Quotes of the Day:
"Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!"
- Isaac Asimov from Guide to Science.
"Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
- Robert WIlson Lynd
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 24 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. U.S. Wants to See Russia Weakened, Says Defense Secretary Austin
3. U.S. to send diplomats back to Ukraine, pledges support in protracted war
4. U.S. diplomats to begin returning to Ukraine this week
5. Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin’s Travel to Ukraine - United States Department of State
6. Russia Begins 'Second' Phase of War - April 25, 2022 | SOF News
7. Assessing the Costs of Expecting Easy Victory
8. How to Target Russian Oil Exports Without Upending Global Energy Markets
9. India’s role significant as US seeks to reverse PRC takeover of Solomon Islands
10. With Abu Sayyaf declining, is Daesh still a threat in the Philippines?
11. No respite for re-elected Macron as parliamentary elections loom
12. Why it’s smart to slash the US defense budget
13. Opinion | The Russians appear ready to repeat Germany’s mistake
14. Expand NATO to Hawaii
15. The Ukrainians Keep Blowing Up Russian Command Posts And Killing Generals
16. China is hunting down Uyghurs with help from some surprising countries
17. Why the Pentagon is fanboying over Elon Musk’s space company
18. Foreign investors are ditching China. Russia's war is the latest trigger
19. Exclusive: An Insurgency In Ukraine Is Growing, Says a Former FBI Acting Deputy Director and IED Expert
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 24 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 24
Mason Clark and Kateryna Stepanenko
April 24, 3:00 pm ET
Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine made minor advances around Severodonetsk on April 24, seizing several small towns and establishing a pontoon bridge across the Krasna River west of Severodonetsk. Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine continues to follow the pattern of their operations throughout the war, using small units to conduct dispersed attacks along multiple axes rather than taking the pauses necessary to prepare for decisive operations. Russian forces continued to bombard the remaining Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol’s Azovstal Steel Plant and may be preparing for renewed assaults on the facility, which would likely lead to high Russian casualties. The military situation in southern Ukraine did not change in the last 24 hours.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces continued to pressure Ukrainian defenders in the Azovstal facility in Mariupol.
- Ukrainian sources report that Russian troops are preparing to conduct renewed assaults on Azovstal that would likely prove costly—possibly to meet a Kremlin-imposed deadline to clear Mariupol—but ISW cannot independently confirm these reports.
- Russian forces secured limited gains northwest of Severodonetsk but remain unlikely to be able to launch massed offensive operations.
- Additional Russian forces are deploying to reinforce unsuccessful attacks on the Izyum front.
- Ukrainian civilians in occupied Kharkiv Oblast are reportedly organizing volunteer movements to resist Russian occupation measures, similar to previously documented actions in southern Ukraine.
CORRECTION: ISW mistakenly reported on April 23 that Russian troops seized Lozova, Kharkiv Oblast, approximately 100km west of Izyum. Russian troops actually seized Lozove, Donetsk Oblast, approximately 35km east of Izyum. We apologize for the error.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
ISW has updated its assessment of the four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time:
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv and Izyum;
- Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
- Supporting effort 3—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capture Mariupol and reduce the Ukrainian defenders)
Russian forces continued to bombard Ukrainian defenders in the Azovstal Steel Plant with artillery and air strikes and may be preparing for renewed assaults on the facility.[1] The deputy commander of the Azov Regiment stated on April 24 that Russian Naval Infantry are preparing to launch an assault on Azovstal, and Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych similarly stated Russian forces are concentrating around Azovstal for an assault.[2] ISW cannot independently confirm Russian preparations for renewed assaults against Azovstal, which would likely sustain high casualties. Russian commanders likely still seek to starve out the remaining Ukrainian defenders but may be compelled to launch a hasty assault on the facility to meet a Kremlin-imposed deadline to fully clear Mariupol. Pro-Russian telegram channels released footage of Pacific Fleet Naval Infantry troops and armor reportedly leaving Mariupol to “go further for new victories,” though ISW cannot confirm details on the specific composition and destination of Russian forces departing Mariupol.[3]
Subordinate Main Effort—Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces conducted several attacks around Severodonetsk, Popasna, and Marinka on April 24, securing limited gains.[4] Russian forces made small advances around Severodonetsk, including establishing a pontoon crossing across the Krasna River west of Severodonetsk and capturing the towns of Popivka, Pischane, Zhytlivka, and Kreminna northwest of Rubizhne (confirmed by footage of LNR servicemen posing by village entrance signs) on April 24.[5] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces primarily focused on securing their current positions around Popasna and prepared for further assaults.[6] Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Oleksiy Arestovcyh stated that Russian forces are conducting assaults north from Melitopol toward Hulyaipole, 80km east of Zaporizhzhia, and have advanced 10km in the past week.[7] Russian forces, including units from Mariupol, likely seek to drive north into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to encircle Ukrainian forces in Donetsk Oblast but are unlikely to successfully complete this deep encirclement.
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv and Izyum: (Russian objective: Advance southeast to support Russian operations in Luhansk Oblast; defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to the Izyum axis)
Ukrainian forces repelled limited Russian attacks from Izyum toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the past 24 hours.[8] Russian forces maintained their positions around Kharkiv city and continued to shell the surrounding area on April 24 and conducted remote mining in Korotichi (a western suburb of Kharkiv) to disrupt Ukrainian movements.[9] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that unspecified Central Military District units, a division of the 14th Air Defense Army, and Iskander-M ballistic missile units are deploying to Belgorod for eventual deployment to eastern Ukraine.[10] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Russian forces continue to deploy through the Kupyansk region to reinforce operations around Izyum.[11]
The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on April 24 that Ukrainian civilians in occupied areas of Kharkiv Oblast are organizing volunteer movements to resist the Russian occupation and deliver food and medicine to low-income people.[12] The GUR stated that Russian forces cut off water supplies in the Kupyansk district, are confiscating mobile generators, and are working to demoralize Ukrainian civilians by falsely claiming Ukraine cut off the electricity and that Russian forces control Kharkiv City. ISW cannot independently confirm this report, though it tracks with both Russian occupation measures and widespread Ukrainian resistance in occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks)
There was no significant change in this area in the past 24 hours.[13] Localized fighting continued in northern Kherson Oblast and west of Kherson city, but Russian forces did not launch any major attacks.
Supporting Effort #3—Sumy and Northeastern Ukraine: (Russian objective: Withdraw combat power in good order for redeployment to eastern Ukraine)
There was no significant change in this area in the past 24 hours.
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces will likely continue attacking southeast from Izyum, west from Kreminna and Popasna, and north from Donetsk City via Avdiivka or another axis.
- Russian forces will attempt to starve out the remaining defenders of the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol and will not allow trapped civilians to evacuate.
- Russian forces will likely increase the scale of ground offensive operations in the coming days, but it is too soon to tell how fast they will do so or how large those offensives will be. It is also too soon to assess how the Russians will weight their efforts in the arc from Izyum to Donetsk City.
[7] https://t dot me/stranaua/38348.
2. U.S. Wants to See Russia Weakened, Says Defense Secretary Austin
A pretty significant articulation of US war aims.
Excerpt:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Mr. Austin said Monday after the highest-level visit of U.S. officials to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Mr. Blinken said: “Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.”
U.S. Wants to See Russia Weakened, Says Defense Secretary Austin
Ukraine is succeeding, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says after joint visit to Kyiv; new strikes signal potential escalation of conflict
By William Mauldin
in southeastern Poland and Thomas Grove
in Lviv, Ukraine
Updated Apr. 25, 2022 5:55 am ET
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russia’s military capabilities should be degraded after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced more U.S. military aid to the country.
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Mr. Austin said Monday after the highest-level visit of U.S. officials to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Mr. Blinken said: “Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.”
In an attempt to stem the flow of heavy weapons from the U.S. and other allies to the front lines in Ukraine, Russia on Monday hit several Ukrainian railway hubs with missile strikes, severely disrupting rail traffic. Meanwhile, large fires broke out at fuel-storage facilities in the Russian region of Bryansk, some 60 miles from the border with Ukraine, as well as at a nearby military fuel depot, Russian state media said.
Russian authorities said they were investigating the fires at the facilities, which Russian state media said together contained around 15,000 tons of fuel. The blazes erupted less than a month after Russia said Ukrainian helicopters launched strikes that caused a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod region, also bordering Ukraine. Russian state media aired security-camera footage on Monday that appeared to show a large explosion followed by a fire.
Blinken Says Russia Is Failing, U.S Pledges More Military Aid for Ukraine
Blinken Says Russia Is Failing, U.S Pledges More Military Aid for Ukraine
Play video: Blinken Says Russia Is Failing, U.S Pledges More Military Aid for Ukraine
The highest-level American delegation to visit Ukraine since the start of the war said a U.S. embassy presence will return to the country and pledged $322 million in military aid. During a press conference, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. would do everything to help Ukraine win. Photo: Associated Press
The Russian missile strikes hit rail infrastructure in the central Ukrainian region of Rivne, local officials said. They followed other missile attacks late Sunday in Poltava that struck an electricity plant and a fuel refinery.The governor of Ukraine’s central province of Vinnytsia said early Monday that Russian missile attacks had hit critical infrastructure in the region and that there were people dead and injured, though he provided no details.
The strikes came hours after Messrs. Blinken and Austin told Mr. Zelensky that Washington would reopen its embassy in Kyiv and provide Ukraine with $322 million in foreign military assistance to allow Kyiv to buy needed weapons. Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, demanded in a diplomatic note that Washington stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, Russian news agency RIA reported Monday.
“We believe that they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Mr. Austin said, adding of Mr. Zelensky: “While he’s grateful for all the things we’re doing, he’s also focused on what he thinks he’ll need next in order to be successful.” Besides artillery, Ukraine has expressed an interest in getting more tanks, he said.
Mr. Zelensky said the $3.4 billion in defense support provided by the U.S. so far has been the biggest contribution to Ukraine’s defense efforts, adding that he had also discussed sanctions on Russia, financial support for Ukraine and security guarantees with the secretaries.
“I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position,” he said in a statement on his website.
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Messrs. Austin and Blinken hailed Ukraine’s success in fending off Russia’s initial attack on Kyiv and maintaining its sovereignty. A senior State Department official briefed reporters on the flight out of Poland about many aspects of Ukraine’s military campaign discussed with Mr. Zelensky, including Russia’s depleted forces and inability to devote many more resources to the war without compromising its stance against NATO and even Finland, which could join the alliance.
Still, U.S. officials said they recognized that Russian President Vladimir Putin could choose to escalate the war, including possibly with weapons of mass destruction.
“I suspect that May is going to be very much in his mind in wanting to show something, so we fully anticipate that he’s going to press the accelerator the best he can,” the senior official said. “We’re trying to be prepared for everything.”
Having struck Odessa in recent days, the senior official said, Mr. Putin is “looking at the entire expanse of the Black Sea coastline.”
The official declined to comment on the explosions in Bryansk in the absence of sufficient information or analysis.
At a briefing in Poland after his return from Kyiv, Mr. Blinken said he spoke to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday and that the U.N. chief, set to visit Moscow and Kyiv this week, would send a “clear, direct message” on behalf of most of the world that Russia should agree to a cease-fire, provide needed aid to civilians and stop the war.
Mr. Guterres had appealed for a four-day truce during the Orthodox Holy Week to allow for the evacuation of civilians from front-line towns and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The U.S. secretaries of state and defense met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday.
PHOTO: UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/VIA REUTERS
Artificial flowers adorn a memorial wall for people killed during the war in Lviv, western Ukraine.
PHOTO: YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The cease-fire proposal was rejected by Moscow, which said it was a ruse to allow Ukraine’s military to rest and regroup.
Senior U.S. military officers at a facility in Poland described an accelerating logistical network for supplying weapons and materiel to Ukraine, as well as a regional effort to increase troop levels and exercises with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization along the alliance’s eastern flank.
Seven 155-mm artillery pieces, along with their tow vehicles, are being processed through the facility, adding to the 18 howitzers the U.S. has already provided to Ukraine, a senior defense official said. Six dozen U.S. howitzers coming to Ukraine under a new aid package, and rounds of 155-mm artillery were visible on pallets at the Polish facility.
The focus on heavy artillery and armored vehicles comes as Russia removes some of its forces from around cities in northern Ukraine and focuses instead on the eastern Donbas region, in what is expected to be a high-stakes conflict on wide-open terrain.
Rescuers cleared debris on Sunday from a damaged building in Odessa, southern Ukraine.
PHOTO: OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
A child stands next to a wrecked vehicle in the southern port city of Mariupol.
PHOTO: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
Mr. Austin on Tuesday will join other defense ministers, including Ukraine’s Oleksii Reznikov, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a gathering at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. The topics discussed will include updating the representatives of more than 20 countries about the latest intelligence from the battlefield in Ukraine, security assistance to Kyiv and strengthening NATO’s defense-industrial base in the long term to support Ukraine’s defense, the defense official said.
One problem to be addressed at the gathering is Ukraine’s need for what NATO considers to be nonstandard ammunition and weapons systems, as well as discussions about whether the former Soviet country could shift toward standard NATO equipment, the official said. For example, howitzers designed to fire 152-mm rounds can’t accommodate the 155-mm caliber.
The return of a U.S. diplomatic presence to Ukraine, which follows moves by the U.K., Italy, France and other countries, will help American and Ukrainian officials to coordinate aid and other efforts in person and to prepare for a future consular operation to address the needs of citizens of both countries, the official said. The defense official declined to say whether U.S. Marines would help guard the embassy in Kyiv, saying the military would respond to the State Department’s needs.
Asked whether the increased U.S. focus on Ukraine risks increasing tensions with Russia, the U.S. official said Washington has no plans to involve its troops in the conflict.
3. U.S. to send diplomats back to Ukraine, pledges support in protracted war
Two key points:
“The first step in winning is believing you can win. They believe that [they] can win; we believe that they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Austin said. “We’re going to continue to do everything we can to ensure that that gets [done].”
A new Ambassador:
The Biden administration will announce the nomination of Bridget Brink, a career diplomat who serves as ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine, Blinken said. There has been no confirmed U.S. ambassador to Ukraine since Marie Yovanovitch was ousted in 2019.
U.S. to send diplomats back to Ukraine, pledges support in protracted war
By Missy Ryan
Yesterday at 11:52 p.m. EDT|Updated today at 5:28 a.m. EDT
IN POLAND, NEAR THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on the heels of a trip to Kyiv, pledged ongoing American support to Ukraine as it faces the prospect of a protracted war against Russia.
Speaking in a hangar in Poland filled with crates of humanitarian aid, including diapers, destined for Ukraine, the two top Biden administration officials said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had expressed “deep appreciation” to the United States.
“Our support for Ukraine going forward will continue … until we see final success,” Blinken said after the first high-level U.S. visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia’s invasion began. “The bottom line is this: We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.”
Officials described the three-hour visit in Kyiv, following stops there in recent weeks by a number of European leaders, as a symbolic show of support for Ukraine’s leaders and a message of Western resolve to the Kremlin.
