Quotes of the Day:

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." 

– Leonardo da Vinci

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." 

– Bruce Lee

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." 

– Albert Einstein

1. How ISIS-K killed Americans, beat the Taliban, and massacred 140 people in Moscow

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 2, 2024

3. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 2, 2024

4. U.S. told Russia Crocus City Hall was possible target of attack

5. The Appalling Tactics of the ‘Free Palestine’ Movement

6. Task Force Lima preps new space for generative AI experimentation

7. Last Marine Harrier Pilots Complete Training As AV-8B's End Draws Near

8. REINSTATE FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MILITARY RETIREES

9. Deciphering China’s economic strategy without the premier’s press conference

10. US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails

11. Zelensky signs law lowering draft age to 25 in bid to boost military ranks

12. Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks

13. Fort Bliss approves wear of boonie caps, military-wide jealousy ensues

14. Soldier earns 'Ace of Syria' nickname after downing 6 drones

15. Leading the charge: Transforming US Army systems through digital engineering

16. To reinvent itself, the US Air Force must go big on small drones

17. Space Force Guardians advance SOF Space interoperability during Emerald Warrior exercise

18.  Taiwan earthquake: what is known and what happens next

19. Dereliction of Duty: Israeli Blunders on the Way to October 7

20. Innovation Adoption for All: Scaling Across Department of Defense

21. What the TikTok Bill Gets Wrong

22. A Detente Option for Iran

23. Expect the unexpected (Interview with Robert Adolph on his service at the UN)

24. The Importance of America’s Pacific Family

25. ‘The Incomparable Mr. Buckley’ Review: Withering Wit and Wisdom

26. A new strategic concept could be useful in the US military’s defense of Taiwan BY MIKE POMPEO AND BRYAN CLARK

27. The Air Force's new $60 million Special Warfare aquatics center honors a fallen pararescueman

1. How ISIS-K killed Americans, beat the Taliban, and massacred 140 people in Moscow

Excerpts:

Ahmad Zia Seraj, former head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, said the group’s “main message has been that Afghanistan is the safest place in the world for ISKP. Its intelligence penetration among the Taliban is quite deep and significant."

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, who led U.S. Special Operations forces in the region, said “it should surprise no one’’ if the attack in Moscow, which killed 143 people, was conducted by a branch of the Islamic State.

“The trans-national reach, power, and expansion of ISIS has grown larger and become more powerful” since the U.S. pull-out of Afghanistan, he said.

ISIS, a Salafist jihadi movement, has eclipsed other terrorist groups in geographic sweep and lethality. Once affiliated with Al Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., in 2014 ISIS declared itself an independent caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Nearly defeated by U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish forces a few years later, ISIS has now regained some territory and has spread to sub-Saharan Africa, across Asia, and to other parts of the Middle East. 

“There are more people in just the Africa part of ISIS than Al Qaeda had in the entire world,” said Nagata, now a strategic advisor at CACI International. 

How ISIS-K killed Americans, beat the Taliban, and massacred 140 people in Moscow

ISIS-K is too radical for the Taliban, experts say, and is pulling new recruits from disaffected youth in Afghanistan and across Central Asia.

Fatema HosseiniUSA TODAY  April 2, 2024

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/04/02/what-is-isis-k-afghanistan-moscow-attack/73134664007/?fbclid=IwAR3WyNu4ZnR3GiXnU3VszOM4R7r7LBmaXiu3PhTiS0IWqE2cjFS4yj2S31s_aem_AcDGrt7C14O3QkZxV52EZn0fH4OiJ4NbpitWxdRsneGRkC4oQ6IkkSVo8m56-QaehWZquIleU4oTkSFLpJwjFs-e

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The terrorist group blamed by the U.S. for a ruthless massacre at a Moscow rock concert has steadily increased its ranks, capabilities, financial network and global recruitment from a safe haven in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government has been unable − and at times unwilling − to stop it, former senior American, Afghan and European intelligence officials tell USA TODAY.

Since shortly after the chaotic pull-out of U.S. forces in 2021, the group, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISKP, has used Afghanistan to become the most capable branch of the global ISIS terror organization, signaling the possible re-emergence of ISIS worldwide, said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former UN terrorism expert and senior advisor for the New York-based Counter Extremism Project.

 “The resurgence of the ISIS threat globally,” he said, “is more likely to come from ISKP than from other ISIS affiliates.” 

The group was behind deadly suicide blasts outside the Kabul airport in August 2021 that killed more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops − and has set its sights on a range of foreign targets, experts say.

More:Gunmen kill more than 100 in concert attack near Moscow; Islamic State claims responsibility

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Transnational reach

Ahmad Zia Seraj, former head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, said the group’s “main message has been that Afghanistan is the safest place in the world for ISKP. Its intelligence penetration among the Taliban is quite deep and significant."

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, who led U.S. Special Operations forces in the region, said “it should surprise no one’’ if the attack in Moscow, which killed 143 people, was conducted by a branch of the Islamic State.

“The trans-national reach, power, and expansion of ISIS has grown larger and become more powerful” since the U.S. pull-out of Afghanistan, he said.

More:'Target No. 1 for ISIS-K': Terror group that hit Moscow nightclub has sights set on US

Unfettered in Afghanistan

ISIS, a Salafist jihadi movement, has eclipsed other terrorist groups in geographic sweep and lethality. Once affiliated with Al Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., in 2014 ISIS declared itself an independent caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Nearly defeated by U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish forces a few years later, ISIS has now regained some territory and has spread to sub-Saharan Africa, across Asia, and to other parts of the Middle East. 

“There are more people in just the Africa part of ISIS than Al Qaeda had in the entire world,” said Nagata, now a strategic advisor at CACI International. 

More:Putin admits 'radical Islamists' were behind Moscow massacre, but still blames Ukraine

In Afghanistan, the group has exploited many Taliban weaknesses, including its inability to control territory, its lack of a presence along Afghanistan’s roads, the ethnic Pashtun-dominated movement’s discrimination against ethnic minority groups and ultra-conservative Salafi Muslims, and its inability to pay soldiers regularly, experts say.

Since the U.S. withdrawal, ISKP’s ranks are estimated to have grown from 4,000 to 6,000, including fighters and family members. It includes Afghans and members from Pakistan, Central Asia, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and a handful of Arab fighters who traveled from Syria to Afghanistan in 2022, according to UN Security Council reports.

“The Biden Administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal created a dangerous blind spot for terrorist threats against Americans and our partners," Idaho Republican Sen. James Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. "As recently as last month, the U.S. CENTCOM commander predicted groups like ISIS-K will have the ability to conduct attacks abroad in as little as six months. The administration must redouble efforts to counter threats posed by terror groups.” 

What does ISIS-K mean?

Khorasan refers to an ancient region that encompassed parts of present day Iran, Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan. ISIS-K, or ISIS-Khorasan, refers to the Islamic State's desire to wipe out existing national borders restore the region to its status as an independent province under different Muslim dynasties in the eighth and ninth centuries. ISKP stands for Islamic State Khorasan Province.

ISKP has already used its base in Afghanistan to make good on threats against other enemies. In 2022, it attacked the Russian and Pakistani embassies, and hotels hosting Chinese nationals in Afghanistan. It has also attacked sites in neighboring Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. 

Attacking both the Taliban and Western enemies

Tajik nationals have been involved in many of these attacks. Russian officials say the four alleged Moscow gunmen are Tajik. In July 2023, nine Central Asians linked to ISKP, including suspects from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, were arrested in Germany and the Netherlands and charged with plotting attacks. The same month, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 13 men in the Maldives for their involvement in terrorist financing activities linked to ISKP. 

Formed in 2014 out of a collective of former members of terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, including al-Qaeda, ISKP’s aim is to establish a global caliphate.

It calls the Taliban “filthy nationalists” for their disinterest in global holy war, seeks to overthrow the government of Pakistan, and to punish Iran for being a “vanguard’’ of Shia Muslims. It has attacked Chinese interests and Russia to thwart their assistance to the Taliban and because, as ISKP’s media says, they are enemies of Islam.

One of its most impressive achievements has been creating a sophisticated online global recruitment campaign through its media outlet, Al-Azaim Media. 

Deadly propaganda in multiple languages

Since Sananullah Ghafari, known as Shahab al-Muhajir, who is reportedly an engineer educated at Kabul University, was appointed ISKP’s leader in June 2020, the group’s propaganda has expanded beyond the traditional Arabic, Pashto, and Dari-language videos and scripts to include nine other languages: English, Farsi, Hindi, Kyrgyz, Malayalam, Russian, Tajik, Urdu and Uzbek. 

To recruit suicide bombers and fighters, ISKP’s social media displays images of mutilated bodies and destroyed buildings set against compelling backdrops and commentary specially tailored for circulation on TikTok, Telegram, Facebook and lesser-known apps.

It also has an online magazine, Voice of Khorasan, which releases content in seven languages. 

In an annual report issued in September 2022, Al-Azaim Media said it had produced 750 audio tapes, 108 videos and 175 books, comprising both original works and translations. 

Fighting 'all infidels and apostates'

“ISIL-K is the only affiliate of ISIL that has its own independent media capability,” Fitton-Brown said, using another acronym for the Islamic State. 

The group conducts training online as well, said Seraj. “They provide organized and continuous training through social media apps to their members.”

To undermine the Taliban, Al-Azaim calls it an ethnic Pashtun nationalist group rather than a legitimate religious authority and accuses the Taliban of colluding with the enemies of Islam, such as China, Russia, and Central Asian governments. 

Typical is a statement posted on January 20 in Khorasan Magazine that urged Taliban fighters to defect to ISKP, touting it as an army that “neither regards America nor Israel and does not accept the orders of Russia nor from China but, contrary to all infidels and apostates on earth, has started jihad….”

Ghafari replaced ISKP’s old structure and installed his trusted men to the most important positions, according to a report by CEP and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation, a German political think tank. 

A $10 million U.S. bounty

In 2022, the State Department issued a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. It said “Ghafari is responsible for approving all ISIS-K operations throughout Afghanistan and arranging funding to conduct operations.” 

Ghafari has been tasked by ISIS, the core Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, to revitalize ISKP. He has extended recruitment to younger Afghans, especially university students and non-Salafists, which led the group to the recruitment of Uzbeks, Tajiks and others in Afghanistan and abroad.

The March 22 Moscow massacre was designed, like all dramatic terrorist attacks, to raise ISKP’s profile not only among nation-states but also among the disaffected who might be considering ISIS as a violent alternative to life.

ISIS is “the most powerful, most persuasive and most strategically effective terrorist group in modern history,” said Nagata. “They have a very effective network that runs all the way from East Asia to West Africa and even into the Pacific and beyond. Al-Qaeda never became this robust. No other terrorist group in modern history has ever done this.”

Hosseini is a Masters’ student at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland and a fellow atC4ADS, a nonprofit research organization on global conflict and transnational security issues.

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 2, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-2-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on April 2 that lowers the Ukrainian military’s mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on April 2 that Russian forces seized about 400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the first three months of 2024 — a rate of advance not necessarily reflective of wider Russian offensive prospects due to the impact of US security assistance delays.
• Ukraine conducted long-range unidentified unmanned aerial systems (UAS) strikes against Russian military production and oil refinery infrastructure in the Republic of Tatarstan, over 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address at the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) board meeting on April 2 illustrated Russia’s dissonant response to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack as Russian authorities simultaneously pursue law enforcement actions against migrant communities while also baselessly implicating Ukraine. Putin also attempted to address intensified debates about migration that have emerged following the Crocus City Hall attack but continued to express an inconsistent and vague stance on the issue.
• Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on April 2 that the GUR believes that Russian forces will likely temporarily pause strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in order to replenish low missile stockpiles.
• US sanctions against Russia continue to impact Russian financial ties to post-Soviet countries, as Kyrgyzstan’s national payment system Elkart announced on April 2 that it would stop processing transactions using the Russian “Mir” payment system to prevent secondary sanctions.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly proposed a NATO aid package that would send $100 billion of military assistance to Ukraine over five years.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna and Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on April 2.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 2 that the Russian military intends to finish and deploy several newly constructed small missile and patrol ships in 2024.
• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is increasing its law enforcement presence in occupied Ukraine in order to intensify Russian control over Ukrainian civilians and strengthen security over critical infrastructure.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 2, 2024

Apr 2, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 2, 2024

Riley Bailey, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, and George Barros

April 2, 2024, 7:15pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:45pm ET on April 2. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 3 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on April 2 that lowers the Ukrainian military’s mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age. The Verkhovna Rada approved the law in May 2023, and the law will come into force on April 3, 2024.[1] Lowering the mobilization age is one of many measures that Ukraine has been considering in an ongoing effort to create a sustainable wartime force-generation apparatus.[2] Lowering the mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age will support the Ukrainian military’s ability to restore and reconstitute existing units and to create new units.[3] Ukraine will need to equip any newly mobilized military personnel with weapons, and prolonged US debates about military aid to Ukraine and delays in Western aid may impact the speed at which Ukraine can restore degraded and stand up new units. ISW continues to assess that Western-provided materiel continues to be the greatest deciding factor for the Ukrainian military’s ability to restore and augment its combat power.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on April 2 that Russian forces seized about 400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the first three months of 2024 — a rate of advance not necessarily reflective of wider Russian offensive prospects due to the impact of US security assistance delays. Shoigu claimed during a conference call with Russian military leadership on April 2 that Russian forces have seized 403 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine since the beginning of 2024.[4] ISW has only observed visual evidence allowing ISW to confirm that Russian forces seized approximately 305 square kilometers between January 1 and April 1, 2024. ISW continues to assess that material shortages are forcing Ukraine to conserve ammunition and prioritize limited resources to critical sectors of the front, however, increasing the risk of a Russian breakthrough in other less-well-provisioned sectors and making the frontline overall more fragile than the current relatively slow rate of Russian advances makes it appear.[5] Ukraine’s materiel constraints also offer Russian forces flexibility in how they conduct offensive operations, which can lead to compounding and non-linear opportunities for Russian forces to make operationally significant gains in the future.[6]

