already want. They’ve been working, since the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis, assiduously and carefully and ruthlessly to develop a military to do this. By neglecting our defences there, we’ve now brought it into the realm of the possible. So now we’re in the situation, frankly, that Britain faced in the late Thirties, where you’re understrength in the primary theatre. Your choices are: to be weak and essentially ensure failure — you might avoid the war, but at the cost of all your important interests. Or you can arm — but then you might precipitate, at more of an operational and tactical level, a Chinese response to get out from under this. This is a problem I take very seriously.

FS: The alternative historical analogy is the First World War, which some historians would say that we would have been better off not having and was the worst case for everybody.

EC: The worst case was what happened. The second-worst case would have been German dominance of Europe, which would clearly have turned against British interests very quickly. The best case, and it is directly analogous, is that Britain — and I think Britain actually behaved really admirably from a strategic perspective — reoriented its whole military and strategic policy. The historic enmity with France — it settled that issue. It settled the enmity with Russia; it cut deals with the Japanese. It cut deals with the Americans, who — for all this Special Relationship stuff — saw Great Britain as our primary opponent in the 19th century. Britain settled that as well and focused on Germany.

The problem is it didn’t go far enough. In the decisive moment in the July Crisis, instead of Britain saying clearly it was committed to the alliance with France, it equivocated and hedged. And, more than that, if the British had the military forces already generated and ideally deployed on the continent — that’s the lesson Nato learned in the Cold War — I think the Germans could have been dissuaded. The lesson here is that getting 90% of the way there, or 85% of the way there, is not the same as getting 100% of the way there. You have to get 100% of the way there.

FS: How would you position the two leading Republican candidates — Trump and DeSantis — on these foreign policy questions?

EC: Both Governor DeSantis and Trump are with strategic reality, and where the voters are, far away from that traditional blob, that traditional foreign policy establishment. You have other candidates, like former ambassador and governor Nikki Haley, who are clearly running in that lane. Of course, President Trump was the first not to just talk about China, but really do something about it. Governor DeSantis has been very clear on the primacy of the China threat. I think that that’s very telling.

FS: Is there a difference between them?

EC: I’m not going to characterise their positions. You can go ask them. What I will say is, if you look at what they’ve said, for instance in response to the Tucker Carlson questionnaire, I think they’re both focused on China and they’re both concerned about overexposure in the Ukraine context.

I think that the strategy that I’m advocating for is the natural one for a future Republican administration, hopefully one that would win in 2024. Bear this in mind: the next presidential term is going to include the year 2027. So if you are the president, then you are going to really face the issue: am I going to be the first president to lose a major-power war? The United States withdrew from Vietnam or withdrew from Afghanistan, but we have never lost a major-power war. That is going to be a very sobering bucket of cold water to pour on the presidential administration as they transition, or if it’s a continuation of this administration or another Democrat.

In that context, you need to be super-real, super-practical, because you can’t do the walk and chew gum. But you also can’t take the Rand Paul approach, because then China’s going to take over Asia. That’s clearly going to be bad. So my argument is not going to catch fire in the US Senate necessarily. But what you are going to see is, I think, a future administration saying: “We’re living in a really tough world and we can’t afford the old shibboleths, the old religion.”

FS: Would you work for either Trump or DeSantis?

EC: At the end of the day, anybody who’s working in a presidential administration is a servant of the people, but, of course, is working as staff to the person who has been elected. But if somebody wanted to put something like the approach that I’m advocating for, I would be honoured to work for them. If they’re not, then I think it’s pretty clear, I’m probably not the right guy.