The officials, who traveled from Poland by train, said they informed Zelensky of new military aid and the administration’s intent to resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine this week, marking the return of U.S. diplomats for the first time since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
Diplomats will begin by making day trips from Poland to Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, where Ukrainians and foreigners have sought shelter from the violence raging elsewhere in the country, a first step to reopening the U.S. Embassy that was shuttered before the invasion, officials said ahead of Blinken’s remarks.
Other nations, including Britain, have announced a resumption of embassy operations in Kyiv, and Blinken said the U.S. Embassy would probably reopen there within weeks.
The two U.S. leaders said their visit to the Ukrainian capital, which Russian forces were unable to capture despite an attempt in the initial weeks of the war, highlighted the failure of Putin’s aims in Ukraine.
Officials outlined additional steps that Blinken and Austin relayed to Ukrainian officials during their brief stay in the capital, where they also met with Ukraine’s foreign and interior ministers. They asked reporters to withhold the name of the location in Poland that Blinken and Austin used as the jumping-off point for their visit because of security reasons.
The Biden administration will announce the nomination of Bridget Brink, a career diplomat who serves as ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine, Blinken said. There has been no confirmed U.S. ambassador to Ukraine since Marie Yovanovitch was ousted in 2019.
The officials also brought with them promises of additional security aid, including more than $300 million in military financing for Ukraine, allowing it to buy more sophisticated air defense systems and stockpile arms compatible with those used by NATO nations instead of Soviet-designed weapons. About $400 million more goes to help other countries purchase new weapons to boost their stocks or, in some cases, replenish arms provided to Ukraine.
The new pledge brings the amount the Biden administration has given Ukraine in security assistance since the beginning of the war to about $3.7 billion.
Austin said the United States would respond to Ukraine’s military needs as the war evolves. With the fight shifting to eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russia is seeking to cement control of areas around Crimea and in regions where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since 2014, Austin said Ukrainian forces would now need more tanks and long-range munitions. “We’re going to push as hard, as quickly as we can to get them what they need,” he said.
Another senior State Department official said the depletion of Russian hardware and forces in the war, in combination with sanctions and commercial restrictions, was hurting Russia’s ability to resupply itself in Ukraine and maintain military readiness at home.
“They’re starting to get into a trade-off between what they can put into Ukraine and what they need to hold in reserve as something to match up against NATO,” the official said.
He noted that some nonmember states in Europe, including Finland, now appear to be moving toward joining the alliance, which he described as another element Russia would see as a threat. “This is a strategic debacle for Putin.”
The United States and other NATO nations have expanded the flow of weaponry to Ukraine in recent weeks but have stopped short of providing fighter jets or, as Zelensky demanded in the first weeks of the war, a NATO-enforced no-fly zone.
A senior U.S. defense official said Austin would update Zelensky on the promised deliveries of howitzers and the ongoing training of Ukrainian troops on U.S. artillery systems, part of a previously announced set of U.S. allocations. Officials declined to identify where the training is being conducted.
The Biden administration will also sell Ukraine up to $165 million in “nonstandard ammunition” it can use for its existing weapons systems.
“The first step in winning is believing you can win. They believe that [they] can win; we believe that they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Austin said. “We’re going to continue to do everything we can to ensure that that gets [done].”
After his Kyiv visit, Austin will travel to Germany for a meeting on Tuesday with defense officials from a number of countries, including Ukraine.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is also traveling in the region and will join Austin on Tuesday for the meeting with more than 40 NATO and non-NATO defense leaders at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The conference’s aim, Milley said, is to solicit new military aid and “to coordinate, synchronize our efforts” over the next several weeks.
“I think it’s accurate that the next several weeks will be very, very critical … for the outcome of this battle that’s shaping up down in the south, the southeast of Ukraine,” Milley told reporters at Ramstein, where he arrived Sunday night.
“What we want to do is make sure the right type of aid is getting to the right location at the right time, in the right quantities and make sure it’s all properly synchronized to achieve the desired effect and outcome on the battlefield,” he said.
Officials said reestablishing the diplomatic presence within Ukraine will allow embassy staffers to coordinate more closely with Ukrainian officials and, eventually, provide more consular services.
“This is the first step, and we expect to be able to accelerate that in the coming days and weeks,” the State Department official said.
The defense official said the Pentagon still views Ukraine’s port of Mariupol as contested despite Russian statements about having completed a prolonged campaign to seize the city, which is on the Sea of Azov.
“For all the Russian claims that they’ve got, it is certainly not acting like an army that thinks they’ve got it because they continue to hit Mariupol,” he said.
He said Moscow had assigned about a dozen Russian tactical groups to the key southern port. Mariupol, a major Russian objective, could help Russia secure a land bridge to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014 and could be used as a jumping-off point for attempts to push north into other parts of Ukraine.
The official said fighting in the greater Donbas region, which includes Mariupol and areas held by Russian-backed separatists, remained inconclusive.
Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
4. U.S. diplomats to begin returning to Ukraine this week
Good news.
U.S. diplomats to begin returning to Ukraine this week
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer · April 25, 2022
Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during talks U.S. diplomats will begin returning to Ukraine this week, State Department spokesperson Ned Price confirmed Monday.
Why it matters: Their promise to resume American diplomatic operations in Ukraine for the first time since Russia launched its invasion in February was among several key pledges during their trip to Kyiv Sunday — including further aid and plans to nominate the first U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine since 2019.
-
Blinken told Zelensky that President Biden will nominate Bridget Brink, the current U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia, for the role, Price said in a statement. If confirmed, she would be the first U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine since Marie Yovanovitch was ousted after public criticism from then-President Trump.
- "The increased U.S. presence demonstrates our support for Ukraine and is part of the U.S. commitment to return our diplomats to our Embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible," Price said.
The big picture: American officials told reporters late Sunday that the State Department would this week send diplomats to Lviv, per the Washington Post.
-
U.S. diplomats will "start with day trips" to the western Ukrainian city and "graduate to potentially other parts of the country," a State Department official said to reporters, CNN reports.
Meanwhile, Blinken and Austin promised Zelensky over $300 million in foreign military financing from the U.S. and said that a $165 million sale of ammunition had been approved, AP notes.
Of note: The announcement came on the same day the only Ukrainian-born member of Congress called for the U.S. to resume diplomatic services in the country.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer · April 25, 2022
5. Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin’s Travel to Ukraine - United States Department of State
Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin’s Travel to Ukraine - United States Department of State
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Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin’s Travel to Ukraine
Readout
April 25, 2022
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The following is attributable to Spokesperson Ned Price:
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III visited Kyiv, Ukraine yesterday to demonstrate the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in their struggle against Russian aggression.
While in Kyiv, Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, Head of Presidential Administration Andriy Yermak, Chief of Defense General Valeriy Zaluzhny, and Ambassador Oksana Markarova. They discussed America’s stalwart support for the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian people, including through our significant assistance to Ukraine’s security, governance, economic, and humanitarian needs. Secretary Blinken also voiced renewed support for Ukraine’s efforts to end the Russian aggression through diplomacy and dialogue, noting that our continued support will strengthen Ukraine’s hand on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.
During their meeting, Secretary Blinken shared that President Biden will nominate Bridget Brink, currently the U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia, to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. If confirmed, Ambassador Brink will lead our diplomatic mission in Ukraine with dedication and distinction. She previously served as Senior Advisor and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and Tbilisi, Georgia. Her decades of experience make her uniquely suited for this moment in Ukraine’s history.
Underscoring our intensive diplomatic engagement, Secretary Blinken also relayed that U.S. diplomats will be returning to Ukraine this week. The increased U.S. presence demonstrates our support for Ukraine and is part of the U.S. commitment to return our diplomats to our Embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible. This action will strengthen the Department’s ongoing commitment to facilitate humanitarian relief efforts and the delivery of assistance to the Government of Ukraine, while providing enhanced support to U.S. citizens.
Secretary Blinken informed President Zelenskyy that the United States intends to obligate more than $713 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Ukraine and 15 other Allied and partner nations in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan region. This includes $650 million in funding provided by the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022. More than $322 million in this obligation is for Ukraine and will provide support for the capabilities Ukraine needs as Russia’s forces train their focus on the Donbas; this assistance will also help Ukraine’s armed forces transition to more advanced weapons and air defense systems. This assistance will also help NATO Allies with backfilling capabilities they have donated to Ukraine from their own stockpiles. Additionally, Secretary Blinken told President Zelenskyy that on April 24 the Department notified Congress of a Foreign Military Sale of up to $165 million for non-standard ammunition for Ukraine. Since the start of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the United States has committed roughly $3.7 billion in security assistance and has provided more than $4.3 billion since the start of the Biden Administration.
As part of our continuing assistance, Secretary Austin also informed the Government of Ukraine that the U.S. Department of Defense will expand military training for Ukrainian service members in the region on certain weapons systems being provided. He highlighted U.S. efforts to accelerate the delivery of these weapons, which are now arriving within days of announcement. And he underscored that, along with our Allies and partners, the United States will continue to coordinate the shipment of additional heavy weaponry, ammunition and spare parts from other nations. Secretary Austin also previewed for Ukrainian leaders the agenda for this week’s Defense Consultative Meeting in Germany. Convened by the United States, the Consultative Meeting will examine the operational picture on the ground and review near-term Ukrainian defense needs, while providing attendees an opportunity to examine ways in which Ukraine’s longer term national security interests can be best met.
Both Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin shared their admiration for the everyday heroism exhibited by the Ukrainian people – whether the soldier on the frontlines, those who are ministering the wounded, sick, or vulnerable or the defiant grandmothers resisting Russian aggression. They noted that the bravery of Ukrainians in defending freedom and democracy inspires us all and underscored our confidence that an even stronger Ukraine will emerge from this conflict.
6. Russia Begins 'Second' Phase of War - April 25, 2022 | SOF News
Russia Begins 'Second' Phase of War - April 25, 2022 | SOF News
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tactical situation on the ground, Ukrainian defense, and NATO. Additional topics include refugees, internally displaced personnel, humanitarian efforts, cyber, and information operations.
Photo: Soldiers assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armored Regiment fire an AT4 anti-tank weapon at Zdar Military Area in Northwest Czech Republic, March 4, 2022. The soldiers are participating in Saber Strike 22, a two-week, multinational exercise that enhances readiness and relationships between NATO allies in the European region. Photo courtesy of DoD.
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Big Picture of the Conflict
Russian Campaign. Several days ago the Russians, as they retreated from the Kyiv area and northern region of Ukraine, announced that the first phase of the ‘special military operation’ was complete and that they would begin the second phase of the operation. This was the securing of the Donbas region. Most military analyst have concluded that the second phase has begun.
The Russians have strengthen their position in the Donbas region with the intention of taking as much territory as they can. As of Friday (Apr 22) they had up to 85 battalion tactical groups in the region. The was a brief pause in attacks on the remaining defenders of Mariupol and reports of a humanitarian convoy leaving the city on Saturday (Apr 23). The Ukrainian military has stopped several Russian small scale advances on the Donbas front and assesses Russian units as not properly organized and suffering from low morale.
The current Russian offensive may further exhaust and deplete Russian units. The stage would then be set for limited counterattacks by Ukrainian forces – units that are receiving constant and timely resupplies of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, and other military equipment for its fully-mobilized population. The Russians are now conducting forced mobilizations of Ukrainian citizens in the occupied areas of the Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Kharkiv oblasts. This action is in violation of Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Russian Push to Transnistria and Moldova? A Russian military commander mentioned on Friday (Apr 22) that Moscow aims to establish a land bridge from Crimea to Transnistria (Wikipedia). The breakaway republic in Moldova (Google maps) already has Russian troops.
Transnistria has been a self-proclaimed republic since 1991. It has a small population of about 500,000. There are an estimated 1,500 Russian troops based in Transnistria. The population region has not been overly supportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – straddling the fence on the issue. “What is Transnistria, and will Russia advance towards Moldova?”, The Washington Post, April 22, 2022.
Mykolaiv and Odesa. For the Russians to establish control of the Ukraine coastline of the Black Sea they would have to take Mykolaiv and Odesa. Although that might be a hope of Russia, most military analysts believe that Russia doesn’t have the combat power to make that happen. The Russians have failed to take Mykolaiv – which stands in the way to the capture of the Black Sea port of Odessa.
And Crimea? In fact, the Russians may find themselves on the defensive in the area north of Crimea. Ukrainian pressure could be mounting on the Russians currently occupying Kherson. If the Ukrainians re-take Kherson then perhaps Crimea could be next. The destruction of a key bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian homeland is a game changer. The bridge is the connection that passes over the Kerch Strait. Brian Frydenborg examines this scenario in detail. “How Ukraine Can Take Back Crimea from Putin’s Reeling Russian Military”, Real Context News, April 24, 2022.
Fight for the Skies. Turkey has closed air space to the Russian military and civilian aircraft heading to Syria. This will prevent the movement of Syrian fighters into Russia and subsequently to Ukraine. Russian missile attacks against Ukrainian cities continue. Repair parts ship to Ukraine by other nations have helped its fighter jets stay operational. Mi-17 helicopters provided by the United States have increased its tactical lift capability as well as ground attack from the air.
Maritime Activities. An amphibious landing force on several ships is still positioned in the Black Sea off the coast of Odessa to land a substantial element of Russian naval infantry. The Russian blockade of Ukrainian shipping continues. Although there are naval infantry on the amphibious landing ships they may be just a diversion to keep Ukrainian troops in the Odessa area fixed.
Tactical Situation
Mariupol. Some 200 survivors of the besieged the coastal city of Mariupol left on buses over the weekend and in a few private cars. They are now sharing their harrowing story of constant bombardment by Russian troops. They were the first civilians to depart the city in over two weeks. By nightfall four buses had reached the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia about 140 miles north of Mariupol. Subsequent attempts of departures through the humanitarian corridor were halted due to Russian shelling. There are continuing reports that Russia is forcibly deporting Ukrainian citizens from Mariupol to Siberia, many going to Vladivostok. The Azov Battalion and 36th Separate Marine Brigade – both vastly understrength and with many wounded – continue to hold a small section of the city – with probably about 2,000 fighters. “Mariupol survivors, dazed and exhausted, describe horrors they endured”, The Washington Post, April 21, 2022.
Situation Maps. War in Ukraine by Scribble Maps. View more Ukraine SITMAPs that provide updates on the disposition of Russian forces. Read an assessment of the Russian offensive campaign by the Institute for the Study of War (Apr 24).
General Information
Negotiations. Russian and Ukraine have been having ‘virtual talks’ in the past few days. Negotiations were held on April 21-22. Ukraine says it will pull out of peace talks if the Russians kill Ukrainian troops captured in Mariupol. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the negotiations are stalled and that Ukraine has not yet responded to the latest version of Russian proposals. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow on Tuesday (Apr 26) to meet with Putin and FM Sergey Lavrov. He will then visit Ukraine on Thursday.