Ukraine conducted long-range unidentified unmanned aerial systems (UAS) strikes against Russian military production and oil refinery infrastructure in the Republic of Tatarstan, over 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Russian Telegram channels posted footage on April 2 showing three UAS striking the territory of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) near Yelabuga and causing a large explosion upon impact.[7] Geolocated footage of the strike shows that the UAS hit a dormitory area near the Yelabuga Polytechnical College.[8] Russia notably uses the production facilities at the Alabuga SEZ to make Shahed-136/131 drones to attack Ukraine.[9] Additional geolocated footage published on April 2 shows a drone strike against the Taneko oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, and Russian sources claimed that Russian electronic warfare suppressed the drone, causing it to fall on refinery infrastructure and start a fire.[10] Reuters reported that the Ukrainian drone strike on Taneko, Russia’s third-largest oil refinery, impacted a core refining unit at the facility responsible for roughly half of the facility’s oil refining.[11] Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) claimed responsibility for conducting the strikes, and GUR sources reported that the strike on Yelabuga caused “significant destruction” to Shahed production facilities.[12] Russian sources, including Tatarstan Head Rustam Minnikhanov, denied that the strikes caused any significant damage to either the drone production plants within the Alabuga SEZ or the Taneko refinery.[13] Reuters noted that its own data shows that constant Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian oil refineries, such as Taneko, have shut down about 14 percent of Russia’s overall refining capacity.[14] The April 2 strikes are the first Ukrainian strikes on Tatarstan, and the distance of the targets from Ukraine’s borders represents a significant inflection in Ukraine’s demonstrated capability to conduct long-range strikes far into the Russian rear. ISW continues to assess that such Ukrainian strikes are a necessary component of Ukraine’s campaign to use asymmetric means to degrade industries that supply and support the Russian military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address at the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) board meeting on April 2 illustrated Russia’s dissonant response to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack as Russian authorities simultaneously pursue law enforcement actions against migrant communities while also baselessly implicating Ukraine. Putin stated that Russian authorities are assessing the actions of all Russian law enforcement, management, supervisory services, and commercial organizations responsible for the Crocus City Hall concert venue and instructed the MVD to increase security and emergency preparedness at large public gathering areas.[15] Putin explicitly stated that the MVD needs to address several unresolved problems, including its response to extremist groups, likely to preemptively scapegoat possible criticism about the Russian intelligence failure to prevent the Crocus City Hall attack amid reports that Russia ignored international warnings, including from its allies, about the attack.[16] Putin and other Kremlin officials have struggled to reconcile information operations aimed at blaming Ukraine and the West for the attack with the reality of the Kremlin’s intelligence failure, and Putin’s indirect public criticism of the MVD likely aims to signal to the Russian public that he is addressing the failures that contributed to the attack.[17]

Putin continued to suggest that there are other beneficiaries of the attack that the MVD needs to investigate, however, and Russian MVD Head Vladimir Kolokoltsev proceeded to baselessly portray Ukraine as a transitional criminal and terrorist threat to Russia.[18] The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) baselessly claimed on April 1 that the US is attempting to cover up alleged Ukrainian responsibility for the Crocus City Hall attack, including by blaming the attack on the Islamic State’s Afghan branch IS-Khorasan (IS-K).[19] Russian law enforcement and intelligence responses in the North Caucasus — such as a counterterrorism raid in Dagestan on March 31 and intensified measures targeting Central Asian migrants in Russia are further evidence that Russian authorities in practice assess that the terrorist threat is emanating from Russia’s Central Asian and Muslim minority communities instead of Ukraine.[20] The Kremlin will likely continue efforts to capitalize on domestic fear and anger about the attack to generate perceptions of Ukrainian and Western involvement in the Crocus City Hall attack and wider alleged “terrorist” attacks within Russia in hopes of increasing Russian domestic support for the war in Ukraine.[21] ISW remains confident that IS conducted the Crocus City Hall attack and has yet to observe independent reporting or evidence to suggest that an actor other than IS was responsible for or aided the attack.[22]

Putin also attempted to address intensified debates about migration that have emerged following the Crocus City Hall attack but continued to express an inconsistent and vague stance on the issue. Putin stated that illegal migration can be a breeding ground for extremist activity and asserted that Russia needs to improve its migration database since the alleged attackers were able to legally stay in Russia without speaking Russian.[23] Putin called for Russia to radically update its approach to migration policy and instructed the MVD to draft its own new migration policy.[24] Putin did not expound upon what this new policy should entail beyond vague demands that it should preserve interethnic and interreligious harmony and Russia’s cultural and linguistic identity.[25] Putin reiterated that it is unacceptable to use the Crocus City Hall attack to provoke ethnic, Islamophobic, or xenophobic hatred, a rhetorical position that may collide with the Kremlin’s and Russian Orthodox Church’s contradictory appeals to ultranationalists' anti-migration fervor.[26] Anti-migrant policies could worsen Russian labor shortages and degrade Russia’s crypto-mobilization efforts if Russia deports large numbers of migrants or if significant portions of Russia’s migrant communities emigrate due to anti-migrant sentiment, and Russian authorities are generally unlikely to fully give into ultranationalist xenophobic demands to drastically reduce if not eliminate foreign immigration to Russia at the expense of Russia’s war effort. The Kremlin’s attempts to appeal to ultranationalists may generate further inconsistencies and contradictions within the Kremlin’s migration policy, however.[27]

Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on April 2 that the GUR believes that Russian forces will likely temporarily pause strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in order to replenish low missile stockpiles.[28] Skibitskyi stated that the Russian military currently has about 950 high-precision operational-strategic and strategic level missiles with a range of or exceeding 350 kilometers available in its arsenal.[29] Skibitskyi stated that the Russian military tries to prevent the missile stockpile from falling below 900 missiles and that Russian forces will temporarily pause missile strikes to accumulate more missiles to a level above this threshold.[30] Skibitskyi stated that Russia plans to produce 40 Kh-101 cruise missiles in April and suggested that Russia will have roughly at least 90 missiles to conduct two or three more large strike series against Ukrainian targets before pausing to restock missiles.[31] Skibitskyi noted that Russian forces have not launched any Kalibr cruise missiles since September 2023 and that Russia has accumulated at least 260 of these missiles and aims to produce 30 more in April. Skibitskyi added that Russian forces may not be launching Kalibr cruise missiles either because Ukrainian air defenses can easily intercept them or because Ukrainian strikes have damaged Black Sea Fleet (BSF) Kalibr missile carriers.[32] Skibitskyi and Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces are increasingly launching unknown ballistic missiles from occupied Crimea at Ukraine, but noted that it is unclear if Russian forces are using Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles or modernized Onyx-M anti-ship cruise missiles.[33] Russian forces can launch Zircon missiles at semi-ballistic trajectories, however.[34] Humenyuk reported on March 27 that Russian forces had accumulated “several dozen” Zircon missiles in military facilities in occupied Crimea.[35] Skibitskyi stated that Russian forces have accumulated 440 Onyx anti-ship cruise missiles, and that Russia can produce about six to eight of these missiles per month.[36] Russian forces temporarily reduced the intensity of its missile strikes and relied more heavily on Shahed drone strikes in summer and fall 2023 to marginally replenish stocks of high-precision missiles ahead of the intensification of the Russian strike campaign in winter 2023-2024 and spring 2024.[37]

US sanctions against Russia continue to impact Russian financial ties to post-Soviet countries, as Kyrgyzstan’s national payment system Elkart announced on April 2 that it would stop processing transactions using the Russian “Mir” payment system to prevent secondary sanctions. Elkart’s operator Interbank Processing Center stated that Elkart would stop processing all transactions with the “Mir” payment system starting on April 5 since the US sanctioned “Mir” system’s operator, the National Payment Card System Joint Stock Company, in February 2024.[38] Ten of 23 Kyrgyz commercial banks completely or partially suspended their use of the “Mir” payment system in October 2022 after the US Department of the Treasury reported that it would impose sanctions on financial institutions that enter contracts with the National Payment Card System.[39] ISW recently reported that several Kazakh banks and Armenia’s Central Bank also suspended the use of Mir payment systems to prevent secondary sanctions.[40]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed on April 2 that Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk became the commander of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF).[41] Pinchuk replaced former BSF Commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov, who likely died as a result of a Ukrainian strike on the BSF headquarters in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea in September 2023.[42]

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly proposed a NATO aid package that would send $100 billion of military assistance to Ukraine over five years.[43] Bloomberg reported that all NATO members need to approve the proposal and that the details will likely change during negotiations between member states.[44] Bloomberg reported that the proposal gives NATO control of the US-led Ukraine Contact Defense Group that coordinates weapons supplies to Ukraine and that sources familiar with the talks stated that NATO members are discussing whether the total sum should include bilateral aid to Ukraine. Financial Times reported that NATO foreign ministers will discuss the proposal on April 3 and that discussions will likely continue in the lead up to the NATO summit in Washington in July 2024.[45]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on April 2 that lowers the Ukrainian military’s mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on April 2 that Russian forces seized about 400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the first three months of 2024 — a rate of advance not necessarily reflective of wider Russian offensive prospects due to the impact of US security assistance delays.
• Ukraine conducted long-range unidentified unmanned aerial systems (UAS) strikes against Russian military production and oil refinery infrastructure in the Republic of Tatarstan, over 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address at the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) board meeting on April 2 illustrated Russia’s dissonant response to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack as Russian authorities simultaneously pursue law enforcement actions against migrant communities while also baselessly implicating Ukraine. Putin also attempted to address intensified debates about migration that have emerged following the Crocus City Hall attack but continued to express an inconsistent and vague stance on the issue.
• Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on April 2 that the GUR believes that Russian forces will likely temporarily pause strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in order to replenish low missile stockpiles.
• US sanctions against Russia continue to impact Russian financial ties to post-Soviet countries, as Kyrgyzstan’s national payment system Elkart announced on April 2 that it would stop processing transactions using the Russian “Mir” payment system to prevent secondary sanctions.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly proposed a NATO aid package that would send $100 billion of military assistance to Ukraine over five years.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna and Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on April 2.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 2 that the Russian military intends to finish and deploy several newly constructed small missile and patrol ships in 2024.
• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is increasing its law enforcement presence in occupied Ukraine in order to intensify Russian control over Ukrainian civilians and strengthen security over critical infrastructure.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces recently advanced south of Kreminna amid continued positional engagements along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on April 2. Geolocated footage published on April 2 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced south of Bilohorivka (south of Kreminna).[46] Positional engagements continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka and west of Kreminna near Terny.[47]

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

Positional engagements continued near Bakhmut on April 2, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced near Bohdanivka (northwest of Bakhmut), but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[48] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces are concentrating reserves east of Kanal (an eastern suburb of Chasiv Yar) for future offensive operations.[49] Russian milbloggers continued to claim that Russian forces are about 600–800 meters from the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, although ISW has only collected data to confirm that Russian forces at the furthest point of their confirmed advances are about 640 meters from the easternmost outskirt of Chasiv Yar.[50] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske and Chasiv Yar; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka; and south of Bakhmut near Niu York and Pivdenne.[51] A Russian milblogger claimed that a Russian serviceman from the 331st Airborne (VDV) Regiment (98th VDV Division) stated that Ukrainian forces are constantly operating first-person view (FPV) drones in this direction, complicating Russian forces’ advance near Chasiv Yar.[52]

Russian forces recently advanced near Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements in the area on April 2. Geolocated footage published on March 31 indicates that Russian forces advanced west of Berdychi (northwest of Avdiivka).[53] Geolocated footage published on April 1 also indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern Semenivka (northwest of Avdiivka).[54] Additional geolocated footage published on April 2 indicates that Russian forces advanced west of Tonenke (west of Avdiivka), although it is unclear if this is older footage from the previous Russian attack west of Tonenke on March 30 or footage from more recent renewed Russian pushes in this area.[55] Select Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced one kilometer west from Tonenke towards Umanske (west of Avdiivka and west of Tonenke).[56] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made further advances near Berdychi and Semenivka and near Umanske (west of Avdiivka), Vodyane (southwest of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (southwest of Avdiivka), but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[57] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued northwest of Avdiivka near Berdychi and Semenivka; west of Avdiivka near Umanske and Tonenke; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske.[58] A Ukrainian officer serving in a brigade in the Avdiivka direction stated that Russian forces sometimes launch tactical attacks in two directions at once, such as when Russian forces conducted a mechanized assault near Pervomaiske while a group of up to 30 Russian infantry attacked in Nevelske on an unspecified date.[59]

A Russian Storm-Z instructor claimed that Russian forces had some tactical successes but lacked adequate operational-level coordination between units during the failed battalion-sized Russian mechanized assault west of Avdiivka on March 30. The instructor claimed that the March 30 assault that resulted in 12 tank and eight infantry fighting vehicle losses occurred in multiple waves over multiple days.[60] ISW has not observed footage of destroyed or damaged Russian equipment in the area prior to the March 30 attack that would indicate that this attack occurred over multiple days, however. The instructor also claimed that Russian forces successfully employed combined arms techniques in the first waves of the attack and used armored vehicles to transport infantry with artillery and air support, but that Russian artillery cover decreased in subsequent waves, resulting in significant Russian vehicle losses. The instructor claimed that the last wave of Russian assaults did not result in losses, however. The instructor claimed that Russian forces could ultimately "overload” Ukrainian forces’ strike capabilities if Russian forces could send forward more waves of armored vehicles — possibly referring to windows of opportunity that Russian forces can exploit given dwindling Ukrainian artillery shell supplies. The instructor noted that continuous offensive pressure requires sufficient fire, anti-drone, and engineering support, without which Russian forces will continue to suffer from disproportionately high losses and be unable to exploit tactical successes for a broader operational breakthrough. A Ukrainian officer in a brigade operating in the Avdiivka direction also commented on the March 30 large-scale Russian attack near Tonenke, stating that Ukrainian artillery first struck Russian heavy equipment, consistent with the Storm-Z instructor’s description of Russian armored vehicle use in this attack.[61]

Positional engagements continued west and southwest of Donetsk City on April 2, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued west of Donetsk near Krasnohorivka and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka.[62] Elements of the Russian 255th Motorized Rifle Regiment (20th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) are reportedly operating near Pobieda (southwest of Donetsk City).[63]

Positional engagements continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on April 2, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued near Mykilske (southeast of Vuhledar), Velyka Novosilka, Staromayorske (south of Velyka Novosilka), and Urozhaine (south of Velyka Novosilka).[64]

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

Limited positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on April 2, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. A prominent Russian milblogger noted that Russian offensive efforts in Zaporizhia Oblast have “stalled” due to lowland terrain features in the Robotyne area.[65] Ukrainian and Russian sources reported continued positional fighting near Robotyne, northwest of Verbove (east of Robotyne, and Mala Tokmachka (northeast of Robotyne).[66] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are holding positions in southern Robotyne on Silska Street and the Robotyne post office.[67] Elements of the 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) are reportedly operating near Verbove.[68]

Positional engagements continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast on April 2, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area.[69] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are unsuccessfully counterattacking in Krynky, but that Russian artillery fire is preventing them from gaining additional territory in the settlement.[70] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk reiterated that Russian forces are unable to use armored vehicles for assaults on Krynky due to heavy equipment losses, and that Russian forces are conducting two to three attacks on Ukrainian positions per day while conducting drone and artillery strikes between assaults.[71] Humenyuk also noted that Russian forces are rotating units from eastern Ukraine to southern Ukraine in order to compensate for personnel losses sustained in attacks in east bank Kherson Oblast.

Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that it blew up an electrical substation in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea, on the night of April 2.[72] Ukrainian outlet Suspilne Crimea stated that the attack caused temporary localized power outages in part of Sevastopol.[73] GUR sources did not specify how the GUR agents damaged the substation. Sevastopol occupation governor Mikhail Razvozhaev denied reports of an incident at the substation and claimed that power outages were the result of an accidental short-circuit.[74]

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

Russian forces conducted a limited series of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine on April 2. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched a Kh-59 cruise missile from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast and 10 Shahed-136/131 drones from occupied Cape Chauda, Crimea, and that Ukrainian forces destroyed nine of the Shahed drones within Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[75] Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian drone strike damaged an energy facility in Kirovohrad Oblast.[76]

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

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 2 that the Russian military intends to finish and deploy several newly constructed small missile and patrol ships in 2024. Shoigu stated that the JSC Zelenodolsk Shipyard in the Republic of Tatarstan will hand over three new Karakurt-class missile carriers to the Russian Navy in 2024.[77] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that the Russian military intends to transfer three Project 228000 Karakurt-class ships to the Black Sea Fleet (BSF), two to the Pacific Fleet, and one to the Baltic Fleet.[78] Shoigu added that the Zelenodolsk Shipyard is also constructing a Project 22160 patrol ship that it intends to transfer to the BSF in 2024.[79] Ukrainian forces have reportedly disabled roughly 33 percent of the BSF’s warships as of early February 2024 and subsequently conducted further strikes against BSF assets, and the Russian military may be prioritizing the construction of small missile carriers and patrol boats to replenish some BSF losses.[80]

Shoigu also stated that the Russian military is prioritizing the expansion of the training infrastructure. Shoigu claimed that the Russian military has increased the number of training grounds and facilities from 100 to 240 since 2012, and that Russian forces are currently constructing two new training grounds in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.[81] Shoigu stated that Russian forces plan to build an additional five training grounds in unspecified locations by the end of 2024.[82] Russian forces likely lack the military infrastructure and training capacity to properly staff several planned new divisions and armies to their full doctrinal end strengths in the immediate to medium term, and Russian forces will likely have to expand training infrastructure to support the Russian military’s ongoing expansion efforts.[83]

Russian officials reportedly continue coercive efforts to collect personal information on potential recruits. Russian opposition outlet Mobilization News reported on April 2 that Russian officials are requiring Moscow university students to sign consent forms to transfer their information to military registration and recruitment offices in exchange for receiving their Moscow Social Card.[84] The Moscow Social Card gives university students discounts on public transport in Moscow City and Moscow Oblast. Activists from the Russian human rights organization “Military Lawyers” stated that Russian officials may be collecting the students’ information to create a database of Moscow residents eligible for military service within the Unified Military Registry.[85]

Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov reported on March 31 that Russia has almost completed the construction of a railway line connecting Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar Krai, and occupied Crimea through occupied Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts.[86] Budanov stated that Russia has been building this railway line for over a year and that the railway line could pose a problem for Ukrainian forces, likely referencing how the Russian military could easily use such a railway line to rapidly transit materiel and manpower in the Russian rear.

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

ISW is not publishing its coverage of Ukraine defense industrial efforts today.

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

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is increasing its law enforcement presence in occupied Ukraine to intensify Russian control over Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure. MVD Head Vladimir Kolokoltsev stated at the April 2 MVD Collegium that the MVD is establishing territorial units in occupied Ukraine and that almost 14,000 police officers have assumed positions in occupation police forces, most of whom previously served in local law enforcement.[87] Kolokoltsev claimed that the MVD has transferred over 800 employees from Russia to occupied Ukraine and that 1,500 new personnel entered the police service in occupied Ukraine. Kolokoltsev stated that the MVD established separate units to maintain order, counter extremism, and protect state and transit infrastructure in occupied Ukraine. Kolokoltsev stated that MVD has dedicated increased attention to protecting critically important railway transit facilities and has increased mobile police patrol teams in occupied Ukraine from an unspecified previous number to 700 personnel who inspect about 2,500 objects per day. Kolokoltsev also noted that the MVD has participated in 3,000 joint events with Rosgvardia, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), and Federal Security Service (FSB), in occupied Ukraine. Russia also has deployed at least 35,000 Rosgvardia personnel in occupied Ukraine, many of which likely perform law enforcement tasks.[88] ISW previously noted that the influx of Russian law enforcement personnel in occupied Ukraine is likely also in part intended to artificially alter the demographics of occupied Ukraine by bringing more Russian citizens to occupied areas.[89]

The Russian MVD continues to forcibly passportize Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that 3.2 million residents in in occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts have received Russian passports since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Kolokoltsev claimed that over 2,500 MVD employees have established 150 reception points for passportization in occupied Ukraine and have documented over 90 percent of residents in occupied areas.[90] Russian authorities have long weaponized the issuance of Russian passports in occupied Ukraine to claim special rights to residents of occupied areas and used purported statistics about Russian passport holders to justify military actions against Ukraine.[91]

Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Administration Head Oleksandr Prokudin reported on April 2 that Ukrainian authorities and the “Save Ukraine” volunteer organization returned a teenager from occupied Kherson Oblast to Ukrainian-controlled areas.[92] Prokudin reported that the teenager feared that Russian occupation authorities would force him into Russian military service after forcing him to participate in the Russian Young Cadets National Movement (Yunarmiya), a military-patriotic movement that instills pro-Russian and militarized ideals in youth in occupied Ukraine. Prokudin stated that Ukrainian authorities have returned 48 minors from occupied Kherson Oblast since the beginning of 2024.

Russian and Ukrainian sources reported on April 1 that a vehicle explosion killed a Russian occupation official in occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast.[93] Kremlin newswire TASS stated that the explosion killed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Center for Services for Educational Organizations of Starobilsk Raion Deputy Head, Valery Chaika, and that the LNR Investigative Committee opened a criminal case investigating his death.[94]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev reiterated a number of longstanding Russian narratives about NATO on April 2.[95] Patrushev accused NATO of using unspecified “terrorist organizations” for its own interests and claimed that NATO structures its policy at the behest of the US.[96] Patrushev claimed that the US and NATO are pushing Ukraine to use extreme force, restating the commonplace Kremlin information operation that Russia is blameless in invading Ukraine. Patrushev also accused NATO and the West of instigating Russophobic policies.

Russian sources continue to further an information operation that seeks to frame Russia as the sole protector of the Orthodox faith, while posing Ukraine as an affront to Russian religious ideals. Several Russian state news outlets, commentators, and milbloggers claimed on April 2 that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Customs Service detected and eliminated an alleged smuggling ring on the Latvia–Russia border in Pskov Oblast through which unnamed actors were allegedly moving explosive devices packed into Orthodox icons and church items to Russia via European Union (EU) states and Ukraine.[97] Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov responded to the incident and claimed that is an “alarming signal” of Ukraine’s ”terrorist methods,” but did not provide any direct evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the alleged smuggling.[98] Russian milbloggers similarly baselessly blamed Ukraine for involvement in the case, with one claiming that a smuggler was Ukrainian and wanted to blow up Russian Orthodox churches, and another claiming that the incident shows that Ukraine has fallen into “monstrous heresy” that must be eradicated.[99] Russia has continually weaponized religion to frame Ukraine as evil and heretical, while framing the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as the ultimately protector of Orthodox Christian values.[100] The ROC, however, is a Kremlin-controlled tool of Russian hybrid warfare that is helping Russia prosecute the war and occupation of Ukraine, as ISW has frequently assessed.[101] These allegations also support the larger ongoing Russian information operation positing that Ukraine is a state sponsor of terror against Russia.

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

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko continued boilerplate rhetoric aimed at feigning conflict with the West. Lukashenko claimed on April 2 that Belarus does not want to fight but is “preparing for war” because “if you want peace, [one has to] prepare for war.”[102] Lukashenko claimed that Belarus “does not need to threaten anyone” and does not “want any foreign territory.”

The boards of the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) and Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) met in Moscow on April 2.[103] The SVR press bureau claimed that the meeting focused on joint work in various areas of intelligence activities and bilateral cooperation. The SVR press bureau claimed that SVR and KGB representatives emphasized that the Russian and Belarusian special services have an increased responsibility to disclose the West’s alleged “hostile plans” towards Russia and Belarus and to protect and strengthen the defense, industrial, and technological potential of the Union State.

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.

3. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 2, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-april-2-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Jordan: A prominent Iranian-backed Iraqi militia threatened to create and arm a new Iranian proxy militia in Jordan, which may reflect a greater, more confrontational, shift in the Iranian strategy vis-a-vis Jordan.
• Recent domestic unrest and large sustained demonstrations against Jordan’s Israel policy may be causing Iran and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to approach Jordanian infiltration differently and more overtly.
• Iran: The Iranian regime may target US forces or Israeli diplomatic facilities in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike in Damascus that killed seven IRGC officials.
• Central Gaza Strip: The IDF conducted a drone strike in the central Gaza Strip that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen.
• Iraq: Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev claimed that the United States would resort to “blackmailing” the Iraqi government to maintain its presence in Iraq. Kutrashev’s comments are likely part of the Russian effort to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq.
• West Bank: Israeli forces conducted raids in the West Bank and engaged Palestinian fighters in at least two locations.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah threatened that it would retaliate in an unspecified manner against Israel in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike in Damascus that killed seven IRGC officials.
• Syria: An unspecified Iranian-backed militia conducted a drone attack targeting US forces stationed at al Tanf Garrison in Homs Province, Syria. This attack marks the first Iranian-backed militia attack targeting US forces in the Middle East since February 4.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM reported that it destroyed a Houthi unmanned surface vessel that posed a threat to US ships and merchant vessels in the Red Sea.

IRAN UPDATE, APRIL 2, 2024

Apr 2, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, April 2, 2024

Andie Parry, Annika Ganzeveld, Ashka Jhaveri, Kathryn Tyson, Peter Mills and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report. Click here to subscribe to the Iran Update.

The Axis of Resistance is the unconventional alliance that Iran has cultivated in the Middle East since the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979. This transnational coalition is comprised of state, semi-state, and non-state actors that cooperate with one another to secure their collective interests. Tehran considers itself to be both part of the alliance and its leader. Iran furnishes these groups with varying levels of financial, military, and political support in exchange for some degree of influence or control over their actions. Some are traditional proxies that are highly responsive to Iranian direction while others are militias over which Iran exerts more limited influence. Members of Axis of Resistance are united by their grand strategic objectives, which include eroding and eventually expelling American influence from the Middle East, destroying the Israeli state, or both. Pursuing these objectives and supporting the Axis of Resistance to those ends have become cornerstones of Iranian regional strategy.

We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

A prominent Iranian-backed Iraqi militia threatened to create and arm a new Iranian proxy in Jordan, which may reflect a greater, more confrontational, shift in the Iranian strategy vis-a-vis Jordan. Kataib Hezbollah military spokesperson Hussein Moanes, also known as Abu Ali al Askari, said on April 1 that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is a coalition of Iranian-backed militias, has prepared to “equip” 12,000 “Islamic Resistance in Jordan” fighters with a significant supply of weapons.[1] The mention of an Islamic resistance network in Jordan is a notable inflection, as Iranian and Iranian-backed actors have not previously mentioned the existence of such an entity. Moanes said that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq seeks to equip Jordanian fighters, so that Iraq and Jordan can jointly attack Israel to ”defend” the Palestinian cause. Kataib Hezbollah released the statement in response to an Israeli airstrike in Damascus on April 1, which killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) members.[2] Moanes’ statement is likely aspirational given the current strength of the Jordanian armed forces and the operational costs and time required to create a pro-Iran network in Jordan.

Kataib Hezbollah’s choice to publicize its desire to set up a large armed militia indicates a growing Iranian interest in using Jordan in its anti-Israel campaign, however. Jordan offers a direct front from which Iranian-backed fighters could more easily conduct and direct attacks into Israel. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq already utilizes Jordanian airspace for its drone attacks into Israel.[3] An active and well-armed Iranian-backed militia based out of Jordan would dramatically advance Iran’s military encirclement of Israel.

An expanding Axis of Resistance network in Jordan would also facilitate Iranian efforts in the West Bank. Jordanian territory also offers multiple ground routes through which Iran could move military materiel into the West Bank. Tehran has sought to develop the capabilities and infrastructure of its militia network in the West Bank in recent years, but the Israel-Hamas war has highlighted the shortcomings of the networks there.[4] Palestinian militias in the West Bank remain relatively disorganized and still use rudimentary capabilities to attack Israel and Israeli forces compared to the militias in the Gaza Strip. Iranian leaders could conclude that they need to invest further in building their networks into Jordan to develop their militia infrastructure in the West Bank more effectively.

Moanes’ separately declared that Kataib Hezbollah would “cut off” land routes that “reach” Israel.[5] Kataib Hezbollah may be referring to the transportation line connecting ports in the Persian Gulf to Israel via Saudi Arabia and Jordan.[6] A likely Iranian-backed militia drone exploded on the Jordan-Israel border near Eilat on April 2, near where trucks carrying Israeli goods from the Gulf States enter Israel via Jordan.[7] CTP-ISW is unable to confirm the drone's target. However, the location is notable because Israel has increasingly relied on this land route to compensate for reduced trade activity through Eilat due to the Houthi’s anti-shipping campaign.[8] The Houthi movement has emphasized that its drone and missile campaign seeks to create a blockade that will destroy the Israeli economy and analogized ongoing Houthi operations to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt seized Israeli shipping near the Bab al Mandeb.[9] Kataib Hezbollah attacks targeting this land route would support the Houthis’ efforts.