John McCain used to say that we were living in the most dangerous time, and that was in 2006. And I used to think to myself, actually, that’s probably about the safest time we’ve had since before World War One. I think today is genuinely a really, really dangerous time. Look at what Xi Jinping was caught saying to Vladimir Putin on video: that changes are coming which have not been seen in 100 years. I don’t question this man’s resolve, his seriousness, his ruthless brutality. And I think that’s the kind of attitude that we need to take — obviously not the same attitude or same approach — but that level of sobriety and seriousness is what we need as we move further into this century.

unherd.com · by Freddie Sayers · March 31, 2023

21. Zelensky's gambit puts China's Xi on the spot

Excerpts:

China is the only other major power to offer conditions that might bring Russia's yearlong war to a close. From Kyiv's perspective, however, the proposal's failure to demand the unconditional withdrawal of Moscow's forces is a fatal flaw.

But Ukraine has ways to reject China's views on the right path to peace without explicitly saying so. When appropriate, it also has the luxury of allowing its committed Western backers, including U.S. President Joe Biden, to speak on its behalf.

"We notice that other nations are also putting forth their own initiatives. We appreciate their focus on a problem that jeopardizes global security. However, I would like to emphasize that the Ukrainian people will accept peace only if it guarantees the cessation of Russian aggression in full, the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, and the restoration of our state's territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders," Kuleba said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was hosting Kuleba and other diplomats at this year's Summary for Democracy forum, said: "I think we all have to be very much aware and beware of what may seem to be well-intentioned efforts, for example, to call for cease-fires, which would potentially have the effect of freezing in place the conflict, allowing Russia to consolidate the gains that it's made."

"And so what seems to be appealing on the surface—who wouldn't want the guns to be silent?—can also be a very cynical trap that we have to be very, very careful of," Blinken said.

Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesperson, said Wednesday that it was "up to Ukraine" to accept China's peace plan. "A proposal that is going to allow Russia to refit its forces, or something that's going to lead to a further assault, certainly would be a nonstarter for us."

Zelensky's gambit puts China's Xi on the spot

Newsweek · by John Feng · March 31, 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky has spent 13 months waiting for Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to pick up the phone. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, had Xi's ear long before Russia's invasion began.

Publicly, Ukraine's president has given China the benefit of the doubt, choosing to see the positives in Beijing's competing peace proposal and solacing himself with the fact that Chinese arms haven't yet poured onto the battlefield from the other side to backstop the war of attrition.

In mid-March, before Xi traveled to Moscow for his first meeting of the year with Putin, a Wall Street Journal report said the Chinese leader was likely to finally speak with Zelensky thereafter. Two weeks later, Zelensky said the call was still impending.

"We are ready to see him here," he told the Associated Press on Tuesday. "I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn't have."

Apart from the occasional meeting of foreign ministers, communication between the capitals largely happens at embassy and consulate level, according to those in the know.

On Thursday, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's top diplomat, said China's official response was that "they're carefully examining the request" for a call and visit.

A direct conversation between the two leaders could conceivably lend some credibility to China's role as a peacemaker in Europe after a recent success in the Middle East. But it remains an open question whether it really wants to engage itself in intractable challenges beyond its borders.

In spite of Beijing's deepening alignment with Moscow, Kyiv's own hedge on the topic has put Xi on the spot; nothing China's president has said or done so far has dissuaded Zelensky from actively seeking dialogue with Putin's most important quasi-ally.

Zelensky's repeated public and private attempts are an invitation for Xi to prove he's serious about mediating a dispute with global consequences, whose outcome, if positive, would doubtless elevate China's international standing and demonstrate its readiness to accept the responsibilities that come with being a major power.

U.S. President Joe Biden, left, meets with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv on February 20, 2023. The U.S. has been a committed backer of Ukraine since the Russian invasion began last year. EVAN VUCCI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

"Politically and diplomatically, it's a good move by our president: invite Xi to Ukraine in order to give him a chance to prove his sincerity about his 'peace plan,'" said Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukraine's parliament and chair of its foreign affairs committee.

"Since Xi has already met Putin two times and visited Moscow since February 24, 2022, it would be fair to come to Kyiv. It would prove that China is really 'neutral,' at least diplomatically," Merezhko told Newsweek.

