Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“The buying of more books than one can read, it's nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity…”

- A. Edward Norton

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything."

- Aristotle

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 28, 2023

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, April 28, 2023

3. A lecture on the history, challenges, politics of US information warfare

4. AI-generated deepfakes are moving fast. Policymakers can't keep up

5. 1st Woman to Take Top Enlisted Job at Army Special Ops

6. GAO Report on SOF - Preservation of Force and Family | SOF News

7. Army orders aviation stand down in wake of fatal helo accidents

8. China's top chipmaker will 'struggle' to make cutting-edge chips competitively

9. Peterson Cos. sells McLean national intelligence, counterterrorism campus for $531M

10. What If Erdogan Wins Next Month’s Turkish Elections?

11. Belgium Weighs Iran’s Hostage Swap Request, Convicted Diplomat for Aid Worker

12. Brace Yourself for the 2024 Deepfake Election

13. Accused Air Force intel leaker Jack Teixeira’s bedroom is the most cringe thing we’ve ever seen

14. Philippines: After decades of terror, peace returns to island of Jolo

15. CPP brushes off AFP chief’s call for amnesty

16. General Expresses Concerns Over Readiness in Sealift, Air Refueling

17. Marines Update Evacuation Playbook

18. Russian propagandist says U.S. media 'lost its last remaining voice of reason' after Carlson exit

19. Russia and China are waging a propaganda war against the US — why are we silent?

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 28, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-28-2023

Key Takeaways

Russian forces launched a series of missile strikes against rear areas of Ukraine on the night of April 27.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed the appointment of Vice Admiral Vladimir Vorobyov as the new commander of the Baltic Fleet following the transfer of former Baltic Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Liina to the Pacific Fleet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree codifying conditions for the further large-scale deportation of residents of occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu promoted the Kremlin’s efforts to form a potential anti-Western coalition during a meeting of the defense ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states in New Delhi, India.
Head of the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill of Moscow defrocked a Russian Orthodox Church protodeacon who did not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian forces continued ground attacks near Kreminna and have made an incremental advance northwest of Kreminna as of April 28.
Russian forces are increasing pressure against the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut highway.
Russian forces continued routine indirect fire and defensive operations in southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Russian officials with developing Russia’s domestic drone industry likely as part of the Kremlin’s effort to gradually mobilize Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB).
Russian occupation authorities continue to announce patronage programs with Russian federal subjects.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 28, 2023

Apr 28, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 28, 2023

Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, George Barros, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

April 28, 5pm ET

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

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

Russian forces launched a series of missile strikes against rear areas of Ukraine on the night of April 27. Ukrainian military sources confirmed that Russian forces launched 23 Kh-101/Kh-555 missiles from Tu-95 aircraft over the Caspian Sea and struck civilian infrastructure in Uman, Cherkasy Oblast; Dnipro City; and Ukrainka, Kyiv Oblast.[1] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian air defense shot down 21 of 23 missiles and two UAVs.[2] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) acknowledged the strike and claimed that the Russian aerospace forces conducted a coordinated missile strike against Ukrainian reserve deployment points and struck all intended targets.[3] Geolocated footage shows large-scale damage to a residential building in Uman, with the death toll reaching 20 civilians, including children, as of 1700 local time on April 28.[4]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed the appointment of Vice Admiral Vladimir Vorobyov as the new commander of the Baltic Fleet on April 28 following the transfer of former Baltic Fleet Commander Admiral Viktor Liina to the Pacific Fleet. Russian state media reported that the Russian MoD introduced Vorobyov as the new Baltic Fleet commander thereby confirming that Liina replaced Admiral Sergei Avakyants as Pacific Fleet command.[5] ISW had previously reported that Liina may have been replacing Avakyants because of Pacific Fleet failures exposed during recent combat readiness exercises, and Russian officials claimed that Avakyants was moved to a new position as head of Russian military sports training and patriotic education centers after aging out of military service.[6] Vorobyov has previously served as Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of both the Baltic and Northern Fleets.[7]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on April 27 codifying conditions for the further large-scale deportation to Russia of residents of occupied areas of Ukraine. Putin signed a decree entitled “On the Peculiarities of the Legal Status of Certain Categories of Foreign Citizens and Stateless Persons in the Russian Federation” that defines those who are living in Russian-occupied territories who have declared their desire to retain their current citizenship and refuse to accept Russian passports as “foreign citizens and stateless persons currently residing in the Russian Federation.”[8] The decree holds that such individuals may continue to reside in occupied territories until July 1, 2024, suggesting that these individuals may be subject to deportation following this date.[9] This decree codifies coercive methods to encourage residents of occupied areas to receive Russian passports and also sets conditions for the deportation of Ukrainians who do not agree to become Russian citizens. Russian authorities are also continuing other efforts to deport Ukrainians, particularly children, to Russia under various schemes.[10] ISW continues to assess that all lines of effort aimed at deporting Ukrainians to Russia may constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, as well as a potential deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign.

Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu promoted the Kremlin’s efforts to form a potential anti-Western coalition during a meeting of the defense ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states in New Delhi, India. Shoigu stated on April 28 that the SCO meeting occurred against the backdrop of the establishment of a new multipolar world order, which the collective West is actively opposing.[11] Shoigu argued that the US and its allies are provoking conflicts with Russia and China and that the West is attempting to defeat Russia and threaten China through the war in Ukraine.[12] Shoigu invited SCO member states to participate in the 11th Moscow Conference of International Security and called on the SCO to develop a framework for exchanging military information, cooperation in joint military exercises, and the development of partnerships between the SCO and Russian-favored multilateral organizations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).[13]

The Kremlin has previously identified multilateral organizations without significant Western participation as its preferred bodies for international decision making and will likely continue to use such bodies to promote Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envisioned geopolitical conflict with the West.[14] ISW assessed that Putin tried to use Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow from March 20 to 22 to promote the idea of an anti-Western Russian-Chinese-based geopolitical bloc, but that Xi rebuffed Putin’s rhetorical overtures.[15] The Kremlin is likely aware that the attractiveness of such a bloc lies more with China’s economic and political power than with Russia's increasingly isolated economy and degraded military capacity, which is why it likely chose the Chinese-favored SCO to promote the idea of a potential anti-Western coalition. The Kremlin is also likely attempting to secure through multilateral engagement with China desired benefits of a Chinese-Russian bilateral relationship that Putin was unable to obtain in his meeting with Xi. The Kremlin’s attempts to use the SCO to support these efforts are unlikely to be more successful than its previous efforts to rally the rest of the world against the West and convince China that Russia is a reliable and equal security partner.

Head of the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill of Moscow defrocked a Russian Orthodox Church protodeacon who did not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian Orthodox Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev posted an order dated April 28 defrocking him for “anti-church activities” signed by Patriarch Kirill.[16] The Russian Orthodox Church had previously defrocked Kuraev in December 2020, but Patriarch Kirill imposed a moratorium on the execution of this decision to give Kuraev time to "rethink his position."[17] Kuraev reportedly does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for the invasion.[18] Russian authorities fined Kuraev 30,000 rubles for discrediting the Russian military in August 2022 after Kuraev wrote a blog post about the current war in Ukraine.[19] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty additionally reported that Kuraev has criticized the Russian Orthodox Church’s structures and Patriarch Kirill, accusing the Russian Orthodox Church of being distant from its parishioners, bureaucratic, and inert.[20] Kuraev’s defrocking supports ISW’s assessment that the Russian Orthodox Church is not an independent religious organization but rather an extension of the Russian state and an instrument of Russian state power.[21] Russian forces in Ukraine have reportedly gone out of their way to punish individual Russian Orthodox priests in Ukraine who were not fully cooperative with Russian military forces.[22]

Key Takeaways

Russian forces launched a series of missile strikes against rear areas of Ukraine on the night of April 27.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed the appointment of Vice Admiral Vladimir Vorobyov as the new commander of the Baltic Fleet following the transfer of former Baltic Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Liina to the Pacific Fleet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree codifying conditions for the further large-scale deportation of residents of occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu promoted the Kremlin’s efforts to form a potential anti-Western coalition during a meeting of the defense ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states in New Delhi, India.
Head of the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill of Moscow defrocked a Russian Orthodox Church protodeacon who did not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian forces continued ground attacks near Kreminna and have made an incremental advance northwest of Kreminna as of April 28.
Russian forces are increasing pressure against the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut highway.
Russian forces continued routine indirect fire and defensive operations in southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Russian officials with developing Russia’s domestic drone industry likely as part of the Kremlin’s effort to gradually mobilize Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB).
Russian occupation authorities continue to announce patronage programs with Russian federal subjects.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued ground attacks near Kreminna and have made an incremental advance northwest of Kreminna as of April 28. Geolocated footage posted on April 28 shows that Russian forces have advanced in an area about 10km northwest of Kreminna.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna), the Serebrianske forest area (10km south of Kreminna), and Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna).[24] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian troops unsuccessfully attacked towards Torske and Terny, both about 13km west of Kreminna.[25]

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

Russian forces are increasing pressure against the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut highway. Geolocated footage posted on April 27 shows that Russian forces advanced to the Bakhmut Industrial College on the T0504 in southwestern Bakhmut.[26] Other geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces conducting a controlled withdrawal from one building along the T0504, suggesting that Russian forces also advanced in that area.[27] The Ukrainian General Staff reported for the first time on April 27 that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground attack in the direction of Chasiv Yar (9km west of Bakhmut).[28]

Russian forces continued ground attacks in and around Bakhmut on April 27. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued attacks within Bakhmut and that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks in the direction of Bohdanivka (5km northwest of Bakhmut).[29] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner Group forces broke though Ukrainian defensive lines in central Bakhmut and continued attacking Ukrainian positions in northern, southern, and western Bakhmut.[30] The milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces attacked near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) and Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut). One milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counterattacks near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) and Bohdanivka.[31]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on April 28. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks near Avdiivka, Sieverne (5km west of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka), and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced near Krasnohorivka on April 27.[33] Another milblogger claimed on April 28 that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions on the southwestern approach to Avdiivka.[34]

Ukrainian forces have advanced in western Donetsk Oblast as of April 28. Geolocated footage posted on April 28 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced southwest of Pavlivka (3km southwest of Vuhledar).[35] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces struck Ukrainian positions near Pavlivka.[36] Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed or claimed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on April 28.[37]

Russian forces have likely allocated TOS-1A thermobaric artillery systems, military-district level assets, to the Avdiivka and western Donetsk Oblast axes, indicating potential preparations to intensify offensive operations. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) posted footage on April 28 purportedly of Russian 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) forces firing a TOS-1A system in the Avdiivka direction, and the Russian MoD stated that Russian forces are operating thermobaric artillery systems in western Donetsk Oblast.[38] The utilization of TOS-1A systems in the Avdiivka and western Donetsk Oblast axes is unlikely to generate a decisive battlefield advantage for Russian forces, as ISW has previously assessed.[39]

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

Russian forces continued routine indirect fire and defensive operations in southern Ukraine on April 28. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russian troops are defending in the Kherson and Zaporizhia directions.[40] Russian sources continued to speculate about a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast and across the Kakhovka Reservoir in Zaporizhia Oblast.[41] Geolocated footage posted on April 28 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions in Korsunka, Kherson Oblast.[42]

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked Russian officials with developing Russia’s domestic drone industry likely as part of the Kremlin’s effort to gradually mobilize Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB). Putin visited a drone production facility at the Rudnevo industrial park in Moscow on April 28 and then attended a meeting at which he stressed the importance of developing Russia’s domestic drone production.[43] Putin framed the development of the Russian drone industry as a matter of ”technological sovereignty” and instructed Russian officials to increase Russia’s ability to develop and produce drone components indigenously, possibly suggesting that Russia’s dependence on Iran and other third parties for military drones has unnerved the Kremlin.[44] Putin announced that the Kremlin will create demand for domestic drones through state orders and that special operators will make large purchases and then lease out drones.[45] First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov reported to Putin that the Russian government has drafted and approved a state order amounting to 4.4 billion rubles (roughly $59 billion) for the production of drones through 2030.[46] Belousov also highlighted plans for opening research and production facilities throughout Russia, establishing direct financial support measures for drone producers, and creating educational programs to train drone designers and operators.[47] Belousov claimed that Russia will produce 670,000 drones, including 16,000 medium and heavy drones, by 2030, likely an unrealistic goal given that Belousov stated that the current Russian drone market is comprised of 32,000 drones, two-thirds of which are imported.[48] Drones are continuing to play a significant tactical role in Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s announced plan to increase drone production by a 2030 deadline indicates that the Kremlin is continuing to gradually mobilize specific parts of Russia’s DIB instead of conducting a wider economic mobilization. ISW has previously assessed that the Kremlin wants to avoid a wider economic mobilization that would create further domestic economic disruptions and corresponding discontent.[49]