Recent domestic unrest and large sustained demonstrations in Jordan against the Jordanian government’s Israel policy may be driving Iran and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to approach Jordanian infiltration differently and more overtly. Thousands of Jordanians have demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman since March 24.[10] The protestors have called for the Jordanian government to cut diplomatic ties with Israel, withdraw from the 1994 peace treaty, and cut off the trade route between the Persian Gulf and Israel that cuts through Jordanian territory.[11] Protestors have repeatedly clashed with Jordanian security services, and the government has accused groups of stirring up ”strife.”[12] Protestors have also expressed support for Hamas and called for armed resistance against Israel.[13] Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s leaders have praised the Jordanian protest movement as an important part of resistance against Israel.[14] The Jordanian state’s strong security apparatus, high degree of domestic control, and close relationship with the US military are significant obstacles for Kataib Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed actors if they choose to develop a network in Jordan.

The Iranian regime may target US forces or Israeli diplomatic facilities in retaliation for the April 1 Israeli airstrike in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officials.[15] Israel struck a building directly adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing senior IRGC commanders Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Brig. Gen. Mohammad Hadi Haj Rahimi.[16] The commanders were discussing the Israel-Hamas war with Palestinian militia leaders, including PIJ leaders, at the time of the Israeli airstrike.[17] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned on April 2 following the attack that Israel will “be punished by the hands of our brave men.”[18] The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), which is the Iranian regime’s highest defense and foreign policy body, separately held an emergency meeting on April 1 to discuss the airstrike.[19] Iranian state media reported that the SNSC “adopted appropriate decisions” regarding the airstrike.[20] The SNSC’s members are senior Iranian political and security figures, including the president, parliament speaker, judiciary chief, and the commanding officers responsible for the Armed Forces General Staff, IRGC, Artesh, and Law Enforcement Command.[21]

Iranian officials and media are accusing the United States of enabling the Israeli airstrike, possibly to set conditions to target US forces in the Middle East. Political advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former SNSC Secretary Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani claimed on April 2 that the United States “holds direct responsibility” for the Israeli airstrike “and its consequences.”[22] Iranian Armed Forces General Staff-controlled media separately claimed on April 2 that the United States gave Israel the “green light” to conduct the airstrike and that Israel “would not dare” conduct such a strike without US “permission.”[23] Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian attributed the Israeli airstrike to the United States and announced that the regime sent an “important message” to the US government following the airstrike via the Swiss ambassador to Iran.[24] Iran has historically held the United States accountable for Israeli military activity against Iran and its proxies. Iranian-backed militants conducted a drone attack in northeastern Syria that killed an American in March 2023 following Israeli airstrikes on Iranian-backed targets in Syria, for example.[25]

Some Iranian officials and media have suggested that Iran may attack Israeli diplomatic facilities in response to the Israeli airstrike. An Iranian parliamentarian called for “openly and directly” targeting the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan in a post on X (Twitter) on April 1.[26] The Iranian regime has historically accused Baku of allowing Israel to use Azerbaijani territory to launch operations against Iran. Armed Forces General Staff-controlled media separately argued that Israeli embassies are “exposed to retaliatory operations.”[27] Iranian regime institutions and media have emphasized that the April 1 Israeli airstrike “crossed a red line” by targeting “diplomatic persons and places” and may therefore regard a retaliatory strike on an Israeli embassy or diplomatic facility as a proportional and reasonable response.[28]

The IDF conducted a drone strike on April 1 in the central Gaza Strip that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK).[29] WCK reported that its workers were traveling in a “deconflicted“ zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a third soft skin vehicle.[30] The convoy was traveling on the al Rashid coastal road, which Israel has designated as a humanitarian corridor.[31] Unspecified Israeli defense sources told Israeli media that Israel targeted the convoy because of “suspicion” that a Palestinian fighter was traveling with the convoy.[32] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the IDF “unintentionally targeted” the aid workers.[33] The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia have called on Israel to investigate the attack.[34] The IDF said that the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, a military body tasked with investigating accusations, will investigate the incident.[35]

The IDF said in the aftermath of the World Central Kitchen strike that it will establish a joint command between the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)—a department within the Israeli Defense Ministry—and the IDF Southern Command to improve the coordination between Israeli military headquarters and the management of humanitarian aid.[36] Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant instructed Israeli forces to "maintain an open and transparent line of communication" with international organizations.[37]

The Israeli drone strike has disrupted other aid operations in the Gaza Strip. The WCK has paused its activities “in the region.”[38] Emirati government sources told Axios on March 2 that the UAE has suspended its participation in the maritime aid corridor to the Gaza Strip. This decision will remain in effect until Israel provides assurances the safety of aid workers and completes an investigation into the drone strike, according to the Emirati officials.[39] The UAE plays a significant role in coordinating with the Israeli government for humanitarian efforts via the maritime corridor.[40] The UAE also provided significant funding for the maritime corridor.[41]

Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev claimed that the United States would resort to “blackmailing” the Iraqi government to maintain its presence in Iraq. Kutrashev’s comments are likely part of the Russian effort to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq.[42] Kutrashev made this comment during an interview with Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Asaib Ahl al Haq-controlled outlet al Ahad on April 1. Kutrashev claimed that the presence of foreign forces in Iraq negatively affects Iraqi and regional security and stability. Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have made similar statements, calling the US presence in Iraq “destabilizing.”[43] Kutrashev further claimed that the Iraqi Army is “strong and capable” enough to “fill the void of foreign forces.”[44] This claim ignores the fact that the Iraqi Security Forces, of which the Iraqi Army is apart, faces deficiencies in fire support, intelligence, logistics, and planning that decrease the ISF’s ability to confront some internal threats, such as ISIS, alone.[45] Kutrashev has met with at least six Iraqi officials, including senior security leaders, since January 2024.[46] CTP-ISW previously assessed in February 2024 that Russia may be setting conditions to try to supplant the United States as Iraq’s security partner in anticipation of the United States possibly reducing its military presence there.[47]

Key Takeaways:

• Jordan: A prominent Iranian-backed Iraqi militia threatened to create and arm a new Iranian proxy militia in Jordan, which may reflect a greater, more confrontational, shift in the Iranian strategy vis-a-vis Jordan.
• Recent domestic unrest and large sustained demonstrations against Jordan’s Israel policy may be causing Iran and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to approach Jordanian infiltration differently and more overtly.
• Iran: The Iranian regime may target US forces or Israeli diplomatic facilities in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike in Damascus that killed seven IRGC officials.
• Central Gaza Strip: The IDF conducted a drone strike in the central Gaza Strip that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen.
• Iraq: Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev claimed that the United States would resort to “blackmailing” the Iraqi government to maintain its presence in Iraq. Kutrashev’s comments are likely part of the Russian effort to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq.
• West Bank: Israeli forces conducted raids in the West Bank and engaged Palestinian fighters in at least two locations.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah threatened that it would retaliate in an unspecified manner against Israel in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike in Damascus that killed seven IRGC officials.
• Syria: An unspecified Iranian-backed militia conducted a drone attack targeting US forces stationed at al Tanf Garrison in Homs Province, Syria. This attack marks the first Iranian-backed militia attack targeting US forces in the Middle East since February 4.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM reported that it destroyed a Houthi unmanned surface vessel that posed a threat to US ships and merchant vessels in the Red Sea.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to sustain clearing operations in the Gaza Strip
• Reestablish Hamas as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip

Palestinian militias continued attacks targeting Israeli forces near Gaza City on April 2. The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which is the self-proclaimed military wing of Fatah and aligned with Hamas in the war, said that its fighters fired small arms targeting an Israeli soldier in a house near al Shifa Hospital after returning “from the battle lines.”[48] The IDF withdrew from al Shifa Hospital on April 1 after concluding a two-week long operation in the area.[49] Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters mortared Israeli forces in an unspecified area southwest of Gaza City.[50]

Israeli forces continued clearing operations in western and northern Khan Younis on April 2. The IDF 7th Brigade (36th Division) directed an airstrike targeting Palestinian fighters and weapons depots in Qarara, northern Khan Younis.[51] The IDF 89th Commando Brigade (98th Division) killed Palestinian fighters and confiscated weapons during ”raids“ in al Amal neighborhood, western Khan Younis.[52] The IDF Egoz Unit detained ”dozens” of Palestinian fighters near Nasser Hospital in western Khan Younis.[53] Israeli forces also conducted searches near the Nasser Hospital and al Amal Hospital to ”ensure Hamas has not established infrastructure there again.”[54]

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office reported on April 2 that Israel has created an “updated” ceasefire proposal for Hamas to review.[55] The office confirmed that an Israeli delegation will return from Cairo on April 2 as it concluded an “additional intensive round of negotiations.”

Palestinian militias did not conduct any indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on April 2.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces conducted raids in the West Bank and engaged Palestinian fighters in at least two locations on April 2.[56] Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fighters engaged Israeli forces with small arms during an Israeli ”counterterrorism” raid in Qalandia refugee camp to detain and question unspecified "suspects.“[57] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade Nablus Battalion said that it targeted Israeli special operations forces with small arms and improvised explosive devices in Balata refugee camp. The Israeli forces were conducting a raid in Balata.[58] Israeli forces detained a total of 22 wanted people during raids in the West Bank.[59] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades separately targeted two Israeli checkpoints and an Israeli settlement near Tulkarm where Israeli forces are permanently stationed.[60]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Deter Israel from conducting a ground operation into Lebanon
• Prepare for an expanded and protracted conflict with Israel in the near term
• Expel the United States from Syria

Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least six attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on April 1.[61] Hezbollah that reportedly fired at least 30 rockets targeting Israeli civilians in Gesher HaZiv, near Nahariya.[62]

Hezbollah condemned the Israeli airstrike in Syria on April 1 that killed a senior Iranian military commander and some of his top subordinates.[63] Hezbollah said that the commander, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, ”developed and advanced the work of the resistance in Lebanon."[64] Zahedi most recently commanded the IRGC Quds Force unit responsible for overseeing operations in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories.[65] Hezbollah threatened that it would retaliate in an unspecified manner against Israel for conducting the strike.

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Israeli air defenses shot down several projectiles that likely Iranian-backed militias fired from Syria on April 1. An Israeli military correspondent said that Israel shot down a cruise missile approaching the Golan Heights from Syria.[66] No group has taken responsibility for the attack at the time of writing. Syrian sources reported that the IDF conducted an airstrike in Daraa, southern Syria, in response to the attack.[67] Axios also reported on April 2 that Israeli air defenses shot down several drones fired from Syria targeting Israel on April 1.[68]

US CENTCOM reported that it destroyed a Houthi unmanned surface vessel on April 1 that posed a threat to US ships and merchant vessels in the Red Sea.[69] CENTCOM did not provide details on the location of the attack.

The Houthis likely demanded on April 1 that a commercial vessel near Hudaydah reveal its position by turning on its automatic identification system (AIS). The UK Maritime Trade Operations reported that an unspecified entity claiming to be the “Yemeni Navy” threatened a commercial vessel to turn on its AIS.[70] The commercial vessel reported hearing “suspected gunshots” after it declined to reveal its location.[71] The Houthi naval arm often refers to itself as the “Yemeni Navy,” but the Houthis are not the internationally recognized Yemeni government and do not control the Yemeni navy.

An unspecified Iranian-backed militia conducted a drone attack targeting US forces stationed at al Tanf Garrison in Homs Province, Syria, on April 1.[72] Unspecified US Defense Department officials confirmed that US forces shot down a one-way attack drone targeting al Tanf.[73] US defense officials did not provide the time of the attack, nor did they confirm whether the attack occurred before or after the Israeli airstrike that killed Zahedi. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias that has claimed over 190 attacks targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began, has not claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of this writing. This attack marks the first Iranian-backed militia attack targeting US forces in the Middle East since February 4.

Faylaq al Waad al Sadiq Secretary General Mohammad al Tamimi repeated calls to remove US forces from Iraq during an interview with Russian state-controlled media on April 2.[74] Tamimi claimed that the US government “only understands the language of force.” Tamimi said during an interview with US media on March 27 that Faylaq al Waad al Sadiq would resume attacks targeting US forces if the United States does not leave Iraq.[75] Faylaq al Waad al Sadiq has reported ties to Iranian-backed Iraqi militias Asaib Ahl al Haq and Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba.[76]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting the Tel Nof Airbase in central Israel on April 2.[77] Israeli officials and media have not confirmed the attack at the time of this writing. CTP-ISW cannot verify the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claim.

4. U.S. told Russia Crocus City Hall was possible target of attack

Moral high ground. Duty to warn.

Excerpts:

While the United States routinely shares information about possible terrorist attacks with foreign countries, under a policy known as the “duty to warn,” it is unusual to give information about specific targets to an adversary, officials and experts said. Doing so risks revealing how the United States obtained the intelligence, potentially putting clandestine surveillance activities or human sources at risk.

But the information that pointed to an attack on the concert hall also pointed at a potential danger for Americans in Russia. On March 7, the U.S. Embassy publicly announced that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts,” and advised U.S. citizens “to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

The U.S. shared its information with Russia the day before that public warning, according to people familiar with the matter. Naryshkin said “U.S. intelligence agencies” gave the information to the FSB, Russia’s state security service.

Under the duty to warn policy, the United States has also recently shared terrorism information with another adversary — Iran. In January, U.S. officials warned that ISIS was planning to carry out attacks in the country, according to U.S. officials, who said the intelligence was specific enough that it might have helped Iranian authorities disrupt twin suicide bombings that killed at least 95 people in the city of Kerman. ISIS, which views Iran’s majority Shiite Muslim population as apostates, attacked a gathering of thousands of mourners as they commemorated the fourth anniversary of the death of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in 2020.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the U.S. warning to Iran.

U.S. told Russia Crocus City Hall was possible target of attack

In an unusual move, U.S. officials shared highly specific information about a terrorist plot with an adversary country

By Shane Harris

April 2, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · April 2, 2024

More than two weeks before terrorists staged a bloody attack in the suburbs of Moscow, the U.S. government told Russian officials that Crocus City Hall, a popular concert venue, was a potential target, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The high degree of specificity conveyed in the warning underscores Washington’s confidence that the Islamic State was preparing an attack that threatened large numbers of civilians, and it directly contradicts Moscow’s claims that the U.S. warnings were too general to help preempt the assault.

The U.S. identification of the Crocus concert hall as a potential target — a fact that has not been previously reported — raises new questions about why Russian authorities failed to take stronger measures to protect the venue, where gunmen killed more than 140 people and set fire to the building. A branch of the Islamic State has taken credit for the attack, the deadliest in Russia in 20 years. U.S. officials have publicly said the group, known as ISIS-K, “bears sole responsibility,” but Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to pin the blame on Ukraine.