Refugees, IDPs, and Humanitarian Crisis. View the UNHCR Operational Data Portal – Ukraine Refugee Situation (Updated daily), https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine. The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine to neighboring countries is decreasing according to the UNHCR. Thus far, over 5 million refugees have left Ukraine, most of them arriving in Poland. Warsaw is currently “at capacity” for the acceptance of new refugees from Ukraine.
Cyber and Information Operations
OSINT, IO, and Ukraine. Toby Armour examines how open source intelligence or OSINT has changed over the past several years and the impact it is making in the Ukraine War. OSINT has been playing a role in the forming of the narrative and in the information operations arena. It is also having an impact on the recording Russian atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine. “The Russian Invasion Highlights the Impact of OSINT”, Lobo Institute, April 23, 2022.
Russia’s Internet Research Agency and Crimea. Dr. Sarah Morrison, an information security and risk analyst, examines the information operations of Russia during 2014 when it invaded and occupied Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. “The Use of the Russian Troll During Crimea”, Small Wars Journal, April 18, 2022.
Finland – Excelling at Cyber. An international competition between cyber-defense professionals was recently held in April 2022. The winner of the Locked Shields 2022 exercise was Finland. A joint Lithuania-Poland team took second and an Estonia-Georgia team took third. “Finland wins NATO cyber defense competition”, C4ISARNET, April 22, 2022.
Explaining ‘Ruscism’. A new word has evolved due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is now found in Ukrainian news media as well as social media. It roughly translates to “Russian fascism”. Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, explains in “The War in Ukraine Has Unleashed a New Word”, The New York Times Magazine, April 22, 2022.
World Response
U.S Officials Visit Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv, Ukraine on Sunday (Apr 24). This follows the visits by many European nations by Presidents and Prime Ministers to Kyiv. No word on when President Biden will visit Ukraine. Austin stated that Russia had suffered significant losses and that the Pentagon would continue to provide weapons to Ukraine to keep those losses coming. Austin conducted a brief news conference along the Polish-Ukrainian border. “Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin’s Travel to Ukraine”, DoS, April 25, 2022.
Brink to Kyiv? The U.S. may reopen its embassy in Kyiv and will likely nominate Bridget Brink – the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia. She has been working in the Slovak Republic since August 2019 and is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Much of her experience with the Department of State is in East Europe and Central Asia.
Embassies to Reopen. The United Kingdom and Spain are reopening their embassies in Kyiv. They had been evacuated and moved to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv when the Russians invaded in late February. Fifteen embassies have reopened in Kyiv. Apparently, the U.S. Department of State is playing is safe, with no immediate plans to move back to the capital city.
Ramstein Meeting. Forty nations have been invited to a meeting that will feature Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday (Apr 26). This is not a ‘NATO’ meeting, as it includes many nations not members of the NATO alliance; however most NATO members will attend. “Long-Term Ukraine Aid to be Discussed at Ramstein Meeting”, Air Force Magazine, April 22, 2022.
WVNG Providing APCs. The West Virginia National Guard is going to provide armored personnel carriers for use by the Ukrainian military. Following a request by the Department of Defense, West Virginia will give some M-113 APCs as part of the drawdown of U.S. DoD inventories to support Ukraine. The APCs will assist in the movement of squads of infantrymen across the battlefield while providing protection from small arms fire and artillery blasts. (Office of the Governor, WV, Apr 22, 2022).
US Field Hospitals? Members of Congress have sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking the military to provide field hospitals and other kinds of medical assistance for civilian casualties in Ukraine. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman says there is no planning going on at the Pentagon at the moment for setting up field hospitals.
SAS in Ukraine? Russia Investigates. There have been several media reports that the British Special Air Service has members in Ukraine. Moscow announced on Saturday (Apr 23) it was launching a formal probe into the alleged role of Britain’s SAS on the ground in Lviv. These claims follow the capture of two Britons who were fighting with Ukraine in Donbas. Russia says that “mercenaries” will face death if captured. “Russia investigates rumours of British SAS troops on the ground in Ukraine”, Mirror, April 23, 2022.
Private Volunteer Groups. There are a host of private volunteer organizations that are providing aid and assistance to the Ukrainian people. Some of them are crossovers from the Afghan evacuation effort. One of them, Fill the Needs, has been operating since 2008. The organization is now assisting food kitchens in Ukraine providing help to internally displaced persons (IDPs).
And More News
Finns Prepare – Just in Case. The country of Finland – with a small population of just 5.5 million people – is training up reservists for an eventual conflict with Russia. It has fought wars with Russia in the past. Finland was invaded by Russia in 1809 and added to the Russian empire. In 1917 Finland regained its independence. In 1939 it was invaded by Russia once again and fought the ‘Winter War’. That war ended in a peace treaty once Finland agreed to cede 10% of its territory. Finland is now considering membership in NATO after seeing Russia invade Ukraine. “As Finland considers NATO membership, citizens mobilize for an invasion by Russia”, Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2022.
Belarusian Railway Workers and Sabotage. A clandestine network of railway workers, hackers, and dissident security forces wreaked havoc on supply lines in Belarus. Russian forces who entered Ukraine from Belarus assumed they could depend on the country’s extensive rail network for the movement of supplies and reinforcements. The Russians didn’t anticipate that railway workers in Belarus would contribute to the logistical chaos they experienced during the Ukrainian invasion. One tactic was the disabling of the automatic signaling system which slowed railway traffic to a snail’s pace. One of the groups, called the Community of Railway Workers, received information on Russian movements and locations of key railway infrastructure from Belarus railway employees. Another group, called the Cyber Partisans, is formed of exiled Belarusian IT professionals. The Belarusian Interior Ministry has decreed that damaging railway infrastructure is an act of terrorism that carries a 20-year prison term. “The Belarusian railway workers who helped thwart Russia’s attack on Kyiv”, The Washington Post, April 23, 2022.
Russian Trenches of Bucha. Ryan Hendrickson – a retired Special Forces soldier – is in Ukraine providing updates on the conflict via his Twitter account. He recently visited Bucha – located to the northwest of Kyiv and toured some of the now abandoned Russian positions. Watch a 2-minute video he took of bunkers, trenches, and living areas of the Russians. (Twitter, Apr 22, 2022).
Commentary
Podcast – Russia vs Ukraine. Ambassador Lawrence Butler and Mark Mitchell discuss the current Russian war in Ukraine. Butler spent forty years in foreign service. Mitchell is a retired Special Forces officer and former Deputy ASD Special Operations / Low Intensity Conflict. Some topics discussed are the war aims of Russia, some of the questionable tactics of Russia, future of negotiations, and the effects of the war in and on the United States, NATO, EU, and the rest of the world. Veteran’s Radio Hour, April 23, 2 hours. Listen to the episode here.
Video – Ukrainian fighters resist Russian forces at Mariupol steel plant. Former CIA officer Darrell Blocker and national security and defense analyst Mick Mulroy discuss the latest on Ukraine as Putin claims his forces intent to seal off the plant. ABC News, April 23, 2022, 4 minutes.
SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, defense, or the current conflict in Ukraine then we are interested.
Maps and Other Resources
UNCN. The Ukraine NGO Coordination Network is an organization that ties together U.S.-based 501c3 organizations and non-profit humanitarian organizations that are working to evacuate and support those in need affected by the Ukraine crisis. https://uncn.one
Maps of Ukraine
7. Assessing the Costs of Expecting Easy Victory
As John Lennon sang, "..., you know it ain't easy."
Assessing the Costs of Expecting Easy Victory
Michael D. Purzycki is an analyst, writer, and editor based in Arlington, Virginia. He has worked for the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, and United States Army. In addition to Divergent Options, he has been published in the Center for International Maritime Security, the Washington Monthly, Merion West, Wisdom of Crowds, Charged Affairs, Braver Angels, and more. He can be found on Twitter at @MDPurzycki, and on Medium at https://mdpurzycki.medium.com/. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.
Title: Assessing the Costs of Expecting Easy Victory
Date Originally Written: April 10, 2022.
Date Originally Published: April 25, 2022.
Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes American leaders’ expectation of quick victory in post-9/11 wars, and the concomitant refusal to ask for material sacrifice by the American public, undermined the ability to win those wars.
Summary: Unlike World War II, America’s post-9/11 conflicts did not involve shared material sacrifice, such as tax increases or reducing oil use. Previous success during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and initial U.S. success in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks led then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to doubt the need for large troops deployments to Iraq. These factors left the U.S., as a whole, unprepared for the reality of post-conflict stabilization.
Text: Like the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led to widespread popular support for war[1]. In both cases, the deaths of thousands of Americans catalyzed lengthy deployments of U.S. troops overseas. However, the two eras varied widely in the extent to which Americans outside the military were asked to sacrifice to win the wars.
While 16 million Americans served in the military during World War II[2], the entirety of American society was mobilized. At least 20 million Victory Gardens supplied 40% of the country’s produce by 1944[3]. Citizens were urged to carpool to save fuel and rubber[4]. The war saw the introduction of income tax withholding, turning a tax previously limited to wealthy Americans into a way ordinary citizens funded the war effort[5].
No such ethos of sacrifice emerged after 9/11. A month after the attacks, President George W. Bush argued, “We cannot let the terrorists achieve the objective of frightening our nation to the point where we don’t conduct business, where people don’t shop[6].” In 2003, President Bush signed a reduction in income tax rates[7]. Whatever the economic pros and cons of doing so, the decision to cut taxes during a war did not indicate the government intended to ask the public to sacrifice.
In the twelve years before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, major operations the U.S. led were brief and included relatively few American casualties. The 1991 Gulf War lasted six weeks, including only four days of ground combat, and fewer than 300[8] of the more than 500,000[9] Americans deployed were killed. The American-led interventions in Bosnia (lasting three weeks in 1995) and Kosovo (eleven weeks in 1999) consisted of air and missile strikes followed by deployments of NATO peacekeeping missions[10][11]. No Americans were killed in combat during the former conflict, and only two were killed in a training exercise during the latter[12]. After 9/11, the U.S. relied largely on air and missile strikes to oust the Taliban from control of Afghanistan in ten weeks; Afghan allies carried out most of the fighting on the ground[13].
Expecting a quick victory – and expecting Iraq to quickly stabilize after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was overthrown – Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Commander of U.S. Central Command General Tommy Franks underestimated the number of troops needed to stabilize Iraq. Before the invasion, General Eric Shinseki, then Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that stabilization would require “several hundred thousand soldiers[14].” Similarly, Middle East policy expert Kenneth Pollack argued for “two to three hundred thousand people altogether[15].” By contrast, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld expected the war to last a matter of months[16], while Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz dismissed Shinseki’s estimate, saying “It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in a post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself[17].”
When the invasion was launched, 145,000 U.S. troops were involved[18], along with 70,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters[19], 45,000 British troops[20], and others. A year later, the U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq numbered 162,000[21]. This proved inadequate to stabilize Iraq, particularly after the disbanding of the Iraqi army in 2003[22]. Until the “surge” of 2007, in which more than 28,000 additional troops[23] were deployed, brutal fighting between Iraqi factions was rife – more than 96,000 Iraqi civilians were killed from 2003-2007[24]. More than 3,900 Americans were killed from 2003-2007[25], compared to fewer than 600 from 2008-2011[26]. Meanwhile, American popular support for the war declined, from 72% in 2003 to 43% in 2007[27].
The role of oil in the debates surrounding the Iraq war links to the lack of shared sacrifice[28][29]. From 2002 to 2006, 12% of crude oil imported[30] into the U.S. came from Saudi Arabia[31]. Analysts such as New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman argued for a large increase in the federal gasoline tax[32], which would have echoed the reduction of fuel use during World War II. However, U.S. officials did not make decreased reliance on Middle Eastern oil a Policy priority.
Fuel dependence was also a factor in American casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to a 2009 report by the Army Environmental Policy Institute, from 2003 to 2007, one in every 24 fuel and water resupply convoys in Afghanistan, and one in every 38 in Iraq, resulted in an American casualty[33]. But while the military has sought to reduce fossil fuel use in recent years[34], Americans at home were not asked to sacrifice for it at the height of the Iraq war.
While many factors contributed to America’s post-9/11 military struggles, one factor was the expectation of quick victory. Between underestimating the difficulty of stabilization and refusing to ask for material sacrifice by the public, American leaders were unprepared for a long struggle. This lack of preparation can serve as a lesson for leaders debating whether to fight future conflicts and preparing for difficult fights if they do.
Endnotes:
[10] North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “History of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR)
[18] Mills, March 20, 2013.
[19] Peltier, Major Isaac J. “Surrogate Warfare: The Role of U.S. Army Special
[26] Ibid.
[33] Army Environmental Policy Institute. “Sustain the Mission Project: Casualty Factors
8. How to Target Russian Oil Exports Without Upending Global Energy Markets
Excerpts:
To make this plan work, the Biden administration will need to work closely with Congress and America’s allies. Broad buy-in will be crucial to ensure these sanctions don’t inadvertently aid Moscow by sowing intra-alliance divisions and undermining the current strong support for sanctions against Russia. The Biden administration should also encourage American oil production, reversing policies that have dampened domestic production.
Any sanctions effort targeting Russia’s energy sector will be difficult and complex, but not impossible if the West can find the political will. The Ukrainian people are on the front line against authoritarian aggression, fighting to defend not only their homeland but also the fundamental values that underpin the free world. Will the West let them fight that battle alone?
How to Target Russian Oil Exports Without Upending Global Energy Markets
Western sanctions should focus not on taking Russian supplies off the market, but on markedly reducing the revenue Russia earns from each barrel of exported oil.
by Matthew Zweig John Hardie
Mounting evidence of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians has spurred calls for sanctions against Russian energy exports, from which Bloomberg projects Russia will earn $321 billion this year—more than a one-third increase from 2021. While many in the West are understandably wary of roiling oil markets, there is a way for Washington and its allies to structure oil sanctions to minimize supply loss and price increases while inflicting financial pain on Moscow.
Rather than taking Russian barrels off the market, Western sanctions should aim to leave Russian supply intact while using so-called “secondary” sanctions to reduce Russia’s access to oil export revenues and offset the benefit to Moscow of higher oil prices. This sanctions regime should draw on lessons learned from the multilateral sanctions against Iran in 2011-2015, which enjoyed bipartisan support and helped force Tehran into nuclear negotiations. With some tailoring to current market realities, these kinds of sanctions can limit costs to American and allied consumers.
Western sanctions imposed since the war began have rocked the Russian economy. As Russia’s own foreign minister has admitted, the scale of the West’s economic response caught the Kremlin off-guard. Russian officials have reportedly concluded that the country’s economy can hold out for several months but then all bets are off unless sanctions are eased. Unfortunately, Ukraine can’t afford to wait that long. As one senior Ukrainian officer recently put it, Kyiv is “calculating time not in weeks or days—but in lives.”
Now is the time for the West to press on the gas and force President Vladimir Putin to end the war as quickly as possible. In addition to providing Ukraine with weapons and other support, the West should target Russia’s vital oil export revenue, which accounted for almost 37 percent of Russia’s total exports in 2021. Hard currency earned from oil exports is especially crucial for Russia following Western sanctions that have frozen much of Moscow’s foreign reserves.