"When Xi is eager to go to Putin but doesn't want to come meet Zelensky, it's a clear sign that China is on the side of Russia. I doubt that Xi will come to Ukraine," he said.

'It's Better To Talk'

Like roughly two-thirds of the world's economies, Ukraine counted China as its largest trading partner before the war. The 31-year relationship also involved the understated transfer to China of Ukrainian defense industry hardware and know-how.

Two-way trade between the countries fell 60 percent in 2022, while Beijing's economic turnover with Moscow grew nearly 35 percent year-on-year as China underwrote the Kremlin's losses by buying cheaper oil and gas.

Having led his country through a year of war, Zelensky is now showing Ukraine's public, including the millions stranded abroad, that he's willing to exhaust every avenue, however unlikely, to peace. Ultimately, Kyiv says, its 10-point "peace formula" is the way.

"Zelensky has one aim overall: to win the war, and to bolster Ukrainian security for whatever comes after the war. His overarching priority is to do whatever serves those purposes and to do nothing that could harm those purposes," said Sam Greene, a director at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington and a professor of Russian politics at King's College London.

"Xi is somebody that Zelensky will want to take seriously, but he can't afford to be sentimental about any of this. There's no incentive for him to go out of his way to be nice to Xi. There's also no purpose to be served simply by needlessly antagonizing China," Greene told Newsweek.

He said: "The message has been: 'We are happy to have conversations with you, and if you are able to bring Russia to its senses, then wonderful. But at the end of the day, Ukraine cannot afford to compromise on questions of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.'"

In this Newsweek photo illustration, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky pictured on February 24, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Chinese President Xi Jinping during Russian-Chinese talks at the Grand Kremlin Palace, on March 21, 2023, in Moscow, Russia. Xi has not spoken with Zelensky, despite an open offer for talks, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Newsweek; Source photo by Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

Yurii Poita, who heads the Asia section of the Kyiv-based New Geopolitics Research Network, said Zelensky's government remains hopefully that China can play a constructive role in resolving the conflict.

"I believe their expectations are much, much lower than they were one year ago, or even a few months ago, and gradually diminishing," he told Newsweek. "But it's better to talk than to be silent."

Kyiv is playing "good cop, bad cop" in pursuit of demonstration value, he said. Zelensky is putting the ball in China's court with each proposal. When Beijing doesn't react, it invites pressure.

"China should constantly be put in an inconvenient position outside of its comfort zone," said Poita. "If Zelensky talks to Xi, I believe he could again throw the ball to China to show that the Chinese position isn't clear or according to international law. China would be forced to respond and explain itself."

Merezhko, the lawmaker who represents Zelensky's Servant of the People party, added: "Zelensky would raise the issue that China could stop the Russian aggression if it really wanted to, and would perhaps ask Xi to use his influence over Putin to make him stop the aggression and to withdraw Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine."

"We have one major goal now: to stop Russian aggression," Merezhko said.

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, said Beijing was in touch "with all relevant parties, including Ukraine." She had no information about upcoming leader-level talks and was "not aware" of Zelensky's invitation to Xi, she said on Wednesday.

Guesstimating Putin

Xi's high-profile trip to Moscow marked the beginning of his third term as president of China. Zelensky congratulated him on the occasion, China's state media said, although his real authority over the country had already been cemented at a major Communist Party event last October.

Beijing's own 12-point peace proposal to end the war, and news of possible talks with Zelensky, effectively cushioned Xi's face time in the Kremlin, subject-matter experts argue. Putin, meanwhile, was quick to reaffirm the Russia-China tandem as a partnership "without limitations or taboos."

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, right, meets with President Xi Jinping of China at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. Trade between the two nations has grown since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. SERGEI KARPUKHIN/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

"It was well choreographed. Even after the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Putin, many were willing to overlook such a negative moment because of Xi's potential mediating role. But It is my impression that whenever these two get together, bad things happen. Russia invaded Ukraine 19 days after the Xi-Putin meeting in Beijing," Theresa Fallon, the director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, told Newsweek.