The attack has further dented the image of strength and security that the Russian leader seeks to convey and exposed fundamental weaknesses in the nation’s security apparatus, which has been consumed by more than two years of war in Ukraine. Domestically, Putin’s operatives appear more concerned with silencing political dissent and opposition to the president than rooting out terrorist plots, say analysts and observers of Russian politics.

The Russian leader himself publicly dismissed U.S. warnings just three days before the March 22 attack, calling them “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilize our society.”

The U.S. officials familiar with the information that Washington shared with Moscow spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations and intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to comment for this story. Previously, the NSC has acknowledged that the United States conveyed information “about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow” but did not say that Crocus City Hall was named as a possible target.

A Kremlin spokesperson did not respond to questions from The Washington Post about the Crocus City Hall warning. But on Tuesday, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told reporters in Moscow that the information the United States shared was “too general and did not allow us to fully identify those who committed this terrible crime,” according to the state-run Interfax news agency.

Naryshkin said that in response to the U.S. intelligence, Russia “took appropriate measures to prevent” an attack. But video from the scene of the slaughter shows the gunmen facing no significant resistance. Russian media have reported that specialized police units did not arrive until more than an hour after the shooting started, and then waited more than 30 minutes before entering the building, at which point the assailants already had escaped.

While the United States routinely shares information about possible terrorist attacks with foreign countries, under a policy known as the “duty to warn,” it is unusual to give information about specific targets to an adversary, officials and experts said. Doing so risks revealing how the United States obtained the intelligence, potentially putting clandestine surveillance activities or human sources at risk.

But the information that pointed to an attack on the concert hall also pointed at a potential danger for Americans in Russia. On March 7, the U.S. Embassy publicly announced that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts,” and advised U.S. citizens “to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

The U.S. shared its information with Russia the day before that public warning, according to people familiar with the matter. Naryshkin said “U.S. intelligence agencies” gave the information to the FSB, Russia’s state security service.

Under the duty to warn policy, the United States has also recently shared terrorism information with another adversary — Iran. In January, U.S. officials warned that ISIS was planning to carry out attacks in the country, according to U.S. officials, who said the intelligence was specific enough that it might have helped Iranian authorities disrupt twin suicide bombings that killed at least 95 people in the city of Kerman. ISIS, which views Iran’s majority Shiite Muslim population as apostates, attacked a gathering of thousands of mourners as they commemorated the fourth anniversary of the death of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in 2020.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the U.S. warning to Iran.

Despite the lack of effective security at Crocus City Hall, there are indications that the Russian government, at least initially, took seriously Washington’s warning — which included information about ISIS plans to attack a synagogue, according to one U.S. official. The day after Moscow received that information, the FSB announced that it had prevented an ISIS attack on a synagogue in Moscow.

Islam Khalilov, 15, who said he was working in the concert hall’s coat check on the night of the attack, said that Crocus staff had been told about the possibility of a terrorist attack, not long after the March 7 public warning. “[W]e were warned there could be terrorist attacks and we were instructed in what to do and where to take people,” Khalilov said in an interview with Dmitry Yegorov, a well-known Russian sports journalist, that was posted on YouTube. Khalilov said there had been stricter security checks at the venue, including with trained dogs.

Why security wasn’t increased and sustained after the initial warning remains unclear. It’s possible that Russian security services, seeing no attack materialize in the days soon after March 7, assumed the U.S. information was incorrect and let their guard down, some of the U.S. officials speculated.

Putin publicly ridiculed terrorism warnings, from what he deemed “a number of official Western structures,” during a meeting with top FSB officials on March 19. “You are well aware of them, so I will not go into details at this point,” Putin said, according to an official Kremlin transcript.

Putin emphasized that the FSB’s most important job was in Ukraine, as part of what he euphemistically called Russia’s “special military operation.” Putin equated Ukrainian forces with terrorists and suggested that they posed a direct threat to Russia. “The neo-Nazi Kyiv regime has also switched to terrorist tactics,” Putin said, including “attempts to recruit perpetrators of subversive and terrorist attacks targeting critical infrastructure and public spaces in Russia.”

After Russian authorities apprehended suspects in the Crocus City Hall attack, Putin and other senior leaders claimed that Kyiv had hired the operatives and made plans for them to escape to Ukraine, allegations that U.S. and Ukrainian officials have rejected.

Russia has gratefully accepted assistance from the United States in the past. Twice during the administration of President Donald Trump, Putin thanked the Americans for sharing information that helped disrupt terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg, in 2017 and 2019.

Catherine Belton in London contributed reporting.

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · April 2, 2024

5. The Appalling Tactics of the ‘Free Palestine’ Movement

Excerpts:

How did this happen?

It wasn’t a response to the human suffering in Gaza in recent months. A coalition of Harvard student groups issued a statement on Oct. 7 holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Pro-Hamas demonstrations broke out worldwide on Oct. 8. A Black Lives Matter chapter posted a graphic on Instagram of the Hamas paragliders who murdered hundreds of young Israelis at the Nova music festival. A Cornell professor said he found the massacre “exhilarating,” and demonstrators rallied in his support.

Nor is it a matter of seeking a Palestinian state — another fact the demonstrators openly avow. Among the popular chants at many protests is “We don’t want no two states! We want all of ’48!” — all of what had been Mandatory Palestine before the creation of Israel. Israeli soldiers and settlers vacated Gaza almost 20 years ago. The towns and kibbutzim that Hamas invaded on Oct. 7 are only “occupied” if one believes that all of Israel, in any kind of border, is a form of occupation.

In other words, the central, animating sentiment behind much of the protest movement is neither humanitarian nor liberationist. It’s eliminationist. And it expresses itself routinely in the tactics adopted by so many of its leading activists and followers.

BRET STEPHENS

The Appalling Tactics of the ‘Free Palestine’ Movement

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/opinion/the-appalling-tactics-of-the-free-palestine-movement.html

April 2, 2024

Credit...Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis, via Getty Images

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By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

Last week, Susanne DeWitt, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who later became a molecular biologist, spoke before the Berkeley, Calif., City Council to request a Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation. After taking note of a “horrendous surge in antisemitism,” she was then heckled and shouted down by protesters at the meeting when she mentioned the massacre and rapes in Israel of Oct. 7.

At the same meeting, a woman testified that her 7-year-old Jewish son heard “a group of kids at his school say, ‘Jews are stupid.’” She, too, was heckled: “Zionists are stupider,” a protester said. At the same meeting, others yelled, “cowards, go chase the money, you money suckers” and “you are traitors to this country, you are spies for Israel.”

Protest movements have an honorable place in American history. But not all of them. Not the neo-Nazis who marched in Chicago in 1978. Not the white supremacists who chanted “Jews will not replace us” at their Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

And not too much of what passes for a pro-Palestinian movement but is really pro-Hamas, with its calls to get rid of the Jewish state in its entirety (“from the river to the sea …”), its open celebration of the murder of its people (“resistance is justified …”) and its efforts to mock, minimize or deny the suffering of Israelis, which so quickly descend into the antisemitism on naked display in Berkeley.

How did this happen?

It wasn’t a response to the human suffering in Gaza in recent months. A coalition of Harvard student groups issued a statement on Oct. 7 holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Pro-Hamas demonstrations broke out worldwide on Oct. 8. A Black Lives Matter chapter posted a graphic on Instagram of the Hamas paragliders who murdered hundreds of young Israelis at the Nova music festival. A Cornell professor said he found the massacre “exhilarating,” and demonstrators rallied in his support.

Nor is it a matter of seeking a Palestinian state — another fact the demonstrators openly avow. Among the popular chants at many protests is “We don’t want no two states! We want all of ’48!” — all of what had been Mandatory Palestine before the creation of Israel. Israeli soldiers and settlers vacated Gaza almost 20 years ago. The towns and kibbutzim that Hamas invaded on Oct. 7 are only “occupied” if one believes that all of Israel, in any kind of border, is a form of occupation.

In other words, the central, animating sentiment behind much of the protest movement is neither humanitarian nor liberationist. It’s eliminationist. And it expresses itself routinely in the tactics adopted by so many of its leading activists and followers.

Tactics like the grotesque and routine removal or defacement of posters of Israelis kidnapped to Gaza. Or holding a loud and aggressive demonstration outside of New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital (“Make sure they hear you, they’re in the windows,” said one of the protest leaders), apparently because the hospital has collaborated with Israeli medical institutions. Or forcing a Jewish teacher at a public school in Queens to flee her classroom for safety as hundreds of teenagers rioted through the school, some waving Palestinian flags. Or shouting down Representative Jamie Raskin at the University of Maryland for being “complicit in genocide” when he came to the campus to give a talk on democracy and “the threat to reason in the 21st century.” Or surrounding a theater at the University of California at Berkeley that was supposed to host a talk by an Israeli lawyer, smashing windows, breaking through locked doors, spitting on and grabbing at least one student by the neck and forcing Jewish students to flee through an underground exit.

This is only a partial list. But it reveals the bullying mentality at the heart of the pro-Hamas movement. It isn’t enough for them to speak out; they must shut other voices down. It isn’t enough for them to make a strong or clear argument; they also aim to instill a palpable sense of fear in their opponents. American civil libertarians of the past once understood that inherent in the right to protest was the obligation to respect the right of people with differing views to protest as well. That understanding seems to be wholly absent from the people who think that, say, heckling Raskin into silence is also a form of democracy.

In this sense, critics of Israel who claim that American Jews must choose between Zionism and liberalism have it backward. The illiberals aren’t the people defending the right of an imperfect but embattled democracy to defend its territory and save its hostages. They are the people who, like the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, want Israel wiped off the map and aren’t ashamed to say so. Not surprisingly, they also seem to share Ahmadinejad’s attitudes toward dealing with dissent.

It’s true that in nearly every political cause, including the most justified, there are ugly elements — the Meir Kahanes or the Louis Farrakhans of the world. But the mark of a morally serious movement lies in its determination to weed out its worst members and stamp out its worst ideas. What we’ve too often seen from the “Free Palestine” crowd is precisely the opposite.

More on Israel and Palestine

Opinion | Bret Stephens

The Left Is Dooming Any Hope for a Palestinian State

Nov. 28, 2023

Opinion | Bret Stephens

The New Rape Denialism

March 5, 2024

Opinion | Bret Stephens

An Arab Mandate for Palestine

March 19, 2024

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A version of this article appears in print on April 3, 2024, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: The Pro-Palestine Movement’s Appalling Tactics. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

6. Task Force Lima preps new space for generative AI experimentation

Some might say that personnel is policy (well, everyone says that). They might argue that making the commander of the task force a Navy Captain rather than a General Officer/Flag Officer sends the message that this is unimportant or not a priority. But perhaps the opposite is true. Maybe a task force commanded by an O6 might be learner and more agile.  The task force appears to have adequate funding and authorities which may be more important than the rank of the commander. It will be interesting to observe the success of this task force.

Again, it seems like the commander's experience and education may be more important than his rank. Sounds like a pretty smart person to me.

Excerpts:

A longtime Navy officer with extensive experience in the Supply Corps, Capt. Lugo is also a mechanical engineer by degree, and he’s been a coder since high school.

“There are three ways of using [generative AI] technology from my perspective, right now,” he said in the interview.

The first involves generating and summarizing text and documents, which Lugo recognizes sounds boring but is very useful for military personnel.

“If you have thousands of documents and you assign your youngest officer to go and summarize those, it’s going to take a length of time. If you assign [a large language model] to do it, it’s going to take very, very, very little time to do it. Right. Now, the problem is the quality of the output,” Lugo said.

So, humans would need to verify that the information provided by the technology is correct.

Lugo noted that the second generative AI use case category for DOD right now essentially enables staff to interrogate and analyze applicable data.

“We’ve started with it and there’s more to go. But that one is something that, in the maintenance side of the house, we’ve already done. So the Air Force has already connected all their aircraft [and] data — and you, as a maintainer, can go in and say, ‘I want to see last week’s performance of this particular pump,’” the Lima chief explained.

Personnel can then specify the types of graphs and resources they’d like to see to visualize the department’s data.

“And number three — which is the one that I’m most excited about, and we’ll probably get into in the future — [involves code generation] and conversing with your machines. And that’s the one where you can actually, as a fighter pilot, imagine if you could just tell your display what you want to see — versus having to go through all the menus and to customize your display,” Lugo said.

Task Force Lima has only just started to dig into this third bucket of code-making generative AI.

Task Force Lima preps new space for generative AI experimentation

The task force commander provided DefenseScoop with an exclusive preview of his team's plans to unleash an experimental sandbox.

BY

BRANDI VINCENT

APRIL 2, 2024

defensescoop.com · by Brandi Vincent · April 2, 2024

The Pentagon’s Task Force Lima team is getting set to launch a new “virtual sandbox” hub where military personnel will be able to responsibly experiment with approved generative artificial intelligence tools that hold potential to enhance their work.

“We already have the plans. It’s a matter, now, of executing on those plans,” Navy Capt. M. Xavier Lugo recently told DefenseScoop.

Lugo was tapped as Lima’s commander when Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks established the temporary task force in August 2023 within the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) to ultimately help the Department of Defense assess, synchronize and employ generative AI, which is broadly associated with large language models that generate (convincing but not always accurate) text, media and software code based on human prompts. Hicks set an 18-month deadline by which Lugo and his Lima team are expected to produce materials, resources and a path forward to guide DOD’s approach to unleashing this emerging technology.

Generative AI applications are already showing much promise for military functions, but Lugo and other experts also acknowledge that the tech could pose serious risks that are still far from fully realized.

During a recent virtual panel hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Lugo discussed the nearly 230 potential generative AI use cases that have been submitted to his team and are now being explored for and by the DOD. He also shed light on the CDAO’s new “Alpha-I” funding line and portfolio that’s now also under his purview as a division chief for AI scaffolding and integration in the office’s algorithmic warfare group.

In an exclusive interview with DefenseScoop after that CSIS event, Lugo explained more about DOD’s vision for Alpha-I and that sandbox-enabled experimentation — and he also reflected on Task Force Lima’s learnings to date and future plans.

“In this generation, we are the generative AI pioneers. We’re still not the generative AI citizens. So, we’ve got to think about how those citizens are going to be dealing with this,” he told DefenseScoop.

‘More than just notional’

A longtime Navy officer with extensive experience in the Supply Corps, Capt. Lugo is also a mechanical engineer by degree, and he’s been a coder since high school.

“There are three ways of using [generative AI] technology from my perspective, right now,” he said in the interview.

The first involves generating and summarizing text and documents, which Lugo recognizes sounds boring but is very useful for military personnel.