Putin was likely also attempting to address widespread criticism from Russia’s ultranationalist community about the lack of government support for drone production. Russian milbloggers have routinely criticized the Russian government for not supporting volunteers who produce small drones from commercially available components and send them to Russian forces in Ukraine.[50] Putin stated at the meeting that he fully supports proposals that would see children learn to manage, collect, and design drones in school, a measure that some prominent milbloggers have endorsed. [51]

A Russian State Duma Deputy reportedly stated that Russian officials may apply sanctions intended to punish draft dodgers to citizens eligible for military service who do not report their place of work or study as well as their residence.[52] Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi reportedly made the comments in an article he published on April 28 and then subsequently deleted.[53]

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

Russian occupation authorities continue to announce patronage programs with Russian federal subjects. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation authorities and Chuvashia Republic Head Oleg Nikolaev signed an agreement on April 27 establishing Chuvashia as the patron of occupied Berdyansk Raion, Zaporizhia Oblast.[54]

Ukrainian officials continue to draw attention to Russia’s illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Ukrainian People’s Deputy Maria Mezentseva announced on April 28 that Ukraine has provided the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with a list of 19,000 Ukrainian children forcibly deported by Russia.[55] Mezentseva stated that the ICRC has the authority to visit the children placed in Russian camps, foster families, and other places where Russian authorities are illegally keeping children but that it is unknown when these visits will take place.[56] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on April 28 that Russian occupation authorities intend to withdraw Ukrainian children from schools in Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast, at the end of the school year and force their parents to travel with them to Russia under the pretext of evacuation.[57]

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

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

Belarusian maneuver elements continue conducting exercises in Belarus. An unspecified Belarusian tank battalion participated in tactical exercises as part of a brigade tactical exercise at an unspecified location on April 28.[58] Unspecified elements of a Belarusian reconnaissance battalion also conducted an exercise to cross a water obstacle in BMP-2s on April 28.[59]

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

[1] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02pD3C21uZuFdJBJ9tt1... ua/2023/04/28/vnochi-protyvnyk-vypustyv-po-ukrayini-23-krylatyh-rakety-21-znyshheno/; https://t.me/CinCAFU/485; https://t.me/kievreal1/39818; https://t.me/d...

[2] https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1651846558818631680?s=20 ; ... ua/2023/04/28/vnochi-protyvnyk-vypustyv-po-ukrayini-23-krylatyh-rakety-21-znyshheno/; https://t.me/CinCAFU/485

[3] https://t.me/mod_russia/26017

[4] https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1651960690649837571?s=20; ht...

[5] https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/17638161

[6] https://isw.pub/UkrWar042123; https://isw.pub/UkrWar042023

[7] https://www.rbc dot ru/politics/05/10/2021/615c343d9a794767676a3bbf; https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/17638161

[8] http://publication.pravo dot gov.ru/Document/View/0001202304270013?index=2&rangeSize=1

[9] http://publication.pravo dot gov.ru/Document/View/0001202304270013?index=2&rangeSize=1

[10] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/04/28/okupanty-planuyut-deportuvaty-ditej-z-gorlivky/

[11] https://telegra dot ph/Tezisy-vystupleniya-Sergeya-SHojgu-na-Soveshchanii-ministrov-oborony-gosudarstv--chlenov-SHOS-04-28; https://t.me/mod_russia/26015; https://t.me/mod_russia/26012; https://t.me/mod_russia/26013; https://t.me/mod_russia/26010; https://t.me/mod_russia/26009; https://t.me/mod_russia/26007; https://t.me/mod_russia/26003

[12] https://telegra dot ph/Tezisy-vystupleniya-Sergeya-SHojgu-na-Soveshchanii-ministrov-oborony-gosudarstv--chlenov-SHOS-04-28; https://t.me/mod_russia/26015; https://t.me/mod_russia/26012; https://t.me/mod_russia/26013; https://t.me/mod_russia/26010; https://t.me/mod_russia/26009; https://t.me/mod_russia/26007; https://t.me/mod_russia/26003

[13] https://telegra dot ph/Tezisy-vystupleniya-Sergeya-SHojgu-na-Soveshchanii-ministrov-oborony-gosudarstv--chlenov-SHOS-04-28; https://t.me/mod_russia/26015; https://t.me/mod_russia/26012; https://t.me/mod_russia/26013; https://t.me/mod_russia/26010; https://t.me/mod_russia/26009; https://t.me/mod_russia/26007; https://t.me/mod_russia/26003

[14] https://isw.pub/UkrWar033023

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

[16] https://t.me/akuraev/9697

[17] https://t.me/severrealii/16367

[18] https://t.me/severrealii/16367

[19] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/04/28/patriarh-kirill-lishil-sana-protodiakona-andreya-kuraeva

[20] https://t.me/severrealii/16367

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

[22] https://ria-m.tv/ua/news/311653/u_melitopoli_svyascheniki_moskovskogo_pa......(foto).html; https://df dot news/2022/04/02/okupanty-u-khersoni-vykraly-sviashchenyka-upts-mp/

[23] https://twitter.com/SerDer_Daniels/status/1651860302084861953; https://twitter.com/blinzka/status/1651864298652594181

[24] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02r7fioKTGLYqWpkKYk3...

[25] https://t.me/wargonzo/12200

[26] https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1651687151166189569?s=20; https://twitter.com/EdsenTheWeather/status/1651690739427078144

[27] https://t.me/supernova_plus/19604 ; https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1651680290215981091?s=20 ; https://twitter.com/RichardHannay17/status/1651681673510023173?s=20 ; https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1MwinM7JN0e7QuCVlVhNZHjJ2OV...

[28] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR...

[29] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR...

[30] https://t.me/wargonzo/12200; https://t.me/rybar/46359; https://t.me/readovkanews/57693

[31] https://t.me/wargonzo/12200

[32] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02r7fioKTGLYqWpkKYk3...

[33] https://t.me/readovkanews/57693

[34] https://t.me/readovkanews/57693

[35] https://twitter.com/foosint/status/1651876354705567747; https://t.me/btr80/6655

[36] https://t.me/mod_russia/26017

[37] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02r7fioKTGLYqWpkKYk3...

[38] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Offensive... https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[39] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Offensive...

[40] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02yvfvfz6RDTpUdb13fR...

[41] https://t.me/vrogov/8965; https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/741; https://t.me/Sol...

[42] https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1651852093483876352; https://twit...

[43] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71014 ; http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[44] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[45] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[46] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[47] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[48] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/71016

[49] https://isw.pub/UkrWar020823

[50] https://t.me/rybar/44965 ; https://t.me/MedvedevVesti/13440 ; https:...

[51] https://t.me/rybar/44534

[52] https://t.me/mobilizationnews/11552

[53] https://t.me/mobilizationnews/11552

[54] https://t.me/BalitskyEV/1028; https://t.me/vrogov/8969

[55] https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-mezentseva-chervonyi-khrest-vykraden...

[56] https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-mezentseva-chervonyi-khrest-vykraden...

[57] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/04/28/okupanty-planuyut-deportuvaty-ditej-z-gorlivky/

[58] https://t.me/modmilby/26477

[59] https://t.me/modmilby/26460

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, APRIL 28, 2023

Apr 28, 2023 - Press ISW

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, April 28, 2023

Authors: Nils Peterson, Roy Eakin, and Virginia Wang of the Institute for the Study of War

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute

Data Cutoff: April 26, Noon ET

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on Chinese Communist Party paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments.

Key Takeaways

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Shandong aircraft carrier strike group conducted exercises in the Philippine Sea from April 13 to April 24, likely to maintain operational readiness and demonstrate the ability to isolate the Philippines during Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s visit.
China may attempt to expand the state security apparatus’ reach in foreign companies via the new anti-espionage law revision.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and potential presidential candidate Ko Wen-je refuses to recognize the 1992 Consensus, likely to broaden his appeal to KMT and DPP leaning voters in the upcoming 2024 Taiwanese presidential election.
The KMT is portraying Taiwanese Vice President and DPP presidential nominee Lai Ching-te (William Lai) as out-of-touch with popular concerns possibly to center the presidential election narrative around livelihood issues while the KMT formulates its cross-strait election messaging.
Potential KMT presidential candidate Gou Tai-ming (Terry Gou) may frame himself as preserving cross-strait stability and Republic of China (ROC) autonomy by promoting a foreign policy that does not align Taiwan explicitly with the United States or China.

China Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to China and the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

CCP Leadership Activity

China may attempt to expand the state security apparatus’ reach in foreign companies via the new anti-espionage law revision. The second meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress adopted the revision prohibiting “collaborating with spy organizations and their agents” and conducting cyber-attacks against state entities.[1] Its stated aim is to strengthen espionage prevention.[2] The CCP used the alleged hack of Northwestern Polytechnical University by the NSA in June 2022 and a Xinjiang civil servant supposedly interacting with an overseas spy agency via dating app as justification for enacting the law.[3] United States Congressional consideration of TikTok bans did not drive this revision as China already bans foreign tech products like YouTube. The broad definition of “agents” offers the CCP an avenue to justify gathering data from foreign firms and their employees while they do business in China. This may grant the CCP access to sensitive company data or trade secrets under the guise of preventing foreign cyber espionage. The law exemplifies Xi’s contradictory pursuit of increasing private sector growth while simultaneously making the business regulatory environment more stringent on national security grounds since the 20th Party Congress in October 2022.

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26, likely to mitigate the European fallout of Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye dismissing the sovereignty of former Soviet republics on April 21.[4] Xi did not mention Russia’s role in starting the war and made veiled references to the United States for “exploiting the situation for self-gain” and “adding oil to the fire.”[5] He also cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons as “there is no winner in nuclear wars.“ Zelensky also called for the restoration of peace and resumption of Ukrainian-Chinese trade. He emphasized that no state should seek to support Russia, including in military-technical cooperation and the supply of weapons.[6]

Lu is a prominent wolf warrior, a term for aggressive Chinese diplomacy named after a successful Chinese movie of the same name. His comments came after French President Emmanuel Macron visited China in early April and signified a break from official CCP policy. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning repudiated Lu’s April 21 comments saying that “China respects all countries’ sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and upholds the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.”[7] Lu previously called in August 2022 for “re-education” campaigns in Taiwan following alleged “unification.”[8] The PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not disavow Lu’s August comments.

Other

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Shandong aircraft carrier strike group conducted exercises in the Philippine Sea from April 13 to April 24, likely to maintain operational readiness and demonstrate the ability to isolate the Philippines during Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s visit. The exercises were a continuation of the carrier strike group’s activity in early April closer to Taiwan in the response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen meeting with Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. The carrier strike group was comprised of the Shandong, a Renhai-class destroyer, two Luyang III-class destroyers, two Jiangkai II-class frigate, and a Fuyu-class support ship.[9] This is the first time the Shandong conducted exercises in the Philippine Sea since commissioning in December 2019.[10] The ROC Ministry of National Defense (MND) subsequently detected the group on its return voyage 120 nautical miles southeast of Taiwan.[11] The ROC MND reportedly mobilized unspecified forces onto Taiwan’s southernmost peninsula in response to the carrier’s return voyage.[12] PLA carrier strike groups in the Philippine Sea demonstrate Chinese intent and capability to interdict US forces and supplies aimed for American partner nations such as Taiwan or the Philippines in crisis scenarios.

This naval activity coincided with Qin Gang’s meetings with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo on April 22 to convey Chinese displeasure at Filipino security cooperation with the United States. Manalo reassured Qin in his meeting that the Philippines “pursues an independent foreign policy” to assuage concerns of closer US-Philippine military relations in light of the United States’ expanded Philippine military base access.[13] China seeks to limit the US military’s access in the Philippines to contain American operational capabilities in the region.

Chinese state media announced that the Fujian aircraft carrier successfully conducted propulsion and mooring tests since launching on June 17, 2022 to commemorate the PLAN’s 74th anniversary on April 23.[14] The PLAN has not officially commissioned the carrier.

Taiwan Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to Taiwan, including its upcoming January 13, 2024 presidential and legislative elections.