"China wants to be courted as a mediator; that's an attractive position for them to be in. Beijing wants to convince the world that they are neutral, but they lean towards Moscow. They have had multiple meetings and calls with Putin but none with Zelensky since the war began—13 months—so I think it does raise a red flag about whether Beijing can really be considered a neutral mediator," she said.

"It's wishful thinking that Xi has influence on Putin. My impression is that they're working together because they have common objectives. Xi needs to keep Putin close, even though he may not be 100 percent thrilled with what Putin is doing. But there are other benefits for Beijing because it distracts U.S. attention and economic and military bandwidth from Asia," said Fallon.

Ukraine's China problem

"In addition, a weakened Russia that is more dependent on China and offers Beijing more leverage over the Kremlin and an opportunity to negotiate for bigger asks from their wish list, which might include access to Arctic bases and more advanced Russian technology previously withheld." she said.

Zelensky sees Xi's lack of enthusiasm for Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling as a sign that there are limits to China's otherwise "rock-solid" relations with Russia. At the same time, Kyiv will be aware of its own finite capacity to influence Beijing.

"We believe that one of the key reasons of the last visit of President Xi to Russia was actually to test the ground and to see whether Russia is ready to make any changes in its current behavior, and whether there are ways to make Russia change its behavior," Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, told a virtual panel hosted by London's Chatham House.

Beijing's alignment with Moscow and its reluctance to alienate crucial economic partners in the West mean its Ukraine policy has been a high-wire act from the start.

China is the only other major power to offer conditions that might bring Russia's yearlong war to a close. From Kyiv's perspective, however, the proposal's failure to demand the unconditional withdrawal of Moscow's forces is a fatal flaw.

But Ukraine has ways to reject China's views on the right path to peace without explicitly saying so. When appropriate, it also has the luxury of allowing its committed Western backers, including U.S. President Joe Biden, to speak on its behalf.

"We notice that other nations are also putting forth their own initiatives. We appreciate their focus on a problem that jeopardizes global security. However, I would like to emphasize that the Ukrainian people will accept peace only if it guarantees the cessation of Russian aggression in full, the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, and the restoration of our state's territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders," Kuleba said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was hosting Kuleba and other diplomats at this year's Summary for Democracy forum, said: "I think we all have to be very much aware and beware of what may seem to be well-intentioned efforts, for example, to call for cease-fires, which would potentially have the effect of freezing in place the conflict, allowing Russia to consolidate the gains that it's made."

"And so what seems to be appealing on the surface—who wouldn't want the guns to be silent?—can also be a very cynical trap that we have to be very, very careful of," Blinken said.

Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesperson, said Wednesday that it was "up to Ukraine" to accept China's peace plan. "A proposal that is going to allow Russia to refit its forces, or something that's going to lead to a further assault, certainly would be a nonstarter for us."

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about Ukraine-China relations? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.

Newsweek · by John Feng · March 31, 2023

22. Russia to outline ‘contours of a new world order’ as UN Security Council chair

Russia to outline ‘contours of a new world order’ as UN Security Council chair

Washington Examiner · March 31, 2023

Russian officials plan to outline “the contours of a new world order” over the next month as Russia and China intensify their efforts to gain influence at the United Nations.

“Our idea is to hold a comprehensive, forward-looking strategic discussion about the contours of a new world order that is coming to replace the unipolar one,” Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, the top Russian envoy at the U.N., told state media. “This conversation is long overdue.”

RUSSIA DOES NOT 'DESERVE' UN SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT, US AMBASSADOR SAYS

Nebenzia will play a prominent role in stage-managing that effort, as Russia’s upcoming turn as rotating president of the U.N. Security Council will allow Moscow to shape the forum’s agenda for the month of April. And the meaning of the maneuvering in New York was made explicit in Moscow on Friday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiling a new foreign policy concept just one day before Nebenzia’s team takes hold of the Security Council gavel.