Although the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have banned or restricted imports of Russian oil, they account for only a small percentage of Russian oil sales. Most major importers, including the European Union and China, which respectively buy about half and one-third of Russia’s oil exports, have not prohibited such purchases even while major banks, oil and shipping companies, and trading houses are eschewing Russian business. Likewise, while India has been scooping up heavily discounted Russian oil, Chinese state refiners are reportedly shunning new Russian oil trades, fearing Western backlash if China appears to be aiding Russia’s war effort.
Former officials from both the Trump and the Obama administrations have advocated “secondary” sanctions against Russia’s energy sector that target non-U.S. individuals and entities for engaging in activities with those targeted by U.S. sanctions. First introduced against Iran in 2011, these sanctions targeted banks that importers used to pay for Iranian oil. Any foreign firm caught conducting transactions with those financial institutions could face U.S. penalties, including banishment from the U.S. market and financial system. For almost any major foreign company, that would spell a death sentence.
Washington also incentivized importers to gradually decrease both the volume and price of their Iranian oil purchases by providing sanctions exemptions for the banks of any country that significantly reduced imports of Iranian oil. More importantly, U.S. sanctions prevented Tehran from repatriating hard currency earned from oil sales, requiring those that purchased Iranian oil to hold its funds in “escrow accounts,” denominated in local currency that Iran could use only to purchase trade goods in that currency. In so doing, Washington incentivized sanctions compliance by Iran’s oil customers, who would naturally rather see Iranian oil proceeds spent in their own economies rather than sent back to Iran.
While borrowing from its experience with Iran, Washington will need to adapt its strategy to the current context. Whereas Iran was the world’s fifth-largest oil producer in 2012, today Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer and top oil exporter. U.S. shale production cannot blunt the rise in oil prices to the same extent it did a decade ago. Already-high oil prices and severe inflation further complicate matters. Any sanctions against Russian oil exports will need to be carefully tailored to minimize disruptions to global energy markets and create incentives for sanctions compliance by third parties.
Therefore, a phased suppression of Russian oil revenue is necessary. Western sanctions should focus not on taking Russian supplies off the market, but on markedly reducing the revenue Russia earns from each barrel of exported oil. The United States and its allies could group importers of Russian oil into three categories: countries that have stopped or plan to stop purchasing Russian oil; those that have committed to phasing out their oil purchases in a way that does not short the oil market; and big importers, such as China, India, and some European countries, that have not committed to any reduction in oil purchases from Russia.
Washington and its allies should focus on the third category, insisting that those countries refrain from increasing oil imports from Russia. In return, Western sanctions could require those buyers to realize a specified discount on Russian oil purchases during an allotted timeframe. For example, using the Brent crude benchmark, India would be expected to buy a barrel of Urals oil for a discount of Brent minus $35 to $50 for the next ninety days, with the discount increasing by an additional $15 to $25 with each ninety-day interval by Russian sellers. Such an arrangement could benefit remaining Russian oil customers while keeping the price of oil down globally for those that have ceased purchasing Russian crude. Buyers that significantly increase Russian oil purchases or do not realize a discount could face Western sanctions or other restrictive measures.
Concurrently, the sanctions regime should employ a phased-in special purpose account mechanism akin to that used for Iran. This would prevent the repatriation of hard currency to Russia while permitting trade in consumer goods and benefiting the jurisdictions holding the accounts, as with Iran before 2015. A per-barrel percentage of Russian oil export proceeds would be placed in special purpose accounts, locked away until Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine. That percentage should increase over time, perhaps starting with 40 percent during the first ninety day period and increasing to 60 percent during the next one.
The Biden administration could also task the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Agency with certifying that the application of U.S. sanctions in this regard will not cause a recession. Washington developed a similar mechanism in the Iran context to ensure that global oil producers had enough excess capacity to prevent an economic downturn even with Iranian oil off the market.
Moscow would surely protest, perhaps threatening retaliation in the energy sector or through other means, such as cyberattacks. Washington and its allies should certainly prepare for that possibility. Ultimately, however, given Russia’s reliance on oil revenue and the perilous state of its economy, Russia would have a powerful incentive to continue selling oil so long as its producers are turning at least some profit. Halting exports would also do lasting damage to shuttered Russian oil fields. Although Beijing will no doubt condemn the sanctions, it would probably push Russia to maintain full export levels, fearing that higher energy prices and the resultant global economic slowdown could hurt China’s economy.
To make this plan work, the Biden administration will need to work closely with Congress and America’s allies. Broad buy-in will be crucial to ensure these sanctions don’t inadvertently aid Moscow by sowing intra-alliance divisions and undermining the current strong support for sanctions against Russia. The Biden administration should also encourage American oil production, reversing policies that have dampened domestic production.
Any sanctions effort targeting Russia’s energy sector will be difficult and complex, but not impossible if the West can find the political will. The Ukrainian people are on the front line against authoritarian aggression, fighting to defend not only their homeland but also the fundamental values that underpin the free world. Will the West let them fight that battle alone?
Matthew Zweig is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where John Hardie is research manager and a research analyst. Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewZweig1. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
9. India’s role significant as US seeks to reverse PRC takeover of Solomon Islands
India’s role significant as US seeks to reverse PRC takeover of Solomon Islands - The Sunday Guardian Live
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Published : April 23, 2022, 5:23 pm | Updated : April 23, 2022, 5:23 PM
During our panel discussions, [former Prime Minister] Hon. Danny Philips pretty much admitted that the signed security agreement is not far off the draft that has been leaked. That agreement talks about protecting ‘Chinese interests’: Hon. Peter Kenilorea Jr.
The strategic frontline was on full display in Solomon Islands this week. There was official confirmation that the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has signed a security agreement with China that opens the door for basing and, not entirely uncoincidentally, the highest-level US delegation to visit Solomon Islands in decades has just passed through.
In this edition of “Indo-Pacific: Behind the Headlines” we speak with the highly respected Solomon Islands leader, Hon. Peter Kenilorea Jr. about what this has meant for his country, and the Indo-Pacific.
Hon. Kenilorea is the son of the first Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands and was elected to the national parliament of the Solomon Islands in 2019. He is also the President of the Organization of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States Parliamentary Assembly and the Co-President of the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly.
Q: What are you concerned about looking forward?
A: The announcement that the timeline for the opening of the US embassy is going to be escalated is a really important step. Solomon Islanders are very much into feeling, seeing, touching and that sort of thing. Once it’s there, it’s real. It’s important it happens quickly because, now that this [PRC security] agreement is signed, I think there will be a flurry of Chinese activity.
During our panel discussions, [former Prime Minister] Hon. Danny Philips pretty much admitted that the signed security agreement is not far off the draft that has been leaked. That agreement talks about protecting “Chinese interests”. I don’t see any Chinese interests currently. The shops in Chinatown are really retail. And I don’t really count them as Chinese interests and investment. So I’m thinking that is for the future.
I’m expecting, perhaps, mining to come in. And that has its roots, for me at least, in one of the big announcements that Prime Minister Sogavare came back with from China after his first visit there. He announced China Railway was going to invest 800 million US dollars in Gold Ridge [a gold mine on Guadalcanal island]. It was interesting because the landowners got a bit caught off guard—they were not aware of it. That hasn’t yet quite panned out. But I think it will still, and I’m not sure whether all of that money is going to be spent on the mine or somewhere else.
And those 200 communication towers that Huawei is lined up to build. I think those will start to move faster. Also, someone showed me a signed MoU about purchasing planes from China, and upgrading airfields. That has been in the works for a while. And another thing that is so called “economic” but might be something else are the harbours. I’ve heard there was big interest in putting in a fisheries hub.
We know what that means in terms of Chinese boats coming in. So, I think these activities in the near future are coming in.
Q: The US delegation met “prominent religious leaders”. Why was that important?
A: I’m happy to hear that. I was impressing upon [the US embassy advance team] that would be very important, show the values that we share, and how China is very different. Meeting faith leaders is going to be something that China can never do. And if they do it, it’ll expose them as being overtly political in terms of their approach to the church [which is very important to Solomon Islanders].
Q: The US delegation also met with “key members of the opposition”. Recent Australian delegations have only met with Prime Minister Sogavare. What does that mean?
A: Meeting with the opposition sets the US apart from the other partners here. And shows US interest in the whole nation, rather than just one regime. Perhaps other friends may not be very happy about that approach. But it’s good to see US consulting widely and willing to do their own thing, which I was very happy to hear. So I think meeting the opposition really went down well with many of our people who do not trust the Sogavare government.
Q: What should the US and other partners focus on now?
A: I think the US is on the right path, in terms of engaging directly with provincial governments, not necessarily having everything through the central government. Of course, in international cooperation such engagements will still have to go through central government. But the kinds of projects that go directly to the mass of the people in the provinces, can have a massive impact.
The Western province has stated that it’s concerned about the security agreement.
And they are one of the most populous provinces in the Solomons—very important economically to Solomon Islands as well. So support to Western Province will be very welcome. And Guadalcanal is a natural one, I think, for the US in terms of shared history. All provinces including the city of Honiara could engage constructively with US on a number of issues. These could be quick wins in terms of some really concrete support for the provincial governments, making sure that the programs are running and impacting the people where they live.
Then continue to support stronger democracy in Solomon Islands. The continuous support for democratic institutions is key because that is under attack.
The big one is the elections [scheduled for 2023]. I can see from the [government] budget that it’s clear the government is not taking the election seriously, because they haven’t put adequate budget aside for the preparations for next year’s elections. For me, that is the biggest indicator. I was looking out for those numbers. And I don’t see them. So if US [or other democratic countries] can step in to say look, if money is an issue, we’re here to help because it’s important for democracy. That will be massive.
Also a concrete thing that shows commitment to democracy is to upgrade and finish the parliament’s building complex. It was US built, but there’s supposed to be a library, we’re having problems even with the sound system and air conditioning, and everything’s run down outside of it. A commitment to that particular institution, a physical commitment, right at the heart of democracy in Solomon Islands is important. I’m hearing China wants to do that as well.
We also need increased people-to-people connections with likeminded countries. For example, education and availability of scholarships, both academic and sports.
And study visits for both national, provincial level leaders and business leaders. Yes US, but India would be great as well. We lack capacity in tertiary education, and students might want to take courses that aren’t available here. The pivot towards India is something I personally would like us to move towards. I think India has a lot to offer.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I think the whole saga of the PRC security deal has proven the Sogavare government cannot be trusted. And they are kindred spirits with Beijing. They say one thing and do the opposite. That is something we have known all along, us Solomon Islanders. US Vice President Mike Pence knew about it in 2019, when Sogavare made a commitment to come and see him before the switch from Taiwan to China. And that never happened. Sogavare was a no show. And now the secrecy of this agreement just underscores that Solomon Islands and China—or at least the two regimes of the Sogavare government and the CCP—are working together. That is not good for us in the Solomons as a young democracy. And definitely not good for the region. And also for our friends beyond the region as well. And the world, really.
10. With Abu Sayyaf declining, is Daesh still a threat in the Philippines?
Note that our one armed, horse riding ASG nemesis, Radullan Sahiron, continues to carry on.
There is also Radullan Sahiron, currently the chief leader of the ASG, who never pledged allegiance to Daesh. He remains at large with a $1 million bounty on his head, but Aranas said he is unlikely to support Daesh or foreign fighters.
“Based on the account of the surrenderers, he’s not letting them join his group.”
Some praise for our Philippines allies.
The Philippine military’s success in containing the danger of militancy has been observed, but with caution.
“It’s difficult to eradicate such a threat completely,” Rikard Jalkebro, associate professor at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, who has researched militant groups in the Philippines, told Arab News.
“We know that it’s very easy for Daesh to strap on a suicide vest and blow themselves up at a church or outside a marketplace,” he said.
“You can kind of import the ideology and the package deal to conduct terrorism.”
But in an organized way, he added, “it looks like they are definitely diminished.”
“I’m quite impressed with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. This clearly is something.”
With Abu Sayyaf declining, is Daesh still a threat in the Philippines?
JOLO, Sulu: When Philippine security forces won a major fight with militants affiliated with Daesh in 2017, a new surge in attacks led to concerns that the group, which originated in the Middle East, was expanding its operations in the Southeast Asian country. Five years later, the military says its operations have decreased the threat, but it is not entirely gone.
The main Daesh affiliate in the Philippines has been the Abu Sayyaf Group, a militant outfit that operates in the country’s south.
Formed in 1991, it emerged as a splinter group of the Moro National Liberation Front, a movement seeking autonomy for Filipino Muslims in the southern Philippines. It was initially influenced by Al-Qaeda, but since the early 2000s, it has gained notoriety for extortion, assassinations and kidnappings — often beheading hostages if a ransom was not paid. In 2014, some of its factions pledged allegiance to Daesh.
The ASG was not the only militant outfit in the Philippines that did so, but it was the most notorious, with one of its leaders, Isnilon Hapilon, touted as the Daesh “emir” in the country.
In 2017, militants mainly from the ASG and another Daesh affiliate, Dawlah Islamiya, also known as the Maute group, took control of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines. After five months of fighting and widespread destruction, the Philippine army was able to reclaim the city. Hapilon, the Maute group’s main leadership and some foreign fighters were killed.
But after the Marawi battle, attacks increased in the country, including suicide bombings that indicated the presence of foreign fighters; local militants generally did not use such a method of fighting. Daesh became a major cause of concern. In 2018, the US Department of State designated Daesh-Philippines as a separate group on its list of foreign terrorist organizations.
It was also in 2018 that the Philippine military stepped up a crackdown on Daesh affiliates. The Maute group was soon decimated and significantly weakened. But the ASG remains, although the military says its threat has now declined due to limited inflows of money and an apparent leadership crisis.
Data from the 11th Infantry Division, a Philippine army unit designated to fight militancy in the southwestern island of Sulu, shows that the number of militants active in the area has decreased from about 300 in 2019 to an estimated 100.
“Here in Sulu, militants aligned with the Daesh have lost their international support. We are no longer monitoring fund transfers from outside,” Maj. Gen. Patrimonio, commander of the 11th Infantry Division, told Arab News.
After Hapilon’s death, Sulu-based Hadjan Sawadjaan reportedly emerged as the Daesh-Philippines leader. He was named as the mastermind behind a 2019 attack by two Indonesian suicide bombers on a cathedral in Jolo, the capital of Sulu, and another deadly twin blast in the city in 2020. Sawadjaan also oversaw the kidnapping of Arab News Asia Bureau Chief Baker Atyani, who at that time was working for Al-Arabiya. Atyani was held captive by the ASG for 18 months, until December 2013.
In November 2020, the Philippines announced Sawadjaan’s death, following an encounter with security forces.
After Sawadjaan, there was no one capable of taking over as Daesh leader in Sulu, Patrimonio said, “so the designation as emir went to Salahuddin Hassan, a Dawlah Islamiya (Maute group) leader operating in south-central Mindanao. But only last year, he was also neutralized.”