Elections

The Taiwanese (Republic of China) political spectrum is largely divided between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP broadly favors Taiwanese autonomy, Taiwanese identity, and skepticism towards China. The KMT favors closer economic and cultural relations with China along with a broader alignment with a Chinese identity. The DPP under President Tsai Ing-wen has controlled the presidency and legislature (Legislative Yuan) since 2016. This presidential election cycle also includes the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je who frames his movement as an amorphous alternative to the DPP and KMT. It is normal for Taiwanese presidential elections to have third party candidates, but none have ever won. The 2024 Taiwan presidential and legislative elections will be held on January 13, 2024 and the new president will take office in May 2024. Presidential candidates can win elections with a plurality of votes in Taiwan.

Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and potential presidential candidate Ko Wen-je refuses to recognize the 1992 Consensus, likely to broaden his appeal to KMT and DPP leaning voters in the upcoming 2024 Taiwanese presidential election. Ko expressed his views on the 1992 Consensus, a broad agreement involving one China that the Kuomintang (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) subscribe to, throughout his tour of the United States from April 8 to April 27.[15] Before his visit to the United States, Ko questioned the 1992 Consensus on March 27 by saying that Taiwan has a 1996 instead of a 1992 Consensus because “Taiwan’s character largely formed” through the first direct presidential election in 1996.[16] Ko later implied that the differing interpretations of the 1992 Consensus invalidate it by saying that the “biggest failure of the 1992 Consensus is that there is no consensus” during an April 24 interview with Voice of America.[17] Ko seeks to balance his refutation of the 1992 Consensus with calls for cross-strait dialogue to portray himself as a pragmatic moderate who aims to avoid conflict and preserve autonomy. His statements on the 1992 Consensus will resonate with “light green” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-leaning voters who stress the importance of Taiwan’s democratic character and give priority to Taiwanese autonomy prioritize of Taiwanese autonomy over cross-strait initiatives. His messaging also will resonate with “light blue” KMT-leaning voters who seek dialogue with the PRC. April 2023 polls show Ko support from voters is at 22 percent, compared to 33 percent for DPP nominee Lai Ching-te (William Lai), and 29 percent for potential Kuomintang (KMT) nominee Hou Yu-ih.[18]

The KMT is portraying Taiwanese Vice President and DPP presidential nominee Lai Ching-te (William Lai) as out-of-touch with popular concerns possibly to center the presidential election narrative around livelihood issues while the KMT formulates its cross-strait election messaging. KMT Deputy Spokesperson Lu Jian-wei condemned Lai on April 21 for filming an election promotion video inside the Taiwanese Presidential Office Building by asking if Lai’s video is “worthy of the hard-working Taiwanese people” who pay taxes to fund Lai’s salary.[19] KMT Taipei City Councilor Lee Po-yi complemented Lu’s comments by accusing Lai of “not touch[ing] Taiwan’s most serious livelihood issues such as the economy, election bribery, and public security.”[20] Lee also linked Lai to questionable DPP political figures through Lai’s role as DPP Chairman. He specifically referenced corruption and sexual misconduct cases involving former Executive Yuan Spokesperson Chen Tsung-yan and former New Taipei City Deputy Speaker Chen Wen-zhi.[21] He referred to Chen Zong-yan as Lai’s “big disciple.”[22] Lee and Lu’s comments aim to discredit Lai by portraying him as a politician that does not understand the struggles of the Taiwanese working class and maintains connections to corrupt individuals. This type of rhetoric benefits the KMT as KMT-backed cross-strait concepts like the 1992 Consensus remain controversial among the Taiwanese populace.[23] The KMT has not selected its presidential election candidate and will not finalize its cross-strait platform until it announces its selection.

Potential KMT presidential candidate Gou Tai-ming (Terry Gou) may frame himself as preserving cross-strait stability and Republic of China (ROC) autonomy by promoting a foreign policy that does not align Taiwan explicitly with the United States or China. Gou announced his intention to seek the KMT presidential nomination on April 5.[24] Gou is the billionaire founder of Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn, which maintains strong economic interests in China.[25] He is not formally a KMT primary candidate. The party will select a candidate via an internal consensus process involving KMT legislators, mayors, and county magistrates instead of a primary election.[26] He portrayed Taiwan as a pawn in a larger US-China rivalry by saying that “Taiwan is like prey walking on a tightrope” and that Taiwan will “fall to pieces” if China and the United States “tightens a little bit” on April 22.[27] Gou said that Taiwan should not lean towards the United States and questioned the premise of Taiwan being forced to choose between China and the United States. His messaging must resonate with the KMT elite due to the KMT’s presidential nominee selection process.

Gou elaborated on his views in Facebook posts on April 25 by articulating the “Taiwan Powerlessness Theory,” which envisions a third path for Taiwan amid the US-China rivalry.[28] He said the theory is mainstream in Taiwan, with one side believing that Taiwan cannot maintain close relations with China and should thus follow the United States and the other side emphasizing that Taiwan must protect itself by “obey[ing]” China. [29] Gou argued instead that Taiwan can use its interactions with the United States and China to provide knowledge to both sides amid a US-China rivalry that lacks mutual understanding. [30] Gou launched his campaign by saying that “Taiwan needs a great CEO” and that he can “solve crises that traditional politicians cannot.” [31] Gou may use his ”outsider” status to promote his vision as one that looks beyond existing debates and strategies that fail to protect ROC interests. His message also attempts to frame the ROC as an autonomous actor that can navigate the existing US-China rivalry by making decisions that suit its own interests instead of those of either the United States or China. Gou’s messaging comes at a time when KMT frontrunner New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih is pondering his decision to pursue the KMT presidential nomination.

[1] https://www.globaltimes dot cn/page/202304/1289861.shtml

http://cpc.people dot com.cn/n1/2023/0425/c64094-32672855.html

https://www.scmp dot com/news/china/politics/article/3217931/china-amend-anti-espionage-law-cover-cyberattacks-foreign-spies-and-surrogates

[2] http://www.news dot cn/legal/2023-04/26/c_1129568977.htm

[3] https://www.globaltimes dot cn/page/202304/1289861.shtml

[4] For Lu Shaye’s comments see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XYDYf1gmtA

[5] https://www.fmprc dot gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/202304/t20230426_11066785.html

[6] https://www.president dot gov.ua/en/news/vidbulasya-telefonna-rozmova-prezidenta-ukrayini-z-golovoyu-82489

[7] https://www.fmprc dot gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/202304/t20230424_11064804.html

[8] https://twitter.com/AmbassadeChine/status/1556309448125083648

[9] https://www.mod.go.jp/js/pdf/2023/p20230424_02.pdf

https://www.mod.go.jp/js/pdf/2023/p20230425_01.pdf

[10] https://www.globaltimes dot cn/page/202304/1289636.shtml

[11] https://twitter.com/MoNDefense/status/1650435622413414401

[12] https://focustaiwan dot tw/cross-strait/202304240019

[13] https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/philippines-taiwan-042320...

[14] https://www.globaltimes dot cn/page/202304/1289636.shtml

http://eng.chinamil dot com.cn/CHINA_209163/TopStories_209189/16219362.html

[15] http://www1.kmt dorg.tw/english/page.aspx?type=article&mnum=112&anum=8458

[16] https://news.ltn dot com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4257687

[17] https://www.storm dot mg/article/4780293

[18] https://www.tpof dot org/%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/2024%e5%8f%b0%e7%81%a3%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e6%b0%91%e7%9a%84%e6%94%af%e6%8c%81%e5%82%be%e5%90%91%ef%bc%882023%e5%b9%b44%e6%9c%8818%e6%97%a5%ef%bc%89/

[19] https://news.ltn dot com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4277723

[20] https://www.chinatimes dot com/realtimenews/20230421005231-260407?chdtv

[21] https://www.chinatimes dot com/realtimenews/20230421005231-260407?chdtv

[22] https://www.chinatimes dot com/realtimenews/20230421005231-260407?chdtv

[23] https://www.taiwannews dot com.tw/en/news/4866215

https://www.tpof dot org/%e5%85%a9%e5%b2%b8%e9%97%9c%e4%bf%82/%e5%85%a9%e5%b2%b8%e6%94%bf%e6%b2%bb/2023%e5%b9%b44%e6%9c%8817%e6%97%a5%e3%80%8c%e5%9c%8b%e4%ba%ba%e5%b0%8d%e3%80%8c%e4%b9%9d%e4%ba%8c%e5%85%b1%e8%ad%98%e3%80%8d%e7%9b%b8%e9%97%9c%e5%95%8f%e9%a1%8c%e7%9a%84%e6%85%8b%e5%ba%a6/

[24] https://www.bbc dot com/news/business-65184851

[25] https://www.nytimes dot com/2019/06/21/world/asia/taiwan-terry-gou-foxconn-president-iphone.html

[26] https://www.taiwannews dot com.tw/en/news/4843351

[27] https://www.storm dot mg/article/4779885

[28] https://news dot ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4280586

[29] https://udn dot com/news/story/123307/7120734

[30] https://www dot storm.mg/article/4780739

[31]https://www.businessweekly/ dot com.tw/focus/blog/3012033

A lecture on the history, challenges, politics of US information warfare

A short write-up on my conversations in Munich this week

MATT ARMSTRONG

APR 28, 2023

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong

I had the privilege of speaking at Amerikahaus in Munich this week on the topic of “The politics of US information warfare.” The trip was made possible by the Yale Club of Germany and its Munich Dialogues on Democracy program in association with Amerikahaus. At a personal level, thank you to Bartley Grosserichter of the Yale Club of Germany, who leads the Munich Dialogues on Democracy program, and to Dominick Raabe of Amerikahaus. Also, thanks to

Asha Rangappa

as it was my appearance in her lecture series that led to Bartley reaching out.

The video below is of the lecture Wednesday, which was about 30 minutes of me providing some overview discussion points that I hoped would help spark an engaging question-and-answer period. I’ve long held to the principle that a conversation on “public diplomacy” should be that, a conversation rather than one-way transmission of what I think the audience must know.

It should be noted that a discussion on the severe limitations imposed on US public diplomacy through neglect, poor leadership, and absent support taking place at Amerikahaus, a facility once supported by the US Information Agency, was not lost on me – and certainly not by the organizers – even if I didn’t mention it in my lecture.

Thanks for reading Arming for the War We're In! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This evening lecture followed a fun – for me at least – series of sessions starting at about 9:30 with the entire 11th-grade class of the Munich International School. Broken into three groups, I used the recent Robert Gates op-ed as an essay to interrogate and analyze in an interactive, conversational way. The conversations also went where the students wanted to go, so the topics were not restricted to the op-ed or its subject. I am told they liked it and learned something, so that’s nice.

It was convenient that an email exchange the evening before the lecture provided yet another sad reminder of our self-handicapping in not just “information warfare” but simply communicating. The emailer noted that in his position working with a senior official in the early parts of the occupation of Iraq, the idea was floated to take out a full-page ad in Al Jazeera listing all the initiatives the US had taken and accomplished to make life better for the Iraqis. To quote my source: “The Coalition Provisional Authority populated with State Department folks, shot the idea down, I was told, because it was too much like propaganda.” While you may wince at this, I really winced at the incredible irony. The idea it was “too much like propaganda” very likely goes back to Sen. Fulbright’s full-throated attacks on the US Information Agency, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty in the 1960s through 1972 when he amended the Smith-Mundt Act as part of these attacks. So-called “loopholes” in Fulbright’s 1972 amendment were “closed” by Sen. Zorinsky in 1985, which solidified the idea that much of our communication abroad is “propaganda.” The idea this stuff was unfit for a domestic audience was reinforced by a federal court ruling that because of Zorinsky’s amendment, USIA was exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests, a decision that was itself ironic since Congress, at about the same time and in an action that wholly unrelated, watered down the Foreign Agent Registration Act to remove the “propaganda” and source label from foreign government information products entering the US. Yes, you read that right.

But, that was not the irony that caused my wincing. That is too obvious. When the European Recovery Program, aka the Marshall Plan, was announced, Russia freaked out (my academic term) and reorganized its disinformation operations to crank up the volume, tenor, and breadth of the same. The Mundt bill was still pending. It had passed the House overwhelmingly but was lingering in the Senate as Senators were discussing how to make it perfect from the get-go. Ultimately, the Senate realized it needed something now and passed the bill, later amending it through the ERP legislation. The pressure to get the Senators off their butts was the US aid and development program, among other efforts, required the information program to make the factual details of the ERP known and understood, including countering disinformation and correcting misinformation. In other words, a core reason we have the Smith-Mundt legislation authorizing much of the US government’s ability to engage abroad is to take out the full-page ad that was suggested. In this specific case, however, the action was clearly not within the Smith-Mundt Act’s domain but the larger principles were at work, especially since most if not all of the participants rejecting the ad likely believed (wrongly) the Smith-Mundt Act applied to the CPA or Defense Department.