"The Russian Federation intends to give priority to the elimination of vestiges of the dominance of the United States and other unfriendly countries in world politics,” the new Russian concept states.

That brassy forecast comes just weeks after Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping told Putin that Beijing and Moscow are orchestrating “changes — the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years.” Yet their coordination also has galvanized an international backlash against their desired overhaul of the international arena.

“China sees Putin's weakness as a way to increase its leverage over Russia. And it is clear that the power balance in that relationship, which for most of the last century favored Russia, has now reversed,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this week. “The Chinese Communist Party's clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center. We have seen it with China's positions in multilateral bodies, which show its determination to promote an alternative vision of the world order.”

The war in Ukraine intensified the diplomatic jockeying for influence across the developing world as a series of clashes at the U.N. General Assembly placed many countries across the Global South in the position of geopolitical swing voters. Russia and China have found some success in those capitals by invoking the memory of Western imperialism.

India, a historic purchaser of Russian weapons and now a crucial partner for the United States as a potential counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific, has frustrated Western states by hesitating to issue overt denunciations of Russia’s aggression. And India’s imports of Russian oil skyrocketed over the last year as the G-7 imposed a price cap on Russian energy.

Yet Putin’s apparent dependence on Xi also could enhance New Delhi’s cooperation with U.S. and European countries, as India is wary of anything that enhances China’s power, particularly given that India has a sometimes-violent border dispute with China, which is driving a debate within India’s national security establishment.

Some officials argue that India has a chance to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, but others fear the prospect of relying on Russia for weapons in the event of a crisis with China.

“There are others who say ... that there's very little that India can do or offer that would actually get Russia to even remain neutral in the event of a China-India conflagration,” an Indian foreign policy analyst told the Washington Examiner on condition of anonymity. “My sense over the past year is there is increasing frustration as well that despite this consistent engagement by India, that the Russians are not playing ball.”

Yet Putin’s team acknowledged no hint of trouble between Moscow and New Delhi.

“The policy on unlocking the potential of strategic partnership with our great neighbors — the People's Republic of China, the Republic of India, the countries of the Islamic world, as well as countries of ASEAN, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean — has been enshrined as a vital resource,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Putin.

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That could lead to a dynamic in which Indian diplomats use some rhetoric reminiscent of Moscow’s call for “multipolarity” while taking more substantial steps to cooperate with the U.S. and its allies.

“Essentially, what India wants is greater representation space for itself, vis-a-vis the West and established powers in the developed world, but also it’s driven equally by concerns about China and China's dominance of the Global South,” the Indian analyst said. “So, would India buy into the Russian view of multipolarity? I'm not sure. I don't think so. But does it articulate its own view of multiplicity? Yes.”

Washington Examiner · March 31, 2023

23. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Learning Lessons from a Lost War -

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Learning Lessons from a Lost War - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Heather S. Gregg

Bottom Line

American-led efforts to state and nation-build in Iraq all but failed, resulting in the deaths of 4,431 US troops, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi fatalities, and mixed-at-best results in creating a viable state.
Despite these failed efforts in Iraq, the United States will most likely need to work with allies, partners, and the Ukrainian people to reconstruct their country in the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Therefore, learning lessons from the war in Iraq is critical for future efforts at state stabilization.

Editor’s Note: FPRI is publishing a collection of essays to mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. The articles analyze the war’s impact on US influence in the Middle East, America’s global standing, and US democracy promotion efforts. In addition, our authors explore the legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and argue that the inability of American officials to understand Iraqi politics was perhaps the most important intelligence failure of the entire war effort.

Twenty years ago, the United States, together with a “coalition of the willing,” invaded Iraq with the initial goals of eliminating the country’s purported weapon of mass destruction capabilities, severing Iraq’s alleged support of al Qaeda, and deposing Saddam Hussein and Ba’ath Party leadership. In its place, the Bush administration promised to create a democracy in Iraq, develop an economy based on Iraq’s oil wealth, and build a professional military.

