US agency fighting Russian, Chinese disinformation may lose funding

Not yet.

Congress passed legislation on Tuesday that is an ultimatum to TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese technology giant ByteDance: Sell to a company that isn’t Chinese within about a year or face a ban on the app in the United States.

President Biden issued a statement minutes after the Senate vote saying he plans to sign the bill into law on Wednesday. Even if he does, TikTok is likely to challenge the new law in court.

When would TikTok be gone?

The latest version of the legislation gives TikTok 270 days — about nine months — to sell to another company, with provisions for additional 90-day extensions if “significant progress” is being made to sell TikTok. During that time, the app would probably continue to operate as normal in the United States.

The 270 days means TikTok would keep working well past the November presidential election. The timeline in the original House bill was only 180 days, which could have shut down the app a month ahead of the election.

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Lawsuits could extend the proposed timeline or dump a ban entirely. Or TikTok could sell the app instead but …

Could TikTok find a new owner in time?

The odds may not be great.

China’s government has previously said it would strongly oppose a forced sale of the app.

And a purchase of TikTok would probably cost tens of billions of dollars. Few people or companies have that kind of money — and companies that do, such as Meta or Google, probably won’t try to buy TikTok because antitrust regulators are unlikely to allow it.

The likeliest outcome, then, may be an attempted government ban of TikTok, and almost certainly courts will have to decide whether a ban violates Americans’ constitutional rights.

Why do they want to ban TikTok?

Many U.S. government officials worry that China’s government can force TikTok to hand over data from Americans’ smartphones or manipulate the videos people see on TikTok toward the preferences of the Chinese Communist Party.

Those concerns are largely hypothetical. U.S. officials have not made public evidence that TikTok has been systematically manipulated by China’s government.

But those officials say the only surefire way to remove the national security risk is to force ByteDance to sell the U.S. version of TikTok to a non-Chinese owner or kick the app out of the United States entirely.

The officials who worry about TikTok also say it is a unique risk to U.S. national security. The app is used by roughly half of Americans, and it functions like a nationwide, TikTok-programmed TV channel that could influence Americans’ views about elections or the Israel-Gaza war.

Legislators have also grilled TikTok’s CEO and other executives over the spread of child sexual abuse material through their apps and the potential harm to children’s mental health from social media use. Those concerns are not specific to TikTok.

How can I save my TikTok data?

For now, your experience should remain the same on the app, but you can start planning for a potential shutdown. See whether your favorite creators also post on other apps and follow them there, too.

If you post to TikTok, make sure your videos are backed up by going to your profile → Settings and privacy → Account → Download your data.

What are the alternatives to TikTok?

TikTok clones are everywhere.

YouTube has YouTube Shorts and Instagram’s Reels also are a constant feed of short vertical videos tailored to your tastes. Snapchat has Spotlight, in the same vein.

If TikTok is actually removed from app stores in the United States, we’ll probably see more companies trying to come up with alternatives. That’s what happened after Elon Musk bought Twitter.

What does this mean for creators on the app?

If TikTok goes away, some individual creators and small-business owners will face a threat to their livelihoods, they have said — more than 7 million U.S. businesses sell products on TikTok, according to the company.

TikTok did not immediately respond to questions about creators’ businesses in the wake of a ban, including how long paid ads would continue to run and what would happen to CapCut, the ByteDance-owned video editing app. There is currently no way for creators to port their followers to another app.

How can I protect myself on TikTok?

This image from a video released by the Department of Defense shows U.S. Marines at Abbey Gate before a suicide bomber struck outside Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021, in Kabul Afghanistan. The military investigation into the deadly attack during the Afghanistan evacuation has concluded that a suicide bomber, carrying 20 pounds of explosives packed with ball bearings, acted alone, and that the deaths of more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were not preventable. (Department of Defense via AP)

As for the concerns being voiced by lawmakers, you should decide for yourself on your personal risk tolerance when it comes to TikTok.

If you’re uneasy about watching or posting on TikTok, the safest step is not to download or use the app at all. Even if you or your child like using TikTok, it’s worth considering changes to keep your information more private from the company and other people on the app.

Don’t share your contacts with TikTok: The app will repeatedly ask for permission to access the contacts on your phone or link to your Facebook account. That data can reveal more than you expect about you or your friends. Read more here on how to check your current TikTok settings or change them.

Set up a new and more anonymous TikTok account. Create an email address that you only use for your TikTok account.

Block TikTok from collecting information on what you do outside of its app. On iPhones and Android devices, say no when the app asks for permission to track you — or, even better, adjust the setting so no apps can do so.

Watch TikTok videos on a web browser instead of in the app. You won’t get a personalized feed of videos or be able to follow specific accounts, but you can just watch individual TikTok videos on the web without downloading the app at all.

For parents, TikTok has a feature to link their accounts with a teen’s. You can control settings including daily time limits for the app and who can comment on your teen’s videos.

Possible TikTok ban

Congress passed legislation to ban or force a sale of TikTok, delivering a historic rebuke of the video-sharing platform’s Chinese ownership.

What the bill does: The bill, which saw bipartisan support in the House and Senate, would require the social media app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell off the immensely popular app or face a nationwide ban. Here’s what you should know about the bill .

What’s next: Biden has said he would sign the TikTok bill, meaning it is expected to soon become law. Once signed, the provision gives ByteDance roughly nine months to sell the wildly popular app or face a national ban, a deadline Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days. TikTok is expected to challenge the measure, setting up a high-stakes and potentially lengthy legal battle over the app’s fate.

Reactions: TikTok creators say a ban would threaten their lives and livelihoods, while young users of the app previously asked Congress why they aren’t focusing on “bigger problems.”

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By Shira Ovide

Shira Ovide writes The Washington Post's The Tech Friend, a newsletter about making your technology into a force for good. She has been a technology journalist for more than a decade and wrote a tech newsletter at the New York Times.

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Tatum Hunter writes about personal technology and its impact on our wallets, brains and environment. She joined The Washington Post from Built In, where she covered software and the tech workforce. Twitter

By Heather Kelly

Heather Kelly is a San Francisco-based reporter covering the ways technology affects everyday life. Twitter

13. New Group Joins the Political Fight Over Disinformation Online

The American Sunlight Project.

Excerpts:

The American Sunlight Project has been established as a nonprofit under the section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows it greater leeway to lobby than tax-exempt charities known as 501(c)(3)s. It also does not have to disclose its donors, which Ms. Jankowicz declined to do, though she said the project had initial commitments of $1 million in donations.

The budget pales in comparison with those behind the counteroffensive like America First Legal, the Trump-aligned group that, with a war chest in the tens of millions of dollars, has sued researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington over their collaboration with government officials to combat misinformation about voting and Covid-19.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in a federal lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accusing government agencies of using the researchers as proxies to pressure social media platforms to take down or restrict the reach of accounts.

The idea for the American Sunlight Project grew out of Ms. Jankowicz’s experience in 2022 when she was appointed executive director of a newly created Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security.

From the instant the board became public, it faced fierce criticism portraying it as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth that would censor dissenting voices in violation of the First Amendment, though in reality it had only an advisory role and no enforcement authority.

Ms. Jankowicz, an expert on Russian disinformation who once served as an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stepped down shortly after her appointment. Even then, she faced such a torrent of personal threats online that she hired a security consultant. The board was suspended and then, after a short review, abolished.

“I think we’re existing in an information environment where it is very easy to weaponize information and to make it seem sinister,” Mr. Álvarez-Aranyos said. “And I think we’re looking for transparency. I mean, this is sunlight in the very literal sense.”

New Group Joins the Political Fight Over Disinformation Online

The group intends to fight what its leader, Nina Jankowicz, and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and their allies to undermine researchers who study disinformation.

Nina Jankowicz of the American Sunlight Project, a new advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that aims to push back against disinformation online.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

By Steven Lee Myers and Jim Rutenberg

Published April 22, 2024

Updated April 24, 2024, 12:33 a.m. ET

Two years ago, Nina Jankowicz briefly led an agency at the Department of Homeland Security created to fight disinformation — the establishment of which provoked a political and legal battle over the government’s role in policing lies and other harmful content online that continues to reverberate.

Now she has re-entered the fray with a new nonprofit organization intended to fight what she and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and others to undermine researchers, like her, who study the sources of disinformation.

Already a lightning rod for critics of her work on the subject, Ms. Jankowicz inaugurated the organization with a letter accusing three Republican committee chairmen in the House of Representatives of abusing their subpoena powers to silence think tanks and universities that expose the sources of disinformation.

“These tactics echo the dark days of McCarthyism, but with a frightening 21st-century twist,” she wrote in the letter on Monday with the organization’s co-founder Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos, a public-relations consultant who in 2020 was involved in efforts to defend the integrity of the American voting system.

The inception of the group, the American Sunlight Project, reflects how divisive the issue of identifying and combating disinformation has become as the 2024 presidential election approaches. It also represents a tacit admission that the informal networks formed at major universities and research organizations to address the explosion of disinformation online have failed to mount a substantial defense against a campaign, waged largely on the right, depicting their work as part of an effort to silence conservatives.

Taking place in the courts, in conservative media and on the Republican-led House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the campaign has largely succeeded in eviscerating efforts to monitor disinformation, especially around the integrity of the American election system.

The Spread of Misinformation and Falsehoods

Political Fight Online: A new group intends to fight what its leader, Nina Jankowicz, and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and their allies to undermine researchers who study disinformation.
Influencing the Election: Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of Donald Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers.
Taking Political Lies to Court: A small but growing cadre of lawyers is deploying defamation, the legal concept of false information, against a tide of political disinformation in the Trump era.
Unproven Rumors: Unsupported claims about celebrities and public figures, including Britney Spears and Catherine, Princess of Wales, keep gaining traction online. Whatever the motivation, what lingers is an urge to question reality.

Many of the nation’s most prominent researchers, facing lawsuits, subpoenas and physical threats, have pulled back.

“More and more researchers were getting swept up by this, and their institutions weren’t either allowing them to respond or responding in a way that really just was not rising to meet the moment,” Ms. Jankowicz said in an interview. “And the problem with that, obviously, is that if we don’t push back on these campaigns, then that’s the prevailing narrative.”

That narrative is prevailing at a time when social media companies have abandoned or cut back efforts to enforce their own policies against certain types of content.

Many experts have warned that the problem of false or misleading content is only going to increase with the advent of artificial intelligence.

“Disinformation will remain an issue as long as the strategic gains of engaging in it, promoting it and profiting from it outweigh consequences for spreading it,” Common Cause, the nonpartisan public interest group, wrote in a report published last week that warned of a new wave of disinformation around this year’s vote.

Ms. Jankowicz said her group would run advertisements about the broad threats and effects of disinformation and produce investigative reports on the backgrounds and financing of groups conducting disinformation campaigns — including those targeting the researchers.

She has joined with two veteran political strategists: Mr. Álvarez-Aranyos, formerly a communications strategist for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that seeks to counter domestic authoritarian threats, and Eddie Vale, formerly of American Bridge, a liberal group devoted to gathering opposition research into Republicans.

The organization’s advisory board includes Katie Harbath, a former Facebook executive who was previously a top digital strategist for Senate Republicans; Ineke Mushovic, a founder of the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that tracks threats to democracy and gay, lesbian and transgender issues; and Benjamin Wittes, a national security legal expert at the Brookings Institution and editor in chief of Lawfare.

“We need to be a little bit more aggressive about how we think about defending the research community,” Mr. Wittes said in an interview, portraying the attacks against it as part of “a coordinated assault on those who have sought to counter disinformation and election interference.”

In the letter to congressional Republicans, Ms. Jankowicz noted the appearance of a fake robocall in President Biden’s voice discouraging voters in New Hampshire from voting in the state’s primary and artificially generated images of former President Donald J. Trump with Black supporters, as well as renewed efforts by China and Russia to spread disinformation to American audiences.

The American Sunlight Project has been established as a nonprofit under the section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows it greater leeway to lobby than tax-exempt charities known as 501(c)(3)s. It also does not have to disclose its donors, which Ms. Jankowicz declined to do, though she said the project had initial commitments of $1 million in donations.

The budget pales in comparison with those behind the counteroffensive like America First Legal, the Trump-aligned group that, with a war chest in the tens of millions of dollars, has sued researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington over their collaboration with government officials to combat misinformation about voting and Covid-19.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in a federal lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accusing government agencies of using the researchers as proxies to pressure social media platforms to take down or restrict the reach of accounts.

The idea for the American Sunlight Project grew out of Ms. Jankowicz’s experience in 2022 when she was appointed executive director of a newly created Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security.

From the instant the board became public, it faced fierce criticism portraying it as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth that would censor dissenting voices in violation of the First Amendment, though in reality it had only an advisory role and no enforcement authority.

Ms. Jankowicz, an expert on Russian disinformation who once served as an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stepped down shortly after her appointment. Even then, she faced such a torrent of personal threats online that she hired a security consultant. The board was suspended and then, after a short review, abolished.

“I think we’re existing in an information environment where it is very easy to weaponize information and to make it seem sinister,” Mr. Álvarez-Aranyos said. “And I think we’re looking for transparency. I mean, this is sunlight in the very literal sense.”

Ms. Jankowicz said that she was aware that her involvement with the new group would draw out her critics, but that she was well positioned to lead it because she had already “gone through the worst of it.”

Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation and disinformation from San Francisco. Since joining The Times in 1989, he has reported from around the world, including Moscow, Baghdad, Beijing and Seoul. More about Steven Lee Myers

Jim Rutenberg is a writer at large for The Times and The New York Times Magazine and writes most often about media and politics. More about Jim Rutenberg

A version of this article appears in print on April 24, 2024, Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Group Joins Political Battle Over Disinformation Online. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

14. Exclusive: New evidence challenges the Pentagon’s account of a horrific attack as the US withdrew from Afghanistan | CNN

Photos, video, and imagery at the link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/world/new-evidence-challenges-pentagon-account-kabul-airport-attack-intl/index.html

Exclusive: New evidence challenges the Pentagon’s account of a horrific attack as the US withdrew from Afghanistan | CNN

CNN · by Nick Paton Walsh, Mick Krever, Mark Baron · April 24, 2024

Watch US Marine's GoPro footage that challenges Pentagon’s account of attack at Kabul airport

04:56 - Source: CNN

CNN —

New video evidence uncovered by CNN significantly undermines two Pentagon investigations, the latest of which was released last week, into an ISIS-K suicide attack outside Kabul airport, during the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The incident was a gruesome coda to America’s longest war, leaving dead 13 United States military service members and about 170 Afghans who were desperately seeking US help to flee the Taliban takeover of Kabul. For two years, the US military has insisted that the loss of life was caused by a single explosion, and that troops who reported coming under fire and returning it were likely confused in the chaotic aftermath, some suffering from the effects of blast concussion.

But video captured by a Marine’s GoPro camera that has not been seen publicly in full before shows there was far more gunfire than the Pentagon has ever admitted. A dozen US military personnel, who were on the scene and spoke to CNN anonymously for fear of reprisals, have described the gunfire in detail. One told CNN he heard the first large burst of shooting come from where US Marines were standing, near the blast site. “It wasn’t onesies and twosies,” the Marine said. “It was a mass volume of gunfire.”