Dinner the night before the day of speaking was at Osteria Italiana, a good Italian restaurant established in 1890. Apparently, the German leader in the 1930s through 1945 loved this restaurant, and a British socialite, Unity Mitford, stalked him at the restaurant with the intent of becoming his mistress, which she allegedly did.

Some of the history around the corner from Amerikahaus includes this plaque to remember the book burning of May 1933.

The opportunity in Munich led me to give a coin from a batch I personally paid for back in 2016 without the knowledge of my colleagues or the agency. I had these made since I was trying to promote the agency, pushing it to further engage other agencies and departments and Congress, and to build esprit de corps. At the time, however, unbeknownst to me and most of my fellow Broadcasting Board of Governors board members, the then-CEO was conspiring to eliminate the board to make the CEO position a politicized appointment. I gave a bunch to my fellow governors

during what ended up being our last official board meeting. The bulk of the minimum order remains with me, but I have one fewer now.

Yes, they are serialized.

I gave out low numbers to my fellow governors, to people in the agency, and to others. Most were handed (in the proper way), but some were delivered by mail.

Along the edge is the text, “Exporting the First Amendment since 1945”. This was both a message supporting the journalistic principles of the agency and my own stake in the ground that the VOA we know, the oldest of the broadcast operations, transitioned to a journalist operation when it was transferred to the State Department in the fall of 1945. The 1942-1945 function of the radio operation was very much not a journalist operation as it was highly scripted and filtered, despite the assertion “The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth.”

There was one critical thing I had intended – for weeks – to say in this lecture that I completely forgot to say until it was over. I meant to open with “Grüezi mitenand!” (greetings to everyone in Swiss-German) as a hommage to my land of residence. Alas, I forgot. I am sure the Swiss foreign service officer in attendance would have gotten a kick out of it as well.

Most of whom had no idea what they were or why they might hold some value in some quarters. I have no idea what they did with their coins, whether they kept them or handed them out, but I suspect most were tossed.

My coin is number 1, of course. I don’t remember how many I had to order to hit the minimum, but I remember it was more than I wanted. Nor do I know – or perhaps want to know – how many I still have.

At least one intended recipient didn’t get theirs as the mailing address I had for them was incorrect. Maybe that was you?

mountainrunner.substack.com · by Matt Armstrong

4. AI-generated deepfakes are moving fast. Policymakers can't keep up

AI-generated deepfakes are moving fast. Policymakers can't keep up

Updated April 27, 20236:11 PM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

NPR · by Shannon Bond · April 27, 2023

Tech companies are in a race to roll out AI chatbots and other tools. As technology gets better at faking reality, there are big questions over how to regulate it.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

When President Biden announced his bid for a second term this week, here is how the Republican National Committee responded. They used artificial intelligence to create a 30-second ad imagining what President Biden's second term might look like, complete with fake news reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLITICAL AD)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This morning, an emboldened China invades Taiwan.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Financial markets are in freefall as 500...

INSKEEP: A little disclaimer said the video was, quote, "built with AI imagery." NPR's Shannon Bond reports that as technology gets better at faking reality, some people ask how to regulate it.

SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: That GOP ad was just the latest instance of AI blurring the line between real and make-believe. In the past few weeks, fake images of former President Donald Trump scuffling with police went viral, so did an imagined picture of Pope Francis wearing a stylish puffy coat and a fake song using cloned voices of pop stars Drake and The Weeknd. As AI tools unleash the ability for anyone to create fake images, synthetic audio and video and text that sounds convincingly human, even experts admit they're stumped.

IRENE SOLAIMAN: I look at these generations multiple times a day, and I have a very hard time telling them apart. It's going to be a tough road ahead.

BOND: Irene Solaiman is a safety and policy expert at the AI company Hugging Face. She focuses on making AI work better for everyone, which includes thinking a lot about how these technologies can be misused to generate political propaganda, manipulate elections and create fake histories or videos of things that never happened. Some of those risks are already here. For several years, AI has been used to put women's faces in porn videos, sometimes targeting celebrities and other times to take revenge on private citizens. Solaiman worries things will get worse.

SOLAIMAN: One of my biggest frustrations that I'm shouting from the mountaintops in my field is that a lot of the problems that we're seeing with AI are not engineering problems.

BOND: When it comes to helping people tell apart human and AI-generated content, one thing is clear - there's no silver bullet. There are technical solutions, like software that can detect AI output and AI tools that watermark the images or text they produce. Another approach goes by the clunky name content provenance. The goal is to make it clear where digital media, both real and synthetic, comes from. Jeff McGregor is CEO of Truepic, a company working on verifying digital content with a special signature that tells consumers...

JEFFREY MCGREGOR: Was it created by a human? Was it created by a computer? When was it created? Where was it created?

BOND: But there's not yet a universal standard for identifying real or fake content. Detectors don't catch everything and must constantly be updated as AI technology advances. Open-source AI models may not include watermarks. That's why Solaiman and others working on AI policy and safety say we need a mix of responses. Laws and regulation will have to play a role, at least in some of the highest risk areas, says Matthew Ferraro, an attorney and expert in legal issues around AI.

MATTHEW FERRARO: It's going to be, probably, nonconsensual deepfake pornography or deepfakes of election candidates or state election workers in very specific contexts.

BOND: In the case of that AI-generated Drake song, his record label is using copyright law to get it taken down. On regulation, Europe is leading the way with a forthcoming set of rules meant to put guardrails on how AI can be used. But tech companies are already making their AI tools available to billions of people and incorporating them into apps and software many of us use every day. And that means, for better or worse, sorting fact from AI fiction requires us all to be savvier media consumers. Princeton University computer science professor Arvind Narayanan says we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Propaganda, medical misinformation and false claims about elections are problems that predate AI.

ARVIND NARAYANAN: We should be looking at the various ways of mitigating these risks that we already have and thinking about how to adapt them to AI.

BOND: So check your sources. Ask yourself if what you're seeing can be corroborated or fact checked. And bring a healthy dose of skepticism the next time you see a funny picture of the pope.

Shannon Bond, NPR News.

NPR · by Shannon Bond · April 27, 2023

5. 1st Woman to Take Top Enlisted Job at Army Special Ops

I have observed from afar her service at Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR) and she has impressed me as an outstanding leader. Her social media presence is a continuing lesson in leadership, mental and physical health, and intellectual development. And she certainly "gets it" when working with partners and allies.

1st Woman to Take Top Enlisted Job at Army Special Ops

military.com · by Steve Beynon,Drew F. Lawrence · April 28, 2023

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina -- The Army's Special Operations Command will appoint its first female command sergeant major Monday, a service spokesperson confirmed to Military.com.

Command Sgt. Maj. JoAnn Naumann -- the current senior enlisted adviser for Special Operations-Korea -- has been tapped to lead the organization, which historically has been dominated by men.

Naumann's appointment comes at a time when Army leaders are talking about diversifying the service's leadership. She also broke barriers as the first woman in a command team position with Special Operations Command, according to an Army press release last year.

Naumann entered the Army in 1996 as an Arabic linguist, intending to stay only one enlistment before taking her skills to a different part of the federal government, she said in an interview released by the service earlier this year. Instead, she remained in the Army and has served for 27 years.

"I never felt like there was anything I couldn't do," she said. "If I saw a challenge that I wanted to take on, I took it on."

Her awards include the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars and three Army Commendation Medals. She is a graduate of the Army's Instructor Supervisor Course, Joint Special Operations Forces Senior Enlisted Academy and Military Freefall Course.

Naumann will be taking over for Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Weimer, who is set to become the next sergeant major of the Army.

Weimer, who spent his whole career as a Green Beret, is expected to start the transition process to take over as the 17th top enlisted leader for the service soon at the Pentagon, where his new office will be. Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, who is currently in the role, is set to retire Aug. 3.

In his new role, Weimer will serve as the senior enlisted adviser to the Army chief of staff and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, and is responsible for advising on matters related to the welfare and training of the rank and file and noncommissioned officers.

In addition to Grinston's exit in August, the Army's top officer, Gen. James McConville, is retiring after hitting a four-year term limit. Gen. Randy George, the current Army vice chief of staff, was nominated last week by President Joe Biden to serve as the next Army chief of staff.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

-- Drew F. Lawrence can be reached at drew.lawrence@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @df_lawrence.

military.com · by Steve Beynon,Drew F. Lawrence · April 28, 2023

6. GAO Report on SOF - Preservation of Force and Family | SOF News

GAO Report on SOF - Preservation of Force and Family | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · April 29, 2023

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published a report on U.S. special operations and the performance of the Preservation of Force and Family Program (POTFF). This document was published in April 2023 and is 42-pages long (PDF).

“The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) established the Preservation of the Force and Family Program about a decade ago to address strains that special operations forces and their families can face. The program was designed to provide a holistic system of care that focuses on physical, psychological, spiritual, cognitive, and social areas of well-being. The program offers services including physical therapy, injury care, psychological treatment, family counseling, and peer mentoring.”

The POTFF is intended to reduce the strains placed on U.S. SOF. It is designed to improve the readiness and resilience of roughly 74,000 SOF and their families. POTFF offers SOF personnel direct access to a range of sports medicine, strength and conditioning, and performance nutrition. The POTFF offers workshops and training for families to help them prepare for and reintegrate after deployment.

The program, established in 2013, was created in response to recommendations from a task force that identified issues contributing to the strains and pressures experienced by SOF and their families from multiple deployments and busy training schedules. It was designed to fill the gap not filled by existing programs provided by the conventional military services and defense-wide agencies.

USSOCOM has established a program evaluation framework for the force and family program in January 2023. However, the GAO has found a number of ‘issues’ with this evaluation program relating to defining performance goals and measures, challenges in data collection and analysis, and lack of a detailed program evaluation plan.

**********

Special Operations Forces: Actions Needed to Assess Performance of the Preservation of the Force and Family Program, GAO-23-105644, Government Accountability Office (GAO), April 2023, PDF, 42 pages.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105644.pdf

POTFF, USSOCOM

https://www.socom.mil/POTFF/Pages/default.aspx

POTFF Brochure, USSOCOM, PDF, 2 pages

https://www.socom.mil/POTFF/Documents/POTFF-Brochure.pdf

Special Operations Forces: Additional Actions Needed to Effectively Manage the Preservation of the Force and Family Program, Government Office for Accountability (GAO), GAO-22-104486, December 16, 2021, PDF, 56 pages.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104486

sof.news · by SOF News · April 29, 2023

7. Army orders aviation stand down in wake of fatal helo accidents

A very strong response? The Army leadership must see a problem that can be addressed through a stand down. Is there a common cause to the recent accidents? Have flying hours been reduced for training?

Army orders aviation stand down in wake of fatal helo accidents - Breaking Defense

On Thursday, three soldiers were killed in a mid-air collision between two Apache attack helicopters in Alaska, weeks after nine died in a Black Hawk incident in Kentucky.

breakingdefense.com · by Lee Ferran · April 28, 2023

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Nate Spaulding and Warrant Officer 1 Tyler King, pilots with the Idaho Army National Guard’s 183rd Aviation Regiment, practiced their flight maneuvers in the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter around Idaho’s Orchard Combat Training Center and Saylor Creek Training Range on April 28, 2022. (U.S. National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Becky Vanshur)

WASHINGTON — The US Army today announced a service-wide aviation stand down following a pair of deadly helicopter accidents that claimed the lives of a dozen soldiers.

The stand down “grounds all Army aviators, except those participating in critical missions,” the service said in an early evening press release. Active duty units are required to complete a 24-hour stand down sometime next week, while Guard and Reserve units can complete the stand down by the end of next month.

“The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in the release. “During this stand down, we will focus on safety and training protocols to ensure our pilots and crews have the knowledge, training and awareness to safely complete their assigned mission.”

The Army cited two deadly incidents, just weeks apart, as the reason for the stand down. Late last month nine soldiers died when two Black Hawks collided during what the Army called a “routine night training flight” in Kentucky. Then, on Thursday, three more soldiers were killed in a mid-air collision between two Apache attack helicopters in Alaska, the Army said.

McConville, a former Army aviator, said, “It is their loss that makes it all the more important we review our safety procedures and training protocols, and ensure we are training and operating at the highest levels of safety and proficiency.”