“If you have thousands of documents and you assign your youngest officer to go and summarize those, it’s going to take a length of time. If you assign [a large language model] to do it, it’s going to take very, very, very little time to do it. Right. Now, the problem is the quality of the output,” Lugo said.

So, humans would need to verify that the information provided by the technology is correct.

Lugo noted that the second generative AI use case category for DOD right now essentially enables staff to interrogate and analyze applicable data.

“We’ve started with it and there’s more to go. But that one is something that, in the maintenance side of the house, we’ve already done. So the Air Force has already connected all their aircraft [and] data — and you, as a maintainer, can go in and say, ‘I want to see last week’s performance of this particular pump,’” the Lima chief explained.

Personnel can then specify the types of graphs and resources they’d like to see to visualize the department’s data.

“And number three — which is the one that I’m most excited about, and we’ll probably get into in the future — [involves code generation] and conversing with your machines. And that’s the one where you can actually, as a fighter pilot, imagine if you could just tell your display what you want to see — versus having to go through all the menus and to customize your display,” Lugo said.

Task Force Lima has only just started to dig into this third bucket of code-making generative AI.

“But we are utilizing it with humans in the loop, and it’s more than just notional,” Lugo confirmed. “I won’t tell you where. But I can tell you it is being utilized.”

At the same time though, when it comes to these particular types of use cases, humans still currently “lack imagination,” in his view.

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“We haven’t thought of how we’re going to be interacting with machines as if they were our partners for assistance, that has not come into play yet,” Lugo said.

Since day one, his team on the task force has moved cautiously and deliberately so as to not overlook any unforeseen consequences for military generative AI experimentation.

“Right now we have the luxury of having [human subject matter experts] to check this. And those SMEs grow and through the process of the growing pains of having to do all that work and getting there. If we are using a computer — we are using a technology that doesn’t let us think that way — are we going to still have SMEs in a generation or two from now? We’ve got to be very careful and we’ve got to think philosophically as to how we’re going to implement these machines or this technology. And that doesn’t escape me,” Lugo told DefenseScoop. “And that’s part of why, when we think about these use cases, we come up with the potential negatives or risks associated with that in the human side of the house. We’ve got to be careful.”

A safe place to play

During the CSIS discussion, Lugo and his colleague Col. Matthew Strohmeyer broadly went over how DOD’s ninth Global Information Dominance Experiment recently served as a unique venue for military-supporting generative AI exploration.

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In the exclusive interview alongside Lugo after that panel, Strohmeyer — the CDAO’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) experimentation division chief — further spotlighted some of the large language model-aligned use cases that officials have pursued amid GIDE, so far.

“One is for intelligence workflows. We’ve used it to be able to gain a better understanding of how both the operational environment, as we call it, is changing in a specific area — and then how a competitor might be changing the actions they are taking,” he explained.

Other GIDE-specific use cases were associated with helping military officials in planning out activities and, separately, for puzzling out options for logistics workflows.

“We’ve really started to strongly partner with the algorithmic warfare directorate, where Task Force Lima sits. And so we are going to be doing even more — especially now that we’ve got the [fiscal 2024] appropriations bill — we’re going to be doing even more experimentation because the warfighters have really found a lot of value to it,” Strohmeyer told DefenseScoop.

Lugo chimed in: “And this is where the sandbox is coming in.”

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The task force commander explained that, although it’s incredibly important “because it’s mostly associated with [connecting] the decision advantage pieces within the combatant commands,” GIDE marks one of many ways his team helps the military experiment with generative AI use cases.

“This is where I say ‘experiment with purpose.’ I don’t experiment just to figure out if this thing is sentient, right — I’m not doing any of that stuff. That’s research that universities do. Our experimentation is really about experimenting with how to make it fit into a workflow,” Lugo said.

The task force suggests some of those possible applications to different DOD offices and teams, based on learnings they gain from conferences, industry engagements and other research.

“We’ve become a little bit more of a consultant in some of those cases — but now with the sandboxes, we can enable them to play around more,” Lugo noted. “You need a place to play that is safe.”

The senior CDAO official offered an analogy that he uses to explain what the sandbox hub will ultimately provide. In it, he divides the world into three parts: the “wild,” or everything external to the Pentagon; the “zoo,” or everything inside DOD; and then the “cages,” where department insiders can “play around” with large language models in a way that they know is safe and secure, meeting government standards.

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“Just like any experiment, you’ve got a hypothesis saying this is going to help us in this aspect, this aspect, and this aspect. And all you’re doing is either proving or disproving that hypothesis,” Lugo said. “But now it’s no longer just an academic exercise — it is actual [DOD] data.”

Though he couldn’t provide a precise timeline for when the CDAO’s new generative AI experimental sandboxes may fully come into fruition and be deployed for widespread use, the task force chief predicted it would be “soon.”

Lugo shared that the office will gain new investments and resources from the recently passed fiscal 2024 appropriations bill to enable the sandbox hub.

This work falls under the new “Alpha-I” portfolio and budget line within the CDAO.

“I mean, there’s still a lag between that [appropriations] document and then when you can actually execute on that,” Lugo said.

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There are also a wide range of other projects, tests and policy-shaping priorities the Lima team is currently pursuing. But at this point, in Lugo’s eyes, it’s too soon to tell if there will be a need for the temporary task force to evolve into a permanent DOD entity down the line.

“One of my tasks, at the end of the day, is [figuring out] what transitions out of the task force and where should it go? So let’s say just, one of our activities is developing cybersecurity documents. Well, that could transition to perhaps CIO — so we point to where it could go into and we make sure that they can accept it. And then once that’s done, then I can call it ‘mission complete.’ I will not call ‘mission complete’ until all tasks are either completed or transitioned. That’s the goal,” Lugo told DefenseScoop.

Written by Brandi Vincent

Brandi Vincent is DefenseScoop's Pentagon correspondent. She reports on emerging and disruptive technologies, and associated policies, impacting the Defense Department and its personnel. Prior to joining Scoop News Group, Brandi produced a long-form documentary and worked as a journalist at Nextgov, Snapchat and NBC Network. She was named a 2021 Paul Miller Washington Fellow by the National Press Foundation and was awarded SIIA’s 2020 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best News Coverage. Brandi grew up in Louisiana and received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

defensescoop.com · by Brandi Vincent · April 2, 2024

7. Last Marine Harrier Pilots Complete Training As AV-8B's End Draws Near

The end of an era. Since I learned about the Harrier in my younger years I always thought it was one of the coolest aircraft (long before I saw Arnold flying it in a movie - but he did make it look cool too))

I wonder about the morale of those two pilots ( the others who completed training within the last year or two). I suppose they will transition to F-35 in the future but we do wonder why they had to go through this training only to see their aircraft retired in two years.

Last Marine Harrier Pilots Complete Training As AV-8B's End Draws Near

With the Marine Corps planning to retire its last Harriers in 2026, the final two pilots have been trained to fly the ‘jump jet.’

BY

THOMAS NEWDICK

|

PUBLISHED APR 2, 2024 2:13 PM EDT

twz.com · by Thomas Newdick · April 2, 2024

The U.S. military is gearing up for the forthcoming retirement of another iconic aircraft type, with the last pilots now having graduated onto the AV-8B Harrier II attack jet. As we have explained in the past, the U.S. Marine Corps is pressing ahead with plans to remove the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft from its inventory before the end of 2026, with this latest development a highly symbolic one within this process.

In a media release yesterday, the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) announced the graduation of the final two pilots to convert to the AV-8B. Last Friday, Capt. Joshua Corbett and Capt. Sven Jorgensen received the 7509 Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). The four-digit MOS code denotes the primary occupational field and specialty of all Marines: In this case, it is reserved for pilots qualified to fly the Harrier.

U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Joshua Corbett, a native of New Jersey and a student naval aviator with the AV-8B Fleet Replacement Detachment (FRD), poses for a photo prior to a flight at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, March 27, 2024. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Daisha Ramirez

The two pilots converted onto the AV-8B with the Fleet Replacement Detachment (FRD), a training unit within Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 14, part of the 2nd MAW, at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.

According to the 2022 Marine Aviation Plan, the most recent such document to be publicly released, the service had a requirement for 16 new AV-8B pilots in each of FY 20 and FY 21, 10 each in FY 22 and FY 23, and four for FY 24, after which there is no listed requirement.

Capt. Corbett conducts preflight checks prior to a flight at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, March 27, 2024. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Daisha Ramirez

The capstone training flight for Capt. Corbett and Jorgensen was a low-level close air support training sortie, reflecting the role in which the AV-8B has specialized for the Marine Corps since it was first introduced by the service four decades ago. The first example arrived at Cherry Point in January 1984. The Marines began flying the less capable, first-generation AV-8A Harrier in 1971.

Capt. Corbett in the cockpit of an AV-8B of VMA-223. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Daisha Ramirez

Since the AV-8B's introduction, they have seen combat service in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Allied Force over the former Yugoslavia, Operation Enduring Freedom over Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom over Afghanistan, as well as more recent operations. The type remained in the action today, helping patrol the Red Sea in the face of Houthi drones and missiles, operating from the U.S. Navy ‘big-deck’ amphibious assault ships.

Armed with a live AIM-120 Advanced Medium-range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), plus a Litening pod, an AV-8B takes off from USS Bataan during flight operations, on December 26, 2023. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Matthew Romonoyske-Bean

Before long, however, the Marine Corps will call time on the AV-8B’s impressive career.

“The significance of the last replacement pilot training flight in the Harrier community is that it is the beginning of the end for us as a community,” Corbett explained. “The Harrier, more than many aircraft that I have come across, elicits an emotional response. For members of the public, members of the aviation community, members of the Marine community, and especially members of the Harrier pilot community, it’s bittersweet. All good things have to come to an end, and it’s our turn soon, but not yet.”

As of the 2022 Marine Aviation Plan, the service had 62 Harrier IIs as Primary Mission Assigned Aircraft, or PMAA. Of the 62 PMAA aircraft, 56 were single-seat AV-8Bs — with an average age at that time of 23 years — and six were two-seat TAV-8B trainers. The single-seaters were all ‘radar birds’ equipped with the AN/APG-65 radar that was ported over second-hand from F/A-18A/B Hornets and which confers a significant air-to-air capability.

An AV-8B with Marine Attack Squadron 214 fires an AIM-120 AMRAAM over Floridian skies for the first time operationally, August 14, 2012. U.S. Marine Corps

Back in 2022, the Marine Corps still had four active operational AV-8B squadrons but has since lost Marine Attack Squadron VMA-542 at Cherry Point and VMA-214 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. In the process, the AV-8B inventory will have been reduced accordingly and we have reached out to the Marine Corps for a current total.

Once VMA-231 also gives up its Harriers, the last operational Marine Corps AV-8B unit will be VMA-223, the “Bulldogs,” also based at Cherry Point. It plans to continue flying the Harrier until September 2026, including deployed operations as part of Marine Expeditionary Units.

The transition fully away from the Harrier as presented in the most recent Aviation Place from the Marine Corps. 2022 Marine Aviation Plan

Lt. Col. Nathaniel Smith, the commanding officer of VMA-223, stated:

“I am incredibly proud of the legacy of the AV-8B, both within Marine Aviation and here in eastern North Carolina. Our platform is part of the fabric of eastern North Carolina, as countless Marines, sailors, and civilians have contributed to our success for decades. It is exciting to see our last two students graduate from the FRD and hit the fleet. Our team of pilots, maintainers, and supporting staff have done outstanding work in supporting both the FRD and VMA missions here at VMA-223, and I look forward to us continuing to support 2nd MAW and the MAGTF at home and overseas.”

The Harrier’s replacement with the Marine Corps is the stealthy F-35B, which is rapidly taking its place, including on deployed operations as part of Marine Expeditionary Units. You can read more about the changes the F-35B is bringing to Marines Corps tactical aviation here and here.

An F-35B with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 122, Marine Aircraft Group 13, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), conducts expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) support and short takeoff and vertical landings on simulated narrow roads at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, April 6, 2021. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Lance Cpl. Juan Anaya

Alongside the Marine Corps, the AV-8B is today still flown by Italy and Spain. Italy is also introducing the F-35B to replace its older ‘jump jets,’ while Spain will have to follow suit, if it’s to continue operating jets from its aircraft carrier in the long term.

The prospects for any operator coming forward to take on some of the retired U.S. Harrier IIs seems questionable, although the aircraft have been progressively upgraded and will continue to receive enhancements up until they are finally pulled from service.

Upgrades are still underway as the AV-8B enters the twilight of its Marine Corps career. 2022 Marine Aviation Plan

It's a long shot, but Ukraine’s desperate search for new combat aircraft equipment could see that country linked with a potential transfer. Although the AV-8B’s unique handling attributes and training requirements may not make it an ideal candidate. On the other hand, as The War Zone has explored in the past, the AV-8B would be eminently well suited to Taiwan’s needs, and, in some ways, the same case could be made for Ukraine. Runway independence and the ability to employ AIM-120 AMRAAMs are key advantages. With an off-the-shelf radar upgrade, they could even be more potent in this regard and could sortie out of areas no traditional fixed-wing fighter could, opening up big tactical possibilities. Turkey has also shown interest in surplus U.S. Harriers in the past, but may have changed with the country’s heavy investment in uncrewed technologies.

The Marine Corps AV-8B will be bowing out of service almost concurrent with another attack jet that was developed back in the Cold War period before establishing a fearsome reputation over the years. Like the U.S. Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II, the AV-8B will complete a final turn on the air display circuit this year. Its final appearance is scheduled for May 11 and 12 at the Cherry Point Air Show.

U.S. Marine Corps graphic created by Cpl. Jade Farrington

Thereafter, the Marine Corps will be sure to continue to get the best use they can out of their aging AV-8Bs, wherever they might be deployed.

But with the last two U.S. pilots having converted to the Harrier II, the countdown to the retirement of this unique combat aircraft from Marine Corps service is now very much on.

Update: The FY25 budget documents provide additional information on the more recent status of the Marine Corps Harrier II fleet, providing fleet figures for June 2023. As of that point, the active inventory comprised 47 radar-equipped AV-8Bs (of which 10 were new-production aircraft and 37 remanufactured), plus six two-seat TAV-8Bs. Another 20 AV-8Bs were listed as being stored in the boneyard as of March 2024, according to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), though their condition was not specified.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

twz.com · by Thomas Newdick · April 2, 2024

8. REINSTATE FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MILITARY RETIREES

Interesting analysis. But I have never felt my freedom of speech was ever restricted. I will leave this for the lawyers to debate.