Maj. Lawrence Aranas, a member of the 11th Infantry Division’s civil relations team, said the military had identified Hatib Majid Saeed, alias Amah Pattit, as the new Daesh leader in Sulu. Pattit is the uncle of notorious ASG sub-leader and bombmaker Mudzrimar “Mundi” Sawadjaan, the suspected handler of the executors of the 2019 and 2020 Jolo attacks.
“Based on revelations of the former fighters, Saeed himself is hesitant to lead Daesh in the Philippines,” Aranas told Arab News, adding that since 2021 there have been no attempts by the group to carry out kidnappings for ransom and that with no money inflows, the militants had resorted to selling their own firearms for sustenance.
“By 2020, their financial support was almost gone. They have been limited to local support and the help of relatives not only financially but logistics-wise as well, such as food.”
According to Aranas, only two foreign militants remain in Sulu, an Egyptian and an Indonesian, the son of the couple that carried out the 2019 Jolo cathedral bombing.
While the Daesh-affiliated faction, which used to be led by Hapilon, is experiencing a leadership crisis and its members have been surrendering to the army, they are not the only remaining ASG militants.
There is also Radullan Sahiron, currently the chief leader of the ASG, who never pledged allegiance to Daesh. He remains at large with a $1 million bounty on his head, but Aranas said he is unlikely to support Daesh or foreign fighters.
“Based on the account of the surrenderers, he’s not letting them join his group.”
The apparent dwindling influence of Daesh does not, however, mean that the threat is gone. Any future entry of militants into the Philippines is also not ruled out.
“We still have very loose security and monitoring in our borders. If not in Sulu, they can also use Tawi-Tawi and Basilan as entry points,” Aranas said.
Patrimonio also acknowledged that militants “still pose a threat for as long they are here.”
“Mundi (Sawadjaan) and the two foreign fighters are still around, and there are still reports of planned bombings. So, they are still a threat to Sulu.”
The Philippine military’s success in containing the danger of militancy has been observed, but with caution.
“It’s difficult to eradicate such a threat completely,” Rikard Jalkebro, associate professor at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, who has researched militant groups in the Philippines, told Arab News.
“We know that it’s very easy for Daesh to strap on a suicide vest and blow themselves up at a church or outside a marketplace,” he said.
“You can kind of import the ideology and the package deal to conduct terrorism.”
But in an organized way, he added, “it looks like they are definitely diminished.”
“I’m quite impressed with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. This clearly is something.”
11. No respite for re-elected Macron as parliamentary elections loom
France, Europe, and democracies dodged a bullet.
No respite for re-elected Macron as parliamentary elections loom
- Summary
- President gets 58% in win over Le Pen -final results
- Was far right's biggest share of runoff vote
- Macron acknowledges many voted for him to keep Le Pen out
- Eyes turn to parliamentary election in June
- Radical opponents urge voters to ditch Macron then
PARIS, April 25 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron enjoyed no respite from his political opponents on Monday as, hours after he won re-election by defeating the far-right's Marine Le Pen, radical parties called on voters to deny him a parliamentary majority.
Macron, who pledged to work harder as a unifying force in a divided country, said his second mandate would be different after his sometimes high-handed manner alienated many voters during his first term in office.
But he will now need to win again in legislative elections in June. If he fails to do that, he will struggle to push forward with his pro-business agenda, including unpopular plans to push back the retirement age.
Senior politicians on the far left and far right urged the electorate to put a stop to those reforms.
"Don't leave all the power in Emmanuel Macron's hands," said Jordan Bardella, a close Le Pen ally, urging voters to back the far-right National Rally in the two-stage parliamentary vote on June 12 and 19.
"If you want men and women who will ... protect you from the brutality of Emmanuel Macron's policies, you must elect hordes of National Rally lawmakers," Sebastien Chenu, a spokesman for Le Pen, told BFM TV.
France's unemployment rate dropped to its lowest in 13 years during Macron's first mandate, and its economy outperformed other big European countries as well as the broader euro zone.
But his pro-business and security reforms triggered much discontent, and Macron acknowledged in a low-key victory speech that many had voted for him mainly to thwart his far-right challenger. read more .
The hard left's Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came third, just behind Le Pen, in the presidential election's first round, said Macron had been elected "by default."
"Don't give up," he told his supporters. "You can beat Macron (in the parliament elections) and choose a different path."
In recent French legislative ballots, the president's party has always won a majority in parliament.
Should the outcome be different this time, Macron would have little choice but to name a prime minister from another party, ushering in what has traditionally been a tense period of cohabitation during which presidential powers are severely curbed. read more
During a cohabitation, the president remains the head of the armed forces and retains some foreign policy influence but the government has responsibility for most other day-to-day matters of state and policy.
1/10
French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he arrives to deliver a speech after being re-elected as president, following the results in the second round of the 2022 French presidential election, during his victory rally at the Champs de Mars in Paris, France, April 24, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
"The recomposition of the French political landscape is not over. The majority that emerges from the parliamentary elections will be decisive for economic policy," said Amundi Chief Investment Officer Vincent Mortier.
Final results of Sunday's runoff showed Macron won 58.54% of the vote. While a clear win, the result also gave the far right its biggest share of the presidential ballot on record.
Macron and his allies pledged to govern differently and listen more to voters, hoping it will help them win a majority in parliament. read more
"Many in this country voted for me not because they support my ideas but to keep out those of the far-right. I want to thank them and know I owe them a debt in the years to come," Macron said his late-night speech.
"We will have to be benevolent and respectful because our country is riddled with so many doubts, so many divisions."
After a first mandate in which many criticised Macron's sometimes abrasive style, the message on Monday was that things would be different this time.
"Our first job will be to unify," parliament leader Richard Ferrand, a close ally of Macron, told France Inter, saying lawmakers would involve voters more in their decision-making.
Macron's margin of victory was well below the 66.1% he scored against Le Pen in 2017.
The conservative daily Le Figaro wrote in its main editorial on Monday: "In truth, the marble statue is a giant with feet of clay. Emmanuel Macron knows this well ... he will not benefit from any grace period."
That also means Macron can likely expect more of the protest rallies that marred some of his first mandate.
"He's not going to do another five years of the same mandate, that's clear. We won't let him do it," said 63-year-old administrative worker Colette Sierra.
"If he does, I think people are ready to take to the streets if there isn’t the right kind of coalition government."
But some voters were genuinely happy with Macron's win.
"I'm very happy about the result because this president has already steered us through several challenges," said 65-year-old lorry driver Lucien Sozinho. "He has shown courage, and there you have it, that's the result."
Reporting by Ingrid Melander, Myriam Rivet, Manuel Ausloos, Jeevan Ravindran, Myriam Rivet, Leigh Thomas, Dominique Vidalon and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris; Additional reporting by Alan Charlish in Warsaw; Editing by Mark John, Edmund Blair and John Stonestreet
12. Why it’s smart to slash the US defense budget
From Sean's argument I fear what will first be slashed are professional military education programs such as NDU and the College of INternational Security Affairs.
Excerpts:
It’s time to slash the U.S. defense budget. The money blown on weapon systems designed to fight last century’s wars is staggering, as are the opportunity costs. Cutting the defense budget will improve U.S. national security. First, the money saved could be redistributed among the interagency more evenly, where it’s needed. Firepower alone does not win war, and we need to invest in our non-kinetic capabilities such as coercive diplomacy, cash reserves for economic warfare, and technologies that counter foreign disinformation campaigns. Giving half the budget to defense risks militarizing foreign policy. Alternatively, take the Pentagon Dividend and reinvest elsewhere for domestic needs.
Are Democrats losing their advantage on education? Biden’s unforced error at the United Nations
Second, slashing the Department of Defense’s budget will make it hungry and innovative. Scrapping expensive conventional war weapons is the start. We don’t need to cut troops, but we should reorganize them to fight unconventionally. Some get it, such as retired Adm. Jim Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO. So does Gen. David Berger, Marine Commandant. He stripped the tanks and helicopters out of the Corps, and is reconfiguring it into smaller, nimbler units. Conventional warriors are freaking out, but rigid strategic culture is the enemy of progress.
Warfare has changed since the glory days of 1945. Going forward, we need improved strategic education focused on critical thinking, so our strategists can understand the changing character of war before we fall victim to it, as the French did with their Maginot Line. Otherwise, we spend trillions of dollars preparing to fight the only type of war we will not face in the future — conventional war — leaving us dangerously vulnerable.
Why it’s smart to slash the US defense budget
BY SEAN MCFATE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/24/22 9:00 AM ET
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
The only winner so far in Russia’s war against Ukraine is the U.S. Department of Defense and the beltway oligarchy that feeds it. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamic and Northrop Grumman have seen their stocks rise sharply since the invasion started. On Capitol Hill, the war has become a rallying cry to increase U.S. defense spending. Forty Republicans from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees urged President Biden to include a 5 percent increase above inflation for defense in his proposed 2023 budget. Even some Democrats are pushing for more spending, despite Biden already boosting the Pentagon’s budget by nearly $30 billion in 2023.
Why does everyone assume more money equates to more security? Gargantuan defense budgets did not win American wars in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, where we struggled against luddites fighting in flip-flops, with AK-47s and pickup trucks. It’s the definition of insanity to think more money now will help against nuclear powers with hegemonic ambitions.
Rather than throw money at the problem, let’s try solving it. We have a strategic IQ problem — the same one Russian President Vladimir Putin has.
Putin’s invasion failed because he used an antiquated form of warfare called “conventional war.” World War II is a supreme example of this style of fighting. Armed conflict is purely state-on-state, where brute force and battlefield victory alone determine nations’ fates. Firepower is king, making industrial-strength militaries imperative. Think of big battles such as D-Day, Kursk and Midway, and how they paved the road for allied victory. In this way of war, there is no problem firepower cannot solve. Honor nominally matters, as do the laws of war, and citizens are expected to serve their country in uniform with patriotic zeal. It’s why we say, “Thank you for your service” to veterans in airports.
There is just one problem: No one fights “conventionally” anymore. Until recently, the last conventional wars took place in the 1980s, and the last one in Europe involved Adolf Hitler. Ironically, there is nothing more unconventional today than a “conventional war.” The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, a gold-plated data set in social sciences, shows interstate and extrastate wars (read: conventional wars) since 1946 have declined to near zero, yet violence has not waned. Armed conflict has increased since the Cold War, and the number of conflict deaths in 2015 surpassed any in the post-Cold War period. Conventional warfare is neither timeless nor universal, but has a beginning, middle and end: Napoleon, the Crimean War, and World War II, respectively.
Conventional warfare went extinct because it no longer delivers victory. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. won every battle but lost the war. In 2003, it defeated Iraq in battle and “mission accomplished” became a punchline. Putin made the same mistake in Ukraine, assuming a big military fighting “conventionally” would crush the Ukrainians within days. So did many American military experts. But the Russian Blitzkrieg did not cow Ukrainians into submission, and the tank-on-tank battles imagined by traditionalists have not occurred. There is no better symbol for Russia’s strategic failure than the 40-mile column of Russian tanks stuck on the road to Kyiv.
Frustrated, Putin has abandoned conventional warfare and gone full ogre. His new commander, Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, is notorious for cruelty such as flattening cities and massacring civilians, as seen in Grozny, Aleppo and Bucha. For him, war crimes are not a problem but a tactic.
Meanwhile, the plucky Ukrainians are winning by using unconventional warfare strategies and guerilla tactics. The humble Javelin missile costs $174,000 and has thwarted, with Ukrainian courage, a billion-dollar-a-day Russian conventional force. While Russia is rolling armor, Ukraine is mobilizing memes and social media to win the world’s support. In an information age, some of the best weapons do not fire bullets — something conventional warriors, perhaps, cannot comprehend.
This is a cautionary tale for Americans who blindly want to increase defense spending as the solution. Like Putin, U.S. national security circles are largely stuck in the past with a conventional warfare mindset. Budgets are moral documents because they do not lie. Examining which weapons the Congress and Pentagon buy reveals the kind of war they expect to fight. Every year, the top acquisitions are the same: fighter jets, warships and tactical vehicles such as tanks.
These are conventional warfare weapons for a post-conventional warfare age, and ludicrously expensive. The Ford-class aircraft carrier costs $13 billion a ship, more than Ukraine’s defense budget. The F-35 fighter plane program cost $1.7 trillion, more than Russia’s GDP. They are obsolete war junk. Predictably, they played no meaningful role in two decades of wars and did not deter Russian or Chinese aggression. Yet the U.S. is buying more, and pitching allies to do the same. They all make the same mistake as Putin: imagining future wars as conventional and won by “large-scale combat operations” (Pentagonese for big battle), such as tank-on-tank combat in eastern Poland or a Battle of Midway in the Taiwan Straits fought by Ford-class carriers, F-35s and drones.
Battlefield victory no longer wins wars, so let’s stop wasting trillions of dollars on it.
It’s time to slash the U.S. defense budget. The money blown on weapon systems designed to fight last century’s wars is staggering, as are the opportunity costs. Cutting the defense budget will improve U.S. national security. First, the money saved could be redistributed among the interagency more evenly, where it’s needed. Firepower alone does not win war, and we need to invest in our non-kinetic capabilities such as coercive diplomacy, cash reserves for economic warfare, and technologies that counter foreign disinformation campaigns. Giving half the budget to defense risks militarizing foreign policy. Alternatively, take the Pentagon Dividend and reinvest elsewhere for domestic needs.
Second, slashing the Department of Defense’s budget will make it hungry and innovative. Scrapping expensive conventional war weapons is the start. We don’t need to cut troops, but we should reorganize them to fight unconventionally. Some get it, such as retired Adm. Jim Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO. So does Gen. David Berger, Marine Commandant. He stripped the tanks and helicopters out of the Corps, and is reconfiguring it into smaller, nimbler units. Conventional warriors are freaking out, but rigid strategic culture is the enemy of progress.
Warfare has changed since the glory days of 1945. Going forward, we need improved strategic education focused on critical thinking, so our strategists can understand the changing character of war before we fall victim to it, as the French did with their Maginot Line. Otherwise, we spend trillions of dollars preparing to fight the only type of war we will not face in the future — conventional war — leaving us dangerously vulnerable.
Sean McFate is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of five books, including “The New Rules of War: How America Can Win — Against Russia, China, and Other Threats.” He served in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. Follow him on Twitter @seanmcfate.
13. Opinion | The Russians appear ready to repeat Germany’s mistake
Opinion | The Russians appear ready to repeat Germany’s mistake
In his April 20 op-ed, “As the fight shifts east, a race against time to arm Ukraine,” David Ignatius wrote that the Soviet encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad will be Russia’s model for defeating Ukrainian forces in Donbas, Ukraine. More likely, Moscow’s offensive will replicate Operation Citadel, Germany’s failed attempt to recover the strategic initiative after the Stalingrad debacle. The Germans were stopped with massive losses after less than two weeks. Germany never recovered.
The Ukrainians have a good appreciation of likely Russian avenues of attack, and each day their defenses grow stronger. Donbas’s terrain is suitable for defense. Its wooded ravines are dotted with villages that can be turned into strongpoints, with several small cities to anchor the defense, and it has a very limited road network. The Russians will be largely road-bound in Donbas because of their wheeled vehicles, logistics requirements, extended supply lines and the muddy ground.