The service said that during the stand down, it will review “risk approval/risk management process, aviation maintenance training program, aircrew training standardization and management, and supervisory responsibility.” The Army will also “assess the flight-mission briefing process with an emphasis on risk mitigation, crew selection, flight planning, crew/flight briefings, debriefings and after-action reviews.”

The news comes just hours after the end of a major annual gathering of Army aviators, put on by the Army Aviation Association of America, for which McConville was in attendance.

breakingdefense.com · by Lee Ferran · April 28, 2023

8. China's top chipmaker will 'struggle' to make cutting-edge chips competitively

China's top chipmaker will 'struggle' to make cutting-edge chips competitively

CNBC · by Sheila Chiang · April 28, 2023

KEY POINTS

China’s largest chipmaker SMIC won’t be able to produce cutting-edge chips competitively if it continues to be cut off from advanced equipment, analysts told CNBC.
SMIC has been the target of U.S. sanctions since 2020 when it was put on an U.S. trade blacklist restricting its access to certain technology.
It has been unable to obtain the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines which only Dutch firm ASML is currently capable of making.
But with SMIC being the key to China’s chip ambitions, analysts expect the government to step up support for the chipmaker.

China's largest chipmaker SMIC won't be able to produce cutting-edge chips competitively if it continues to be cut off from advanced equipment, analysts told CNBC.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

China's largest chipmaker SMIC won't be able to produce cutting-edge chips competitively if it continues to be cut off from advanced equipment, analysts told CNBC.

State-backed SMIC, or Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co., is making 7-nanometer semiconductor chips, placing it in the league of Intel and others.

related investing news

However, SMIC has been the target of U.S. sanctions since 2020 when it was put on a U.S. trade blacklist which restricts its access to certain technology. It has also been unable to obtain the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines — which only Dutch firm ASML is capable of making.

Without EUV machines, the Chinese tech giant is not able to produce the high-tech semiconductors on a large scale at lower costs.

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VIDEO4:3704:37

China is behind in its ability to design and produce advanced chips, says Chris Miller, author of "Chip War"

TechCheck

"It's just not commercially profitable for SMIC to make those chips with less advanced equipment," said Phelix Lee, equity analyst for Morningstar Asia.

Following the 2020 sanctions, the U.S. last year introduced sweeping export restrictions aimed at cutting China off from advanced chip tech and equipment. Washington is concerned that China could use these advanced semiconductors in artificial intelligence and military applications.

The U.S. has sought support from other key chipmaking nations including South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands. The Netherlands as well as Japan have reportedly followed the U.S. in imposing rules aimed at restricting China from accessing advanced chip tech.

According to Dutch regulations, ASML will need to apply for a license to export its EUV machines. ASML has not exported the highly complex machines to China so far.

"Can SMIC produce in a commercially viable way scaled by the hundreds of thousands or tens of millions in some cases? That's what the most advanced tools let you do," Chris Miller, author of "Chip War" told CNBC.

SMIC did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Competitive landscape

The world's most advanced chip facilities — such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and South Korean electronics giant Samsung — rely on tools from just a small number of companies largely in the U.S., Japan and the Netherlands.

TSMC and Samsung began mass producing 7-nanometer chips in 2018. Both firms use ASML's EUV machines.

"Nanometer" in chips refers to the size of individual transistors on a chip. The smaller the size of the transistor, the more of them can be packed onto a single semiconductor. As such, smaller nanometer sizes typically yield more powerful and efficient chips.

Both companies have a roadmap to produce 2-nanometer chips in 2025. Samsung will begin making 1.4-nanometer chips in 2027. Both companies started mass production of 3-nanometer chips last year.

Still lagging behind

SMIC is still generations behind TSMC and Samsung. Without advanced chip-making machines, SMIC is going to fall further behind.

"So far I don't see domestic players being able to provide those machines to SMIC," said Morningstar's Lee.

At least for the next couple of years, SMIC is going to struggle to produce chips that are as effective and as high quality as those that are produced abroad.

Chris Miller

Author of 'Chip War'

While some Chinese firms are trying to build equivalent tools domestically, they remain fairly far behind, said Miller.

In February, ASML said that a former employee in China had stolen data about its proprietary technology.

"It will likely take some time before China begins to replicate the capabilities that these important tools have," said Miller, who is also an international history professor at Tufts University.

"At least for the next couple of years, SMIC is going to struggle to produce chips that are as effective and as high quality as those that are produced abroad," the professor said.

watch now

VIDEO2:0602:06

SMIC has a long way to go in catching up with TSMC, says analyst

Street Signs Asia

Lee said it is "quite unlikely, at least in the next five years" for SMIC to be able to produce the latest generation of chips such as 5 or 3-nanometer chips. "If we want to close the gap [between SMIC and TSMC], we should be looking at a 10-year horizon," said Lee.

China wants tech progress

But with SMIC being the key to China's chip ambitions, analysts expect the government to step up support for the chipmaker. SMIC already benefits from government subsidies and state-backed research projects.

"I see a lot of financing to happen for SMIC. These can come from bank loans, issuing new shares, or setting up operating companies with the help of government funding," said Lee.

The Chinese government has made it clear they want to get as close as possible to the cutting edge...

Chris Miller

Author of "Chip War"

In its five-year development plan, China said it would increase research and development spending by more than 7% per year between 2021 and 2025, in pursuit of "major breakthroughs" in technology and self-reliance.

Domestic tech giants from Alibaba to Baidu have been designing their own chips, seen as a step toward China's goal of boosting its domestic capabilities in chip tech.

"The Chinese government has made it clear they want to get as close as possible to the cutting edge and so a lot of the funds will be devoted towards trying to produce close to cutting edge chips," said Miller.

"SMIC is going to benefit from a new level of support from the Chinese government which doesn't want to see it fail and wants to see it, if possible, continue to make progress technologically," he added.

— CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

CNBC · by Sheila Chiang · April 28, 2023

9. Peterson Cos. sells McLean national intelligence, counterterrorism campus for $531M

Peterson Cos. sells McLean national intelligence, counterterrorism campus for $531M

By Michael Neibauer – Managing Editor, Washington Business Journal

Apr 28, 2023 Updated Apr 28, 2023, 12:32pm EDT

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2023/04/28/national-intelligence-liberty-crossing-sold.html?csrc=6398

The federal government has acquired the top-secret McLean campus that serves as home to multiple national intelligence operations.

Affiliates of Fair Lakes-based Peterson Cos. sold Liberty Crossing I and II, located at 1500 and 1550 Tysons McLean Drive, to the U.S. government, care of the Director of National Intelligence, on March 31 for a combined $530.9 million, according to public records.

Liberty Crossing I, built in 1982, rises to six stories and totals 461,212 square feet. It sold for $305 million, according to Fairfax County's assessment database. The 358,784-square-foot Liberty Crossing II was constructed in 2008 on the footprint of the former Nextel headquarters. It sold for $225.9 million. The gated, guarded campus — bounded by the Dulles Toll Road, Capital Beltway, Route 123 and Lewisville Road — spans nearly 39 acres, which includes a deep, wooded setback from surrounding roadways.

The Peterson Cos. declined to comment. The developer is best known for its large mixed-use efforts such as National Harbor, Downtown Silver Spring, Fair Lakes and Gaithersburg’s Rio, but it also has had success courting top-secret tenants to its commercial projects, most notably the intelligence community at Liberty Crossing and the CIA to its Dulles Discovery campus in Chantilly.

Liberty Crossing is home to the National Counterterrorism Center, an agency borne from the Sept. 11 attacks, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The development "is at the center of the collection of U.S. government agencies and corporate contractors that mushroomed after the 2001 attacks,” The Washington Post reported in 2010. The campus is about 4.5 miles from the CIA headquarters at Langley.

Just before the sale closed, Timothy Barrett, assistant director of national intelligence, sent a message to local citizens associations announcing the pending sale. The ODNI provided a copy to the Washington Business Journal.

“As you likely are aware, the Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus, which is discoverable on Internet maps and navigation systems, is in your neighborhood,” Barrett wrote in the email. “What you might not know is that the U.S. Government leases the campus from a private company. Given the enduring mission of the Intelligence Community, the Executive and Legislative branches have decided to pursue purchase of the property from the owner. Just as an individual might forecast the long-term cost of leasing versus buying, the government took a similar approach in this decision. The projected savings to the American taxpayer are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. As good stewards of the money provided by the American public, we believe this decision will allow us to divert funds to other national priorities.”

Barrett ended the email noting, once the sale closes, the ODNI “would welcome suggestions for how we can be good neighbors in the future.”

10. What If Erdogan Wins Next Month’s Turkish Elections?

Conclusion:

A third term for Erdogan will likely curtail what remains of Turkey’s faltering democracy. Erdogan will likely use this opportunity to crack down on what little remains of critical voices within the country’s media and public space, while at the same time trying to turn a new page with the country’s allies in the West. By whatever means Erdogan is able to secure victory, both Washington and Europe will likely choose to remain silent and find new ways to work with him, based on their respective interests. If his re-election is perceived to be illegitimate, don’t expect the West to call this out. A new Erdogan term will likely result in old ways of finding paths to accommodate him.

What If Erdogan Wins Next Month’s Turkish Elections?

Should Erdogan be re-elected next month, many will inevitably ask “whose fault is this” and “what comes next?”

The National Interest · by Sinan Ciddi · April 28, 2023

There are intense and often heated differences between Turkey watchers over the outcome of the presidential elections that are just around the corner on May 14. Individuals have really dug into their respective camps with little room left in the middle: folks are convinced that Recep Tayyip Erdogan will definitely win or lose by a large margin. Both sides cite relatively compelling narratives for their position based on a myriad of explanatory factors: their experience as journalists or scholars, or, based on references to polls, the country’s economic situation.

The truth is, at this point in the calendar, it’s a guessing game. For my part, I am on record predicting that Erdogan has a greater chance of holding onto power for a third five-year term than opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu has of winning. I have attempted to explain my rationale in other opinion pieces and interviews. At this point, however, it is worth pondering, should my prediction come to pass, who or what factors will account for Erdogan staying in office?

To begin, there is the most obvious element: Turkish voters themselves. In the event that Erdogan scores a legitimate victory, much of that could be attributed to voter demands. The majority of Turks going to the polls on May 14 will not prioritize the rule of law, democracy, and other governance issues as their top priority. If they did, we would not see Erdogan polling in the 40 percent margins. Instead, voters are primarily motivated by their desire to hedge: “in voting, who do I believe will take care of my economic interests?” To address this motivation, Erdogan has turned on the monetary taps in the last few weeks: bonuses for retirees, free natural gas to households, and increases to the minimum wage. Kilicdaroglu’s problem here is that he is not in a position to convince voters that he can deliver better on pocketbook issues than Erdogan—the latter is already in a position to demonstrate such and thus tempt voters. He controls the purse strings of state resources, which are already being utilized to buy citizens’ votes.

By contrast, French and Israeli citizens have recently taken to the streets, protesting about governance issues they feel threaten the very viability of their democratic futures. In France, largely over the non-deliberative way in which the age of retirement was raised, voters are demanding government accountability. In Israel, in defiance of the government’s attempt to curtail judicial independence, citizens have engaged in mass protests. In both cases, voters are motivated by democratic governance issues. If a significant number of Turks attempted to replicate these two examples, the Erdogan government would likely use brute force to suppress such challenges, as displayed during the Gezi Park protests of 2013.

Linked to voter demands is the main opposition, the “Nation Alliance”—the six opposition parties who took the decision to nominate Kemal Kilicdaroglu as their candidate. Unfortunately, one can observe that, from the outset, this opposition bloc never prioritized the rule of law and democratic governance issues beyond rhetoric. Instead, it has been focused on the division of political spoils. The process of deciding who the alliance’s presidential candidate would be, for example, turned into a dysfunctional squabble and nearly broke apart the alliance. Given that the alliance’s main campaign promise is to transition Turkey back to a parliamentary system of governance (that would deprioritize the powers and position of the presidency), one wonders why alliance leaders fought so hard on who the presidential candidate would be. If the objective was to defeat Erdogan and re-establish the rule of law and democratic governance in Turkey, numbers suggest that nominating Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu would have been the best choice. Kilicdaroglu’s insistence on being the nominee instead lays bare the limits of the opposition’s democratic priorities. The intense rivalry to become the presidential nominee has been mirrored in the debates over determining the list of parliamentary candidates. Until the April 12 deadline (when all parties have to submit their parliamentary candidate lists), intense horse-trading over which party in the alliance would allot how many safe seats was the focus of attention. This basically signaled to voters the one thing they are already relatively accustomed to: politicians and political parties are only interested in securing their positions in government.