An Afghan doctor who spoke to CNN on the record for the first time said he personally pulled bullets from the wounded, and with his hospital staff counted dozens of Afghans who died from gunshot wounds.

Combined, the new evidence challenges the credibility of the two US military investigations and raises serious questions for the Pentagon, which has continued to dismiss mounting evidence that civilians were shot dead.

Afghans struggle to reach foreign forces in desperate attempts flee the country before the blast outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, on August 26 2021.

Akhter Gulfam/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The blast at 5:36 p.m. on August 26, 2021, outside Hamid Karzai International Airport marked the worst casualty incident for Afghan civilians and US troops in Afghanistan in over a decade.

For days, hundreds of desperate Afghans – military aged-men, women, children, and the elderly – had been standing in the blistering heat, hoping to persuade their way into the airport and onto a stream of US cargo planes that flew over a hundred thousand people out to safety.

The scene outside the airport’s Abbey Gate, where crowds were densest, was gruesome even before the blast. Former translators and other Afghans who had assisted the near-20-year NATO presence waded in trash and knee-deep sewage water that filled a concrete drainage canal.

When an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated a backpack device just above the densely populated concrete canal, the evacuation was drastically curtailed.

The Pentagon has insisted all deaths and injuries were caused by the explosive device and the ball bearings it fired into the crowd. Though it has acknowledged there was gunfire from American and British forces, it says that was limited to three bursts that were near-simultaneous – one of 25 to 30 warning shots from UK troops, and two bursts of fire from US troops aimed at suspected militants, which did not hit anyone.

The US Army Central Command ordered a supplemental review into the incident in September 2023, after criticism of its investigation’s conclusions, particularly around whether the bombing could have been prevented – in harrowing emotional testimony from survivors on social media and to Congressional hearings.

Those results, which were released on April 15, reaffirmed that a lone ISIS-K bomber carried out the attack, and found that “new information obtained during the review did not materially impact the findings in the November 2021” investigation, and the review “did not recommend any modifications to those findings.” The review did not pursue numerous reports from Afghan survivors of significant gunfire in the wake of the blast.

Department of Defense/AP

The Marine’s GoPro footage runs nearly continuously for many minutes before and after the blast. It shows 11 episodes of shooting after the explosion, over nearly four minutes. This is significantly more than the three “near simultaneous” bursts of gunfire that the Pentagon investigations have claimed occurred.

One sustained burst of about 17 gunshots comes just over 30 seconds after the bomb detonates, according to the video, with the other 10 bursts of two to three rounds each. At no point are Marines seen firing on camera or is anyone visibly hit by gunfire. It is unclear where the gunmen are or what they are firing at.

It shows Marines, some on their first deployment to a warzone, race for cover from gunfire, and choke from CS gas released when the blast tore open a canister on a Marine’s flak jacket.

One Marine, presumably the cameraman, notes after the blast: “I got that on film, dude.” Seconds later, as Afghans seem to race towards the airport walls to seek safety, another voice adds: “They’re breaking through.” The remainder of the footage shows the Marines swiftly getting accountability of their own units, struggling to come to terms with the blast’s impact, and hearing a steady series of controlled, isolated bursts of gunfire close by.

Clothes and blood stains at the scene on August 27, 2021.

Wakil Koshar/AFP/Getty Images

Robert Maher, an audio forensic expert at Montana State University in Bozeman, who reviewed the footage for CNN, found at least 11 episodes of gunfire over a four-minute window, totaling a minimum of 43 shots. He added that the burst near the start contained at least 17 shots, with multiple weapons likely firing and overlapping. He said in two other bursts of fire, the rounds appeared to follow a “crack-boom” sequence – the crack of the bullet breaching the sound barrier recorded before the sound of the gunshot reached the microphone – indicating the bullet traveled over or across the camera.

Sarah Morris, a digital forensics expert from the University of Southampton in England, examined both the audio and video files for evidence of digital corruption, alteration, or manipulation, and found none. She said the location data and metadata of the two clips that lead up to and follow the blast showed they were filmed “very close to each other.”

Separately, Morris used an algorithm to phase out predictable background noise on a GoPro from clothing or motion, and found in 16 instances where there were peaks in audio which she said were “unusual noises that appear consistent with a firearm.” The 16 overlapped with the 11 episodes discerned by Maher.

While some Marines aid wounded Afghans, the video also shows that, 21 minutes and 49 seconds after the bombing, Marines fired a CS gas canister from inside the airport walls towards the area near the blast. It may have landed near injured and dead Afghan civilians, still gathered around the sewage trench that ran along the scene of the blast at that time, according to videos shared on social media.

The Pentagon’s investigations have made no reference to the video, half an hour of which CNN obtained. It is unclear how much of it the Pentagon saw prior to publication of this story. It released four seconds of the video – the moment of the blast itself – as part of its initial investigation in February 2022, although the source of that brief clip remains unclear.

CNN described the full video and findings of this story in significant detail to the Pentagon ahead of publication. A spokesman said the Pentagon would need to see any “new, previously unseen, video out there” before assessing it. Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, public affairs adviser to the supplemental review team, said the latest review supported the Pentagon’s initial findings.

He said in a statement: “The 2021-2022 Abbey Gate Investigation thoroughly investigated the allegations of a complex attack”, which would have involved gunfire from militants after the blast, “as well as allegations of outgoing fire from US and coalition forces following the blast. The Supplemental Review found no new evidence of a complex attack, and uncovered no new assertions of outgoing fire post-blast. Consequently, the Supplemental Review found no materialistic impact to the original findings of the Abbey Gate investigation.”

A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defense said that its troops fired “warning shots above the crowd to prevent a surge,” none of which were fired at people – the same position it held in 2022.

The bombing area at Kabul airport's Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, prior to the explosion.

U.S. Central Command/AP

CNN has previously reported that 19 Afghan witnesses said they saw gunfire or were shot themselves.

“I saw people who were injured in the explosion trying to get up, but they fired on them,” Shogofa Hamidi, whose sister Morsal was shot in the face, told CNN for an in-depth report published in February 2022. “They were targeting people,” another, Nazir, 16, told CNN. “In front of me, people were getting shot at and falling down.”

Noorullah Zakhel, whose cousin was killed, said that bullets appeared to hit those who tried to flee, and recalled soldiers standing in front of him, as he dropped to the ground below the canal wall. Their accounts were supported by that of a doctor and 13 medical reports which detailed bullet wounds among Afghans.

In 2022, Dr. Sayeed Ahmadi, director of the Wazir Akhbar Khan hospital in Kabul, spoke to CNN anonymously as he feared for his safety. He now has asylum in Finland, where he agreed to speak on camera about the harrowing scenes that night in his trauma unit.

“Explosion injuries come with severe injuries and lots of holes in the bodies,” he explained. “But people who were shot had just one or two holes in the chest or head.”

Ahmadi spent many years treating injuries across war-torn Afghanistan. “Of course, when you see the bullets, it’s totally different from the ball bearing. Everybody knows if they are a soldier or a doctor.”

Video obtained by CNN shows bodies piling up outside the hospital on the night of the attack. As they treated patients, Ahmadi said he received a threatening phone call telling him to stop his team from recording which patients had been shot and who had been killed or injured by the blast.

Afghan doctor: ‘More than half were killed by gunshot’

00:57 - Source: CNN

“He spoke fluently Dari,” he said. “He told me, ‘What are you doing, Doctor? You love your life. You love your family. This is not good when you are collecting that data. It would make a big dangerous situation for you. You should stop that as soon as possible.’”

The man called another time to repeat the warning, and Ahmadi advised his team to stop recording data and destroy the evidence they had collected.

The Pentagon, in response to Ahmadi’s initial anonymous statement to CNN in 2022 that he had treated gunshot wounds, said that he was mistaken. They said bullet and ball-bearing injuries are hard to distinguish – a claim disputed by multiple combat medics who spoke to CNN, and by Ahmadi himself.

Ahmadi said he was never approached by American investigators.

“I hope one day they ask me,” he said. “Now I am safe. I feel well… Sometimes just this secret that I have in my mind haunts me.”

Pentagon spokesman Lodewick said no Afghans were interviewed for the original AR 15-6 investigation “because its scope and focus on US operations did not demand it.” He said the supplemental review was “even more refined” in its scope, focusing more on events before the blast and the bomber, “and again presented no overwhelming need for the pursuit of external Afghan-centric information.”

A wounded patient is brought by taxi to the hospital in Kabul on the day of the attack.

Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Accounts from US servicemen of the aftermath have often been dismissed by officials as the product of blast concussion, or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). As Marine survivors leave active duty and continue to struggle with their trauma and an official narrative that jars with their personal experience, their dissent has grown.

CNN spoke with about ten Marines anonymously, many of whom described hearing gunfire and feeling under attack from it. Some have reported seeing what they thought was a militant gunman. The Pentagon has insisted no other gunmen opened fire in the area at the time of the attack, bar US and UK troops. No American or Afghan witness has specifically stated they directly saw a militant open fire.

One Marine, who decided to speak out of conscience and requested anonymity, fearing reprisals for his account, has become the first American eyewitness to describe shots fired from where US personnel were located. He said that the burst of gunfire after the explosion – heard by witnesses on the ground and audible in the new video – came from the area around the Abbey Gate sniper tower, where US Marines were grouped.

While he could not be certain the Marines had fired directly into the crowd of Afghan civilians in front of them, he said: “They would not have fired into the air.” Marines had been told to not fire warnings shots, he said, as these rounds fired in the air often landed later in civilian areas. “It wasn’t a direct order,” he added. “But it was a common understanding: no warning shots.” He said he did not think any of the shots fired in the four-minute window of gunfire audible on the new video would have been warning shots.

A Marine eyewitness told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh (left) that the burst of gunfire after the explosion – heard by witnesses on the ground and audible in the new video – came from the area around the Abbey Gate sniper tower, where US Marines were grouped.

CNN

Public orders issued in the Navy in December 2020 banned warning shots unless specifically permitted on deployment. The Pentagon’s report said Marines from the 2/1 unit that made up most of those on the scene “did not use warning shots and only used flash bang grenades infrequently.” The Marine said he did not see any US military open fire and did not fire himself.

The Marine calmly described key details of blast and its aftermath, but became emotional when discussing the Pentagon’s investigations, including what he described as a lack of transparency about what happened, and the possible role Marine gunfire played in raising the Afghan civilian death toll.

But he defended the immediate response of his colleagues under attack. “The reaction that the Marines had was a reaction that I believe anybody trained to do in that scenario would have had,” he said, suggesting they were in the first phase of the three-stage practice of RTR – Returning fire, Taking cover and then Returning accurate fire.

Alicia Lopez, the mother of Marine Corps Corporal Hunter Lopez who was killed in Afghanistan, cries as she speaks about her son during "A Gold Star Families Roundtable: Examining the Abbey Gate Terrorist Attack" before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on August 29.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

“You’ve got to think, these are kids,” he said. “They’re young. And they’ve only been taught what they’ve been taught. Some of these kids had been with the unit for quite literally two, three months prior to deployment. They didn’t have the training to be able to recognize some of the things that, you know, might have occurred – nor could you have the training for what had happened on August 26. Or really what happened in Kabul.”

He said the significant gunfire response from Marines after the blast was common knowledge among Marine survivors, even though it was not spoken of publicly. “It’s incredibly weird,” he said. “It’s frustrating, you know? Why hide from what happened?”

Reacting to the Pentagon’s dismissal of accounts from US personnel who recalled gunfire as the product of TBI, the Marine said: “It’s a pathetic excuse. To say that every Marine, every soldier, every Navy corpsman on the deck has a traumatic brain injury and cannot remember gunfire is, is lunacy. It’s outright disrespectful. And especially for it to come from somebody that wasn’t there.”

“To the Afghani [sic] families – I’m sorry that after 20 years of war, that that is the way that this (was) conducted. And that we weren’t able to uphold a promise that we gave your people after removing the Taliban in 2001. And it should not have ended like that.”

Evacuees aboard a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft during the Afghanistan evacuation from Kabul on August 21, 2021.

Senior Airman Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force/Reuters

Many of the 10 other Marines with whom CNN spoke anonymously also describe gunfire.

One told CNN that he ran through a hole in the fence outside the Abbey Gate in the minute after the blast to assist with the wounded. As he emerged, he said, he heard suppressed rifle fire nearby from another Marine. Many US Marines’ rifles were fitted with suppressors, reducing the noise of their fire, according to footage from the incident.

“I would probably say five, 10 meters away from me, was where it was,” he said. He said the Marine firing was not from his own unit, and after he had opened fire, “whoever was shooting at us wasn’t shooting at us anymore.”

Another Marine told CNN he was about 20 meters (65 feet) from the blast. “There was definitely, shooting,” he said. “Snapping over our heads after the blast and it wasn’t the Taliban.” He said he used his rifle optic to look at the Taliban, who were some distance away on nearby shipping containers used to control access to the Abbey Gate area. “When I looked over at them, none of them were holding their guns. They looked just as shocked as us.”

Other US servicemen who said they witnessed gunfire in the aftermath of the bombing have spoken out on social media.

Hear two Marines recount what they remember from attack

01:26 - Source: CNN

Sgt. Romel Finley, who received a Purple Heart, said that another sergeant ordered US troops into position to open fire after the bomb blast. Finley told The Brrks YouTube channel, a social media account run by a former Marine and Master Barber which interviews active or former Marines, that he recalled, while being dragged from the scene, “My platoon sergeant running past us, saying ‘get back on that wall and shoot back at those motherf**kers.’ So I was like, we are in a gunfight too.”

Finley, who sustained significant leg injuries in the attack, added that he did not witness Marines firing, or responding to the order. He declined to comment to CNN, as did his platoon sergeant. CNN is withholding the names of Marines who did not specifically consent to being identified in interviews.

Christian Sanchez, another Marine survivor, who was injured in his left arm, told the same Brrks Barber channel that he opened fire after the blast. “All I see is flashes. And all I could hear was ringing. Like all hear is ringing and f**king flashes going on. And I start hearing snaps. And I start realizing that that’s a f**king dude shooting at me,” he said. “And I just started shooting at the dude,” he added, breaking down.

Sanchez also declined to speak to CNN about his recollections and it is unclear if he specifically saw the purported militant gunman open fire.

Significant gaps remain in the evidence presented by the Pentagon. Investigators have only released five edited minutes of drone footage from the aftermath, which they said supported their findings that no gunfire hit anyone.

A recent congressional hearing for the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and then-Central Command Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie ended with Congressman Darrell Issa presenting the two generals with a list of unpublished video that, under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon had admitted they held. The generals told the session they had seen the videos, and that it should be released to congressional investigators.

Another American military survivor who spoke to CNN said he had endured two years of “leadership saying what you saw was basically not the truth.” He summarized the two investigations as: “Shut your mouth. We’ll talk for you.”