With up to 80 tactical battalion groups and supporting elements, perhaps totaling 120,000 troops, Russian forces are too weak to successfully encircle Donbas. Perhaps most important, the Russians simply lack the quality to successfully conduct a battle of encirclement on the scale envisioned. They are poorly trained, led, motivated, disciplined, supplied and maintained. Their “army” is a mixed force of mercenaries, conscripts, separatists, reservists and “contract” soldiers wholly unprepared to fight as a cohesive force. The generals have demonstrated a basic incompetence at combined arms warfare and stunning tactical ineptitude. If they attempt to encircle Donbas, they likely will suffer a defeat of historic magnitude, just as Germany did 79 years ago.
Edward Grimes, Lexington, Va.
The writer is a retired Defense Department Russian analyst.
14. Expand NATO to Hawaii
Perhaps we should change the name to the WWTO - world side treaty organization.
Expand NATO to Hawaii
Keeping territory from the allied security guarantee can bring on war, as it did in the Falklands in 1982.
By Arshan Barzani
April 24, 2022 4:50 pm ET
Americans understand that an attack on one ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an attack on all. If Russia bombed Warsaw, Washington would be obligated to come to its aid. But if Pearl Harbor were attacked again, this rule wouldn’t compel U.S. allies to help.
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Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty covers only Europe and parts of North America north of the Tropic of Cancer. Swathes of member countries’ land, such as Puerto Rico and French Polynesia, fall outside the pact. At NATO’s birth in 1949, this limit served to exempt far-flung colonies. Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and Chinese saber-rattling, NATO’s self-imposed geographic limits absent the alliance from the Indo-Pacific and weaken it in the Atlantic.
For seven decades, countries have deterred aggression by joining NATO because their mightier allies promise to defend them. When NATO excludes territory from its security guarantee, it can bring on war.
This is how the Falklands War began. When Argentina invaded the British territory in 1982, NATO didn’t come to the rescue. It had no duty to help. Even the U.S., Britain’s closest ally, waffled before providing logistical and intelligence support. Worse, Argentina saw Britain’s NATO membership as reason to invade, reckoning that Article 5 commitments would tie British forces down in Europe. The defense treaty’s flaw spurred on a war in which more than 900 people died.
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NATO can no longer take such risks. Facing an unpredictable Vladimir Putin and a swaggering China, it must protect all members’ lands. Expanding Article 5 would let allies shift troops from places like the Falklands in the South Atlantic to the Russian naval threat in the north. It also would extend NATO’s deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, sending a message to China.
Start with the Atlantic, where Article 5’s southern limit excludes places like the British, Dutch and French Caribbean, America’s naval base at Guantanamo Bay, and Europe’s satellite-launching facility in French Guiana. Another omission is Britain’s South Atlantic territories. London has a sizable defense presence in the Falklands, with a frigate, a patrol ship, and an air base with 1,200 personnel. Covering the islands under NATO’s promise of collective strength would offer a stronger deterrent.
To stand up to China and other adversaries at the same time, America will need Europe’s help. But historically, European leaders haven’t been eager to deter Beijing. Last year French President Emmanuel Macron made known that he opposes blocs to contain China, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sought to strengthen economic ties with Beijing.
NATO expansion from within—by extending Article 5’s reach—is the most promising way to turn Europe into a U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific. An amendment would affirm NATO members’ territorial integrity, making such a move palatable to aloof members and minimizing Chinese outrage. France might be tempted to sign on because New Caledonia and French Polynesia would be protected. Berlin is more likely than before to sign on, too, now that Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown Germans that their foreign policy of change through trade has failed. European leaders know they owe the U.S. for its leadership on Ukraine, and expanding NATO from within is one way to return the favor.
The only amendment to the North Atlantic Treaty so far, in 1951, included Turkey in the alliance, even though it is 97% in Asia. Such precedent leaves no grounds to continue excluding and endangering American, British, Dutch and French territory around the world—lands whose people elect lawmakers and volunteer to fight NATO’s wars. They deserve the alliance’s shield as much as any compatriot.
Mr. Barzani is an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, a student at Yale Law School, and translator of the first English-language edition of Napoleon’s “Chronicles of Caesar’s Wars.”
WSJ Opinion: The Goal in Ukraine Should Be Victory
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Appeared in the April 25, 2022, print edition.
15. The Ukrainians Keep Blowing Up Russian Command Posts And Killing Generals
Excerpts:
The timing of the Friday decapitation raid is interesting. As the Kremlin focuses its efforts around Izium, on the northwestern edge of Donbas, Russian lines around Kherson have grown fragile. And Ukraine is building up its own forces in the region, apparently planning for an operation aimed at liberating Kherson.
If two generals indeed did die in the destruction of the 49th CAA’s headquarters, expect the Russians swiftly to replace them. Also expect the Ukrainians to continue blowing up command posts around Kherson as they prepare for a possible counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian army clearly appreciates just how disruptive the loss of an HQ can be. After all, it learned the hard way.
The Ukrainians Keep Blowing Up Russian Command Posts And Killing Generals
Wrecked vehicles at a destroyed Russian commandPhoto via social media
Eight years ago, a trio of Ukrainian army brigades fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region made a fatal mistake. They idled their tanks and trucks around a static command post.
Russian drones and eavesdroppers pinpointed the command post and blasted it with artillery.
As many as 10 Russian generals have died in combat since Russia attacked on Feb. 23, many of them in the Ukrainians’ “decapitation” strikes.
The latest strike could be the most dramatic. Ukrainian forces on Friday reportedly destroyed the command post of the Russian 49th Combined Arms Army near Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian intelligence service, the attack killed two Russian generals and wounded a third.
These strikes alone won’t end the war. There’s no shortage of deputy commanders to take the place of the commanders who’ve died—and replacement leaders actually tend to be more aggressive and crueler than the established leaders they replace.
But blowing up a command post can confuse the subordinate units, temporarily leaving them vulnerable to a swift attack. As Ukraine continues mobilizing its reserves and re-equipping with Western-supplied weapons, Ukrainian counterattacks could become more frequent—and more decisive in rolling back Russian territorial gains in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Smashing a bunch of Russian HQs can only help those efforts.
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s strategic Crimean Peninsula in early 2014, Russian-backed separatists seized huge swathes of eastern Donbas.
In early July 2014, three ostensibly powerful Ukrainian army formations assembled near Zelenopillya, just a few miles from the Russian border, in preparation for an attack on rebel-held territory.
Three Ukrainian army brigades gathered at the encampment alongside a contingent of border guards. The 24th Mechanized Brigade, 72nd Mechanized Brigade and 79th Air-Mobile Brigade together possessed T-64 tanks, BMP fighting vehicles, engineering vehicles and trucks.
Russian drones spied on the camp. The Ukrainians managed to shoot down one Orlan-10 drone, but could not stop the Russians from pinpointing their location. On the morning of July 11, Russian forces hacked the Ukrainian command post’s network and jammed its radios.
“At about 4:30 A.M., the Ukrainians lost the ability to communicate due to Russian cyber and electronic attack,” U.S. Army major Amos Fox explained in the winter 2019 edition of Armor, the official magazine of the Army’s tank branch. “The formations, prostrate and unable to communicate, were then ruthlessly attacked by Russian multiple-launch rockets and run-of-the-mill tube artillery.”
Thirty soldiers died along with six border guards and their commander. Two battalions worth of vehicles and equipment burned, according to Fox. “The attack crippled the assembled Ukrainian brigades.”
“Armored formations are built for unencumbered activity,” Fox explained. “They are not meant to be tethered, whether digitally or physically, to static command posts.”
The Russian army clearly appreciated this principle back in 2014. Incredibly, it now appears to have forgotten it ... and stubbornly refuses to relearn. Ukrainian forces lately have been blowing up Russian command posts as a matter of routine.
The Russians eight years ago used a combination of drones and phone- and radio-intercepts to pinpoint Ukrainian command posts. It’s not totally clear exactly how the Ukrainians are locating Russian headquarters in the current fighting.
Maybe they also rely on drones and intercepts. It’s worth noting, however, that the United States and other foreign powers have been flying around-the-clock intelligence sorties just outside Ukrainian air space—and presumably sharing the resulting intel with Ukraine.
A Royal Air Force RC-135 signals-intelligence plane was over the Black Sea, just 150 miles or so from Kherson, around the time of the attack on the 49th CAA headquarters.
The timing of the Friday decapitation raid is interesting. As the Kremlin focuses its efforts around Izium, on the northwestern edge of Donbas, Russian lines around Kherson have grown fragile. And Ukraine is building up its own forces in the region, apparently planning for an operation aimed at liberating Kherson.
If two generals indeed did die in the destruction of the 49th CAA’s headquarters, expect the Russians swiftly to replace them. Also expect the Ukrainians to continue blowing up command posts around Kherson as they prepare for a possible counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian army clearly appreciates just how disruptive the loss of an HQ can be. After all, it learned the hard way.
I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.
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16. China is hunting down Uyghurs with help from some surprising countries
Excerpts:
According to the report, what scholars call “transnational repression,” ranging from online harassment to detention and extradition, has taken place in 44 countries, and Uyghurs have been threatened and intimidated in United States, Japan and across the European Union. More than 1,500 detentions and forced returns to China have occurred since 1997, more than 1,300 of them since 2014.
The report breaks down the repression into three distinct stages. From 1997 to 2007, 89 Uyghurs were detained or deported by local security services primarily in South and Central Asia. In the second phase, from 2008 to 2013, 126 Uyghurs were targeted primarily in Southeast Asia. And in the ongoing third phase, from 2014 to present, 1,364 Uyghurs have been detained, extradited or rendered from 18 countries concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa.
The report is based on a database built by Jardine in partnership with the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs called "China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset." Researchers culled news reports and government documents and conducted interviews with Uyghurs to compile the comprehensive list of documented instances of persecution outside of China. Reporting by Jardine and NBC News indicates that the scale is likely more extensive than is officially reported.
China is hunting down Uyghurs with help from some surprising countries
More than 1,500 Uyghurs have been detained, extradited or rendered, most in the Middle East and North Africa, says a report from the Woodrow Wilson Center.
NBC News · by Anna Schecter · April 25, 2022
The Chinese government is not only mistreating Uyghurs within China's borders, it is hunting them down abroad — with help from countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — to clamp down on criticism of Beijing’s repression of Muslim minorities.
The scale of the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s efforts to harass, detain and extradite Uyghurs from around the world, and the cooperation it is getting from governments in the Middle East and North Africa, is described in unprecedented detail in a new report, “Great Wall of Steel,” by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
More than 5,500 Uyghurs outside of China have been targeted by Beijing, hit with cyberattacks and threats to family members who remain in China, and more than 1,500 Uyghurs have been detained or forced to return to China to face imprisonment and torture in police custody, according to the report.
“It is the first major study to place the Xinjiang humanitarian crisis in a global context, showing the international dimension of Beijing’s campaign to suppress the Uyghurs,” said the report’s author, Bradley Jardine, a Schwartzman fellow at the Wilson Center and director of research at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.
The forced repatriations to China are ongoing.
Anthropologist Adrian Zenz, who has studied and documented Beijing’s systematic repression of Uyghurs, says Beijing is using economic might and gifts of infrastructure projects — its global Belt and Road initiative — to pressure countries, including those with majority Muslim populations that might be sympathetic to the Uyghurs’ plight.
“The Chinese are quite scared of what Muslim populations think of their treatment of the Uyghurs and have exerted particular effort in influencing government and popular opinion in those countries,” said Zenz, who is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington.
Chinese authorities in Xinjiang began rounding up women and men in 2017 — largely Muslims from the Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz ethnic minorities — and detaining them in camps designed to rid them of terrorist or extremist leanings.
A watchtower on a high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, on May 31, 2019.Greg Baker / AFP via Getty Images file
From 1 million to 2 million Uyghurs and members of other minorities from Xinjiang are believed to be held in the camps, where they are forced to study Marxism, renounce their religion, work in factories and face abuse, according to human rights groups and first-hand accounts. Beijing says these “re-education camps” provide vocational training and are necessary to fight extremism. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on this article.
According to the report, what scholars call “transnational repression,” ranging from online harassment to detention and extradition, has taken place in 44 countries, and Uyghurs have been threatened and intimidated in United States, Japan and across the European Union. More than 1,500 detentions and forced returns to China have occurred since 1997, more than 1,300 of them since 2014.
The report breaks down the repression into three distinct stages. From 1997 to 2007, 89 Uyghurs were detained or deported by local security services primarily in South and Central Asia. In the second phase, from 2008 to 2013, 126 Uyghurs were targeted primarily in Southeast Asia. And in the ongoing third phase, from 2014 to present, 1,364 Uyghurs have been detained, extradited or rendered from 18 countries concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa.
The report is based on a database built by Jardine in partnership with the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs called "China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Dataset." Researchers culled news reports and government documents and conducted interviews with Uyghurs to compile the comprehensive list of documented instances of persecution outside of China. Reporting by Jardine and NBC News indicates that the scale is likely more extensive than is officially reported.
The database includes 424 cases of Uyghurs forcibly returned to China, most since 2014, when the Chinese Communist Party launched its own “War on Terror.”
China’s secret service has relied on foreign governments in many cases and Interpol in some cases to help repatriate Uyghurs they wish to control, according to the report.
Feb. 4, 202101:51
“This changes the Uyghur story by making clear that China is not only mistreating Uyghurs within China’s borders, but is also pursuing them internationally, through both legal and illegal channels, on a large scale,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute. “China is pursuing, harassing, and detaining Chinese Uyghurs around the world and returning them to China for punishment whenever possible.”
Many of the Uyghurs in the database have been detained and sent back to China without being charged with a crime, while others have faced accusations ranging from missing passports and visas to terrorism. Some were accused of making or associating with individuals who have made political statements critical of Beijing’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, while others were deported merely for having studied religion abroad. The database includes 60 documented cases of Uyghurs accused of promoting or partaking in separatism or terrorism or being linked to an extremist group.
In Morocco, a Uyghur human rights activist and journalist critical of China’s policies remains imprisoned following an Interpol red notice against him issued at Beijing’s request. While Interpol later withdrew its notice citing its bylaws forbidding persecution on political, religious or ethnic grounds, a Moroccan court approved an extradition request by China in 2021.
In a statement to NBC News, an Interpol spokesperson said that a “specialized task force” reviews every red notice request to ensure compliance with the organization’s rules, taking into account information available at the time of publication, and can re-examine any notice if new information emerges, as it did in the Morocco case. “[Interpol’s] General Secretariat is constantly reviewing, assessing and updating its procedures to ensure the greatest level of integrity in the system, and trust in its work,” the spokesperson said.
A Uyghur woman holds a picture of her relatives during a protest on the eve of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in London on Feb. 3, 2022. Wiktor Szymanowicz / Future Publishing via Getty Images
Saudi Arabia, which appears on China’s list of “suspicious” countries for Uyghurs to travel to, has increasingly cooperated with Beijing. Saudi authorities have deported at least six Uyghurs to China in the last four years who were either making pilgrimages to Mecca or living in the country legally, according to the report.