Throw into the mixture that there are two independent candidates, which divides the opposition vote, and the chances of defeating Erdogan in the first round of voting. More importantly, however, the candidacies of Muharrem Ince—who dismally ran against Erdogan in 2018 and failed—and Sinan Ogan are widely perceived as opportunistic, spurred on by Erdogan to tarnish and divide the opposition camp.

In the final analysis, supposing an Erdogan victory, voters will be grievously let down by opposition political elites who did their very best to not defeat Erdogan. In the event that Kilicdaroglu loses, much of the blame will be attributed to his lackluster candidacy.

Of course, none of these explanatory factors considers the possibility of chicanery and foul play that may come to determine who ultimately wins the presidency. There is a decent chance that undemocratic means may be utilized by Erdogan and/or state institutions to ensure a third term for the country’s longest-serving leader. In many ways this is already apparent: the Supreme Election Council has already accepted Erdogan’s unconstitutional candidacy to run for president. Additionally, there is little by way of press freedoms and access to media coverage that is not already exclusively pro-Erdogan.

A third term for Erdogan will likely curtail what remains of Turkey’s faltering democracy. Erdogan will likely use this opportunity to crack down on what little remains of critical voices within the country’s media and public space, while at the same time trying to turn a new page with the country’s allies in the West. By whatever means Erdogan is able to secure victory, both Washington and Europe will likely choose to remain silent and find new ways to work with him, based on their respective interests. If his re-election is perceived to be illegitimate, don’t expect the West to call this out. A new Erdogan term will likely result in old ways of finding paths to accommodate him.

Sinan Ciddi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power. Follow Sinan on Twitter @SinanCiddi.

Image: Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Sinan Ciddi · April 28, 2023

11. Belgium Weighs Iran’s Hostage Swap Request, Convicted Diplomat for Aid Worker

Belgium Weighs Iran’s Hostage Swap Request, Convicted Diplomat for Aid Worker

fdd.org · by Jack Sullivan · April 28, 2023

Latest Developments

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on April 27 that his government is examining a request by Tehran to release convicted terrorist mastermind and jailed Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi in exchange for jailed Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele. The statement came a day after Iran falsely claimed it had reached a deal with Brussels for precisely such an exchange. Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said Tehran deliberately lied “to manipulate and confuse an innocent compatriot and his family.”

Assadi is currently serving a 20-year prison term in Belgium for plotting to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in Paris in 2018. In January 2023, Tehran sentenced Vandecasteele to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on false charges of espionage against Iran, collaborating with the U.S. government, smuggling foreign currency, and money laundering. In reality, Tehran captured Vandecasteele to use him as a hostage for a prisoner exchange.

Expert Analysis

“The regime in Tehran has turned hostage-taking into a pillar of its foreign policy. As long as Westerners take the risk to go to Iran and Western governments surrender to the regime’s demands to release their citizens, the hostage-taking machine continues to work.” — Saeed Ghasseminejad, FDD Senior Iran and Financial Economics Advisor

“This is yet another case of Iran’s brazen extortion attempts to release the convicted mastermind of the plot to assassinate members of the Iranian diaspora. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s potent espionage and assassination network in Europe has operated largely without interruption since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, except when European governments broke diplomatic relations with Tehran for almost a year after the 1992 Mykonos assassinations in Berlin. If Europe wants to deter further blackmail, it must change the regime’s calculus. Those who issue the orders at the higher echelons must feel the cost of Tehran’s malign activities, not just the mid-level officials who carry them out. Otherwise, Europe — and the U.S. — can expect more of the same.” — Toby Dershowitz, FDD Senior Vice President for Government Relations and Strategy

Assadi’s Plot

Assadi, the third-ranking official in Iran’s embassy in Vienna, was previously a member of Tehran’s Ministry of Intelligence, where he monitored opposition groups both inside and outside Iran. In 2018, Assadi recruited a Belgian couple with Iranian roots to plant explosives at a 25,000-person gathering in France organized by the exiled opposition group known as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq. Speakers at the conference included former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Senator Robert Torricelli.

Vandecasteele’s Detention

Iran arrested Vandecasteele in February 2022 and sent him to the regime’s notorious Evin Prison, where he remained in solitary confinement; he now is at an unknown location. The judiciary did not allow him access to a lawyer during a brief trial devoid of due process. Vandecasteele also suffers from acute health problems that remain unaddressed. In November 2022, Vandecasteele conducted a two-week hunger strike.

Related Analysis

“U.S., Iran May Be Negotiating Payoff for American Hostages,” FDD Flash Brief

“Iran’s Long, Bloody History of Terror and Espionage in Europe,” by Toby Dershowitz and Benjamin Weinthal

fdd.org · by Jack Sullivan · April 28, 2023

12. Brace Yourself for the 2024 Deepfake Election

Excerpts:

“Media literacy that evolves at the rate of advances in this technology is not easy. You need it to be almost instantaneous—where you look at something that you see online and you can get context on that thing,” Ovadya says. “What is it you’re looking at? You could have it cross-referenced with sources you can trust.”

If you see something that might be fake news, the tool could quickly inform you of its veracity. If you see an image or video that looks like it might be fake, it could check sources to see if it’s been verified. Ovadya says it could be available within apps like WhatsApp and Twitter, or could simply be its own app. The problem, he says, is that many founders he has spoken with simply don’t see a lot of money in developing such a tool.

Whether any of these possible solutions will be adopted before the 2024 election remains to be seen, but the threat is growing, and there’s a lot of money going into developing generative AI and little going into finding ways to prevent the spread of this kind of disinformation.

“I think we’re going to see a flood of tools, as we’re already seeing, but I think [AI-generated political content] will continue,” Ajder says. “Fundamentally, we’re not in a good position to be dealing with these incredibly fast-moving, powerful technologies.”

Brace Yourself for the 2024 Deepfake Election

No matter what happens with generative AI, its disruptive forces are already beginning to play a role in the fast-approaching US presidential race.

THOR BENSON APR 27, 2023 7:00 AM

Wired · by Condé Nast · April 27, 2023

Artificial intelligence was once something the average person described in the abstract. They had no tactile relationship with it that they were aware of, even if their devices were often utilizing it. That’s all changed over the past year as people have started to engage with AI programs like OpenAI’s DALL-E and ChatGPT, and the technology is rapidly advancing.

As AI is democratized, democracy itself is falling under new pressures. There will likely be many exciting ways it will be deployed, but it may also start to distort reality and could become a major threat to the 2024 presidential election if AI-generated audio, images, and videos of candidates proliferate. The line between what’s real and what’s fake could start to blur significantly more than it already has in an age of rampant disinformation.

“We’ve seen pretty dramatic shifts in the landscape when it comes to generative tools—particularly in the last year,” says Henry Ajder, an independent AI expert. “I think the scale of content we’re now seeing being produced is directly related to that dramatic opening up of accessibility.”

It’s not a question of whether AI-generated content is going to start playing a role in politics, because it’s already happening. AI-generated images and videos featuring president Joe Biden and Donald Trump have started spreading around the internet. Republicans recently used AI to generate an attack ad against Biden. The question is, what will happen when anyone can open their laptop and, with minimal effort, quickly create a convincing deepfake of a politician?

There are plenty of ways to generate AI images from text, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. It’s easy to generate a clone of someone’s voice with an AI program like the one offered by ElevenLabs. Convincing deepfake videos are still difficult to produce, but Ajder says that might not be the case within a year or so.

“To create a really high-quality deepfake still requires a fair degree of expertise, as well as post-production expertise to touch up the output the AI generates,” Ajder says. “Video is really the next frontier in generative AI.”

Some deepfakes of political figures have emerged in recent years, such as one of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling his troops to surrender that was released last year. Once the technology has advanced more, which may not take long considering how quickly other forms of generative AI are advancing, more of these types of videos may appear as they become more convincing and easier to produce.

“I don’t think there’s a website where you can say, ‘Create me a video of Joe Biden saying X.’ That doesn’t exist, but it will,” says Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information. “It’s just a matter of time. People are already working on text-to-video.”

That includes companies like Runway, Google, and Meta. Once one company releases a high-quality version of a text-to-video generative AI tool, we may see many others quickly release their own versions, as we did after ChatGPT was released. Farid says that nobody wants to get “left behind,” so these companies tend to just release what they have as soon as they can.

“It consistently amazes me that in the physical world, when we release products there are really stringent guidelines,” Farid says. “You can’t release a product and hope it doesn’t kill your customer. But with software, we’re like, ‘This doesn’t really work, but let’s see what happens when we release it to billions of people.’”

If we start to see a significant number of deepfakes spreading during the election, it’s easy to imagine someone like Donald Trump sharing this kind of content on social media and claiming it’s real. A deepfake of President Biden saying something disqualifying could come out shortly before the election, and many people might never find out it was AI-generated. Research has consistently shown, after all, that fake news spreads further than real news.

Even if deepfakes don’t become ubiquitous before the 2024 election, which is still 18 months away, the mere fact that this kind of content can be created could affect the election. Knowing that fraudulent images, audio, and video can be created relatively easily could make people distrust the legitimate material they come across.

“In some respects, deepfakes and generative AI don’t even need to be involved in the election for them to still cause disruption, because now the well has been poisoned with this idea that anything could be fake,” says Ajder. “That provides a really useful excuse if something inconvenient comes out featuring you. You can dismiss it as fake.”

So what can be done about this problem? One solution is something called C2PA. This technology cryptographically signs any content created by a device, such as a phone or video camera, and documents who captured the image, where, and when. The cryptographic signature is then held on a centralized immutable ledger. This would allow people producing legitimate videos to show that they are, in fact, legitimate.

Some other options involve what’s called fingerprinting and watermarking images and videos. Fingerprinting involves taking what are called “hashes” from content, which are essentially just strings of its data, so it can be verified as legitimate later on. Watermarking, as you might expect, involves inserting a digital watermark on images and videos.

It’s often been proposed that AI tools can be developed to spot deepfakes, but Ajder isn’t sold on that solution. He says the technology isn’t reliable enough and that it won’t be able to keep up with the constantly changing generative AI tools that are being developed.

One last possibility for solving this problem would be to develop a sort of instant fact-checker for social media users. Aviv Ovadya, a researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, says you could highlight a piece of content in an app and send it to a contextualization engine that would inform you of its veracity.

“Media literacy that evolves at the rate of advances in this technology is not easy. You need it to be almost instantaneous—where you look at something that you see online and you can get context on that thing,” Ovadya says. “What is it you’re looking at? You could have it cross-referenced with sources you can trust.”

If you see something that might be fake news, the tool could quickly inform you of its veracity. If you see an image or video that looks like it might be fake, it could check sources to see if it’s been verified. Ovadya says it could be available within apps like WhatsApp and Twitter, or could simply be its own app. The problem, he says, is that many founders he has spoken with simply don’t see a lot of money in developing such a tool.

Whether any of these possible solutions will be adopted before the 2024 election remains to be seen, but the threat is growing, and there’s a lot of money going into developing generative AI and little going into finding ways to prevent the spread of this kind of disinformation.

“I think we’re going to see a flood of tools, as we’re already seeing, but I think [AI-generated political content] will continue,” Ajder says. “Fundamentally, we’re not in a good position to be dealing with these incredibly fast-moving, powerful technologies.”

Wired · by Condé Nast · April 27, 2023

13. Accused Air Force intel leaker Jack Teixeira’s bedroom is the most cringe thing we’ve ever seen

Photos at the link: https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/jack-teixeira-bedroom-photos/?utm_term=Task%20%26%20Purpose_Weekly_Recurring%202023-04-29&utm_campaign=Task%20%26%20Purpose%20Weekly_Active&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email

Accused Air Force intel leaker Jack Teixeira’s bedroom is the most cringe thing we’ve ever seen

This just screams 'boot'

BY JARED KELLER | PUBLISHED APR 28, 2023 12:51 PM EDT

TASKANDPURPOSE.COM · BY JARED KELLER · APRIL 28, 2023

Airman first class Jack Teixeira is many things: a member of the 102nd Intelligence WIng of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, the alleged source of dozens of classified documents which appeared on popular gaming network Discord earlier this month, and a prolific online racist with a history of posting violent remarks across the Internet.