Watch the full five minutes of GoPro footage here:

See the full five minutes after the blast

05:29 - Source: CNN

Reporting team for CNN’s 2022 special report: Nick Paton Walsh, Sandi Sidhu, Julia Hollingsworth, Masoud Popalzai, Sitara Zamani, Abdul Basir Bina, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore.

CNN · by Nick Paton Walsh, Mick Krever, Mark Baron · April 24, 2024

15. Office Works to Unify DOD Responses, Efforts Across the Globe

USD(P). Includes a discussion of the National Defense Strategy.

Office Works to Unify DOD Responses, Efforts Across the Globe

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

A football team is only as good as the game plan it follows, and the same could be said for the Defense Department.

A football team cannot have the receivers running routes the quarterback doesn't expect, nor can linemen block just whomever they want. This doesn't mean there can't be adjustments as the game progresses, but everyone on the team must work toward a common purpose.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has said this is an uncertain time with Russia invading Ukraine, China looking to overturn the international security order, Iran sowing disorder throughout the Middle East and North Korea developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. On top of that, the world still must guard against the dangers posed by violent extremist groups like Hamas, the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

Sasha Baker

Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Sasha Baker speaks to the College of William and Mary students during their visit to the Pentagon, Washington, Jan. 12, 2024.

Download: Full Size (1.23 MB)

Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza

VIRIN: 240112-D-PM193-1049Y

The DOD team must work together to confront these many challenges, said Sasha Baker, the acting undersecretary of defense for policy. Baker, who leaves office at the end of this month, spoke of the efforts the Pentagon "Policy Shop" has made to ensure all aspects in the department work together to achieve the country's security goals.

Ukraine is a classic example of this effort. "It has been an all-hands-on-deck effort," she said. "And it I think Policy has played a lead, convening role in making that happen and bringing together the different elements of the department — the services, the [defense] components, the combatant commands that have equities."

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, many observers expected Russia would achieve a quick victory. On paper, Vladimir Putin's military vastly outnumbered and outgunned Ukraine. Even before the invasion, the U.S. government was shipping Ukraine the equipment it needed to defend its sovereignty. Once Russian troops approached the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, that effort went on steroids.

Spotlight: Support for Ukraine

Austin convened meetings of like-minded nations in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has grown to an alliance of more than 50 nations. It started with the group sending anti-armor weapons like Javelins and anti-air Stinger missile systems. It grew to highly accurate tube-launched and rocket artillery, armored vehicles, tanks and more.

"It has truly been a whole of department effort, everyone from … the Army scouring its stocks to dig deeper and find equipment, through to [the U.S. Transportation Command], figuring out new ways to move things as fast as possible so that it gets to Ukraine at the moment of need," Baker said. "And all of that has had to be almost invented out of whole cloth."

While the department has had presidential drawdown authority for years, it has never been used to this scope, she said. "It's typically limited to a couple $100 million a year. And we've moved over upwards of $50 billion at this point."

This has required DOD to bust through bureaucratic barriers and invent new ways of doing things, she said. The "beating heart" of this process goes by the totally bureaucratic name of "the cross-departmental working group." The group has become pivotal in funneling aid to Ukraine. The policy office chairs the group, and it includes the services, the joint staff, the U.S. European Command, Transcom and the various staff functions that grease the skids in government.

"It is everybody who has an equity," Baker said. "And we sit around the table and we debate and everyone essentially gets a vote or an ability to make a recommendation to the secretary from their perspectives and their equities."

Tank Buddies

Army Sgt. 1st Class David Jones, left, an operations advisor with the 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade, shakes hands with Marine Cpl. Stanimir Nenov with the 42nd Mechanized Battalion, 2nd Mechanized Brigade, Bulgarian Land Forces, after a demonstration of capabilities at Bulgaria’s Armed Forces Day celebration at Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria, May 6, 2022.

Download: Full Size (3.92 MB)

Photo By: Army Capt. Angelo Mejia

VIRIN: 220506-A-PD523-1007

The group balances Ukraine's crucial needs with DOD's own readiness concerns. "We have to go through all of those wickets, but it's not like rocket science to do this," she said. "But having everybody be in the same room at the same time has been a game changer. Because rather than us circulating a piece of paper around the department where everyone takes a week with it, we're all in the room. If people have questions they can get answered in real time. If there's a debate, we can have it face-to-face. It has expedited the process and allowed us to provide the secretary with recommendations that are timely for something that's clearly urgent."

And it was all brand new. Nothing like this had been done in the past. But now it is part of the muscle memory of the department, Baker said, and when Congress approves the new money for Ukraine, the groups will be able to continue without a hiccup.

Baker praised the work of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which runs the foreign military sales process. This small agency "has stepped up in a huge way," she said. "They do all of the back end around this: The execution orders, the tracking, the nitty gritty details."

Underpinning all this, however, is the National Defense Strategy. This is the document that sets the parameters for the department, its missions and how the various DOD entities will work together. Secretary Austin emphasizes the strategy in almost every public utterance. It is the document that calls China DOD's "pacing challenge" and Russia an "acute threat." It looks to Iran, North Korea and terror groups as dangers that need to be monitored and addressed. It also is the strategy that ensures the department provides the resources to take care of service members and their families.

Spotlight: National Defense Strategy

The importance of defense strategies in the past have waxed and waned depending on the threats and U.S. circumstances.

This strategy is a living breathing document.

"This is not a document that's designed to just sit on a shelf and then be forgotten," Baker said.

The strategy is a priority for Secretary Austin and the undersecretary for policy is instrumental in ensuring that any decisions made conform with that document. "It was [Secretary Austin's] vision to do it this way, to embed the strategy in everything that we do," she said. "We wrote not only a strategy, but also an implementation plan for the strategy that looks at every task that is in the strategy — whether it's explicit or implicit — and assigns to it an office of primary responsibility. So everyone knows what the strategy expects of them."

What's more, Austin has asked for quarterly progress reports on these implementation plans. "We're constantly measuring ourselves in our progress against the strategy," she said.

And the department looks to amend the strategy as needed. Baker said there was a conscious effort to ensure there was flexibility in the strategy to account for new situations, challenges and threats.

Sasha Baker

Navy Rear Adm. Mark A. Melson, the commander of Logistics Group Western Pacific/Task Force 73 gives a tour of the Sembawang Naval Installation waterfront to Sasha Baker, acting undersecretary of defense for policy, during her stop in Singapore.

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Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Heath Zeigler

VIRIN: 230916-N-JC800-1045Y

This strategy is used to formulate budgets. "We have what I think is an alignment between the strategy and the budget that really, I have not seen in the past," Baker said.

She said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has been instrumental in the process of consulting the strategy in budgetary matters. "She is deeply aware of the role that these documents … can play in driving change in this building."

As the budget is built, DOD officials have to ask if a proposal aligns with the strategy.

Another part of the strategy is the emphasis on working with allies and partners around the world, and of course, the policy office has a large role to play.

Since the French came to the aid of the fledgling United States during the Revolution, the United States has depended on allies. Outreach to established allies and friends must continue, as should outreach to other nations.

Baker noted the paucity of allies that Russia has, with Vladimir Putin depending on Iran and North Korea for aid in its illegal war on Ukraine.

"President [Joe] Biden believes to his core, that we are stronger when we work with our allies and partners, that it is a unique advantage that we have in the world," Baker said.

Spotlight: NATO

NATO is the poster child of this effort with 32 nations in the defensive alliance now. But the Indo-Pacific region is where the greatest change has happened. The relationships among treaty allies Australia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand are closer now than they have ever been, she said.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific

The U.S. outreach to the nations of Southeast Asia including Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and others has been met with acceptance and trust.

The biggest change may be the U.S. relationship with India. The two countries have signed coproduction deals for military capabilities that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, Baker said.

"There is just a real competitive advantage that we have when we approach the world because we are almost never doing it alone," she said. "And it has been the primary effort of this administration, and certainly my tenure in this role, to do everything we can to broaden and deepen those partnerships and those alliances, and we're making progress across the board."

Looking ahead, Baker says the nation is "on the cusp of the next great American generation on the world stage."

This is a decisive decade, because there is a series of choices that must be made, she said. "What are we going to do to tackle climate change? And how are we grappling with the sort of guard rails and left and right boundaries for new technologies, whether that is artificial intelligence, or hypersonics, or quantum computing, or something that we can't imagine?"

A key is how the United States manages the geopolitical situation with China, which looks to be the most consequential relationship of the remainder of the 21st century.

"All of these are choices we have to make, which I believe will reverberate in a positive way, for generations … to come," she said.

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

16. The Principles for the Future of Warfare and Stand-Off Warfare

Download the 15 page reports at this link: https://www.ausa.org/file/116068/download?token=u0i53lNz

Introduction is pasted below.

This is a fascinating read that I think should stir some important debate.

This paragraph from the conclusion gets to the heart of the issues. I take issue with the idea that we are transitioning away from the human centric era of warfare. Unless we are going to cede decisionmaking to AI, warfare will always be human centric. As long as humans are in the loop for decision making it is human centric warfare. As long as leadership is executed by people, it will be human centric. As long as politics is conducted by people, it will be human centric. As long as people are willing to resist oppression, it will be human centric. I think I could go on.

Excerpt:

Brodie points out that one of the reasons so little change occurs in military thought is not conservatism or the lag of tactical and strategic concepts behind developments in materiel but rather “the absence of the habit of scientific thinking.”32 Perhaps Brodie’s assessment is a bit harsh, but maybe he’s also correct to some extent. For the Army’s principles of war to remain relatively unchanged for nearly 100 years does not reflect their timelessness but rather the community of interests’ unwillingness to engage with the material in any meaningful way. This neglect should be alarming, especially considering that we are transitioning from a very human-centric era of warfare into one that will arguably be dominated by artificial intelligence, human-machine integrated formations and a multitude of autonomous systems. Therefore, a handful of considerations might be helpful for evolving Army concepts and doctrine as we continue to integrate novel information age technology into how the Army might operate, organize and equip for conflicts in the future.

The Principles for the Future of Warfare and Stand-Off Warfare

https://www.ausa.org/publications/principles-future-warfare-and-stand-warfare

April 22, 2024

by LTC Amos C. Fox, USA

Landpower Essay 24-4, April 2024

This publication is only available online.

IN BRIEF

Like the principles of war, the principles and inverse principles of warfare represent the first-order principles militaries must adhere to when engaged in armed conflict. They are the animating forces that underpin the basic requirements which transcend technology of land forces.
As we transition from a human-centric era of warfare into one that will arguably be dominated by artificial intelligence, human-machine integrated formations and a multitude of autonomous systems, Army concepts and doctrine must evolve. The Army must boldly push into new and challenging cognitive areas to help forecast how war and warfare might change, remaining open to novel terminology, concepts and doctrinal ideas.
Concept developers, doctrine developers, science and technology experts and force designers must work together to develop pragmatic ideas and designs for future forces that integrate the key aspects of future technology without neglecting the enduring challenges of land warfare.

This is the third article in an AUSA series examining the future of armed conflict. The first in the series, Western Military Thinking and Breaking Free from the Tetrarch of Modern Military Thinking (Landpower Essay 23-6, August 2023), is available here, and the second, Myths and Principles in the Challenges of Future War (Land Warfare Paper 23-7, December 2023), is available here.

Building on the principles and inverse principles of war introduced in the previous article, this installment examines the principles and inverse principles of warfare and their roles in the changing landscape.

INTRODUCTION

Writing about the principles of war in 1949, American military strategist Bernard Brodie posited, “The rules fathered by Jomini and Clausewitz may still be fundamental, but they will not tell one how to prepare for or fight a war.”1 Brodie’s comments in the wake of World War II meant to account for the vast amount of change experienced by all sides during that conflict. At the time, Brodie attributed the longevity of the principles of war, which had changed little since J.F.C. Fuller formalized them in the 1920s and 1930s, to three factors. First, the principles provided military practitioners “exceptional convenience,” and second, in their current form, they lent themselves well to “indoctrination.”2 Third, because of their convenience and ease for indoctrination, the existing principles of war remain ideally suited for professional military education, which is short and thus rewards lightweight material that can be learned quickly with simple mnemonics, acronyms and other heuristics.3 Brodie basically argues that the principles of war have not changed because it is simply easier to keep them as they are than it is to develop new principles more reflective of modern technology and methodologies of warfighting. Put another way, intellectual laziness often results in institutions shoehorning new technologies and seemingly novel techniques into extant language, taxonomies and doctrines.

In recent years, a few forward-thinking thought leaders have bravely pushed for reform in military thinking despite institutional recalcitrance quite similar to that which Brodie highlighted some 70 years ago. This advocacy is not limited to principles of war or warfare but also encourages new theories, methodologies and terminology that attempt to keep pace with or even set the pace for advances or general evolutions in military and dual-use technology. The emergence of formations like the Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) and the theater fires command and new weapon systems therein, for instance, require a rebalance of how and why the Army organizes the battlefield the way it does. This is nothing new. In 1925 J.F.C. Fuller wrote, “Changes of weapons must be accompanied by a change in tactical ideas.”4

This article attempts to fulfill the charge of both Brodie and Fuller. A previous article addressed the principles of war from a historical and theoretical perspective, providing a set of nine principles of war that were oriented around the idea of large-scale combat operations.5 This article builds on those ideas but also uses the framework provided in its preceding paper, Myths and Principles in the Challenges of Future War.6 Further, this article balances those principles of warfare against the enduring challenges that armies must address in land wars while examining whether ideas on future warfighting concepts can effectively accomplish what’s needed in those situations too. Moreover, this article provides an easy heuristic to help illustrate the concept of future warfare—stylized herein as stand-off warfare—and demonstrates how it is insufficient to meet the challenges of land warfare and cannot keep pace with the principles of warfare.

PRINCIPLES OF WARFARE

The principles of warfare should be waypoints for how military forces operate when engaged in armed conflict. Moreover, the principles of warfare should be easily identifiable in a military force’s strategy, concepts, plans, operations, doctrine and activities. Perhaps more importantly, the inverse principles of warfare should be easy to identify in one’s strategy, concepts, plans, operations, doctrine and activities. By being easy to identify, and written in plain language, the principles and inverse principles of warfare help guide military forces along the proven path of military and political victory in a conflict.

Continue reading online here: https://www.ausa.org/publications/principles-future-warfare-and-stand-warfare

17. TikTok Ban Looms With Biden Poised to Start 270-Day Countdown

I wonder if TikTok will add a 270 day countdown clock to its app. its messaging has proven to be superior to its opponents. The commercials I see on TV are pretty sophisticated and make TikTok sound like a very good service that protects Aemricans' data.

TikTok Ban Looms With Biden Poised to Start 270-Day Countdown

China’s ByteDance faces deadline to sell app under US measure
Company braces for legal fight against divest-or-ban efforts

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/tiktok-s-us-ban-looms-as-biden-prepares-to-sign-law-with-a-270-day-sale-deadline?sref=hhjZtX76

By Alex Barinka

April 24, 2024 at 12:49 AM EDT

For TikTok, the clock has started running in its existential fight to avoid a US ban.