Ultimately, the justifications for the invasion were unfounded. Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program proved to be virtually non-existent and Iraq’s purported ties to al Qaeda were also found to be untrue.

The costs of the war were significant. Between 2003 and March 6, 2023, Department of Defense Casualty Index reports 4,431 US troops died in Iraq and 31,944 were wounded in action. Allies and partners that supported the war in Iraq also lost lives, eroding goodwill and straining important relationships. And, although exact numbers vary and will never be known, estimated deaths of Iraqi civilians are in the hundreds of thousands, with one estimate at nearly half a million. The war also touched off two decades of forced migration, including an estimated 9.2 million refugees and internally displaced persons, and caused a significant “brain drain” from Iraq, depleting it of the talent necessary to run the country. Alongside the toll on the population, Iraq’s physical infrastructure, including its oil production capabilities and electrical grid, were significantly damaged in the course of war. Ironically, the invasion helped create the conditions for the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq and its successor, the Islamic State, which occupied large portions of the country from 2014 to 2017. The fight to defeat the Islamic State caused further death and destruction in Iraq and Syria.

The results of the Bush administration’s ambitious project of “nation building,” by virtually all accounts, failed. Efforts to establish a democracy in Iraq have been troubled, with voting breaking out along ethnic lines, allowing the Shia majority to elect their own parties often at the expense of other ethnic groups, and creating the conditions for Iranian-backed militias to gain a foothold in the country. Iraq’s economy has shown improvements post-COVID, particularly its oil sector, but inflation, poverty, and food insecurity still loom large. And the Iraqi military all but collapsed in 2014, with thousands either shedding their uniforms or being slaughtered by Islamic State fighters as they took over the western portion of the country. Efforts to rebuild Iraq’s military are ongoing and require addressing how to coordinate and consolidate multiple security forces, including Shia militias and the Kurdish Peshmerga.

Twenty years on, what should the United States learn from its war in Iraq? Perhaps first and foremost, Operation Iraqi Freedom should teach the United States that wars are a terrible way to launch state and nation-building efforts. Wars wreak destruction not only on other militaries, but on a country’s civilian population, its infrastructure, its economy, and even the environment. The use of war to change another country’s administration comes with dozens of unforeseen consequences, and these consequences in turn affect efforts to create a viable government, vibrant population, and thriving economy.

Second, US efforts in Iraq should teach the United States that strategy requires not only knowing what to do but how to do it as well. How the United States chose to rebuild Iraq was disastrous. Specifically, the Iraqis were all but left out of US-led efforts to reconstruct the country, denying them agency in the destiny of their own nation. Instead, the United States focused on speed, efficiency, and resources, which were the wrong measures of effectiveness and masked serious problems with efforts at reconstruction.

Similarly, the United States should also learn the critical importance of allies and partners for achieving its foreign policy goals. Moreover, Washington should appreciate that there are heavy costs that come from damaging important relationships and breaking trust. The United Kingdom, one of the America’s strongest allies, followed the United States to war both in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in 2013, the British parliament voted against military action in Syria, breaking with the United States. One explanation given was a lack of trust from faulty intelligence in Iraq.

Finally—and critically—the United States may hope that it is done with state- and nation-building, but these necessary efforts for securing the peace are as relevant as ever. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its second year, has wreaked destruction on Ukraine’s physical, social, and political infrastructure. While efforts are underway to hold Russia accountable for paying to rebuild Ukraine, Ukrainian efforts to rebuild their country will require US, EU, and NATO support. Ukraine will require years if not decades of assistance to help rebuild its physical infrastructure, intentionally targeted by Russia, and to help restart the economy. Supporting countries need to encourage the return of intellectuals and help repatriate refugees. Institutions and processes in government need to be reestablished, including elections, but also efforts to help combat corruption. And international actors, at some point, need to help Ukraine with the daunting task of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of its uniformed and non-uniformed troops, as well as security sector reform. Building on lessons learned from Iraq, Ukrainians need to be in the lead and be given agency moving forward.