Amid the chaos that Teixeira, who joined the Guard in 2019 as a Cyber Transport Systems journeyman, has unleashed across the U.S. national security apparatus with his leaks, let’s add “total fucking dork” to the list.

The U.S. government’s motion in support of pretrial detention against Teixeira, filed on Wednesday, states the airman first class “poses a serious flight risk” due to the nature of his crimes and the hefty prison sentence he currently faces and “poses a danger to the U.S. at large” due to an arsenal of multiple weapons maintained in a gun locker “just feet” from his bed at his mother’s house, including “handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, an AK-style high-capacity weapon, and a gas mask.”

A home arsenal while living in mom’s basement and leaking sensitive intelligence is one thing, but, well, the bedroom itself is painted in camouflage patterns. And we can’t not say something about that.

Airman first class Jack Teixeira’s bedroom. (U.S. Department of Justice)

Now, no one on the Task & Purpose staff is an interior designer (and our editor literally lived in a van at one point), but the camo decor in Teixeira’s room gives off the same vibe as that kid who buys the moto t-shirts from the PX during their basic training family day pass. It’s the vibe of the weird private who can’t qualify with his assigned rifle but still sports a Punisher skull tattoo with flames on his shoulder.

Does Teixeira drive a Dodge Charger purchased with a 24% interest rate? If his room decor is any indication, he probably does. Would he propose to an exotic dancer working the Saturday afternoon shift after blowing his entire paycheck on no-contact lapdances? We wouldn’t rule it out.

It’s no wonder that, at the time of this writing, this photo is at the top of r/JustBootThings on reddit. To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart on pornography: I know boot when I see it. And goddamn, this is peak boot.

Teixeira currently faces up to 25 years in prison.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Jared Keller · April 28, 2023

14. Philippines: After decades of terror, peace returns to island of Jolo

A 17 minute video of Jolo and the ASG at the link (in English): https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/revisited/20230428-philippines-after-decades-of-terror-peace-returns-to-island-of-jolo

Philippines: After decades of terror, peace returns to island of Jolo

By:

Sherbien DACALANIO

Alexis BREGERE

Aruna POPURI

Constantin SIMON

Justin McCURRY

2 min

Issued on:

28/04/2023 - 17:12

For a long time, the island of Jolo, one of the southernmost points of the Philippines archipelago, was off limits. It was the stronghold of one of the most violent terrorist movements in the world, Abu Sayyaf. In 2000, a group of 20 tourists were kidnapped in Malaysia and taken to Jolo. Journalists who covered the kidnapping were then also captured. Negotiations for their release took several months. Today, after 30 years of fighting with the Philippine army, Abu Sayyaf is almost defeated and the island has begun to find peace. FRANCE 24’s Constantin Simon, Alexis Bregere, Sherbien Dacalanio and Aruna Popuri report.

Created in the 1990s, Abu Sayyaf carried out numerous atrocities – assassinations, kidnappings, piracy and extortions – with the aim of creating an Islamist state in the south of the Philippines. The group's favourite method of execution was beheading with a sword.

Today, its last members are hiding out in the jungle and mountains. The army claims to have secured the island and has set up a programme to help Abu Sayyaf's repentant members reintegrate into society. . © Sherbien Dacalanio, FRANCE 24

15. CPP brushes off AFP chief’s call for amnesty

The CPP is among the complex threats in the Philippines.

CPP brushes off AFP chief’s call for amnesty

newsinfo.inquirer.net · by John Eric Mendoza · April 28, 2023

Young New Peoples Army (NPA) rebels stand in formation during the recent anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in a town in Misamis Oriental province on Dec. 26, 2016. (Jigger J. Jerusalem)

Update

MANILA, Philippines — The Communist Party of the Philippines Friday firmly rejected the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief’s call for amnesty.

The Marxist–Leninist–Maoist revolutionary organization firmly believes its armed wing’s members will stay true to its cause and unwavering loyalty to the movement.

“The call for amnesty for members of the New People’s Army (NPA) is a sugar-coated bullet,” CPP spokesperson Marco Valbuena said in a statement.

On Thursday, AFP chief Gen. Andres Centino said he supports other approaches to eradicating the longest-standing communist insurgency in the world, such as providing amnesty to the NPA.

But Valbuena said the communist armed movement would reject Centino’s call.

“Centino’s amnesty proposal will be rejected by revolutionaries who are whole-heartedly committed to serving the oppressed and exploited masses,” he said.

“In the face of the Marcos regime’s heightened fascist repression and subservience to foreign economic and geopolitical interests, they are even more determined to arouse, organize and mobilize the people in their numbers to fight for the country’s sovereignty and people’s well-being,” he added.

The Task Force Balik Loob (TFBL), which oversees the implementation of the reintegration program for former rebels, said that since 2016, a total of 37,413 “former rebels” and “former violent extremists” have returned to the folds of the law.

Of the surrenderees, 10,637 have been presented with immediate livelihood, reintegration benefits, and firearms remuneration through the TFBL’s Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-Clip).

Established on March 29, 1969, the NPA has 2,112 forces with 1,800 weapons in its arsenal, according to latest military estimates.

At its peak, it had 25,000 members in 1987, according to Philippine military estimates.

NPA only has around 1,800 firearms in its arsenal — AFP chief

AFP: NPA down to 2,000 fighters, guerrilla fronts slashed by 74 percent

JMS/abc

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16. General Expresses Concerns Over Readiness in Sealift, Air Refueling

General Expresses Concerns Over Readiness in Sealift, Air Refueling

americandefensenews.com · by Department of Defense · April 27, 2023

Funding levels must enable the United States to preserve its logistical dominance, Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, said today at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the president’s fiscal year 2024 budget request.

“Our organic fleet, along with our commercial transportation partners, must continue to present credible deterrence and requires proactive efforts to recapitalize and modernize. My highest concerns lie in reductions in capacity and readiness in both sealift and air refueling,” she testified.

The average age of the 44 roll-on, roll-off ships that are used to surge materiel from the continental United States is 44 years; 17 of the ships are 50 years or older, she said.

“We are a generation late in recapitalizing our ready sealift fleet to meet our national objectives,” she said.

Transcom supports the Navy’s strategy to acquire used sealift vessels from the commercial market and supports providing the secretary of defense with discretionary authority to purchase foreign-built, used ships under favorable market conditions without limitation on number, she said.

“I greatly appreciate your support for stabilized funding towards our sealift recapitalization effort, and I’m heartened by the current progress on the first five ships,” she said.

Transcom has also taken steps to address the department’s shortfall in meeting wartime fuel delivery demands and the vulnerable position of continued reliance on the use of foreign-flag, foreign-crewed tanker vessels, she said.

Transcom is working with the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, to implement the Tanker Security Program, which will provide assured access to U.S.-flagged tankers and begin to reduce risk in sealift tanker capacity, she said.

That program will provide the DOD with assured access to 10 U.S.-registered tanker vessels that may be used to supply the armed forces with fuel during times of armed conflict or national emergency.

MARAD is an agency of the Transportation Department that administers financial programs to develop, promote and operate the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Merchant Marine.

MARAD also maintains the National Defense Reserve Fleet as a ready source of ships for use during national emergencies and logistically supporting the military when needed.

Transcom also fully supports the Jones Act, she said.

The Jones Act is a federal law that regulates maritime commerce in the United States and requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be transported on ships that are built, owned and operated by United States citizens or permanent residents.

American workers are critical to joint-force transportation and logistics, Van Ovost said.

“Maritime stakeholders have been experiencing challenges with recruiting and retaining mariners. We support MARAD in industry efforts to identify strategies that address the mariner shortage and ensure their readiness,” she said.

Van Ovost also addressed the air component of Transcom, saying “The air refueling fleet is the backbone of rapid global mobility and is our most stressed capability.”

Transcom supports the Air Force’s continued efforts toward modernization of the fleet, uninterrupted tanker recapitalization, and accelerated pursuit of the next-generation air refueling system to ensure capacity and readiness remain credible to cover simultaneous global requirements, she said.

“Future operations will also require high degrees of battlespace awareness and leveraging data to align scarce mobility resources with the greatest strategic needs,” she said.

Integration of battle networks, resourcing, cryptographic modernization, cybersecurity and ensuring resilient positioning, navigation and timing are among Transcom’s top priorities, she said.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires at the end of this year, provides essential and irreplaceable insights on the activities of critical foreign targets, she said.

“The loss of this authority or renewal in diminished or unusable form would profoundly damage the department’s ability to see and mitigate some of the most profound threats against the United States and our allies and partners. Therefore, reauthorization is a matter of utmost priority,” she said.

The global household goods contract will bring accountability that does not exist in the current program of dispersed vendors. “We owe it to our members and their families to ensure that they have the very best relocation experience that we can provide,” she said.

In 2024, the Defense Personal Property Program will be implementing that contract.

Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, commander of the U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander Europe of NATO, also testified about Transcom’s importance.

“U.S. Transportation Command is unlike anything else on the globe and works miracles every day,” he said.

Cavoli also spoke to the importance of allies and partners in strengthening NATO and supporting Ukraine.

Transcom has played a key role in moving supplies and armaments to Ukraine.

This article, General Expresses Concerns Over Readiness in Sealift, Air Refueling, was first published by The Department of Defense.

americandefensenews.com · by Department of Defense · April 27, 2023

17. Marines Update Evacuation Playbook

Marines Update Evacuation Playbook

A pre-deployment exercise allowed the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to practice what they learned from the Afghanistan withdrawal and other non-combatant evacuation operations.

BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY

STAFF REPORTER, DEFENSE ONE

APRIL 28, 2023 02:52 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

ABOARD THE USS BATAAN—Hours after U.S. special forces rescued diplomats from Sudan, the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit was practicing evacuations of its own, using a playbook updated after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The 26th MEU’s leaders learned from fellow Marines who had helped U.S. and Afghan civilians escape through Kabul’s international airport, including Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, who commanded the Joint Task Force-Crisis Response there.

“We've done deep dives into the Kabul [evacuation], the challenges and some of the things that the military had to work through in order to get to that distance. I mean, it's much further than what our scenario is. We're off the coast and they had to go inland to get to Kabul to actually do it. So, there's a different challenge there,” said the 26th MEU’s commander, Col. Dennis Sampson. “But there's a lot of the same things that we need to be prepared to deal with. And then we certainly looked at Lebanon [in 2006] and then northwest Africa, we've done—historically have done a couple of NEOs. So, we've looked at all those and tried to identify some lessons and then learn them, and put them into reps and sets here.”

Non-combatant evacuation operations—NEOs to Marines—are a core task of a MEU, whose troops can sally forth from the three Navy warships of an amphibious ready group with aircraft, watercraft, unmanned aerial systems, and of course, weapons. NEOs are generally run by the State Department, which calls on Marines in time of need.

The 26th MEU is training aboard the USS Bataan, USS Mesa Verde, and USS Carter Hall—as well as ashore at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune—to deploy this summer to three of the world’s regions.

If the violence in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum had erupted this summer, the 26th might have gotten the call to respond. But there was no ARG/MEU in the region—shades of Turkey in February—so special operators flew from neighboring countries to retrieve the U.S. diplomats. The U.S. Navy has sent ships, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Truxtun and the expeditionary sea base USS Lewis B. Puller, to help. But an amphibious ready group is the ideal organization to carry out an evacuation like this

“Breaking it down very simply, if there’s not an airport available on the ground, or there's not an easy way to move [assets] out, bringing in an Amphibious Readiness Group and a Marine Expeditionary Unit into the littorals close to shore, and then going in and getting folks and getting them out, that's a unique capability that our Navy-Marine Corps team brings to bear,” Navy Capt. Martin Robertson, the commander of Amphibious Squadron Eight, said Monday aboard the Bataan.

Robertson, Marine leaders, and officials from the State Department said the 26th MEU’s preparation for NEOs had been shaped by a review of the Kabul evacuation and others. They didn’t list any specific lessons from those events or how they had been incorporated into training.

“I think you can certainly take historical examples that the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps team has been doing NEO operations for decades,” Robertson said. “We can always take those historical examples and learn from those, implement those in how we plan, how we do the procedures, how us as the amphibious readiness groups support the Marines who go forward and set up the evacuation control centers and do the NEO processing.”

This week’s evacuation exercise used a headquarters building at Camp Lejeune to simulate an American consulate amid a deteriorating local security environment. Role players portraying protestors gathered outside its gate, chanting, waving signs, and throwing tennis balls and foam bricks at Marines.