Legislation requiring the social media app’s Chinese owners to divest sailed through Congress, capped by Senate passage late Tuesday as part of a larger foreign-aid package. President Joe Biden plans to sign it Wednesday — beginning a 270-day countdown for a sale or a US prohibition of the popular video-sharing platform.

TikTok and Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd. have vowed to do all they can to stop the measure. They’ve argued it infringes the free-speech rights of the app’s 170 million monthly US users and plan to file suits to void the law or at least delay its enforcement.

“We’ll continue to fight,” Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, said in a memo to US staff this past week. “This is the beginning, not the end of this long process.”

US Senate Passes TikTok Ban-or-Divest Bill, Sending it to Biden to Sign Into Law

Play

3:39

TCH: The US Senate voted to ban social media app TikTok’s ownership by Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. Steven Dennis reports.

Biden’s signature will cap years of scrutiny in Washington, where regulators and lawmakers from both parties have voiced increased concern that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a risk to US national security. Proponents of the bill claim that China’s government uses TikTok as a propaganda tool and could demand that ByteDance share US users’ data — allegations the company and officials in Beijing have denied.

TikTok Makes Effort to Avoid EU Fine Under New Digital Rules

Trump Tries Wedge Between Biden, Youth With TikTok About-Face

What a TikTok Ban in the US Would Mean for the App: QuickTake

With the legal battle set to unfold, TikTok’s US users face a wave of uncertainty about a place to express themselves via video, make money as influencers or sell wares on TikTok Shop. If implemented, a TiKTok ban would risk disrupting “a critical channel for engaging with younger audiences and building brand visibility,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights at SOCi.

“TikTok’s unique format has allowed businesses to showcase products and services creatively, leveraging trends and user-generated content to connect with potential customers,” Rollison said.

TiKTok has invoked economic arguments against the law, saying content creators and merchants who make a living from posting videos and selling goods would be hurt financially. While many US lawmakers who backed the newly passed federal bill think it would survive court review, some rights groups say the First Amendment will be a more difficult hurdle to clear.

“The US government can say that a foreign company can’t do business in the US — it’s just more difficult when the foreign business is a communications system that US users use to communicate with each other,” David Greene, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an interview. “That just has different legal issues.”

More US Online Merchants Turning to TikTok

New downloads of TikTok Shop Seller Center app surge

Source: Data.ai

Note: TikTok Shop Seller Center app launched in the US in May.

When Montana passed a law in 2023 that would outlaw TikTok in the state, the company and a group of content creators sued in separate requests, saying the state measure violated free expression rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. The company funded the users’ lawsuit, according to the New York Times. The judge reviewing the case blocked the ban before it could go into effect.

ByteDance sees a TikTok divestiture as a last resort, according to people familiar with the matter. TikTok’s parent expects it can get a restraining order on the legislation, then wage a legal battle that could last more than a year, Bloomberg has reported.

If TikTok can’t slow enforcement through the legal system, another chance of avoiding a separation may lie with a new administration. Biden’s signing the bill on Wednesday puts the divestiture deadline to Jan. 19 — a day before the next presidential inauguration.

Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, addressed a news conference at the US Capitol last month amid renewed efforts by Congress to force TikTok to sell or face a ban in the US.Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Under the bill, Biden has the option to extend that deadline by an additional 90 days if he sees progress toward a sale. That would push a possible ban well into the next presidential term.

Biden’s opponent in the November election, Donald Trump, has recently come out against a TikTok ban, saying it could boost rival Meta Platforms Inc. — which previously suspended Trump from its platforms. For Trump, that marked a reversal from his decision while president to ban the app via a 2020 executive order that was later voided by federal courts.

The political sensitivities of targeting a social media platform popular with younger users during a US election year were not lost on the bill’s supporters.

“This is not an effort to take your voice away,” Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday before the vote. “To young Americans, I want to say, we hear your concern. We hope that TikTok will continue under new ownership.”

TikTok Inc. chief executive officer Shou Chew appears at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Jan. 31..Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg

Passage marks a significant setback in Washington for ByteDance, which spent $2.7 million in the first quarter on federal lobbying efforts after shelling out a record $8.7 million last year, according to congressional filings. TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Chew made personal appeals on Capitol Hill in an unsuccessful bid to stifle the legislation.

Meanwhile, the company spent more than $2 billion on shielding sensitive US user data, with help from Texas-based Oracle Corp., to try to show that its platform is safe.

With the app back in regulatory and legal limbo, many TikTok users aren’t fleeing just yet. But those who make money on the app are reviewing their options.

Educational Insights, which owns the popular Kanoodle puzzle game, has been using TikTok videos for several years to market its products. The company was among the first merchants to join TikTok Shop as part of an early test before it officially went live.

“At the moment we are definitely monitoring closely,” said Alyssa Weiss, Educational Insights’ senior marketing manager. “We will be ready to pivot should the need arise, but for now, we are still actively rolling out our TikTok plans.”

— With assistance from Anna Edgerton, Spencer Soper, and Sana Pashankar

18. Biden urged to send ATACMS along with air defense systems to Ukraine

Biden urged to send ATACMS along with air defense systems to Ukraine

c4isrnet.com · by Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press · April 23, 2024

(AP) — President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday the U.S. will send badly needed air defense weaponry once the Senate approves a massive national security aid package that includes $61 billion for Ukraine.

Zelensky said in a posting on X that Biden also assured him that a coming package of aid would also include long-range and artillery capabilities.

Ukraine is awaiting U.S. Senate approval after the House this weekend approved the $95 billion package that also includes aid for other allies. It comes after months of delay as some Republican lawmakers opposed further funding for Ukraine and threatened to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., if he allowed a vote to take place.

Kyiv badly needs new firepower as Moscow has stepped up its attacks against an outgunned Ukraine. The Senate is expected to vote on the package this week, and Biden has promised to quickly sign it into law.

Zelenskyy said he and Biden also discussed “Russia’s air terror using thousands of missiles, drones and bombs” including a strike on the Kharkiv TV tower just minutes before they spoke.

“Russia clearly signals its intention to make the city uninhabitable,” Zelenskky said

Russia has exploited air defense shortages in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to pummel the region’s energy infrastructure and harm its 1.3 million residents. Some officials and analysts warn it could be a concerted effort by Moscow to shape conditions for a summer offensive to seize the city.

The White House in a statement confirmed that Biden told Zelenskyy “that his administration will quickly provide significant new security assistance packages to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield and air defense needs as soon as the Senate passes the national security supplemental and he signs it into law.”

“President Biden also underscored that the U.S. economic assistance will help maintain financial stability, build back critical infrastructure following Russian attacks, and support reform as Ukraine moves forward on the path of Euro-Atlantic integration,” according to the White House.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. Congress members on Monday met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv. The delegation included Reps. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, Bill Keating, D-Mass., and Madeleine Deane, D-Pa.

Kean told reporters “we know that the needs of Ukraine are urgent” and U.S. aid is “crucial to stem the tide of Russia’s assaults.”

Kean said Biden should use the authority in the bill to quickly deliver to Ukraine the weapons that it has requested, including the longer-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS.

Zelenskyy said that he discussed with the U.S. lawmakers Ukraine’s need for artillery shells, long-range missiles, electronic warfare equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles, combat aviation and support in developing the Ukrainian defense industry.

They also discussed Ukraine’s bid to eventually join NATO, U.S. participation in an international conference in Switzerland in June aimed at charting a path toward peace in Ukraine, and other issues.

19. Why a C-130 Crew Braved a 26 Hour Flight to Guam

The tyranny of distance. We still have not been able to challenge the laws of physics - time and distance.

Why a C-130 Crew Braved a 26 Hour Flight to Guam

airandspaceforces.com · by David Roza · April 23, 2024

April 23, 2024 | By David Roza

An Air Force C-130J Super Hercules crew braved a long flight around half the planet earlier this month as part of an experiment testing how quickly they could respond to a crisis in the Indo-Pacific.

Dubbed Hazard Leap, the test kicked off on April 18 when two full crews—three pilots and two loadmasters each—in a C-130J assigned to the 40th Airlift Squadron took off from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, bound for Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific that serves as a key military hub. The flight took 26 hours and 33 minutes, including a stop for gas in Hawaii along the way. The C-130J had a toilet on board, but the crew also took a quick bathroom break in Hawaii during the refueling stop, a Dyess Air Force Base spokesperson said.

The “remarkable” journey demonstrated the C-130J’s “ability to operate for extended periods without stopping,” Dyess wrote in a press release. The four-engine turboprop plane could fly even longer than usual thanks to external fuel tanks slung beneath its wings. The tanks added about 17,000 pounds of gas—roughly four extra hours of flying—according to Capt. Anna Santori, a pilot who flew the Hazard Leap mission.

The 40th Airlift Squadron is not the first to fly a C-130J with tanks, but, according to the release, it is the first in Air Mobility Command to use them in a maximum endurance operation (MEO), the term for very long flights meant to test the capabilities of the crew and the aircraft. Units across the Air Force have flown MEOs in recent years to prepare for a possible conflict with China over the vast Pacific Ocean, where Air Mobility Command will be hard-pressed to provide airlift, aerial refueling, and aeromedical evacuation to the rest of the military.

“There is too much water and too much distance [in the Pacific] for anyone else to do it relevantly, at pace, at speed, at scale,” AMC boss Gen. Mike Minihan said in 2022. “Everybody’s role is critical, but Air Mobility Command is the maneuver for the Joint Force. If we don’t have our act together, nobody wins.”

A U.S. Air Force C-130J Super Hercules pilot assigned to the 317th Airlift Wing prepares for takeoff at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, Jan. 8, 2018. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Emily Copeland

Past MEOs included a 36-hour KC-46 flight over the Pacific and a 72-hour KC-135 mission back and forth over the continental U.S. Part of the challenge is the physical and mental strain of flying an aircraft for a long period of time. Air Mobility Command is working on new solutions to help crews develop better awareness and diagnostics of their fatigue and alertness levels, much the same way the plane’s performance is measured by cockpit instruments.

“The status quo is we just ask the crew, ‘Hey, how’s everyone feeling?’” Maj. Nate Mocalis, who took part in the 72-hour KC-135 flight, said in January. “But as humans, we’re really poor judges of objectively assessing our actual fatigue and risk due to our levels of alertness.”

Another part of the challenge is connectivity: mobility aircraft have to be able to send information over vast distances in order to arrive at the right place and time as part of a complex battle plan, but today much of the mobility fleet relies on old-fashioned voice-to-voice communication, which takes a while and is vulnerable to misunderstandings. Minihan is pushing to adopt available technology that allows for secure beyond line of sight data exchange.

“I can just look at a tablet or a screen and I can see it,” Minihan told Air & Space Forces Magazine in February. “I can know which airfields have been bombed or damaged. Then I don’t have to just show up, look at the runway, and say that one’s not for me today. These things are all essential.”

Airmen at Little Rock Air Force Base made progress on the connectivity challenge during a separate MEO earlier this year. Maintainers with the 19th Airlift Wing installed a satellite communications terminal, called the SD/R4i Tactical Removable Airborne Satellite Communications solution, onto the hatch of a C-130J, then the crew successfully tested it during a 26-hour, 20-minute flight, according to the manufacturer, SD Government.

Am image of the SD/R4i Tactical Removeable Airborne Satellite Communications (TRASC) BLOS solution successfully tested by a C-130J crew from the 19th Airlift Wing during a 26-hour flight. (Photo via SD Government)

“Performed as part of Exercise Gnarly Explodeo, the maximum endurance mission recorded 100 percent reliability and availability from the TRASC system as it facilitated secure command and control data communications, defense applications, intelligence updates, electronic flight bags, video conferencing, voice over internet and WiFi calls,” the manufacturer, SD Government, wrote in a press release. Col. Denny Davies, commander of the 19th Airlift Wing, seemed to agree.

“This platform enables global command and control, providing our crew with unparalleled situational awareness,” Davies said in the release. “It makes the C-130 much more resilient and capable in the vastness of the Pacific, reinforcing the Air Force’s core tenant of distributed control.”

It was not clear if the 317th Airlift Wing also tried out new connectivity methods during Hazard Leap, but they have more challenges coming up, such as working with U.S. Marines in the Philippines during Balikatan, an annual exercise that started on April 22 this year. The mission sets there will likely include landing at blacked-out airfields, loading and off-loading High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and forward area refueling, the Dyess spokesperson said. Hopefully those challenges will not look so difficult compared to 26 hours spent aboard a C-130 for Hazard Leap.

“The successful completion of Hazard Leap is a testament to our team’s dedication and the remarkable capabilities of the C-130J Super Hercules,” Maj. Alex Leach, mission commander and 40th Airlift Squadron assistant director of operations, said in the release. “This operation set a new standard for our squadron and this airframe; it serves as a stepping-stone for future missions.”

Air

airandspaceforces.com · by David Roza · April 23, 2024

20. The Delusion of Peak China

Excerpts:

With the second-largest economy in the world in terms of GDP and deep ties to countries all over the world, Xi may make meaningful progress in shaping global rules and norms and undermining U.S. influence even as China’s economy slows. Chinese narratives about history and contemporary geopolitics resonate in the developing world, and Beijing is only getting better at promoting them. In short, either China is not peaking—or the idea of peak China doesn’t explain much about the challenges posed by China in the twenty-first century.

Instead of projecting the West’s fears and hopes onto China, Western officials must try to understand how China’s leaders perceive their country and their own ambitions. The idea of peak China only confuses the debate in the United States. It leads some to argue that China’s weaknesses are the problem and others to suggest that China’s strengths pose the biggest risks. Each side crafts convoluted policy proposals based on these assumptions. But seeing China through this simple lens ignores the fact that even a stagnant China can cause serious problems for Washington, economically and strategically.

Such a confused debate distracts from the efforts needed to allocate resources to what is a much more complex competition with China. U.S. policymakers still need to determine where and how to compete with China and, equally important, what risks they are willing to take and what costs they are willing to pay. Today, these foundational questions remain unanswered, and they could become far more dire for U.S. leaders if mishandled now. If the war in Ukraine has reminded us of anything about U.S. strategy, it is that both clarity of purpose and political consensus are needed. On China, the biggest risk today is not that China’s rise will fade away (and Washington will have overreacted). Instead, it is the possibility that the United States will fail to build and sustain support for a long-term competition across all dimensions of power.

The Delusion of Peak China

America Can’t Wish Away Its Toughest Challenger

By Evan S. Medeiros

May/June 2024

Published on April 24, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Evan S. Medeiros · April 24, 2024

Ever since Chinese President Xi Jinping secured his third term in power in the fall of 2022, he has had a rough time. Shortly after his reappointment, street protests pushed him to abruptly abandon his signature “zero COVID” policy. After a quick reopening bump in early 2023, the economy has progressively slowed, revealing both cyclical and structural challenges. Investors are leaving in droves, with foreign direct investment and portfolio flows reaching record lows. Meanwhile, Xi has fired his handpicked minsters for defense and foreign affairs in the wake of allegations of corruption and worse. His military bungled its balloon intelligence-collection program, precipitating an unwanted crisis after a stray balloon floated over the continental United States for days in early 2023. And now Xi is conducting a historic purge of military and defense industry personnel linked to China’s missile forces. Amid all this, the United States has continued to expand its alliances with China’s neighbors and countries outside the region.