Nothing can undo the many mistakes the United States made in Iraq. The best one can hope for twenty years on is that Americans can learn from these mistakes and do better by our allies and partners and the countries and people we are trying to help.

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.

Image: Defense Department

Heather S. Gregg

Dr. Heather S. Gregg is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's National Security Program.

fpri.org · by Heather S. Gregg

25. Athena Has Arrived

Four West Point professors, four former battalion commanders with extensive experience, four PhDs. Quite impressive.

Photos at the link.

Athena Has Arrived

By Col. Everett S.P. Spain Department Head of Behavorial Sciences and Leadership - March 31, 2023

https://www.westpoint.edu/news/west-point-news/athena-has-arrived?utm_source=pocket_saves

The mythical Greek goddess Athena was renowned for her ferocity … and her wisdom. Deeply valuing this military and intellectual excellence, many years ago West Point assumed Athena’s helmet as one of its primary institutional symbols. Today, it still adorns many cadet uniforms, academic buildings, sports fields, special equipment and more.

Yet, symbols are only meaningful if they inspire future positive human behavior. If you’re looking for the virtues of Athena in a senior military officer, what knowledge, skills and behaviors would one look for?

Regarding Athena’s military excellence, the U.S. Army has established formal processes such as command selection boards and command assessment programs to select its best leaders and warriors to lead its battalions. Due to both voluntary officer attrition and the Army’s centralized selection process, fewer than one out of every 10 active-duty second lieutenants will ever command an Army battalion. Indeed, the Army’s battalion commanders are among our nation’s finest warriors.

Considering Athena’s academic excellence, Army officers who earn a doctoral degree (typically Ph.D.’s) are even rarer than those who command battalions. Whereas graduation from most undergraduate and master’s degree programs is guaranteed if one adequately completes a specified set of courses, earning a Ph.D. entails the rigors and unknowns of researching a new human, social or scientific phenomenon, and sharing that knowledge with the world through a published dissertation. The Ph.D. graduate is a producer of knowledge versus just a consumer of it. Indeed, the Army’s Ph.D. is among our nation’s finest scholars.

Though Athena’s integration of military and intellectual excellence represents West Point’s broader faculty, staff, cadets and alumni, its symbolism may be even more powerful for West Pointers who are women. Indeed, women currently represent only 24% of the cadet population and 15% of the senior military faculty. Yet, for the first time in the history of West Point, four current female members of the West Point faculty -- Cols. Kate Conkey, Julia Coxen, Katie Matthew and Julia Wilson -- have both commanded an Army battalion and earned a Ph.D. Athena has arrived.

Conkey is an academy professor and director of the PL300: Military Leadership program in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. Commissioned into the Military Police Corps from Furman University ROTC, she earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from Auburn. She commanded a unit with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq that was recognized as the best military police company in the Army, and the Criminal Investigative Command (CID) battalion where she served as an executive officer was selected as the finest in the Army. She then led the University of Hawaii’s Army ROTC program and later took the reins from Matthew as commander of the Special Troops Battalion and Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

David Frye, one of Conkey’s Hawaii ROTC subordinates, shared stories of her spirit of “encouragement, guidance and challenge” that motivated him and others to achieve bucket-list goals, such as running marathons. A peer from Kuwait, Lt. Col. John Bagaglio, remembered Conkey’s “always present” leadership style and her officer development program focused on building commitment as opposed to compliance. “(Conkey) had lieutenants do PT in an EOD bomb suit … helping them develop some emotional (intelligence) for our (diverse) team. She gave each lieutenant a copy of ‘The Way of the Shepherd: Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People’ with a personalized note in each of them. One of my lieutenants ... still has that book on his desk daily.”