Inside the building, a sense of urgency gathered. Marines’ gear lined a hallway and medical supplies were laid out on a table in the lobby. Upstairs, a State Department official briefed reporters over the din of chants and drums.

What happened in Afghanistan was “very unique,” said Tony Pontarelli of State’s Crisis Management Training division, which organizes exercises with the military. “It's not necessarily the great benchmark to compare against [the other] 300-plus evacuations that we've had since 1988.”

The State Department has been collecting lessons from exercises and “real-world crises for years,” Pontarelli said, and they examine them to determine whether policies or training needs updating.

“One thing for sure is that we know that the interaction between the Department of State and [Department of Defense] is critical, and that we have to continue to maintain this, and that it's a key partnership,” he said. “As we're doing this exercise, it aligned almost perfectly with what was unfolding in Sudan. So there is that affirmation that this is important, that it's real-world, what we're doing here really [is] what is happening,”

Pontarelli added, “It's not just lessons learned. We've got a lot of best practices that come out of this. And that's another focus to have, we know things are working. This exercise is a key point to say that it's working.”

Among the 26th MEU’s updates to its NEO playbook is adding medical capabilities and working to decrease the response time.

“We're really focused on how long it takes getting care to the Marine, and making sure that we put every effort and capability to get in that care to the Marine as rapidly as possible,” said Lt. Col. Jeremy Hawkins, the 26th MEU’s operations officer. “I think it's just prudent planning on our part. And it’s a capability that the [II Marine Expeditionary Force] has been able to provide us coming out of the Marine Logistics Group. And so we're obviously going to take it, incorporate into how we fight ashore, as well as how we do steady-state operations when we’re embarked on the ship.”

The increased medical support includes shock trauma capability and having care teams on the ground that can continue treatment en-route, instead of simply stabilizing a patient for their flight back to the ship for further treatment, Hawkins told reporters on the Bataan.

1st Lt. Justin Steiner, the landing support platoon commander with Combat Logistics Battalion 22, who ran the exercise’s evacuation control center, said they had several corpsmen and two en-route care teams at the ready, and if more Marines were sent to the center they could add a medical provider on site.

The 26th MEU has sailors from Naval Special Warfare Command attached to the unit, and they’ve participated in the pre-deployment training, which the MEU’s commander called “unique.” Sampson said that the unit “included the SEALs really as a part of our NEO planning and execution, taking lessons learned from … what [Special Operation Forces] activities were happening, really in the background, during the Kabul evacuation.”

That helped provide a “better understanding of how they would be the ones that would have to go out and get an isolated person and bring them to the consulate within this scenario,” he said.

Along a side road behind the simulated consulate was an entry control point set up and manned by Marines from Charlie Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/ 6. Marines with long riot shields and rifles stood throughout the corridor of zigzagging razor concertina wire, which slowed down anyone coming up to the building’s black iron gate. People who approached were given a quick search and had to show documents before being let inside, where they received a more thorough screening.

Some of the most harrowing images of the 2021 NEO at the Kabul airport were those of Marines manning the entry control points and trying to manage the crushing amount of people desperate to get through. But Maj. Adam White, the company’s commander, said the entry control point setup and force posture were not directly influenced by a specific NEO mission, and rather were informed by their own training experience and unspecified historical examples.

“Really just a fixed-site security mission, utilizing the training that these Marines have had from the day they joined up to now,” White said. “And it really just comes down to discipline and being able to maintain that discipline throughout, regardless of how long we are here, postured and ready to support this crisis response mission for the duration until they tell us to wave off.”

Once inside the gated area, people were processed through the evacuation control center, where they had to hand over or sign necessary documents, like an agreement to reimburse the State Department for their evacuation, Steiner said. State Department officials were there to provide advice and confirm a person’s eligible citizenship for evacuation. After that, each person was registered into a database via a tablet and given a wristband that would be scanned throughout their journey.

Small tents were also set up to give evacuees shelter and a place to receive services from the State Department or other entities until they are put on a manifest and leave, Steiner said.

What White and his Marines with the battalion landing team learn from the exercise will go through an after-action process, which is intended to help other units train for this mission.

“The big point of that is that MEUs in the future…should learn from us,” White said. “If the next MEU comes to this compound and makes the same mistakes, then we failed them just as we’d fail ourselves if we didn't do that critique.”

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

18. Russian propagandist says U.S. media 'lost its last remaining voice of reason' after Carlson exit

Hmmm... Russia weighs in.

Russian propagandist says U.S. media 'lost its last remaining voice of reason' after Carlson exit

By KIERRA FRAZIER

04/24/2023 03:57 PM EDT

Politico

Russian propagandist says U.S. media ‘lost its last remaining voice of reason’ after Carlson exit

“We’ll happily offer you a job if you wish to carry on as a presenter and host!” Russian state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov said.

Tucker Carlson has become a frequent reference for Russian media, along with other Fox News hosts, for defending Russia in its war on Ukraine. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

04/24/2023 03:57 PM EDT

A prominent anchor on Russian state TV said on Monday that the U.S. mainstream media had “lost its last remaining voice of reason” after Fox host Tucker Carlson abruptly left the network.

In an email to Carlson posted to Telegram, Vladimir Solovyov, an anchor on Russia-1, said he “wholeheartedly” supported Carlson’s decision.

“You have our admiration and support in any endeavor you choose for yourself next, be it running for president of the United States (which you probably should totally do, by the way) or making an independent media project,” Solovyov said. “We’ll happily offer you a job if you wish to carry on as a presenter and host!”

Solovyov is one of the most influential propagandists in Russia. He has been an anchor on the television show “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” on Russia-1 since 2012. In March 2022, YouTube blocked Solovyov’s channels for violating the company’s “incitement to violence” rules.

Carlson has become a frequent reference for Russian media, along with other Fox News hosts, for defending Russia in its war on Ukraine.

In a tweet, the Russian-backed English-language news outlet RT News also appeared to offer Carlson a job.

“Hey @TuckerCarlson, you can always question more with @RT_com,” RT News wrote.

It was announced on Monday that Fox News was parting ways with Carlson after seven years of his hosting “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Carlson’s last program was Friday.

POLITICO

Politico

19. Russia and China are waging a propaganda war against the US — why are we silent?

Conclusion:

Biden needs to state, officially and unequivocally, that the U.S. will do whatever is necessary to assure the democratic security of both Ukraine and Taiwan as front-line states in the existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism.

Russia and China are waging a propaganda war against the US — why are we silent?

BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/25/23 8:30 AM ET

The Hill · · April 25, 2023

Biden administration officials, like most of their recent predecessors, defensively deny that U.S. policy is to contain, hold down, or wage a new Cold War against China.

By contrast, the Chinese Communist Party continues to pursue expansionist economic, political and military goals and challenge the West at every level, especially in the informational and ideological domains. Beijing — along with its strategic allies and partners Russia, Iran and North Korea — sees the West in decline and strives to hasten its fall, just as the Soviet Union and its acolytes attempted in the original Cold War.

In fact, Moscow continues to roll out and recycle some of the same disinformation and propaganda gambits it employed for the Soviet Union, such as its recent accusations of a U.S. biological warfare campaign in Ukraine. Baseless as the claims are, they divert attention, at least for some, from the actual crimes against humanity being perpetrated by Russian forces in Ukraine as well as Vladimir Putin’s criminal actions in Russia itself, where he crushes domestic opposition to the war and his regime, often murderously.

What is missing from the West’s response to the open assault of Russia and China on the rules-based international order is a sustained information counter-offensive similar to the strategic communications campaign waged by the United States and the Free World against the Soviet Union.

In a series of major speeches, key national security and diplomatic officials in the Trump administration began the process of alerting the nation and the world, as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it, to “what the China threat means for our economy, for our liberty, and indeed for the future of free democracies around the world.”

National security adviser Robert O’Brien led off the coordinated messaging in a June 2020 speech where he described the ideological roots of the China threat. “The [Chinese Communist Party’s] stated goal is to […] remake the world according to the CCP. The effort to control thought beyond the borders of China is well under way. Over the past decade, the Party has invested billions of dollars into overseas propaganda operations to great effect.”

While Xi Jinping has been compared to Mao Zedong, O’Brien pointed to an earlier communist model. “Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization. Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Joseph Stalin’s successor.”

In his own speech a month later, Pompeo warned: “We must admit a hard truth that should guide us in the years and decades to come, that if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done.”

Instead, Pompeo invoked Richard Nixon’s message prior to his presidential trip to Beijing: “The world cannot be safe until China changes. […] Our goal should be to induce change.”

Pompeo said the ideological challenge is not an easy one, because it needs to begin with an updating of Americans’ own perceptions about China. “We must start by changing how our people and our partners perceive the Chinese Communist Party. We have to tell the truth. We can’t treat this incarnation of China as a normal country, just like any other.”

National security scholars and former officials are increasingly concerned that the U.S. and Western response on the information level is not commensurate with China’s threat. In a Hillop-ed in February, Evan Cooper and Robert A. Manning of the Atlantic Council wrote: “The United States has an image problem. Foreign publics have historically low approval of U.S. leadership. […] The U.S. needs to […] remedy its public diplomacy deficit, and re-engage globally both to better tell America’s story and expand people-to-people, art and cultural exchanges.” They called for the revival of the organization once charged with those missions, the U.S. Information Agency, which was abolished in 1999.

Robert Gates, secretary of Defense in the Bush and Obama administrations, recently decried the inadequacy — the virtual nonexistence — of an effective U.S information strategy. “Russia and China are running rings around us,” he wrote in The Washington Post. Just as with its Soviet predecessor, “Russia […] has relied heavily on propaganda and disinformation to spread false narratives among its own people and those outside its borders, as well as to undermine the West’s coherence and resolve.”

As for Russia’s “no-limits strategic partner,” Gates wrote, “Chinese TV and radio broadcasts, websites and publications are readily available in the United States, but there is no reciprocity in China.”

He attributed part of the problem to USIA’s demise and the failure to build a substitute bureaucratic structure, but he also saw a lack of vision from the top. “[T]here is no government-wide international communications and engagement strategy, and certainly no sense of urgency. In short, the country that invented public relations is being out-communicated around the world by an authoritarian Russia and increasingly totalitarian China.”

But, he wrote, “The solution is not to re-create the USIA — the world has moved on.” He called instead for fresh thinking on the challenge — “a global engagement plan for strategic communications to explicitly advance U.S. national security interests.”

Though in the past Gates has expressed little regard for the 40-year Biden record on foreign policy, this administration is well-positioned to take up the strategic communications challenge if it has the will to do so. It started on the right foot by following the Trump team’s clear-eyed approach to the growing China threat and the need to strengthen the American commitment to Taiwan. It enhanced those policies by appealing to allies and partners to join in confronting the authoritarian challenges from China and Russia, by stressing human rights, and by establishing the Summit of Democracies.

Why is the Biden administration punishing financially responsible homeowners? The time for a federal ‘clean slate’ measure is long overdue

But its monumental Afghanistan failure seriously tarnished U.S. credibility on a broad foreign policy front. And its erratic stalemate policy on Ukraine has raised doubts about the U.S. commitment to Taiwan despite Biden’s occasional ad hocremarks unmatched by formal administration statements.

Biden needs to state, officially and unequivocally, that the U.S. will do whatever is necessary to assure the democratic security of both Ukraine and Taiwan as front-line states in the existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.

The Hill · by Nathaniel Weixel · April 25, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

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

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 28, 2023

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CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, APRIL 28, 2023

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A lecture on the history, challenges, politics of US information warfare

A short write-up on my conversations in Munich this week

AI-generated deepfakes are moving fast. Policymakers can't keep up

Updated April 27, 20236:11 PM ET

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The latest on Task & Purpose

Philippines: After decades of terror, peace returns to island of Jolo

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Update

RELATED STORIES:

NPA only has around 1,800 firearms in its arsenal — AFP chief

AFP: NPA down to 2,000 fighters, guerrilla fronts slashed by 74 percent

General Expresses Concerns Over Readiness in Sealift, Air Refueling

Marines Update Evacuation Playbook

A pre-deployment exercise allowed the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to practice what they learned from the Afghanistan withdrawal and other non-combatant evacuation operations.

Russian propagandist says U.S. media 'lost its last remaining voice of reason' after Carlson exit

Russian propagandist says U.S. media ‘lost its last remaining voice of reason’ after Carlson exit

Russia and China are waging a propaganda war against the US — why are we silent?

Brace Yourself for the 2024 Deepfake Election

No matter what happens with generative AI, its disruptive forces are already beginning to play a role in the fast-approaching US presidential race.