These and other events have fueled the claim that China is stagnating, if not in permanent decline. Some scholars now argue that the world is witnessing “peak China” and that the country’s accelerating decline may lead it to lash out. “Welcome to the age of ‘peak China,’” wrote the political scientists Hal Brands and Michael Beckley in Foreign Affairs in 2021. “China is tracing an arc that often ends in tragedy: a dizzying rise followed by the specter of a hard fall.” Commentators, including the author and investor Ruchir Sharma, have begun to speculate about a “post-China world.” Even U.S. President Joe Biden got in the game, stating in August 2023 that China is a “ticking time bomb” that “doesn’t have the same capacity that it had before.”

These views are both ill advised and premature. Xi still believes China is rising, and he is acting accordingly. He is committed to achieving the “China Dream,” his longtime slogan for national rejuvenation. He intends to reach this goal by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. If China is peaking, there is little evidence that Xi sees it. In fact, many Chinese elites, including Xi, believe it is the United States that is in terminal decline. For them, even if China is slowing down, the power gap between the countries is still narrowing in China’s favor.

If Xi did have concerns, he is unlikely to share them internally out of fear that doing so would generate criticism or even opposition. His ambitions are so central to his legitimacy and to the credibility of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that there is little space or incentive to walk them back. Xi is hardly oblivious to China’s recent problems. But as a committed Marxist-Leninist, he sees his country’s rise not as a linear process but as one that will take time and require adjustments. In his view, the country’s current difficulties are mere bumps along the road to achieving the China Dream.

Xi also believes that China’s path to greatness will differ from those of the Western powers, especially the United States. He believes in a strong role for the state, limited and controlled use of the market and the private sector, and the centrality of technology that can drive productivity gains. He wants an economy that looks more like that of Germany, an advanced manufacturing powerhouse, than that of the United States, which relies heavily on consumption and services.

Xi’s approach could work if he harnesses the right blend of state power and market forces, remains sufficiently open to global capital and technology, and embraces policies that address some of China’s biggest domestic problems, such as its declining and aging population. Xi’s recent actions, however, do not inspire confidence in his ability or willingness to take these and other steps to avoid a stagnating economy. But if there is one lesson to be taken from the past 40 years, it is that the CCP and its management of the economy can often muddle through against the odds.

Moreover, the concept of peak China makes little sense in today’s interconnected world, where states possess diverse sources of power and myriad ways to leverage them. Is Chinese power waning if its economy underperforms but its military modernizes and its diplomacy generates influence? China peaking economically is not the same as China peaking geopolitically—a distinction lost on many advocates of the peak China argument.

And even if China has reached some undefined upper limit of its power, influence, or economic growth, Chinese and American leaders probably would not realize it until years later. In the meantime, Beijing could still pose numerous problems for Washington and its friends and allies. And if it turns out that China’s power is in decline, it can still use its substantial capabilities to undermine U.S. interests and values in Asia and all over the world. So regardless of whether the label is accurate, for Washington to adopt a belief in peak China—and base its policymaking on it—would be unwise and even dangerous.

THE STORY CHINA TELLS ITSELF

Since coming to power in 2013, Xi has been crystal clear about his beliefs about China’s prospects and its future trajectory. He has grand ambitions for the country and a great sense of urgency. At home, he seeks to improve the legitimacy and efficacy of CCP rule, to remake the party-state system by reducing the role of the government and increasing the role of the party, and to rewire the Chinese economy so it is more self-sufficient and equitable. Abroad, he wants to reform global governance to better protect Chinese interests and to promote illiberal values such as expanded state control, constrained markets, and limits on individual freedoms.

Xi’s plans are evident in both his public remarks and how the CCP talks to itself via state media, propaganda, and internal speeches. Xi remains committed to the idea that China still enjoys what he calls a “period of strategic opportunity.” In March 2023, on a visit to Moscow, Xi said to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Right now, there are changes—the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years—and we are the ones driving these changes together.” At a conference in December on “foreign affairs work,” a meeting the CCP holds every five years, Xi explained that one of his main tasks is to “foster new dynamics in China’s relations with the world, and to raise China’s international influence, charisma, and shaping power to a new level.” Although Xi has openly acknowledged the “high winds and perilous, stormy seas” confronting China, he sees those risks as reasons not to pull back but to keep forging ahead, to push harder and faster.

The same narrative is prevalent throughout the party. The CCP’s official history of the last 100 years, released in 2021, stated that China is “closer to the center of the world stage than it has ever been” and that it “has never been closer to its own rebirth.” Xi’s current intelligence chief, Chen Yixin, gave a speech to CCP cadres in early 2021 in which he cataloged all the problems facing Western democracies and announced that “the East is rising, and the West is declining”—a phrase that has become something of a CCP slogan. Xi echoes this sentiment whenever he highlights the growing appeal of what he calls the “China solution” or “China’s wisdom.”

The CCP’s ambitions are propelled by a complex mix of victimhood, grievance, and entitlement. Like other Chinese leaders who have emerged from the CCP system, Xi was raised on tales of “the century of shame and humiliation” that China suffered under foreign domination. National security has emerged as an overriding priority, newly shaping a broad variety of policies, especially economic ones. Everywhere he looks, Xi sees threats to “divide and Westernize China” and the danger of “color revolutions.” His fears have only intensified in recent years, driving China closer to Russia and other illiberal powers. In his December speech to Chinese diplomats, Xi noted that “external forces have continuously escalated their suppression and containment against us.” This fearful posture explains why the CCP now casts economic development and national security as priorities of equal importance—a position that would make former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping turn over in his grave given the overwhelming priority Deng put on growth and development.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Xi’s predecessors allowed the country’s State Council (the cabinet) and its provinces to play a greater role in policy formulation and implementation and provided the political space for market forces, private capital, and individual entrepreneurs to drive much of the country’s growth. To carry out his agenda, however, Xi has taken steps to put the CCP at the center of political, economic, and social life in China. With barely a hint of internal pushback, he secured a third term, positioned his confidants in top jobs, and marginalized and embarrassed his predecessor, Hu Jintao. (During the closing ceremony of the National Congress of the CCP in October 2022, the elderly Hu was removed from his seat on the dais and escorted offstage.) The sudden death of Premier Li Keqiang last fall has left Xi with no rivals within the party. Unlike Deng, Xi doesn’t have to put up with a group of elders carping behind the scenes.

To further consolidate his political power and advance his policy goals, Xi has carried out an aggressive, decadelong anticorruption campaign, which today remains as intense as ever. The 2023 ouster of the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, who were both nominally close to Xi, should be read not as a sign of his weakness but of his strength and determination. He removed them summarily and with no apparent drama. His current purge of military and defense industry officials linked to China’s cherished strategic rocket forces—more than a dozen men and counting—reflects his confidence in his position and his commitment to modernize the military.

Xi’s expansive view of national security involves a high degree of political monitoring and repression, which remain the CCP’s key tools for realizing Xi’s vision of a new party-state system. He has empowered his security services, aided by dystopian uses of surveillance technology, to eliminate any hint of dissent, to quiet restive minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, and even to help implement economic directives, such as by harassing foreign consulting firms collecting sensitive information. In a first for China, the country’s civilian spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, now operates an active WeChat account, where the office publicly comments on numerous hot-button issues, including U.S.-Chinese relations and alleged foreign spy operations.

An exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, Beijing, April 2021

Thomas Peter / Reuters

Despite economic headwinds and slowing growth, Xi is driving forward, not struggling with indecision, as suggested by peak China advocates. He wants to rewire the Chinese economy so that it relies less on exports and investment in real estate and infrastructure and more on technology and advanced manufacturing to generate growth. That’s why he is investing so much in clean energy technology, electric vehicles, and batteries, which some China watchers are calling “the new three” drivers of growth. (The “old three” are property, infrastructure, and processing trade.) Xi believes that shrinking the overheated property sector has been a painful but necessary step in reallocating capital to achieve economic transformation.

In truth, Xi is not merely comfortable with the current economic underperformance—he is actively promoting it. This is one of the main reasons the stimulus to date has been so modest. For him, the economy is simply suffering growing pains as it becomes stronger and more sustainable. To be sure, that belief raises the question of whether Xi is receiving reliable information about the depth of the structural and cyclical challenges weighing on the Chinese economy. Nonetheless, Xi has embraced austerity and tried to revive the spirit of sacrifice, self-reliance, and egalitarianism that characterized earlier eras of Maoist rule—for example, encouraging recent university graduates to relocate to the countryside instead of staying in cities to make their careers.

Many of Xi’s policies have been poorly conceived and implemented. But that partly reflects the fact that he is trying to balance multiple and often contradictory objectives and his decision-making is too centralized. But it is critical to understand that Xi and other CCP leaders don’t see their country as declining. Instead, they see themselves as making hard choices to restructure the economy so that China can propel itself toward its modernization goals.

GO BIG OR GO HOME

Xi sees China as ascendant globally and believes that now is the time to push for an even bigger role on the world stage. He is persisting with the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s enormous infrastructure and investment program, despite frequent financial losses that often generated local backlash. In 2023, China succeeded in expanding the BRICS (a bloc of major emerging economies named after its initial members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), adding five new countries. This is part of Xi’s effort to provide an alternative to the West and its rules-based liberal international order. Xi is backing Putin in his war in Ukraine, helping him rebuild Russia’s defense industry and civilian economy. China is carefully navigating wars in Europe and the Middle East, avoiding Western sanctions and eschewing responsibility, all while maintaining influence in both regions.

Xi now proudly promotes a somewhat inchoate tripartite vision of global order that seeks to challenge U.S. dominance and Western rules and norms. In the last two years, he has announced the Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative. Xi’s goal is to make China the central actor in a transformed international system that is less liberal and less rules-based and that accedes to Chinese preferences, especially on priority items such as Taiwan, territorial disputes, and human rights. Xi is actively recruiting countries to adopt this anti-Western vision, which is the impetus behind the BRICS expansion and joint efforts with Brazil, Russia, and others to try to reduce the global influence of the U.S. dollar.

When Xi has faced headwinds, his policy pullback has been minimal, and the adjustments have been narrow and targeted. He abandoned zero COVID virtually overnight without any kind of new vaccination program, resulting in thousands of deaths yet no political or social repercussions. The removal of the defense and foreign ministers last year did not disrupt either ministry. After being halted by the spy balloon crisis, U.S.-Chinese diplomatic and military talks are back on track. Despite the upheaval in the Chinese military’s strategic rocket forces, Xi’s plans to quadruple China’s nuclear forces continue and could fundamentally alter U.S.-Chinese relations.

On the economy, Xi reluctantly adopted more fiscal stimulus, including steps to boost consumption, but nothing close to the kind of “big bang” moves that would derail his vision of China becoming an advanced manufacturing superpower. As he shrinks the property sector and pushes state-directed investment strategies, Xi has remained indifferent to the sentiments of foreign investors who push for more stimulus and structural reforms. The Chinese government’s effort to rescue the country’s tanking stock market—by buying stocks—is just the latest example of Xi’s commitment to state-led development. His modest responses to some of China’s biggest structural problems, such as its deeply indebted provinces and its growing demographic deficit, are worrisome. Still, there are policies he could adopt to address those problems; he just hasn’t done so yet.

After a particularly difficult period brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Xi has stabilized his key relationships, including with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. But he has not given away much to do so. China continues to thread the needle on Russia: it is boosting Russia’s military capabilities with dual-use exports and helping to prop up its economy while avoiding large-scale U.S. sanctions. And China remains a dominant economic and diplomatic force in many parts of the world. So far, Xi has made only tactical adjustments—a tried and tested CCP approach to justify policy moves without being distracted from long-term goals.

IT’S NOT JUST THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Beyond ignoring Xi’s clear commitment to China’s rise, embracing the idea of peak China is problematic for additional reasons. First, it is difficult to measure and understand what peak China means in practice. Is it an absolute term or a relative one—and if the latter, relative to what? It is unclear whether the term takes into account U.S. power or Xi’s perception of it. Perhaps China’s leaders are not worried about whether their country is peaking because they believe the gap with the United States will keep closing, even if at a slower pace.

Also, China could peak in one area but advance in others, complicating the calculation. Proponents of the argument that China is now in decline point primarily to its economy. Yet as the economy slows (which is partially by design), China retains other sources of power and influence. The bottom line is that China will remain a global power even as its economy underperforms. It remains the world’s largest exporter and creditor and is the second most populous country. It is also the center of innovation for some of the most important emerging industries, such as batteries and electric vehicles. It still produces or refines well over half the world’s critical minerals. China possesses one of the largest and most advanced militaries in the world, with expeditionary capabilities and a growing overseas footprint. It is in the process of expanding its nuclear arsenal, supplementing it with conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles and advanced hypersonic missiles. The military may also be moving to a more aggressive “launch on warning” nuclear weapons posture.

In terms of its diplomatic strength, China is at the center of global politics, with a seat at the table during every crisis. Xi has deftly used China’s investments in infrastructure abroad to create a network of economic ties that generate geopolitical influence. China’s incipient alignment with Iran, North Korea, and Russia could determine the future of global stability. On almost every transnational challenge, Beijing can both contribute to progress and disrupt it, a position that it deftly leverages to advance its interests and avoid unwanted burdens.

Even a stagnant China can cause serious problems for Washington, economically and strategically.

With the second-largest economy in the world in terms of GDP and deep ties to countries all over the world, Xi may make meaningful progress in shaping global rules and norms and undermining U.S. influence even as China’s economy slows. Chinese narratives about history and contemporary geopolitics resonate in the developing world, and Beijing is only getting better at promoting them. In short, either China is not peaking—or the idea of peak China doesn’t explain much about the challenges posed by China in the twenty-first century.

Instead of projecting the West’s fears and hopes onto China, Western officials must try to understand how China’s leaders perceive their country and their own ambitions. The idea of peak China only confuses the debate in the United States. It leads some to argue that China’s weaknesses are the problem and others to suggest that China’s strengths pose the biggest risks. Each side crafts convoluted policy proposals based on these assumptions. But seeing China through this simple lens ignores the fact that even a stagnant China can cause serious problems for Washington, economically and strategically.

Such a confused debate distracts from the efforts needed to allocate resources to what is a much more complex competition with China. U.S. policymakers still need to determine where and how to compete with China and, equally important, what risks they are willing to take and what costs they are willing to pay. Today, these foundational questions remain unanswered, and they could become far more dire for U.S. leaders if mishandled now. If the war in Ukraine has reminded us of anything about U.S. strategy, it is that both clarity of purpose and political consensus are needed. On China, the biggest risk today is not that China’s rise will fade away (and Washington will have overreacted). Instead, it is the possibility that the United States will fail to build and sustain support for a long-term competition across all dimensions of power.