“This is complete callousness [on the part of Saudi Arabia] knowing what will happen to these Uyghurs when they get to China,” Zenz said. “The Chinese government wants to cleanse Uyghurs worldwide so that there are no pockets of Uyghurness outside of China’s borders that are not in line with Beijing’s narrative.”
In 2017 Egyptian police rounded up Uyghur students at a university in Cairo and deported them to China and elsewhere in the Middle East. Some escaped to Dubai only to face detention there, according to the report.
“I have learned from interviews with Uyghur sources in the UAE that Chinese police coordinated the Egypt crackdowns with Dubai. Uyghur students who attempted to flee to the UAE from Egypt were picked up as a part of this coordination,” Jardine wrote in the report.
In a statement emailed to NBC News, a government spokesperson said the UAE government “categorically rejects” the allegations, calling them “baseless.”
“The UAE follows all recognized global norms and procedures established by international organizations such as Interpol in the detainment, interrogation, and transfer of fugitives sought by foreign governments.”
In 2020, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE joined 42 other countries in signing a letter supporting China’s campaign of mass detention in the Xinjiang region.
The embassies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco did not respond to requests for comment.
Anna Schecter is a senior producer in the NBC News Investigations Unit.
NBC News · by Anna Schecter · April 25, 2022
17. Why the Pentagon is fanboying over Elon Musk’s space company
Maybe we can learn a thing or two from Mr. Musk.
Why the Pentagon is fanboying over Elon Musk’s space company
“Following a commercial approach, just like SpaceX, allowed me to accomplish a number of ‘firsts.'"
BY DAVID ROZA | PUBLISHED APR 22, 2022 9:54 AM
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Members of the military often serve as role models for men, women, boys and girls across the country. But who serves as a role model for people in the military? Often these days, the answer seems to be SpaceX, the private aerospace company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk. Just this week, two senior Pentagon officials have stated that they wish the Department of Defense worked more like the 20-year-old aerospace company hoping to one day spur the colonization of Mars.
“By the time the government manages to produce something, it’s too often obsolete; no business would ever survive this way, nor should it,” wrote Preston Dunlap, the chief architect officer for the Air Force, in a memo announcing his pending resignation on Tuesday. In the letter, Dunlap offered advice for how innovators can overcome Pentagon bureaucracy to develop new technologies. A good role model for doing that? SpaceX.
“Following a commercial approach, just like SpaceX, allowed me to accomplish a number of ‘firsts’ in DoD in under two years,” Dunlap wrote.
Military officials also admire SpaceX’s sheer technological abilities. On Thursday, Dave Tremper, the director of electronic warfare at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, praised SpaceX for reportedly beating back Russian attempts to break up internet access in Ukraine.
“From an EW technologist perspective, that is fantastic. That paradigm and how they did that is kind of eye-watering to me,” Tremper told Breaking Defense. “The way that Starlink was able to upgrade when a threat showed up, we need to be able to have that ability.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA astronaut and Marine Corps Col. (Ret.) Douglas Hurley and fellow crew member Robert Behnken is launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station, May 30, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (Joel Kowsky/NASA)
The officials’ comments come at a time when many uniformed and civilian members of the military are calling for the Department of Defense to undergo radical change in order to maintain its technological advantage over the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, which has undertaken a massive modernization effort in recent years. Specific areas of modernization include artificial intelligence, drone swarms, hypersonic weapons and cyber warfare. However, some critics say that America’s military-industrial-congressional complex, with its oligarchy of large defense companies; byzantine acquisitions and requirements processes; and entrenched Congressional interests, does not move fast enough to keep up with rapid change.
“DoD suffers from an acquisition ‘blue screen of death’ that requires more of a repair of the proverbial DoD hard drive, not simply a rebooting,” Dunlap said. “Much more must be done if DoD is going to regrow its thinning technological edge.”
By contrast, SpaceX seems like it is operating on a different planet. In just two decades, the California-based company developed reusable rockets for sending missions into space at much lower cost; became the first private company to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station; and has won a long list of military contracts to launch satellites into space; build missile-tracking satellites; and develop rocket-delivered transport and weapons systems.
“Look at SpaceX in this country,” said then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, in a 2020 interview with the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
“There were some pretty spectacular failures. Did they stop? No. … They learned from the failures,” he said. “They launched rapidly again. They changed systems. They changed subsystems. They’d go in a completely different direction.”
Even this agility was nearly incompatible with Department of Defense bureaucracy, which is so dense that many critics say it drives away companies who want to work with them.
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten speaks during the National Security Space Association’s “Space Time” virtual event at the Pentagon, Jan. 22, 2021. (Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II / DoD photo)
“What SpaceX had to do to effectively do business with the United States Air Force is embarrass us in public,” Hyten said. The general may have been referring to SpaceX filing a lawsuit against the Air Force in 2014 during a years-long process to get its Falcon 9 rocket certified for military launches.
“No service secretary likes to be embarrassed in public,” Hyten said. “But that turned into a mutually beneficial partnership.”
SpaceX is not the only private company building space rockets, and not the only technology company that defense officials are looking to for guidance. Hyten said he was amazed by watching the way tech companies in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Cambridge, Massachusetts do business. As former congressional staffer Christian Brose wrote in his influential book “The Kill Chain,” those companies have heaps of private capital and have worked extensively on the same problems of connectivity and computing that the military is struggling with today. However, a gulf exists between the two communities because the military is a difficult partner to work with.
“Senior leaders in the Department of Defense and Congress have a tendency to talk a big game about the importance of new technologies for the U.S. military,” wrote Brose, who is now chief strategy officer for the venture capital-backed defense start-up Anduril Industries. “But when push comes to shove, most of the biggest contracts continue to flow by the billions to legacy military platforms and the traditional defense companies that manufacture them.”
The military’s problem is how to compete with China, and many officials think that working with Silicon Valley companies like SpaceX and emulating their practices is the way to solve it. However, some experts think that the boogeyman of Pentagon bureaucracy, while slow and onerous, is more valuable than many technologists believe.
“Brose correctly diagnoses the ills of the defense acquisition bureaucracy, but its goals [of fairness and cost-effectiveness] are still worthwhile,” wrote RAND researcher Jonathan Wong in a 2020 review of The Kill Chain.
“Brose is right that mindless adherence to acquisition rules without considering the wider context wastes time and effort,” Wong wrote. “One might be better served by continuing the hard work of reforming the bureaucracy — not sidestepping it.”
Adapting commercial solutions such as Apple’s iCloud for targeting data for airstrikes may not even be desirable, Wong said. After all, it’s not clear if any such technology will work when an enemy tries “to disrupt that network and turn its advantage into a liability,” the researcher said.
Despite the Silicon Valley-esque vision of warfare being determined by networks of connected devices, nobody knows how a future war will play out, Wong wrote. The researcher advocated for increased reform of acquisition regulations and the military requirements process, which would better allow the military to adapt to changes in general, and not just gamble all on iCloud warfare.
“Richard Danzig observed that predictions about the future of war are consistently wrong,” Wong said. “It is better to be circumspect about the nature of future conflicts and prepare for predictive failures.”
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks to future USSF Guardians in the Admissions Conference Room on April 7, 2022 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo (Trevor Cokley / U.S. Air Force)
Beyond the economic and political considerations of emulating companies such as SpaceX, there are also ethical complications. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and mocked the use of gender pronouns. The companies he founded, Tesla and SpaceX, have been investigated for workplace safety violations; harassment; and underpaying their employees. The U.S. military is also rife with discrimination, harassment and unfair treatment of its employees, and perhaps ethical considerations are not as significant when national security is on the line and the military’s purpose is to destroy America’s enemies. That tension is portrayed well in a recent WIRED review of “Return to Space” — a Netflix documentary about the rise of SpaceX — which was critical of the movie for seeming like an advertisement for the company.
“Musk’s rhetoric might make it seem like SpaceX will usher in a new era of spaceflight and save humanity by building colonies on Mars and other inhospitable worlds, but his company, and others like it, wouldn’t exist without NASA and NASA contracts,” WIRED wrote.
About midway through the film, a stirring scene shows SpaceX’s first successful landing of a Falcon 9 rocket and cuts to former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver, who says Elon Musk and SpaceX have changed the space industry by making “everything” reusable at a tenth of the cost.
“That may be true,” wrote WIRED, “but NASA’s still footing the bill.”
What’s new on Task & Purpose
David covers the Air Force, Space Force and anything Star Wars-related. He joined Task & Purpose in 2019, after covering local news in Maine and FDA policy in Washington D.C. David loves hearing the stories of individual airmen and their families and sharing the human side of America’s most tech-heavy military branch. Contact the author here.
18. Foreign investors are ditching China. Russia's war is the latest trigger
Good news?
Foreign investors are ditching China. Russia's war is the latest trigger
Analysis by Laura He, CNN Business
Updated 7:05 AM ET, Mon April 25, 2022
CNN · by Analysis by Laura He, CNN Business
A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
Hong Kong (CNN Business)Investors are ditching China on an unprecedented scale as a cocktail of political and business risks, and rising interest rates elsewhere, make the world's second biggest economy a less attractive place to keep their money.
China witnessed $17.5 billion worth of portfolio outflows last month, an all-time high, according to most recent data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The US-based trade association called this capital flight by overseas investors "unprecedented," especially as there were no similar outflows from other emerging markets during this period. The outflows included $11.2 billion in bonds, while the rest were equities.
Data from the Chinese government also showed a record bond-market retreat by foreign investors in recent months. Overseas investors offloaded a net 35 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) of Chinese government bonds in February, the largest monthly reduction on record, according to China Central Depository and Clearing. The sell-off accelerated in March, hitting a new high of 52 billion yuan ($8.1 billion).
"China's support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine was clearly the catalyst for capital to leave China," said George Magnus, an associate at the China Centre at Oxford University and former chief economist for UBS.
Geopolitical risks
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"There is nervousness about China's ambiguous, but Russia-leaning stance on the Ukraine conflict, which raises worries that China could be targeted by sanctions if it helps Russia," said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who has studied China's economy and US-China relations.
But geopolitical tension is not the only reason behind the exodus. The rate hike in the United States and China's strict Covid-related lockdowns have also played a role in scaring investors.
The US Federal Reserve is increasing interest rates for the first time since 2018 to tame inflation, while the People's Bank of China has entered an easing cycle to bolster its faltering economy. That means China looks less attractive to investors when compared with the United States. Earlier this month, yields on China's 10-year government bond fell below US Treasury yields for the first time in 12 years. And the yuan hit a six-month low against the US dollar.
"The rise in interest rates, especially in the US, makes the nominal return associated with Chinese fixed income assets less attractive on a relative basis," Chorzempa said.
"The economy is enfeebled and being made worse by government actions and by zero Covid policies," said Magnus.
China's economy slowed sharply in March — consumption slumped for the first time in more than a year, while unemployment in 31 major cities surged to a record high — as escalating Covid lockdowns in Shanghai and other major cities severely hit growth and supply chains.
Some economists are even talking about the possibility of a recession this quarter, as Beijing looks determined to hold on to its zero Covid policy despite the hefty price.
A number of investment banks have slashed their forecasts for China's full-year growth in the past week. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its growth forecast for China to 4.4%, down from 4.8%, citing risks from Beijing's strict zero Covid policy. This is well below China's official forecast of around 5.5%.
Confusion about the future
With these worries mounting, some fund managers and analysts have started questioning whether they should invest in China at all.
"China is seeing deep foreign capital outflows as doubts increase regarding its basic investability," said Brock Silvers, managing director for Kaiyuan Capital, a private equity investment firm based in Shanghai.
The pandemic is not the only reason behind China's slowdown. A lot of the country's current economic pain can be traced back to the sweeping regulatory crackdown on the private sector, which was unleashed by President Xi Jinping in 2020. There are fears that the government will continue to clampdown on sectors ranging from education to technology this year.
"Global investors don't want to play regulatory guessing games or worry that tomorrow's news may deplete another otherwise attractive company or business model," Silvers said.
The speed and ferocity with which authorities have acted against private enterprise have startled even the closest China watchers.
The Nasdaq Golden Dragon index, a popular index that tracks more than 90 US-listed Chinese companies, lost 31% in the third quarter of 2021, the worst quarter on record. It then shed another 14% in the final quarter of last year. By comparison, the S&P 500 rose 0.2% and 11% respectively in the third and fourth quarters of last year. The Nasdaq Composite also surged 8% in the final quarter of 2021.
Some of the money flowing out of China may have gone into US dollar assets, while there is also "a notable switch from China to India," according to Qi Wang, chief investment officer for MegaTrust Investment in Hong Kong.
Shrinking appetite
The crackdown on the private sector has also impacted private equity funds that focus on China.
Funds that raise US dollars to invest in China only attracted $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2022, down 70% from the previous quarter, according to Preqin, a London-based investment data firm.
A separate survey by Bain & Company showed that Greater China-focused private equity funds attracted $28 billion in new funding for the second half of last year, down 54% from the first half, as global investors are increasingly concerned about political and economic uncertainty in the Chinese market.
"Looking ahead, about 55% of respondents expect the [fundraising] situation to be more challenging in next 12 months," said Kai Zhong, a manager on the China Private Equity team at Bain & Company.
On the fence
However, while bond and equity funds may be slashing their exposure to China, there's evidence that global companies are continuing to invest in Chinese businesses.
Foreign direct investment inflows to China hit a record high of $173 billion in 2021, up 20% from the previous year, according to data from China's Ministry of Commerce.
Chorzempa noted that the record FDI came even though "the regulatory uncertainty and a darkening view among policymakers outside of China was already highly salient."
"So it is not clear whether the data from the last two months represents a paradigm shift or more of a temporary recalibration to a still very strong investment relationship, especially with Europe," he said.
According to an annual survey conducted by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China last year, only 9% of nearly 600 European companies operating in China planned on shifting any current or planned investment out of China, the lowest share on record.
Still, there are signs that some of them have become anxious about China's zero Covid policy.
Earlier this week, China's commerce minister Wang Wentao met with a few foreign chambers to discuss the impact of the country's zero Covid policy.
Jens Hildebrandt, executive director of the German Chamber of Commerce in North China, told CNN Business that the participants raised some pressing issues member companies are facing related to the Covid-containment strategy, especially in Shanghai.
An ongoing lockdown in Shanghai — a major business and manufacturing hub — has forced most businesses to shut down for weeks, threatening to disrupt key supply chains for autos and electronics. It has also made port delays worse and forced the suspension of many passenger flights, sending air freight rates soaring and putting even more pressure on global supply chains.
"The current policy with lockdowns leading to productions stops, logistic and supply chain disruptions and restrictions on the movement of people do not only pose a short-term concern, but will leave their marks on the long run," Hildebrandt said in an emailed response to CNN Business.
"As foreign companies are suffering economically, we are looking for clear signals on how the Chinese government will help to ease the burden through relief programs," he added.