Coxen is a USMA professor (select) and the deputy head of the Department of Systems Engineering. Commissioned as a signal officer and distinguished military graduate through University of Pennsylvania Army ROTC, she earned a master’s degree from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Michigan. She deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division and was selected for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, where she served at home and abroad with distinction in leadership roles at the intersection of special operations and intelligence.

Coxen is an exemplar of leading and developing officers. John Miranda, her former command sergeant major, shared, “her unique ability to establish a vision, create teams and drive change is unmatched. When often approached by junior officers … I would undoubtedly tell them, ‘Don’t worry about (U.S. Army Human Resource Command), nobody will pay more attention to your career and development than Lt. Col. Coxen.” Miranda also shared that, “However, it is her spirit that ultimately makes her the best officer I have worked for. Julia was the smartest person in the room, had the heart of a true warrior, there was no one more patriotic and can motivate a room of steely-eyed Soldiers to follow her anywhere.”

Matthew is an academy professor and director of the Sociology Program in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. Commissioned as a logistician as member of USMA’s Class of 2000, Matthew later earned a master’s degree from Kansas State University and a Ph.D. in sociology from George Mason University. She deployed to Iraq with both the 1st Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division, and she deployed again as part of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the fight against ISIS. Most recently, she commanded the Special Troops Battalion of the U.S. Army Garrison Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

A junior officer who served with Matthew in the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division noted that, “In high stress situations where people are tired, and conflict almost always arises, I quickly learned to bring Katie into engagements with high tension to leverage her uncanny ability to re-focus people on the real problems facing the team, unit or organization.”

Her peers from Fort Riley, Kansas, noted Matthew was one of the few who always built everyone else up, and her peers from JSOC noted that even though her Syria logistics portfolio keep growing to the point that would make most great officers overwhelmed, Matthew just kept “so cool” and level-headed. When the division commander asked for Matthew to be his aide, her brigade commander pleaded, “You can’t take Katie. If you take Katie, everything falls apart.”

Wilson is an academy professor and deputy director of the Department of Physical Education. Commissioned as a finance officer through Texas A&M-Corpus Christi ROTC, she earned her master’s degree in health education and Ph.D. in human behavior from the University of Florida. She served in the 25th Infantry Division, 18th Airborne Corps, and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, including the 5th Special Forces Group (A) in Iraq and commanding the Special Troops Battalion of the 1st Infantry Division’s Sustainment Brigade at Fort Riley and in Afghanistan.

Her former command sergeant major, Mike McCabe, shared how Wilson was “my absolute favorite commander of my career. She IS the epitome of THE Leader that everyone should follow. She possesses a clear vision … never micromanages … is extremely courageous; I’ve never seen her afraid of anything, and we deployed together. She has the best candidness and integrity and makes you feel that you must be that way as well, without saying you should. She has this ability to make you want to do well for her and the team. All of this comes from her caring for everyone without any biases or judgments. (During) all the Article 15 readings I sat on with her, she never dismissed anyone without them knowing we were there to help. She let them know what they did was wrong, but they were not bad people. We very rarely had any repeat offenders. As a matter of fact, during our time together, we had the best retention rate in the whole division. She was never afraid to get her hands dirty. Whether it came to PT, training, field time, driving, cleaning/improvements, etc. … she was right there, alongside any Soldier lending a hand. She earned the respect of everyone.”

Beyond West Point, there are probably few other major Army commands with four current or former battalion commanders who have earned Ph.D.’s, and certainly none with four female officers who have done so. Therefore, the next time we see Athena’s helmet at West Point or beyond, let it remind us that the Army’s Athenas -- including Col. Conkey, Coxen, Matthew and Wilson -- have indeed arrived at West Point and are providing wonderful examples of the warrior-scholar leaders our nation and Army need to defend freedom around world.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

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

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Operation Iraqi Freedom: Learning Lessons from a Lost War - Foreign Policy Research Institute

Bottom Line

Athena Has Arrived