EVAN S. MEDEIROS is Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

Foreign Affairs · by Evan S. Medeiros · April 24, 2024

21. Reconceptualizing Asia’s Security Challenges

Excerpts:

At the same time, the region needs a novel and bold agenda to match the magnitude of the challenges it faces. Looking into the future, in an age marked by polycrisis involving not just seismic geopolitical shifts but also various non-traditional security threats including climate risks, technological upheaval, and societal transformation, it is crucial for Asia to collaboratively reconceptualize the concept of security to go beyond traditional geopolitical rivalry.

First, it is essential that Asian nations adopt a holistic view and embed non-traditional security challenges at the heart of Asia’s security discourse. Second, they must recognize that these intertwined non-traditional security challenges extend beyond the confines of any one nation, rendering the notion of “siloed security” obsolete. Cooperation is imperative. A possible starting point could be to adopt the concept of human security introduced by the United Nations Development Program as a guiding principle for the region, as it acknowledges the deep interrelations among human well-being, economic stability, environmental sustainability, and technological advancements.

The tasks of managing tensions and reconceptualizing Asian security must be pursued simultaneously. An exclusive focus on shared non-traditional security risks could heighten strategic distrust by neglecting the present risks of conflict and deeper causes of regional tensions. However, efforts towards the reconceptualization of security should begin immediately to catalyze cognitive shifts and cultivate innovative thinking about new patterns of cooperation between states. This approach may provide fresh perspectives for tackling the current complex security issues and enhance resilience against Asia’s future challenges.

Reconceptualizing Asia’s Security Challenges

Conventional wisdom suggests that economic development driven by a hegemonic power leads to economic prosperity and peace. That may no longer be true.

By Jean Dong

April 22, 2024

Credit: Depositphotos

As the world’s economic center of gravity and strategic focus continue to shift toward Asia, the region has become a focal point for strategic competition among major powers. The Asian region also harbors many flashpoints such as Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, and the China-India border. The critical challenge ahead is how Asia can maintain peace and prosperity in this era of significant geopolitical frangibility and complexity.

The conventional wisdom suggests that economic development driven by a hegemonic power leads to economic prosperity and peace in the Asia-Pacific. This approach leverages economic interdependence to promote regional integration, and places more weight on pragmatic outcomes in the strategic interactions among Asian nations.

This “hegemonic stability” model has been applied by both Asian and Western powers. The Chinese tributary system paved the way for an era known as Pax Sinica, a period of peace in East Asia spanning nearly 500 years from 1368 to 1840. The tributary system established a diplomatic and commercial framework that enabled nations to meet their demand for goods peacefully, both with China and with each other, thus minimizing resource-based plunders. The prospect of participating in this thriving trade network encouraged polities to prioritize economic growth and adopt strategies geared toward long-term prosperity, which in turn reduced their inclination toward conflict.

Similarly, by underwriting the stability in Asia, especially after World War II. the United States enabled countries in Asia to prioritize economic development and trade over regional rivalries.

However, this conventional “road to peace,” which has served the region well for so long, is now confronted with three challenges.

First, the burgeoning Asian economy may paradoxically be contributing to its escalating instability. As countries grow more prosperous and stronger, they may experience rising societal expectations, amplified national ambitions, and intensified nationalism. These sentiments could motivate competition for status and heighten the risk of conflicts over lingering historical territorial disputes.

Further, interdependence may lead to increased fragmentation and division within the Asian region. The late Professor Robert Jervis of Columbia suggested that states may resist deeper economic ties due to concerns that increased interdependence could lead to strategic vulnerabilities, such as undue influence over national security and sovereignty, supply chain disruptions, and economic coercion. This tension is mitigated between countries with aligned values, but it can escalate among nations with stark differences, potentially leading to the division of the region into separate blocs.

Lastly, from an environmental viewpoint, economic strategies solely centered on material growth risk societal destabilization over the medium to long term. They could worsen inequality and heighten geopolitical tensions over scarce resources, fueling climate risks and a cycle of blame for deteriorating conditions. This is particularly relevant to the Asian region as its diverse geography and climate conditions make the region vulnerable to a variety of climate risks.

The concept of hegemonic stability in Asia is also undergoing a significant transformation. Whereas Chinese dynasties and the United States dominated the region and set the rules in the past, every Asian nation now possesses agency in shaping the region’s future. For instance, as the only region facing both the Pacific and Indian oceans, Southeast Asia is crucial to the Sino-U.S. strategic competition. Central Asia’s strategic location at the junction of China, Russia, and Europe gives it crucial regional influence. As major U.S. allies hosting American military bases, Japan and South Korea are pivotal to Asian security. India’s rising influence in the region is also undeniable.

This newfound agency among Asian nations presents a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Asian countries could band together to foster the development of a more robust and comprehensive security architecture, encouraging China and other regional powers to pursue more accountable and cooperative engagements. On the other hand, Asian countries might try to vie for centrality in the regional order. This desire for influence could potentially hinder collective efforts to address regional challenges.

Navigating this complex security landscape in Asia paradoxically calls for both boldness and caution. Asian nations must tread softly and take careful steps to manage the myriad of current tensions and flashpoints amid profound uncertainty. To begin with, it is vital that they bolster communication and collaboration among security institutions within Asia’s subregions, including the East Asia Forum, the ASEAN Regional Forum, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These inter-institutional dialogues should aim to not only facilitate candid and constructive discussions about ongoing tensions, but also devise practical steps to prevent crises and disputes and offer policy measures for de-escalation when they arise.

At the same time, the region needs a novel and bold agenda to match the magnitude of the challenges it faces. Looking into the future, in an age marked by polycrisis involving not just seismic geopolitical shifts but also various non-traditional security threats including climate risks, technological upheaval, and societal transformation, it is crucial for Asia to collaboratively reconceptualize the concept of security to go beyond traditional geopolitical rivalry.

First, it is essential that Asian nations adopt a holistic view and embed non-traditional security challenges at the heart of Asia’s security discourse. Second, they must recognize that these intertwined non-traditional security challenges extend beyond the confines of any one nation, rendering the notion of “siloed security” obsolete. Cooperation is imperative. A possible starting point could be to adopt the concept of human security introduced by the United Nations Development Program as a guiding principle for the region, as it acknowledges the deep interrelations among human well-being, economic stability, environmental sustainability, and technological advancements.

The tasks of managing tensions and reconceptualizing Asian security must be pursued simultaneously. An exclusive focus on shared non-traditional security risks could heighten strategic distrust by neglecting the present risks of conflict and deeper causes of regional tensions. However, efforts towards the reconceptualization of security should begin immediately to catalyze cognitive shifts and cultivate innovative thinking about new patterns of cooperation between states. This approach may provide fresh perspectives for tackling the current complex security issues and enhance resilience against Asia’s future challenges.

This essay was first published in the Asian Peace Programme (APP) webpage. The APP is housed in the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Authors

Guest Author

Jean Dong

Jean Dong is a research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne. She is also the author of “Chinese Statecraft in a Changing World: Demystifying Enduring Traditions and Dynamic Constraints” (Springer, 2023).

22. RIP, SSF: Unpacking the PLA’s Latest Restructuring

Excerpts:

Conclusion

Since the establishment of the SSF in late 2015, there has been considerable curiosity from external observers regarding this nascent military unit. However, few anticipated that within a decade, the force would undergo another round of restructuring. Similar to the reforms initiated at the end of 2015, the PLA must once again engage in extensive training and exercises to solidify the core organizational structure of the reconfigured force.

The question of whether the PLA, following its 2024 reorganization, can swiftly adapt to the new institutional framework remains unanswered. With significant personnel reshuffling at the senior levels and the organizational overhaul the PLA has undergone, the timeframe required for the force to attain full operational capability is uncertain. Additionally, there is the looming concern of whether the new organizational setup might give rise to unforeseen challenges in operational effectiveness.

These uncertainties raise questions about whether this restructuring could afford Taiwan more time for defense transformation. These issues form the basis of new research tasks for scholars studying the PLA, as they delve into the intricacies of the military’s ongoing evolution and its implications for regional security dynamics.

RIP, SSF: Unpacking the PLA’s Latest Restructuring

The Strategic Support Force is no more, and its functions are being separated into three separate arms: the Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force, and Information Support Force.

By Ying Yu Lin and Tzu-Hao Liao

April 23, 2024

Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, left, attends the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 5, 2024.

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

On April 19, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officially disbanded its Strategic Support Force (SSF) and re-established the Information Support Force. While some observers have dismissed this move as merely a change in nomenclature – the same group of people under a different name – a closer examination reveals significant implications when juxtaposed with the restructuring efforts within the PLA and the framework of the U.S. and Russian militaries.

The decision to dissolve the SSF and establish the PLA Information Support Force signifies a nuanced shift in China’s military organizational strategy. By aligning with global trends and potential adversaries’ structures, this restructuring aims to enhance the PLA’s capabilities in an era increasingly defined by information warfare and cyber operations. Thus, beyond superficial alterations in nomenclature, this move reflects a strategic response to evolving security challenges and technological advancements.

The Unprecedented “Four Services and Four Arms”

At the close of 2015, the PLA underwent significant reforms and the SSF emerged as a newly minted branch alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force, all commanded by officers of full theater-grade generals. With the unveiling of the latest organizational framework, the PLA’s updated military structure presents a nuanced evolution: While the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force retain their status as full theater-grade services, the SSF undergoes significant reconfiguration. It is no longer a full service, but will see its functions divided up among new “arms” under what China now calls the “four services (军种) and four arms (兵种).”

Formerly responsible for overseeing space affairs under its Aerospace Systems Department at the theater level, this entity of the former SSF has now been transformed into the Aerospace Force, one of the “four arms.” Similarly, the Cyber Systems Department, previously tasked with cyber warfare, has assumed a new guise as the Cyberspace Force. Moreover, the Electronic and Electromagnetic Systems Department, which formerly oversaw C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), is restricted into the Information Support Force (ISF).

These three arms will operate alongside the existing Joint Logistics Support Force (JLSF), which was established back in 2016. This “arm” oversees logistical operations and is commanded by a deputy theater-grade general. This reorganization sees the SSF transition into three deputy theater-level branches, thus forming the “four arms” along with the JLSF, which is now confirmed as one of the arms.

This shift potentially opens the door for deputy theater-grade major generals or lieutenant generals to assume command positions within these newly delineated units. Such adjustments signal a strategic realignment within the PLA’s organizational hierarchy, reflecting the evolving nature of modern warfare and the imperative to enhance capabilities in emerging domains such as space, cyber, and information warfare.

Convoluted Tasks and Responsibilities

The primary rationale behind the restructuring appears to be addressing concerns stemming from the SSF’s previous mandate, which encompassed a wide array of responsibilities, potentially hindering operational effectiveness.

The former service was tasked not only with information and communication technology but also with aerospace, cyber operations, and electronic warfare. As a result, the SSF found itself spread thin, with individual units vying for resources. Furthermore, the expertise required to command such a multifaceted force may have been lacking in singular appointees.

Of particular note is the decentralized nature of these tasks, which were not consolidated under the command of the SSF following the military reforms. For instance, while the Aerospace Systems Department within the SSF managed backend systems for space-related affairs, aspects of equipment development were also overseen by the Equipment Development Department and, notably, by elements within the Rocket Force and Air Force. Such overlapping organizational structures inevitably impeded operational efficiency.

U.S. Counterparts as Models?

A telling comparison can be drawn with the United States’ establishment of a dedicated Space Force, which centralized all matters pertaining to space warfare. This disparity underscored the need for a more streamlined approach within the PLA.

In light of President Xi Jinping’s recent emphasis on cultivating new combat capabilities (新质战斗力), a pragmatic reassessment of organizational structures may be underway, possibly drawing inspiration from the U.S. military’s framework.

The newly established Aerospace Force may mirror the role of the U.S. Space Force, while the Cyberspace Force could resemble the U.S. Cyber Command, thus allowing for a more coherent and effective utilization of resources and expertise across different branches. This strategic realignment suggests a concerted effort to enhance the PLA’s operational effectiveness and adaptability in the face of evolving threats and challenges.

Russian Characteristics

Russia’s own military restructuring is another possible model for the PLA.

As early as 2012, then Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin proposed the formation of a Russian Cyber Command. Subsequently, in 2013, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu instructed the General Staff to initiate the establishment of a Russian-style Cyber Command modeled after the U.S. Cyber Command, directly under the purview of the Ministry of Defense.

The following year, reports emerged indicating the completion of the formation of cyber units, with news outlets such as TASS reporting the establishment of the Divisions of the Computer Attack Detection and Prevention System within the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.

Coincidentally, during the “Caucasus-2016” routine strategic exercises, the Russian military participated for the first time in “live electronic, cyber, and informational confrontation.”

In early 2017, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Krasov, denied the existence of cyber units in the Russian military but acknowledged the trend among major powers toward establishing such units. Subsequently, in February of the same year, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed the establishment of cyber information units tasked primarily with safeguarding Russian military command and control communications systems from cyberattacks and undertaking counter-propaganda efforts.

By 2023, Russian Minister of Digital Affairs Maksut Shadayev publicly supported the idea of the Ministry of Defense establishing a more comprehensive cyber force and advocated for increasing recruitment to swiftly onboard digital talent, expand real-time capabilities, and navigate the trends of the cyber battlefield.

This development underscores the deeply ingrained logic of “hybrid warfare” within Russian strategic thinking, which diverges from the U.S. tendency to compartmentalize units. Russian doctrine views cyber warfare merely as one aspect of overall information warfare, encompassing electronic warfare, propaganda, and psychological operations. Moreover, Russia’s official stance on its cyber units remains highly secretive, both serving as a deterrent and signaling ongoing strategic adjustments without definitive conclusions.

With this history in mind, it’s notable that the recent restructuring of the PLA, transitioning from the previous configuration of five main services (the Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force) plus one direct-reporting unit (Joint Logistics Support Centre) to the current “four services plus four arms,” emphasizes the role of the Information Support Force. In fact, the announcement of the restructuring came at a ceremony to launch the ISF, which was attended by Xi himself.

This move bears a certain degree of resemblance to Russian practices. However, in the abandonment of the SSF in favor of three separate branches and in terms of future conceptualization, the PLA’s trajectory may lean more toward emulation of US military practices.

In his remarks at the ISF launch ceremony, Xi called the new branch “a key pillar in coordinating the construction and application of the network information system,” adding, “It will play a crucial role in advancing the Chinese military’s high-quality development and competitiveness in modern warfare.”

Conclusion

Since the establishment of the SSF in late 2015, there has been considerable curiosity from external observers regarding this nascent military unit. However, few anticipated that within a decade, the force would undergo another round of restructuring. Similar to the reforms initiated at the end of 2015, the PLA must once again engage in extensive training and exercises to solidify the core organizational structure of the reconfigured force.

The question of whether the PLA, following its 2024 reorganization, can swiftly adapt to the new institutional framework remains unanswered. With significant personnel reshuffling at the senior levels and the organizational overhaul the PLA has undergone, the timeframe required for the force to attain full operational capability is uncertain. Additionally, there is the looming concern of whether the new organizational setup might give rise to unforeseen challenges in operational effectiveness.