CNN · by Analysis by Laura He, CNN Business
19. Exclusive: An Insurgency In Ukraine Is Growing, Says a Former FBI Acting Deputy Director and IED Expert
Is insurgency the right description? Perhaps there could be one in Crimea or the Russian occupied areas of Donbass. But I think we are talking about resistance to Russian invasion which is not an insurgency. This is the legacy of the GWOT and FM 3-24 - everything is now an insurgency. And just because someone employs an IED does not make him or her an insurgent
Exclusive: An Insurgency In Ukraine Is Growing, Says a Former FBI Acting Deputy Director and IED Expert
Ukraine Goes ‘Back To The Future’ with IEDs
After the United States and coalition partners invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, it was not long before improvised explosive devices – sometimes called roadside bombs or simply IEDs – began to take a toll. Less sophisticated at first, and initially underestimated by senior United States military leaders because of the inability of IEDs in the first months of the invasion to significantly damage combat vehicles, IED incidents grew rapidly and became devastating in their sophistication and effectiveness. In his 2017 article, Jason Shell concluded “60 percent of all American fatalities in Iraq and half of all American fatalities in Afghanistan, more than 3,500 in total, were caused by IEDs.” Additionally, in its heyday, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was producing IEDs on a truly industrial scale, and enjoying significant battlefield successes until a concerted effort was made to eliminate the group. To understand where Ukraine is going on the IED front, we must first return to the past. Borrowing a phrase from the famous movie of the same name, we must go “back to the future.”
Since the discovery of gunpowder around the 10th century AD by the Chinese as described in the Wujing Zongyao manuscripts, humanity has found ways to use explosives in various conflicts. The current war between Russia and Ukraine, the latest iteration of which began on February 24, 2022, is no exception. Now more than 50 days in length, the war has featured conventional force-on-force engagements, but the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian military has demonstrated great creativity and use of asymmetric and unconventional tacticsin exacting a very bloody toll on invading Russian army units.
In a series of Tweets starting on February 28th and thru the present, I have been both predicting and describing an insurgency using weaponized commercial drones (also known as unmanned aerial systems – UAS) and improvised explosive devices – IEDs – of the same sort and variety as what long targeted the United States and coalition forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere. Drones have already burst on the scene in a significant way, and so too have IEDs increasingly made an appearance, beginning in mid-March 2022 based upon my analysis of the social media posts which have gushed steadily from the region.
As Russian forces and their proxies attempt to make the best out of an invasion that has, by all accounts, gone spectacularly bad for them, Ukrainian special forces (known by the English acronym SSO, corresponding to the Ukrainian language words Сили Cпеціальних Oперацій – Special Operations Forces) have begun to effectively use various forms of IEDs to strike Russian forces, something I expect to accelerate as the war pivots to a different phase, as evidenced by apparent Russian attempts to concentrate combat power in the Donbas region and to create a land bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia.
The IEDs I Saw Used in Iraq Were Ever Improving in Design and Effectiveness
As I told Fox News in an interview on March 6, 2022, I watched the beginnings of the Iraqi insurgency develop in 2003 when I volunteered to deploy there as a Department of Defense civilian attached to the Iraq Survey Group (ISG). While IEDs were not in the ISG’s mission set, as a long-time explosives expert and former U.S. Army armored cavalry scout, I was concerned about the IEDs I saw there. At first, there were relatively unsophisticated short-range electronic devices using long-range cordless telephones, wireless doorbells, and car alarms – what I refer to as 1st generation devices – but in about two months, I watched as Iraqi insurgents demonstrated a rapid capability improvement, eventually sitting in on meetings with the staff of then LTG Ricardo Sanchez, bomb technicians, and the FBI on how to deal with the growing threat. The result would eventually come to be known as the Combined Explosive Exploitation Cell, which contended with ever-increasing sophistication by Iraqi insurgents, Al-Qa’ida, ISIL, and others. This was soon aggravated considerably by what open-source reporting has attributed to Iranian forces supplying explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), whose supersonic copper, aluminum or steel tadpole-shaped slugs proved deadly against United States vehicles, including up-armored Humvees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Strykers. To be clear, the Iranians did not invent EFPs, but they saw an opportunity to proliferate then uncommon technology, and they took it. The extensive use of EFPs in Iraq by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) personnel is well understood by the Department of Defense (DOD) and others but rarely spoken of publicly. In an affidavit, in support of a plaintiff’s lawsuit seeking to recover damages from the Government of Iran in the case Karcher v. Islamic Republic of Iran, former DOD senior executive Russell McIntyre, a U.S. Army Ranger and special forces officer with deep knowledge of counter-IED operations, provided the court with trial testimony (now public record), and expert knowledge of Iranian EFP usage and manufacturing. This testimony was accepted by the federal trial court, and it detailed the activities of IRGC-QF forces in their professional production and smuggling of EFPs, which were then used to attack and kill United States and coalition forces in Iraq, particularly between 2004 and 2011. The court granted default judgment against Iran for these attacks.
For four years, I served as the senior executive deputy director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), the last seven months as acting director. The TEDAC, a component of the FBI’s laboratory division, blends forensics, intelligence, research and development, advanced engineering, and deployments, studying and exploiting the technology used in IEDs to help defeat them. One of the things I watched develop since the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency is how technology to produce deadly IEDs and drone delivery systems increased dramatically over the years of the United States’ involvement. What I have previously referred to as 2nd generation technology (things like passive infrared and dual tone multi-frequency triggers) flourished, often in combination with cellular phones. Similarly, 3rd generation technology including software-driven, plug-and-play devices like Arduino microcontrollers and even complex printed circuit boards, poses a challenge for even advanced counter-IED warfighters and scientists. All of this brings us to present-day Ukraine and a subtle but noticeable shift in Ukrainian tactics, techniques, and procedures.
The basics of an IED, including buried explosives, vehicles packed with commercial, homemade, or even military explosives (aka VBIEDs), and both EFPs and platter charges are not rocket science. Al Qa’ida, ISIL, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army successfully employed various IEDs for decades, giving the United States and our coalition partners vast experience in countering this tactic. Similarly, VBIEDs have been used across Europe, Africa, and Asia by terrorist groups, albeit more sporadically than in the Middle East. Explosively trained personnel in the Ukrainian military are well equipped to manufacture such devices, using sophisticated fusing and firing systems if needed, although based upon my TEDAC experience, even low-tech methods such as pressure plates or multi-lead wire for command detonation work extremely well and cannot be jammed.
US and NATO Forces Have Spent Years Training Ukrainian in the use of IEDs
While some presumed the Russians would easily overwhelm the less equipped Ukrainians through conventional and 2014-style hybrid forces, the Ukrainians have made excellent use of small unit guerilla techniques and ambushes, along with hit and run attacks using a variety of weapons; things they would have been taught by U.S. Army Green Berets, who are documented as having trained the Ukrainians beginning in 2014. The United States is not alone in conducting such training, according to a December 2020 story from the United Kingdom (U.K.) Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian troops received counter improvised explosive device (C-IED) training from U.K. forces. Such training, based upon my personal experience, can cut both ways, both showing how to defeat the device, while also necessarily showing something of how the device functioned. Finally, it is well documented that fighters from western nations, including the United States, have been volunteering for groups like the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, and some of these volunteers are reportedly special operations veterans who served in Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan, with firsthand experience facing IEDs. Logically, this experience would equip them to offer advice on placement and construction as well as small unit and guerilla tactics, using what they experienced in combat.
How Can IEDs be Employed in Ukraine?
As for VBIEDs, their prolific use in conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria make them an obvious choice against Russian forces. Given the physics of unfocused explosions, where blast effects go in all directions, VBIEDs are best targeted against logistics support vehicles and intermediate armored vehicles like BMP-3, BMD-4, Pantsir-S1, BTR-80 series, etc. While a very large buried charge or mine could disable or kill a tank, the Ukrainians already have Javelins, the Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon, Carl Gustav, and PG-7VR rounds to accomplish that goal. In congested urban environments, particularly where large numbers of buildings have been destroyed or numerous vehicles clutter the streets, VBIEDs are an ideal weapon, and relatively simple to produce. Just as the United States and our coalition partners faced this nightmare and the British struggled against such weapons for decades in London and Northern Ireland, so too will inexperienced Russian troops as they attempt to take and hold cities.
EFP and roadside bomb technology, having proven its lethality against United States and coalition forces, should become be a top focus for Ukrainian fighters. The Ukrainians, with their modern military, have large quantities of their own explosives, clearly now supplemented by captured Russian material. As such, they can make vast numbers of EFPs, VBIEDs, and roadside bombs, while the Russians have virtually no combat experience protecting against them. Buried in normal roadside debris, or even concealed in artificial rocks as has been the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, they will be virtually impossible to find and quite deadly.
Because they caused so many casualties amongst United States and coalition forces, some may believe the EFP is difficult to produce or requires some form of advanced manufacturing prowess; this is incorrect. EFPs are easy to recreate with moderate efficiency and the only significant challenge is the production of the concave copper plates, something easily done with a hydraulic press. That said, while access to hydraulic presses, quality metallurgy, or a machine shop makes mass production easier, I personally hand-hammered copper disks into rough shape in 2006 when my team and I were teaching special operations police in Tbilisi Georgia about the post-blast investigation. While not elegant in appearance, those EFPs worked just fine against our target truck and gave the Georgians valuable forensic experience on what to look for, in addition to how such devices are constructed. In speaking with a retired FBI special agent bomb technician who has previously deployed to conflict zones, he related that the Iraqis even “sand-casted” copper plates for EFPs in the early years of that insurgency, and while that technique did not produce high fidelity plates, they were nevertheless at least partly functional. There is no reason the Ukrainian armed forces, particularly the SSO, are unable to replicate these tactics and produce high-quality plates for EFPs, as Ukraine has significant heavy industry capabilities with access to machine shops and presses.
A Chronology of Photographic Evidence for IED Usage in Ukraine
While Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not the only vehicles for capturing and sharing video from Ukraine, I have found them to be particularly useful in looking for evidence of IED usage such as roadside bombs. The first buried IED or possibly mine attack I saw in Ukraine was posted on March 15, 2022, and while this is possibly a TM-62 family (from the blast effects) anti-tank mine, it could also be a buried charge. In the first picture, a tank is visible in the lower center of the left photo, and the red arrow indicated the approximate location of the buried device. The picture on the right depicts the aftermath.
On March 20, 2022, a Facebook page purported to be from Ukrainian special operations forces (Командування Сил спеціальних операцій ЗС України) posted a multi-IED attack on a Russian convoy. The date of this attack is impossible to verify as there is no visible snow on the ground, but it is entirely consistent with a “daisy chain” IED.
On March 25, 2022, Twitter user @UAWeapons posted a TikTok video by user @dydy_saha0 depicting obvious damage to a Russian vehicle and a crater approximately 1 meter wide, consistent with a small buried IED or mine; while it was too small for a TM-62 mine or large IED, it was nevertheless effective.
The most complex and significant attack I have yet to see in terms of the largest number of individual charges occurred on March 28, 2022, with no less than 5 “daisy chained” charges. Interestingly, the blast appearing in the center of the video could potentially indicate the use of an EFP, because the smoke color is very consistent with an over fuel-rich plasticized explosive like Composition C-4, Semtex, PVV-5A, etc. In personally preparing shots using C-4 and watching many more, the prompt orange thermal effect followed by inky black smoke is a signature of such explosives. One possible (but I would caution not the only) reason for seeing different smoke in the center shot as compared to the other charges is the use of an EFP, although it could also be a buried charge utilizing one of the aforementioned explosives, with the other charges being ordnance.
Yet another sophisticated attack first aired on March 31, 2022 posted by Twitter user @Osinttechnical and it employed what appear to be three “daisy-chained” IEDs, likely some form of military ordnance. Of particular interest here seems to be the use of a drone to aid in triggering. In this still taken from the posted video, the red-colored arrow shows a drone’s focus aiming point (the crosshairs), while the yellow arrow shows a long white line off to the side of the road. When the vehicle shown here crosses the white line it enters the “kill box,” and the charges are initiated.
The Ukrainians are not the only force using IEDs, as this footage posted by @UAWeapons on April 7, 2022, purportedly shows a Russian planted IED. This shell appears to already be packed with plastic explosives in the fuse well (the light-colored putty-like material visible at the very top of the shell), and wires are visible trailing in the direction of the two Ukrainian bomb technicians visible in the photo. The tactic of using guard rails to hide devices was something I personally saw used in Iraq.
The final and most recent evidence of IED manufacture comes from another post by Twitter user @UAWeapons on April 11, 2022, where Ukrainian forces are shown with bark camouflaged and unfused 120 mm mortar rounds. The red-colored material is detonating cord used to explosively connect the mortar rounds and help initiate them, typically by packing the fuse wells with a plastic explosive, just as shown above.
The Growing Insurgency in Ukraine
I think the photographic evidence is clear that the usage of IEDs in Ukraine has begun and is slowly increasing. So long as force-on-force engagements continue to be the status quo ante, the use of IEDs can be relegated to an occasional specialized tactic. While much attention has been focused on the use of drones used for both attack and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance vectors, the use of IEDs in all forms will surely accelerate as they are an inexpensive and effective ambush tactic to use against Russian forces, who seem to favor long and poorly protected convoys. To augment the use of antitank weapons, I would also expect clear usage of EFPs to soon emerge showing destroyed Russian vehicles with copper-tinged holes characteristic of molten slug impact, penetration, and spalling. This tactic is not only militarily effective but will serve as a potent form of PSYOP. That said, I also expect to see some form of guerilla naval engagements. Although far less common than their flying cousins, the phenomenon of autonomous or semi-autonomous explosive-laden drone boats has ample precedent. This is not actually new technology, because while little known, the Office of Strategic Services, (forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency) had a working kamikaze ship program in 1944 with a project called the Campbell missile, which used radio and – incredibly enough – television signals to control the explosives-laden craft, steering the weapon into an enemy ship using television signals so an operator could “see” what was in front of the small motorboat. Also, consider the much more modern example of Iranian or Houthi style Shark-33 variants; one such drone badly damaged the Saudi frigate Al-Madinah in February 2017, and in April 2021 another Saudi ship was targeted in their port of Yanbu. Of course, the USS Cole was also severely damaged by a boat laden with explosives as well, killing 17 sailors along with the suicide bombers on the small craft. Because Ukrainian troops were recently pictured using small boats for alleged riverine operations, and given their paucity of conventional naval forces (notwithstanding the successful attack on the Russian naval ship Moskva), adopting this attack tactic is not a revolutionary leap, but evolutionary.
Thus, as the Ukrainians go back to study older explosives techniques so as to better battle for their future, Russian troops and their clients seem to have little to look forward to but additional and likely significant loss of life.
About the author: Scott Sweetow is a retired senior executive with the Dept. of Justice and a former US Army cavalry scout whose last assignment was as a 98G (Russian) with the 297th MI Co. (ABN, CEWI, SF). In his last assignment with the DOJ, Mr. Sweetow spent 4 years as the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the FBI’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC).
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David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