These uncertainties raise questions about whether this restructuring could afford Taiwan more time for defense transformation. These issues form the basis of new research tasks for scholars studying the PLA, as they delve into the intricacies of the military’s ongoing evolution and its implications for regional security dynamics.

Authors

Guest Author

Ying Yu Lin

Dr. Ying Yu Lin is an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies Tamkang University in New Taipei City, Taiwan and a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight. He received his Ph.D in the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University. His research interests include PLA studies and cybersecurity.

Guest Author

Tzu-Hao Liao

Tzu-Hao Liao is a consultant for the China research team at the International Crisis Group. He holds a BA in political science from National Chengchi University (Taiwan) and a MA in War Studies from King’s College London.

23. A Prussian Strategy for Wars of Attrition

I don't know why we focus on wars of attrition rather than wars of exhaustion. Perhaps it is easier to just count things rather than trying to count things AND assess the will to fight (or being too tired to continue the fight, or not having the domestic political support to continue the fight).

But I think the author is describing a war of exhaustion rather than a war of attrition.

Excerpts:

Prussia’s experience in the Seven Years’ War offers hope for Ukraine, showing that, in a war of attrition, it is not necessarily vital to out-kill the other side in order to win. America famously found out in Vietnam that the body count is only one metric of attrition, and the Seven Years’ War shows that a strategy of attrition can take different forms. Whereas the stronger side needs to take the offensive, the weaker side can avoid combat where possible, preserving its limited resources and waiting for the political constellation to change or for the enemy to become economically exhausted.

Crucially, Ukraine does not need political changes of the magnitude that Prussia benefitted from. If its existing allies would just give it more support, that would make a huge difference. On the battlefield, Ukrainians can take heart from the example of Prince Henry of Prussia: a commander who carefully preserved his troops’ lives, helped drag out the war until other factors turned in Prussia’s favor, and then oversaw a deft counter-attack that helped bring the war to an end with Prussia militarily on the front foot. As Ukraine aims to “hold, build and strike,” it can seek to emulate such achievements.

A Prussian Strategy for Wars of Attrition - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Adam L. Storring · April 24, 2024

As we enter spring 2024, Ukraine’s military position looks tenuous. Its counter-offensive in 2023 did not achieve the ambitious results that Ukraine’s allies had hoped for, and the Ukrainians are now under pressure from Russian forces that have great superiority in both troops and materiel.

In a recent article, Alexander Burns argued that Ukraine’s predicament is in many ways similar to that of the German state of Prussia during the Seven Years’ War of 1756–63. In that conflict, Prussia not only survived a long struggle against much larger opponents but even ended up militarily on the front foot. Delving deeper into Prussian history can offer even more into how this was, and is, possible.

The Seven Years’ War shows that there is more than one way of fighting the kind of war of attrition that we currently see in Ukraine and that, crucially, it is not necessarily vital to out-kill the enemy in order to win. Whereas the stronger side will take the offensive to grind down its opponent, even the side with fewer resources can still win a war of attrition by conserving its strength and waiting for other factors to turn to its advantage. Michael Kofman, Rob Lee, and Dara Massicot have argued that, in 2024, Ukraine should aim to “hold, build and strike,” and the record of Prince Henry of Prussia shows how such a strategy can indeed yield success. For years, Henry carefully husbanded the lives of his outnumbered troops, dragging out the war until circumstances turned in Prussia’s favor, and then counter-attacking to win a key battle that helped bring peace. His example is one that Ukraine can seek to emulate.

A German Way of War?

The Prussian and German armies are typically seen as archetypal exponents of offensive maneuver warfare. The United States and many of its allies have closely studied and sought to emulate the operations most famously of German armored formations during World War II. Western armed forces trained the Ukrainians to employ such methods in their 2023 counter-offensive, and the underwhelming results of this offensive have led to widespread criticism of Western methods of combined arms maneuver. In 2024, Ukraine clearly needs to take a much more defensive approach. Is it time to turn our back on Prusso-German examples? Not at all!

Understanding why begins with deconstructing the myth that there was an aggressive “German way of war.” The military methods of the famous Prussian King Frederick the Great (reigned 1740–86), for example, have been painted as prefiguring Blitzkrieg. But in fact, I have shown that these methods were not typically German at all; rather, they drew on French examples. Moreover, the Seven Years’ War, one of the defining wars of Prussian history, was an attritional struggle that was actually won on the defensive. While advocates of mobile warfare typically idolize Frederick the Great, I instead shine the spotlight on Prince Henry — perhaps the Prussian army’s most outstanding defensive commander — and explain how he can be the inspiration for Ukraine’s fightback.

“History . . . teaches no lessons,” said Michael Howard, and Joseph Stieb has recently re-emphasized this in an article in War on the Rocks. Certainly, it is not possible to map any situation from the past completely onto one in the present, and the belief that any given historical event teaches lessons that are applicable in all cases irrespective of context can be very dangerous. The example of Prussia in the Seven Years’ War does not in every respect match the current situation of Ukraine, but it does offer a crucial new perspective: that even the weaker side can still win a war of attrition if it stops trying to out-kill its enemies and instead focuses on conserving its strength until other factors turn in its favor.

The Prussian Precedent Revisited

For Prussia, the Seven Years’ War was a grim struggle for survival. With only Great Britain and a few small German states as allies, Frederick the Great found himself facing a coalition of all Europe’s biggest land powers: the Austrian Habsburg empire, France, Russia, Sweden, and a host of other German states. Much like the Ukrainians in 2023, Frederick the Great tried to win decisive battles. Indeed, the Western armed forces that trained the Ukrainians see their methods of maneuver warfare as to some extent following Prusso-German traditions. Like the war in Ukraine today, however, the Seven Years’ War was dominated by artillery. Just as Ukraine’s offensive in 2023 struggled against tough Russian defenses, so Frederick — for instance, at the 1757 battle of Kolin — found himself unable to defeat enemies who used powerful artillery in strong defensive positions. Moreover, much like their counterparts in 2023, the Russian army used field fortifications to help beat off Prussian attacks at the battles of Kay and Kunersdorf. One commentator has even argued that Russia’s use of artillery in Ukraine reflects traditions that go back to the Seven Years’ War and earlier conflicts. Just like Ukraine’s leaders today, Frederick the Great found that a qualitatively superior army was being bled white by larger but qualitatively inferior enemies who made use of strong defensive positions and massed firepower.

Like Ukraine today, the Prussians responded by turning more to defensive positions. They also benefitted from their opponents’ inability to utilize fully their superior strength. For most of the Seven Years’ War, the mountain ranges that run along what is now the northern border of the Czech Republic made it extremely difficult for the Austrians to supplyoffensive operations on Prussian territory. They took years to punch through the mountains, and by then political developments had turned in Prussia’s favor and the Austrians themselves had nearly gone bankrupt. The French and Russians also struggled to supply their armies, which had to cover long distances to reach the Prussian heartland. In this respect, the Ukrainian case does not map neatly onto the Prussian one. Most obviously, the Ukrainians do not have the protection of mountain ranges. Nevertheless, heavy losses of vehicles in the battle of Avdiivka have already impeded Russian advances, and Ukraine has had some success in interdicting Russian lines of communication such as the Kerch bridge in Crimea. While it would go too far to draw concrete lessons for Ukraine, the Prussian example is certainly a reminder in general terms that, rather than having to withstand the blows of the Russian sledgehammer directly, it is also possible to prevent the Russians from swinging it with full force.

Most importantly, the Seven Years’ War shows that a strategy of attrition can take a variety of forms. Attrition does not necessarily need to involve killing and wounding larger numbers of the enemy’s troops. It can also involve trying to avoidcombat and dragging out a war until other circumstances change. In the Seven Years’ War, Prussia faced opponents with substantially larger armed forces than itself. The Austrian Empress Maria Theresa was aware of this, and repeatedly urged her top commander, Field Marshal Leopold Joseph von Daun, to seek battle with the Prussians. She even absolved him in advance if he were defeated: The important thing was to grind down the smaller Prussian army with the larger Austrian one. In Ukraine, the Russian army has become adept at employing this kind of strategy, using “meat” attacks that sacrifice large numbers of troops but reduce the numerically weaker Ukrainian forces.

This, however, was where Prince Henry made his crucial contribution. From the beginning of the war, he set himself against Frederick the Great’s strategy of risking heavy casualties through offensive operations. Whether Henry was actually any less aggressive than Frederick is debatable: he had written texts before the war that were as gung-ho as anything Frederick came up with. Henry, however, typically set himself up in opposition to his elder brother and so, with Frederick favoring the offensive, Henry became Prussia’s great apostle of the defensive.

Henry’s alternative approach made a big difference. When Frederick, for instance, wanted to attack the strong Austrian position at Zittau, Henry persuaded him that it was impossible. By one account, later in the war, Prussian troops lauded Prince Henry for winning “great success” with “small losses,” whereas under Frederick, “We are made to crack our heads like dogs, to no purpose.” In the same spirit, Ukraine’s leadership needs to resist Western pressure to launch another premature offensive, which could well turn into another Kolin or Kunersdorf. The Ukrainians, however, also need to avoid unnecessary battles that expose their troops to casualties they cannot afford. In the battle of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian army inflicted four times as many casualties as it suffered, but 70 percent of Russian losses were expendable convicts serving with the Wagner Group, and this is an example of how, for the weaker side, simply out-killing the opposition may not necessarily bring victory in a war of attrition.

During the Seven Years’ War, Prince Henry devised a most effective defensive system. His forces were always numerically inferior to their enemies, but he spread them out to cover large areas, with strong detachments holding carefully chosen defensive positions and other areas screened by irregular troops. The prince made up for his weakness through mobility, shifting units around, and harassing his enemies to keep them on the back foot. It was a risky approach, but he had the skill to pull it off.

By drawing out the war, preserving the lives of his troops, and slowing the enemy’s advances, Prince Henry gave time for other factors to turn in Prussia’s favor. In particular, there was a dramatic political shift, as Russia’s Empress Elizabeth died in 1762 and her successor — the Prussophile Peter III, who greatly admired Frederick the Great — actually allied with Prussia and sent a Russian army to help their former enemies!

Back to the Present

Fortunately for Ukraine, its victory does not depend on political change of this magnitude. All it needs is much smaller shifts in the politics of its existing allies in order to swing the war in its favor. Most obviously, the U.S. Congress could finally pass a new aid package for Ukraine, and the November elections could potentially yield a new Biden administration with congressional backing to continue supporting the Ukrainians. Within Europe, France could finally start pulling its weight in terms of sending military aid to Ukraine, and Britain could increase its aid to match that provided by Germany. Germany too could send more help, including Taurus missiles. The European Union’s defense program could pick up steam, and European Union countries could source more weapons for Ukraine from elsewhere in the world. All of these political changes — or some combination of them — are perfectly possible and realistic, and even if only some of them came to pass, they would greatly change Ukraine’s situation. The Ukrainians just need to hold out until they take effect. Alexander Burns noted that the support Prussia received from its ally Britain during the Seven Years’ War was highly contingent on British domestic politics, and this is a reminder that Ukraine’s supporters in Western countries have an important role to play in pressing their politicians to send more aid.

Russia’s change of sides in 1762 left Prussia able to take the offensive. Already three years earlier, Prince Henry’s skilled maneuvering had nearly driven the Austrians back out of the positions they had gained in the mountains. In late 1762, after his defensive line had absorbed a series of punishing offensives from the Austrians and their German allies, Henry recognized that the enemy position was exposed and swung over to the attack. His well-timed and meticulously planned offensive at Freiberg on Oct. 29, 1762, was a deft maneuver. Advancing in four separate columns, the Prussians surprised and overwhelmed their enemies, capturing the crucial post and leaving the Austrian position in the mountains virtually untenable. With Frederick also having recaptured a key fortress from the Austrians, Maria Theresa soon agreed to a peace settlement. This kind of transition from a defense that preserves its soldiers’ lives to an offensive that drives the enemy back is precisely what Ukraine could aspire to in the next twelve months.

Prussia’s experience in the Seven Years’ War offers hope for Ukraine, showing that, in a war of attrition, it is not necessarily vital to out-kill the other side in order to win. America famously found out in Vietnam that the body count is only one metric of attrition, and the Seven Years’ War shows that a strategy of attrition can take different forms. Whereas the stronger side needs to take the offensive, the weaker side can avoid combat where possible, preserving its limited resources and waiting for the political constellation to change or for the enemy to become economically exhausted.

Crucially, Ukraine does not need political changes of the magnitude that Prussia benefitted from. If its existing allies would just give it more support, that would make a huge difference. On the battlefield, Ukrainians can take heart from the example of Prince Henry of Prussia: a commander who carefully preserved his troops’ lives, helped drag out the war until other factors turned in Prussia’s favor, and then oversaw a deft counter-attack that helped bring the war to an end with Prussia militarily on the front foot. As Ukraine aims to “hold, build and strike,” it can seek to emulate such achievements.

Michael Powell: The curious rise of settler colonialism and Turtle Island

Dr. Adam L. Storring has taught at the department of war studies at King’s College London. His PhD, completed at the University of Cambridge, was awarded the André Corvisier prize for the best dissertation on military history defended at any university anywhere in the world. He is a contributor to the Cambridge History of Strategy and the Royal United Services Institute “Talking Strategy” podcast series, and this article reflects his forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Seven Years’ War.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Adam L. Storring · April 24, 2024

24. The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’

This conclusion captures some of my thoughts that I have not been able to articulate. These protestors have romanticized revolution and liberation and have become "intoxicated" with the rhetoric and ideas. They have lost sight of the people they are actually trying to help (if they had any sight at all and instead are merely being exploited into using the plight of the Palestinians to support the agitators' agendas which is likely to sow political dissension and chaos in the US).

We parted shortly afterward. I walked under a near-full moon toward a far gate, protesters’ chants of revolution echoing across what was otherwise an almost-deserted campus. I could not shake the sense that too many at this elite university, even as they hoped to ease the plight of imperiled civilians, had allowed the intoxicating language of liberation to blind them to an ugliness encoded within that struggle.

The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’

What happens when genuine sympathy for civilian suffering mixes with a fervor that borders on the oppressive?

By Michael Powell

The Atlantic · by Michael Powell · April 22, 2024

Yesterday just before midnight, word goes out, tent to tent, student protester to student protester—a viral warning: Intruders have entered the “liberated zone,” that swath of manicured grass where hundreds of students and their supporters at what they fancy as the People’s University for Palestine sit around tents and conduct workshops about demilitarizing education and and fighting settler colonialism and genocide. In this liberated zone, normally known as Furnald Lawn on the Columbia University quad, unsympathetic outsiders are treated as a danger.

“Attention, everyone! We have Zionists who have entered the camp!” a protest leader calls out. His head is wrapped in a white-and-black keffiyeh. “We are going to create a human chain where I’m standing so that they do not pass this point and infringe on our privacy.”

Privacy struck me as a peculiar goal for an outdoor protest at a prominent university. But it’s been a strange seven-month journey from Hamas’s horrific slaughter of Israelis—the original breach of a cease-fire—to the liberated zone on the Columbia campus and similar standing protests at other elite universities. What I witnessed seemed less likely to persuade than to give collective voice to righteous anger. A genuine sympathy for the suffering of Gazans mixed with a fervor and a politics that could border on the oppressive.

Dozens stand and echo the leader’s commands in unison, word for word. “So that we can push them out of the camp, one step forward! Another step forward!” The protesters lock arms and step toward the interlopers, who as it happens are three fellow Columbia students, who are Jewish and pro-Israel.

Jessica Schwalb, a Columbia junior, is one of those labeled an intruder. In truth, she does not much fear violence—“They’re Columbia students, too nerdy and too worried about their futures to hurt us,” she tells me—as she is taken aback by the sight of fellow students chanting like automatons. She raises her phone to start recording video. One of the intruders speaks up to ask why they are being pushed out.

The leader talks over them, dismissing such inquiries as tiresome. “Repeat after me,” he says, and 100 protesters dutifully repeat: “I’m bored! We would like you to leave!”

As the crowd draws closer, Schwalb and her friends pivot and leave. Even the next morning, she’s baffled at how they were targeted. Save for a friend who wore a Star of David necklace, none wore identifying clothing. “Maybe,” she says, “they smelled the Zionists on us.”

As the war has raged on and the death toll has grown, protest rallies on American campuses have morphed into a campaign of ever grander and more elaborate ambitions: From “Cease-fire now” to the categorical claim that Israel is guilty of genocide and war crimes to demands that Columbia divest from Israeli companies and any American company selling arms to the Jewish state.

Many protesters argue that, from the river to the sea, the settler-colonialist state must simply disappear. To inquire, as I did at Columbia, what would happen to Israelis living under a theocratic fascist movement such as Hamas is to ask the wrong question. A young female protester, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, responded: “Maybe Israelis need to check their privilege.”

Of late, at least one rabbi has suggested that Jewish students depart the campus for their own safety. Columbia President Minouche Shafik acknowledged in a statement earlier today that at her university there “have been too many examples of intimidating and harassing behavior.” To avoid trouble, she advised classes to go virtual today, and said, “Our preference is that students who do not live on campus will not come to campus.”

Tensions have in fact kept ratcheting up. Last week, Shafik called in the New York City police force to clear an earlier iteration of the tent city and to arrest students for trespassing. The university suspended more than 100 of these protesters, accusing them, according to the Columbia Spectator, of “disruptive behavior, violation of law, violation of University policy, failure to comply, vandalism or damage to property, and unauthorized access or egress.”Even some Jewish students and faculty unsympathetic to the protesters say the president’s move was an accelerant to the crisis, producing misdemeanor martyrs to the pro-Palestinian cause. A large group of faculty members walked out this afternoon to express their opposition to the arrests and suspensions.

As for the encampment itself, it has an intifada-meets-Woodstock quality at times. Dance clubs offer interpretive performances; there are drummers and other musicians, and obscure poets reading obscure poems. Some tents break out by identity groups: “Lesbians against Genocide,” “Hindus for Intifada.” Banners demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners. Small Palestinian flags, embroidered with the names of Palestinian leaders killed in Gaza, are planted in the grass.

Theo Baker: The war at Stanford

During my nine-hour visit, talking with student protesters proved tricky. Upon entering the zone, I was instructed to listen as a gatekeeper read community guidelines that included not talking with people not authorized to be inside—a category that seemed to include anyone of differing opinions. I then stood in a press zone and waited for Layla Saliba, a social-work graduate student who served as a spokesperson for the protest. A Palestinian American, she said she has lost family in the fighting in Gaza. She talked at length and with nuance. Hers, however, was a near-singular voice. As I toured the liberated zone, I found most protesters distinctly non-liberated when it came to talking with a reporter.

Leaders take pains to insist that, for all the chants of “from the river to sea” and promises to revisit the 1948 founding of Israel, they are only anti-Zionist and not anti-Jewish. To that end, they’ve held a Shabbat dinner and, during my visit, were planning a Passover seder. (The students vow to remain, police notwithstanding, until graduation in May).

“We are not anti-Jewish, not at all,” Saliba said.

But to talk with many Jewish students who have encountered the protests is to hear of the cumulative toll taken by words and chants and actions that call to mind something ancient and ugly.

Earlier in the day, I interviewed a Jewish student on a set of steps overlooking the tent city. Rachel, who asked that I not include a surname for fear of harassment, recalled that in the days after October 7 an email went out from a lesbian organization, LionLez, stating that Zionists were not allowed at a group event. A subsequent email from the club’s president noted: “White Jewish people are today and always have been the oppressors of all brown people,” and “when I say the Holocaust wasn’t special, I mean that.” The only outward manifestation of Rachel’s sympathies was a pocket-size Israeli flag in a dorm room. Another student, Sophie Arnstein, told me that after she said in class that “Jewish lives matter,” others complained that her Zionist beliefs were hostile. She ended up dropping the course.

This said, the students I interviewed told me that physical violence has been rare on campus. There have been reports of shoves, but not much more. The atmosphere on the streets around the campus, on Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, is more forbidding. There the protesters are not students but sectarians of various sorts, and the cacophonous chants are calls for revolution and promises to burn Tel Aviv to the ground. Late Sunday night, I saw two cars circling on Amsterdam as the men inside rolled down their windows and shouted “Yahud, Yahud”—Arabic for “Jew, Jew”—“fuck you!”

A few minutes earlier, I had been sitting on a stone bench on campus and speaking with a tall, brawny man named Danny Shaw, who holds a masters in international affairs from Columbia and now teaches seminars on Israel in the liberated zone. When he describes the encampment, it sounds like Shangri-la. “It’s 100 percent love for human beings and very beautiful; I came here for my mental health,” he said.

He claims no hatred for Israel, although he suggested the “genocidal goliath” will of course have to disappear or merge into an Arab-majority state. He said he does not endorse violence, even as he likened the October 7 attacks to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during World War II.

Shaw’s worldview is consistent with that of others in the rotating cast of speakers at late-night seminars in the liberated zone. The prevailing tone tends toward late-stage Frantz Fanon: much talk of revolution and purging oneself of bourgeois affectation. Shaw had taught for 18 years at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, but he told me the liberated zone is now his only gig. The John Jay administration pushed him out—doxxed him, he said—in October for speaking against Israel and for Palestine. He was labeled an anti-Semite and remains deeply pained by that. He advised me to look up what he said and judge for myself. So I did, right on the spot.

Shortly after October 7, he posted this on X: “Zionists are straight Babylon swine. Zionism is beyond a mental illness; it’s a genocidal disease.”

A bit harsh, maybe? I asked him. He shook his head. “The rhetoric they use against us makes us look harsh and negative,” Shaw said. “That’s not the flavor of what we are doing.”

We parted shortly afterward. I walked under a near-full moon toward a far gate, protesters’ chants of revolution echoing across what was otherwise an almost-deserted campus. I could not shake the sense that too many at this elite university, even as they hoped to ease the plight of imperiled civilians, had allowed the intoxicating language of liberation to blind them to an ugliness encoded within that struggle.

The Atlantic · by Michael Powell · April 22, 2024

25. Will Fearless and Tireless Robots Lead to More Terrifying Wars?

All wars are terrifying. Wasn't facing the Roman legion terrifying? Or the Mongol Horde? Or the Charge of the Light Brigade? The D-Day landing? The Battle for Iwo Jima? Pork Chop Hill? Ia Drang? and on and on....

Conclusion:

When the atomic bomb was tested, it turned out it did not ignite the Earth’s atmosphere. That fear ended up being misplaced or at least wrong. Are the dangers I point to here destined to be judged similarly? Perhaps. But only if we grapple with a core question and come up with real answers in the form of policy, regulation, and technological controls. That core question is this: Are we ready for this new revolution of warfare, which may unleash a new era of lethality — making warfare even more efficient, grotesque, and terrible?

Will Fearless and Tireless Robots Lead to More Terrifying Wars? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Antonio Salinas · April 24, 2024

While developing the nuclear bomb, Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues expressed concerns about the possibility of igniting the Earth’s atmosphere. Today, with the emergence of autonomous weapons, we are faced with a similar risk of causing catastrophic damage by unleashing weapons that can kill without feeling fear. The consequences of unleashing such fearless weapons on the battlefield could be far more devastating than we can imagine. Indeed, humanity may come to miss the restraining and mitigating effects of fear, fatigue, and stress on the horrors of combat.

The proliferation of autonomous weapons will affect the future conduct of warfare. But we do not know how. After all, while new technologies are produced with instruction manuals, they do not come with strategy, doctrine, or tactics. Throughout military history, warfare has been wedded to humans who kill under the shadow of primordial danger and fear. People behave differently when they think they have a chance of dying. The combined psychological stressors of combat can aid in producing friction, which can impede the most intricately drawn “blue arrows” on any battle plan from coming to fruition. With this in mind, it is critical to consider how supplementing humans with autonomous weapons will impact the future face of battle.

Military technology may be on the cusp of a revolution that will forever change the face of warfare. Autonomous weapons, immune to the psychological factors of combat, are on the horizon and will usher in a new era of lethality. They will influence offensive and defensive operations and provide novel strategic options. The deployment of autonomous weapons has the potential to make warfare more efficient, but it also has the potential to make it more gruesome and terrible.

Eliminating Fear, Fatigue, Stress, and Hesitation?

Fear, fatigue, stress, and hesitation have long been the engineers for impeding war plans. But in the age of autonomous warfare, machines will be invulnerable to them. Many of us have seen or perhaps even produced those beautifully drawn blue arrows on a battle plan that moves unflinchingly toward an objective. However, a stark difference exists between planning in the operations center and contact with the enemy. Battle plans can quickly fall apart for many reasons, but it comes down to the fact that humans are imperfect vessels of plans.

Through investments in rigorous training, modern militaries have developed ways to sensitize soldiers to the stress and shock of combat. Still, no training can replicate the actual dangers of war. By contrast, autonomous machines will not need live fire training to fabricate courage under fire. Instead, their courage will be programmed into their code.

Fatigue and stress, which have always impacted human armies, will be mitigated by autonomous weapons. The effectiveness of a human unit can decrease and require rest the longer it is exposed to combat. Even in remote warfare, we have seen drone pilots still subject to the stresses of watching their targets for endless hours as well as the toll of killing — which can affect them in several ways, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Autonomous “warbots” will not need time to rest away from the vortex of combat. Their endurance will not be limited by a body that requires rest or therapy. Instead, they will only be limited by the availability of fuel and by the wear of their hardware.

Those of us who have personally experienced combat know that people can freeze or hesitate during combat. Freezing, or what is medically known as Acute Stress Reaction, can take soldiers out of a fight in a varying timeframe, from lasting seconds and minutes to even the duration of the action. Autonomous weapons, immune to stress, will not suffer from these psychological reactions inhibiting their performance. There will likely be little hesitation and an absence of freezing for our future autonomous comrades. Instead, the autonomous warriors will kill enemy combatants with the same ease as a speed camera taking a photo of a speeding vehicle.

Strategy, Offense, and Defense in Autonomous Warfare

Autonomous armies have the potential to influence the conduct of offensive and defensive operations as well as strategic options forever. Wider use of killing autonomously is sure to open a Pandora’s Box, offering commanders and policymakers a tool whose ramifications we can only attempt to prophesize, including on its lethality. A 2017 Harvard Belter Center report stated that lethal autonomous weapons may prove “as disruptive as nuclear weapons.” Platforms immune to reason, bargaining, pity, or fear will possess the ability to eliminate the psychological and physical stressors that have long prevented the most ingenious of plans from coming to fruition.

Human attacks can stall, break down, or quit during offensive operations — long before their overall capabilities do. On the other hand, autonomous units on the offense will not stop after incurring massive casualties. Instead, they will advance until their programming orders otherwise. Lethal autonomous weapons will achieve what planners want consistently: giving the “blue arrows” their victory. They won’t be bogged down by the whizz of incoming bullets or by casualties. Autonomous weapons will not have to pause their attacks to establish medical evacuations. They will be able to sail, drive, or fly past the flaming hulks of their fellow platforms — and continue to deliver death on an industrial scale.

The same factors should also be considered for defensive operations. Human units have historically surrendered or withdrawn long before their total capability to resist has dissolved. The human heart fails before a unit’s combat effectiveness. The power of autonomous platforms in defense may be even more lethal than machine guns and artillery during World War I. On the defense, holding to the “last man” has long been the anomaly, such as in the storied accounts of Thermopylae or the Alamo. However, with autonomous platforms, fighting to the last machine will not be an exception but the norm.

Another aspect to consider in this new age of warfare is besides the possibility of removing some of the fear and risk for the combatants — it may do the same for policymakers when considering strategic options. Perhaps policymakers will be less cautious about employing the military instrument of national power when lives are not at risk. The proliferation of autonomous weapons may also give states more staying power, maintaining popular will with a lack of human casualties, especially during small wars. There will likely not be protests to bring “our machines” home.

Can Regulation Save Us?

There are no international regulations for autonomous systems. In the U.S. military, soldiers are thoroughly trained on the law of armed conflict and are aware they do not have to follow unlawful orders. However, autonomous weapons will not disobey orders or succumb to humanitarian sentiment. Machines will kill whatever or whoever they are programmed to destroy, making them an attractive tool for would-be advocates of war crimes, authoritarian regimes, and architects of genocide. Authoritarian regimes will not have to worry about their forces hesitating to kill crowds of protestors. Instead, autonomous forces will destroy uprisings with a cold efficiency. The architects of genocide will not have to rely on highly radicalized troops or special facilities to commit mass atrocities.

Given the risks to international and humanitarian law, nation-states should seriously debate regulating and controlling the distribution of autonomous weapons internationally. One of the key challenges that we have in autonomous weapons regulation is that technology is proceeding at a pace faster than we are able to control. Currently, autonomous weapons are not regulated by International Humanitarian Law treaties. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has, for years, advocated the prohibition of lethal autonomous weapon systems and has called for a legally binding instrument to ban them. Currently, U.S. policy does not prohibit the development or employment of autonomous weapons. However, the United States is involved in an international discussion group known as the “Group of Governmental Experts,” which has considered proposals to regulate autonomous weapons. The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons may have some helpful precedents to follow, such as its regulations seeking to limit the indiscriminate damage of landmines. However, in lieu of any international agreements on the control or regulation of autonomous weapon technology, there are currently no safeguards to prevent the spread of this technology to nation-states and non-state actors alike.

Conclusion

By limiting or altogether removing the elements of fear, fatigue, stress, and hesitation, many of our attacks and defenses will achieve our bloody objectives with cold efficiency and speed never before seen on the field of battle. Of the many things in war that we should be wary of is when killing becomes too easy.

When the atomic bomb was tested, it turned out it did not ignite the Earth’s atmosphere. That fear ended up being misplaced or at least wrong. Are the dangers I point to here destined to be judged similarly? Perhaps. But only if we grapple with a core question and come up with real answers in the form of policy, regulation, and technological controls. That core question is this: Are we ready for this new revolution of warfare, which may unleash a new era of lethality — making warfare even more efficient, grotesque, and terrible?