REINSTATE FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MILITARY RETIREES

 GEORGE ACREE  MARCH 28, 2024 8 MIN READ

https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/military-retirees/?mc_cid=6d464456ba&mc_eid=70bf478f36

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.

– George Washington, letter to Peter Van Brugh Livingston, 1775

If you are a military retiree, you may not know that your freedom of speech rights continue to be restricted after you have honorably retired from the military. These Constitutional rights are restricted and if you violate Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) you may be called back onto active service and court martialed. Under our current laws this restriction of your freedom and the threat of court martial is permanent for you until the day you die. This is wrong. Restricting freedom of speech of military retirees is unconstitutional and helps stifle the civic interaction of veterans in our political system.

How Did We Get Here

I first became aware of Article 88 and its potential impact on military retirees shortly before I retired. I was having a discussion that touched on politics with a friend and retired military officer in 2019. My friend pointed out that under Article 88 of the UCMJ a retiree could be brought back onto active service and court martialed for exercising their first amendment freedom of speech rights. My friend’s comment caught my attention, and I began to do some research. What I found confirmed my friend’s assertion was correct. Under current law, if a retiree is deemed to have used contemptuous words (p. IV-21) against a sitting president of the United States, president of the Senate, speaker of the House of Representatives, state governor, or other political leader, they could receive up to a year of confinement and the forfeiture of all pay and allowances. As the events unfolded during the tumultuous year of 2020, Article 88 and its application to military retirees would again be seen as an issue. A number of retired flag officers made public statements about former President Trump that caused public discussion on Article 88 of the UCMJ, contemptuous words and the prospect of receiving punishment for exercising your freedom of speech after you have retired from the military.

Air Force Captains Pavan Krishnamurthy and Javier Perez in the Harvard National Security Journal, provide an exceptional perspective on this very important issue; they argue the application of Article 88 to retirees adversely effects the rights of these American citizens, and therefore that the Supreme Court should exempt retirees from this restriction. Military retirees became subject to the UCMJ when it was enacted in 1951, a move that caused some initial controversy, but otherwise has been seldom tested in the courts. Thus far, judges have deferred to the military, allowing it great latitude to deal with its own personnel. The all-volunteer force is 50 years old and based on the relative youth of this policy the ramifications of restricting retirees’ freedom of speech have yet to receive a significant challenge in the courts, generate public debate, or to be considered by junior leaders weighing the benefits and risks of making a career out of the military.

Second Class Citizens?

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” However, Article 88 of the UCMJ does just that to military retirees. As uniformed members of the Department of Defense we understandably gave up this right to serve in stressful and demanding environments where the requirement to maintain good order and discipline was essential to mission accomplishment and survival. These requirements as a retiree are no longer valid. As George Washington stated in his reply to the New York Assembly, soldiers look forward to the “happy hour when the establishment of American liberty, on the most firm and solid foundations, shall enable us to return to our private stations in the bosom of a free, peaceful and happy country.” Would our predecessors who fought for our nation’s independence agree with the concept of fighting for a nation, and then once this obligation is complete settle into a life of a second-class citizen where you have less freedom than a fellow citizen who never served their republic? Certainly, holding retirees to a standard of second-class citizenship violates our Constitution and fails the test of common sense.

Article 88 poses another problem. With the potential disparity and subjectivity in defining contemptuous speech how could this article be enforced against any military retiree? While Article 88 does offer a three-part test to determine if it should be invoked, it is subjective in what constitutes offensive language or what could discourage military subordination to civilian leadership. This level of subjectivity further chills the speech of military retirees.

There are other constitutional problems. Retirees from the National Guard and Reserve components do not have their first amendment rights taken from them while military retirees who served on active duty do and live under the threat of court martial for violating Article 88 of the UCMJ. This has been legally challenged as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution, but this argument has thus far been rejected by the courts. Nevertheless, this unequal application of the law between military retirees serves to widen the divisions in our force and serves as another reason to abolish this unwieldy application of the UCMJ.

The application of Article 88 is that it may violate some of the most basic tenets of contract law. For a contract to be valid an offer must be made: “An offer refers to the statement of terms and conditions to which the offeror is willing to be bound. It expresses the willingness to abide by certain terms that will become binding as soon as the offer is accepted by the offeree.”In very few instances is this made clear to retirees—that they will have reduced freedom of speech rights for the remainder of their life if they decide to serve until retirement. Therefore, binding retirees to this standard is unlawful.

On the other hand

I have heard two defenses for withholding the freedom of speech rights from military retirees. The first of these is the very act of receiving retirement pay and other retirement benefits comes as part of the stipulation that you may be called upon at any time to re-enter service to our nation. Captains Krishnamurthy and Perez refute this claim by stating that the robust forces of the National Guard and the Reserve components ameliorate the need to recall retired officers. Currently, withholding freedom of speech rights is a lifetime revocation and the recall to active service becomes less likely as a retiree ages, and their knowledge, skills and ability diminish. Certainly, arguing that receiving retirement benefits causes a lifetime of second-class citizenship is rebuffed by these counterarguments.

The second, and potentially stronger, argument is that allowing retirees to speak may indirectly undermine good order and discipline from within the military. Krishnamurthy and Perez explained why this justification for withholding constitutional rights is flawed. They point out that a soldier who serves for 19 years and does not retire from the military is not subject to court martial for disparaging an elected official, but a soldier who retires after 20 years and retires is. In the eyes of an American citizen and of a serving soldier, it may not be easy to distinguish the difference. In addition, as previously mentioned, National Guard and Reserve retirees are not held to this standard and are free to exercise their free speech however contemptuous their language may be. Based on this wide ranging and unequal treatment of active force retirees and those that have long periods of service the argument for maintaining good order and discipline has little to no merit.

Consequences for our Nation

Restricting the freedom of speech for American military retirees is producing undesirable second- and third-order effects. It chills the speech of a very educated class of American citizens with keen insight into leadership and foreign policy. This is counter intuitive. We need to hear these citizens’ voices to have a more robust conversation which may help us elect better leaders and to have a more effective foreign policy. Additionally, restricting the freedom of speech of our military retirees may hinder military members’ pursuit of full careers once they realize it includes limitations of their Constitutional freedoms for the rest of their lives.

Finally, the lack of veterans serving in Congress is concerning. Could it be that the potential of being court martialed for uttering contemptuous words may make military retirees less inclined to enter another national political service to our nation? For instance, while running for office or in the halls of Congress a military retiree could feasibly be held liable for uttering contemptuous words against a political opponent, but their political opponents, who may have never served in the armed forces, do not face the same restrictions of their first amendment rights and the threat of legal action. This is unwise and could well be preventing educated and experienced leaders from serving in positions that could benefit our nation. Restricting the Constitutional rights of military retirees is wrong. It is shortsighted, and in the long term it will prevent our most experienced retirees from engaging in their civic responsibilities and it will prevent our best and brightest from joining the military and making a career of it.

George R. K. Acree is a retired U.S. Army colonel and is currently an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University (Cum Laude), and he has earned two master’s degrees, one from Webster University and the second from the Army War College. COL Acree also earned a graduate certificate from the Naval Post Graduate School. He served in the U.S. Army for over thirty-three years, where he spent eight years in the enlisted ranks and then spent the remainder of his service in the officer ranks. His service spanned both combat arms and combat service support and he served in the Active Service, the Reserves and in the National Guard. COL Acree successfully served in various assignments in the United States, Germany, South Korea, and Iraq.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.

Photo Description: Members from a local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) chapter render a salute during a ceremony for National POW/MIA Recognition Day at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii, Sept. 21, 2018. National POW/MIA Recognition Day, first established in 1979 through a proclamation from President Jimmy Carter, is an observance to honor and recognize the sacrifices of those Americans who have been prisoners of war and to remind the Nation of those who are still missing in action. DPAA is conducting worldwide operations to provide the fullest possible accounting for those classified as still missing.

Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Leah Ferrante

9. Deciphering China’s economic strategy without the premier’s press conference

Excerpts:

Yet without institutional reforms, achieving productive investment and enhanced total factor productivity becomes extremely difficult, and economic growth cannot be sustained. Worse, the use of industrial policies has already increased global strategic and technological competition. Without thoughtful institutional reforms, the surge in capital investment may precipitate overcapacity and a salient increase in exports in certain areas, such as electric vehicles.

Though Chinese policymakers have expressed willingness to import more products from the European Union and open their doors wider to US and European investments through relaxed market restrictions, the existing institutional deficiency risks exacerbating trade tensions. This could lead to more trade wars on the international stage in the foreseeable future.

To move forward from the Two Sessions, Beijing needs to implement robust accountability mechanisms to curb overinvestment and strengthen support for innovation through enhanced intellectual property protection. Equally as important, China must engage in international coordination and cooperation, fostering a truly sustainable, innovation-driven domestic economy and mitigating potential conflicts in global industrial competition.

Deciphering China’s economic strategy without the premier’s press conference | East Asia Forum

​By Yuhan Zhang

UC Berkeley

IN BRIEF

China's discontinuation of the premier's press conference, a key platform for insights into its economic policies, signals a shift to a more diversified and standardised approach in presenting policy information. While this represents a challenge, analysis of existing documents reveals a strategy for 2024 focused on elevating household consumption and significant investments in high-tech industries. This involves leveraging industrial policy tools and international cooperation to stimulate economic growth and mitigate potential global industrial conflicts.

eastasiaforum.org · April 3, 2024

Amid China’s evolving economic landscape, the decision to cancel the premier’s 2024 press conference — traditionally held during the Two Sessions for over thirty years — has raised eyebrows and stirred discussions among international observers, analysts and investors.

This deviation from longstanding tradition has led many, especially in Western media, to speculate that the window to gain insights into China’s economic policy shifts might be closed. Analysts and investors, who rely on these press conferences to decipher the trajectory of China’s economic development, will now find it quite difficult to grasp China’s economic policies for 2024.

The discontinuation of the premier’s press conference may be interpreted as an indication of the Chinese leadership’s confidence in their current information disclosure practices. This year’s Two Sessions featured an integrated approach to presenting the government work report, the plan report and the budget report, alongside press events focused on the economy and public welfare. This signifies a strategic shift to a ‘diversified, procedural and standardised’ information-sharing approach. It implies the Chinese government is exploring new communication methods for economic policies, despite criticisms of reduced transparency.

This new normal requires an enormous amount of expertise to navigate. Yet the absence of the premier’s press conference does not preclude the possibility of understanding China’s economic direction. Through analysis of publicly available information, it is still possible to glean insights and address critical questions concerning China’s economic direction.

In 2024, Chinese policymakers plan to elevate household consumption while focusing on substantial investment in high-tech industries. Two important but overlooked statements — ‘synchronisation of residents’ income growth with economic progression’ and the pursuit of ‘a basic equilibrium in the balance of payments’ — deserve special attention.

The year-on-year expansion of nominal per capita disposable income, in tandem with GDP growth, underlines the goal to enhance household consumption. But with the ratio of consumption expenditure to disposable income probably stabilising around 66 per cent — similar to the previous year but higher than from 2020 to 2022 — it implies that the consumption share of GDP will likely stay unchanged in 2024.

A basic equilibrium in the balance of payments signifies a minimal current account surplus and suggests the overall trade balance will likely show a decreasing surplus this year.

Investment, especially in ‘new quality productive forces’, is poised to be essential for realising the targeted five per cent GDP growth for 2024. Amid concerns of high local government debt, prioritising ‘new quality’ sectors — hydrogen energy, new materials, biomanufacturing and supercomputing — reflects a focus on innovation and total factor productivity improvement to drive economic growth.

To support investment in these new quality productive forces, apart from government funding such as government bonds, Chinese policymakers are encouraging ‘social capital’ like venture capital and equity investments. This strategy highlights a multifaceted approach to financing innovation, aiming to diversify the sources of investment and stimulate private sector participation in the development of cutting-edge technologies.

Research and development, the lifeblood of innovation, typically requires extensive economic and human resources. It is a long-term endeavour with inherent uncertainty and risk of failure. The government work report acknowledges this challenge and has outlined a strategy to accelerate the development of these ‘new quality’ sectors. It proposes not only to fast-track innovation but also to cultivate an ecosystem conducive to the growth of ‘emerging and future’ industries. This approach indicates a broader policy orientation that seeks to leverage industrial policy tools, including active fiscal incentives and structural monetary measures.

Effective industrial policies, with a focus on nurturing new quality productive forces, have the potential to catalyse domestic economic growth in China, delivering widespread benefits to its populace and contributing to global economic stability.

Yet without institutional reforms, achieving productive investment and enhanced total factor productivity becomes extremely difficult, and economic growth cannot be sustained. Worse, the use of industrial policies has already increased global strategic and technological competition. Without thoughtful institutional reforms, the surge in capital investment may precipitate overcapacity and a salient increase in exports in certain areas, such as electric vehicles.

Though Chinese policymakers have expressed willingness to import more products from the European Union and open their doors wider to US and European investments through relaxed market restrictions, the existing institutional deficiency risks exacerbating trade tensions. This could lead to more trade wars on the international stage in the foreseeable future.

To move forward from the Two Sessions, Beijing needs to implement robust accountability mechanisms to curb overinvestment and strengthen support for innovation through enhanced intellectual property protection. Equally as important, China must engage in international coordination and cooperation, fostering a truly sustainable, innovation-driven domestic economy and mitigating potential conflicts in global industrial competition.

Yuhan Zhang is a Political Economist based at UC Berkeley and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the G20 Center of Beijing Foreign Studies University’s International Business School. He also runs the China’s Economy and the World blog.

https://doi.org/10.59425/eabc.1712181600

eastasiaforum.org · April 3, 2024

10. US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails

Unrestricted warfare.

US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails | CNN Business

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · April 3, 2024

Microsoft's building in Times Square in New York City

Kena Betancur/VIEWpress/Corbis News/Getty Images/File

Washington CNN —

Microsoft committed a “cascade” of “avoidable errors” that allowed Chinese hackers to breach the tech giant’s network and later the email accounts of senior US officials last year, including the secretary of commerce, a scathing US government-backed review of the incident has found.

The hack “was preventable and should never have occurred,” says a report released Tuesday by the US Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), a group of government and private cybersecurity experts led by the Department of Homeland Security. It was set up by President Joe Biden in 2021 to study the root causes of major hacking incidents.

In particular, the review board faulted Microsoft (MSFT) for not adequately protecting a sensitive cryptographic key that allowed the hackers to remotely sign into their targets’ Outlook accounts by forging credentials.

“Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul” in light of the company’s “centrality in the technology ecosystem,” the report concludes.

The hack roiled Washington and gave Chinese operatives access to the unclassified email accounts of senior US diplomats, including US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, on the eve of a high-profile visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China last June, CNN has reported.

The hackers downloaded about 60,000 emails from the State Department alone, department spokesman Matthew Miller has said.

The hackers also breached the email account of Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo ahead of her trip to China last August, Raimondo has confirmed.

China has denied the hacking allegations.

Microsoft said in November it would bolster its security practices for developing software and protecting its users, following the alleged Chinese hacking incident and scrutiny of its security practices from US lawmakers.

“We appreciate the work of the [Cyber Safety Review Board] to investigate the impact of well-resourced nation state threat actors who operate continuously and without meaningful deterrence,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday.

Microsoft has “mobilized our engineering teams to identify and mitigate legacy infrastructure, improve processes, and enforce security benchmarks,” the statement continued. “Our security engineers continue to harden all our systems against attack and implement even more robust sensors and logs to help us detect and repel the cyber-armies of our adversaries.”

Microsoft will review the board’s recommendations, the spokesperson said.

The alleged hack last summer was one of a series of cyber-espionage campaigns tied to China and Russia that have exploited widely use software made by companies like Microsoft to target US national security interests. Russian hackers allegedly infiltrated software made by US firm SolarWinds to steal emails from US government agencies in 2020.

“The US government has reached a decision point with its IT service providers: more of the same or better cybersecurity,” said Cory Simpson, CEO of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a think tank.

“I hope this CSRB report is used as a call to action by the US government for meaningful change in its longstanding relationship with Microsoft,” Simpson told CNN.

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · April 3, 2024

11. Zelensky signs law lowering draft age to 25 in bid to boost military ranks

25? I would have thought the age would be even lower.

Excerpts:

The law that changed the draft age from 27 to 25 was adopted last summer, Ariev said, “but this is [an] unpopular step, so Zelensky didn’t dare enough to sign it.” Although citizens age 18 and older can sign up for the military voluntarily, lowering the draft any further could be “very unpopular among Zelensky supporters,” Ariev said.

With Ukraine short on soldiers and weapons, Russia has regained the battlefield initiative of late. Zelensky has pleaded with congressional leaders to urgently pass the White House’s requested $60 billion package for Ukraine’s war effort. On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the funding, which has been blocked for months, could be put to a vote next week after the Easter recess.

In a Fox News appearance, Johnson said the bill would contain “some important innovations” — perhaps loaning the money to Ukraine. “If we can use the seized assets of Russian oligarchs to allow the Ukrainians to fight them, that’s just pure poetry,” Johnson said.

If the aid does get passed, boosting Kyiv’s air defense capabilities is believed to be at the top of the wish list amid increased bombardment from Russia. On Tuesday, a missile attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro injured at least 18 people, eight of whom were hospitalized, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region military administration, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on the Telegram app.

Zelensky signs law lowering draft age to 25 in bid to boost military ranks

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · April 2, 2024

KYIV — Ukrainian men as young as 25 can now be conscripted into military service after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a new law Tuesday lowering the draft age — a bid to replenish Kyiv’s badly depleted troop ranks more than two years into Russia’s invasion.

Lowering the conscription age, which had been 27, was the most significant measure in a mobilization draft bill that has already seen thousands of amendments in parliament since the start of this year. Although citizens can voluntarily join the military starting at age 18, and men between 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country under martial law, the draft has until now protected younger men — many of whom are students — from being forcibly mobilized.

Discussion over who and how many people to mobilize has been divisive in a society that has otherwise been united by a common Russian foe. Although support for the military is extremely high among Ukrainians, few people who haven’t already volunteered to fight want to. Meanwhile, Ukrainian commanders have said they are in desperate need of reinforcements, especially in the forwardmost positions. Some soldiers have been fighting for more than two years with few breaks.

Zelensky has expressed reservations about mobilizing up to 500,000 troops — the number his former military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recommended. Most crucially, Zelensky said, Ukraine lacks the funds to pay so many new conscripts.

Zaluzhny’s replacement, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said in a recent interview that the number of people Ukraine will need to mobilize “was significantly reduced” from 500,000. He also plans to establish more regular rotations away from the front for the most combat-weary units, he said.

“It is necessary to take into account the fact that people are not robots,” Syrsky said. “They are exhausted, physically and psychologically, especially in combat conditions. For example, those who came to military recruitment centers in February 2022 — these people need rest and treatment.”

But some believe Ukraine’s minimum draft age should be lower. The last time the United States and Britain had conscription, for example, the minimum age was 18. The average age of Ukraine’s troops is over 40, and “it is very unusual to have your wars fought by your dads,” Gen. Richard Barrons, former commander of the British military’s Joint Forces Command, said recently. Younger men tend to be in better physical condition, he added.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), while on a visit to Kyiv last month, also called on Ukrainian lawmakers to pass measures that would widen the field for mobilization.

“I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” he told reporters. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.”

“We need more people in the line,” he said.

In addition to lowering the draft age, Zelensky signed a law Tuesday that will establish an electronic database of military-age men. According to the measure, the Defense Ministry will receive data on citizens ages 17 to 60, which are contained in various state registers, and individuals’ consent for the processing of personal data is not required.

Volodymyr Ariev, an opposition lawmaker from the European Solidarity Party, who has opposed such a system because of privacy and security concerns, said lawmakers are still debating the exact rules the system would impose, with current amendments suggesting that registration should be optional.

The law that changed the draft age from 27 to 25 was adopted last summer, Ariev said, “but this is [an] unpopular step, so Zelensky didn’t dare enough to sign it.” Although citizens age 18 and older can sign up for the military voluntarily, lowering the draft any further could be “very unpopular among Zelensky supporters,” Ariev said.

With Ukraine short on soldiers and weapons, Russia has regained the battlefield initiative of late. Zelensky has pleaded with congressional leaders to urgently pass the White House’s requested $60 billion package for Ukraine’s war effort. On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the funding, which has been blocked for months, could be put to a vote next week after the Easter recess.

In a Fox News appearance, Johnson said the bill would contain “some important innovations” — perhaps loaning the money to Ukraine. “If we can use the seized assets of Russian oligarchs to allow the Ukrainians to fight them, that’s just pure poetry,” Johnson said.

If the aid does get passed, boosting Kyiv’s air defense capabilities is believed to be at the top of the wish list amid increased bombardment from Russia. On Tuesday, a missile attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro injured at least 18 people, eight of whom were hospitalized, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region military administration, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on the Telegram app.

The attack damaged an “educational institution,” Lysak said. “Fortunately, all the children were in shelter at the time of the impact. This saved the health and, perhaps, the lives of boys and girls.”

Also on Tuesday, Ukrainian drones attacked two enterprises in Tatarstan, in central Russia, including an oil refinery — some 750 miles from Russia’s border with Ukraine — the Russian news agency Tass reported, quoting local officials.

The drones struck a dormitory, but they did not seriously damage the refinery, officials said. At least 13 people were injured. Ukraine was “continuing its terrorist activity,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Siobhán O’Grady and Serhii Korolchuk in Kyiv, David L. Stern in Mukachevo, Ukraine, and Catherine Belton in London contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · April 2, 2024

12. Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks

Excerpts:

Xi told Biden that the two countries should adhere to the bottom line of “no clash, no confrontation” as one of the principles for this year.

“We should prioritize stability, not provoke troubles, not cross lines but maintain the overall stability of China-U.S. relations,” Xi said, according to China Central Television, the state broadcaster.

The roughly 105 minute call kicks off several weeks of high-level engagements between the two countries, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set to travel to China on Thursday and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to follow in the weeks ahead.

Biden has pressed for sustained interactions at all levels of government, believing it is key to keeping competition between the two massive economies and nuclear-armed powers from escalating to direct conflict. While in-person summits take place perhaps once a year, officials said, both Washington and Beijing recognize the value of more frequent engagements between the leaders.

Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks

AP · by ZEKE MILLER · April 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan, artificial intelligence and security issues Tuesday in a call meant to demonstrate a return to regular leader-to-leader dialogue between the two powers.

The call, described by the White House as “candid and constructive,” was the leaders’ first conversation since their November summit in California produced renewed ties between the two nations’ militaries and a promise of enhanced cooperation on stemming the flow of deadly fentanyl and its precursors from China.

Xi told Biden that the two countries should adhere to the bottom line of “no clash, no confrontation” as one of the principles for this year.

“We should prioritize stability, not provoke troubles, not cross lines but maintain the overall stability of China-U.S. relations,” Xi said, according to China Central Television, the state broadcaster.

The roughly 105 minute call kicks off several weeks of high-level engagements between the two countries, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set to travel to China on Thursday and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to follow in the weeks ahead.

Biden has pressed for sustained interactions at all levels of government, believing it is key to keeping competition between the two massive economies and nuclear-armed powers from escalating to direct conflict. While in-person summits take place perhaps once a year, officials said, both Washington and Beijing recognize the value of more frequent engagements between the leaders.

The two leaders discussed Taiwan ahead of next month’s inauguration of Lai Ching-te, the island’s president-elect, who has vowed to safeguard its de-facto independence from China and further align it with other democracies. Biden reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding “One China” policy and reiterated that the U.S. opposes any coercive means to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. China considers Taiwan a domestic matter and has vigorously protested U.S. support for the island.

Taiwan remains the “first red line not to be crossed,” Xi told Biden, and emphasized that Beijing will not tolerate separatist activities by Taiwan’s independence forces as well as “exterior indulgence and support,” which alluded to Washington’s support for the island.

Biden also raised concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea, including efforts last month to impede the Philippines, which the U.S. is treaty-obligated to defend, from resupplying its forces on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.

Next week, Biden will host Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for a joint summit where China’s influence in the region was set to be top of the agenda.

Biden, in the call with Xi, pressed China to do more to meet its commitments to halt the flow of illegal narcotics and to schedule additional precursor chemicals to prevent their export. The pledge was made at the leaders’ summit held in Woodside, California, last year on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.

At the November summit, Biden and Xi also agreed that their governments would hold formal talks on the promises and risks of advanced artificial intelligence, which are set to take place in the coming weeks. The pair touched on the issue on Tuesday just two weeks after China and the U.S. joined more than 120 other nations in backing a resolution at the United Nations calling for global safeguards around the emerging technology.

Biden, in the call, reinforced warnings to Xi against interfering in the 2024 elections in the U.S. as well as against continued malicious cyberattacks against critical American infrastructure.

He also raised concerns about human rights in China, including Hong Kong’s new restrictive national security law and its treatment of minority groups, and he raised the plight of Americans detained in or barred from leaving China.

The Democratic president also pressed China over its defense relationship with Russia, which is seeking to rebuild its industrial base as it presses forward with its invasion of Ukraine. And he called on Beijing to wield its influence over North Korea to rein in the isolated and erratic nuclear power.

As the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, Biden also raised concerns with Xi over China’s “unfair economic practices,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, and reasserted that the U.S. would take steps to preserve its security and economic interests, including by continuing to limit the transfer of some advanced technology to China.

Xi complained that the U.S. has taken more measures to suppress China’s economy, trade and technology in the past several months and that the list of sanctioned Chinese companies has become ever longer, which is “not de-risking but creating risks,” according to the broadcaster.

Yun Sun, director of the China program at Stimson Center, said the call “does reflect the mutual desire to keep the relationship stable” while the men reiterated their longstanding positions on issues of concern.

The call came ahead of Yellen’s visit to Guangzhou and Beijing for a week of bilateral meetings on the subject with finance leaders from the world’s second largest economy — including Vice Premier He Lifeng, Chinese Central Bank Gov. Pan Gongsheng, former Vice Premier Liu He, American businesses and local leaders.

An advisory for the upcoming trip states that Yellen “will advocate for American workers and businesses to ensure they are treated fairly, including by pressing Chinese counterparts on unfair trade practices.”

It follows Xi’s meeting in Beijing with U.S. business leaders last week, when he emphasized the mutually beneficial economic ties between the two countries and urged people-to-people exchange to maintain the relationship.

Xi told the Americans that the two countries have stayed communicative and “made progress” on issues such as trade, anti-narcotics and climate change since he met with Biden in November. Last week’s high-profile meeting was seen as Beijing’s effort to stabilize bilateral relations.

Ahead of her trip to China, Yellen last week said that Beijing is flooding the market with green energy that “distorts global prices.” She said she intends to share her beliefs with her counterparts that Beijing’s increased production of solar energy, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries poses risks to productivity and growth to the global economy.

U.S. lawmakers’ renewed angst over Chinese ownership of the popular social media app TikTok has generated new legislation that would ban TikTok if its China-based owner ByteDance doesn’t sell its stakes in the platform within six months of the bill’s enactment. Kirby said Biden “reiterated our concerns about the ownership of TikTok” to Xi during their call.

As chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews foreign ownership of firms in the U.S., Yellen has ample leeway to determine how the company could remain operating in the U.S.

Meanwhile, China’s leaders have set a goal of 5% economic growth this year despite a slowdown exacerbated by troubles in the property sector and the lingering effects of strict anti-virus measures during the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted travel, logistics, manufacturing and other industries.

China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global.

The U.S. last year outlined plans to limit EV buyers from claiming tax credits if they purchase cars containing battery materials from China and other countries that are considered hostile to the United States. Separately, the Department of Commerce launched an investigation into the potential national security risks posed by Chinese car exports to the U.S.

AP · by ZEKE MILLER · April 2, 2024

13. Fort Bliss approves wear of boonie caps, military-wide jealousy ensues

A logical and smart decision if we want to prevent skin cancer among the troops. This is a form of force protection.

Fort Bliss approves wear of boonie caps, military-wide jealousy ensues

armytimes.com · by Jonathan Lehrfeld

Sunburned necks and scorched ears no longer. Soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, are now authorized to wear the iconically fashionable and functional “boonie cap” around the installation, inciting in the process the envy of all service members bearing the burden of exposed napes.

Following recent chatter online about whether the cover is within installation regs, a spokesperson from the 1st Armored Division confirmed to Military Times that the commanding general of the installation and division, Maj. Gen. James P. Isenhower III, approved of the headwear’s use months ago — on Oct. 31, 2023.

In a climate in which nearly all parts of a soldier’s service life and uniform are tightly regulated, allowing use of the military’s very own sun hat — commonly referred to as “the boonie cap” (or cover, for the Marines out there) — demonstrates a renewed level of attention from Army leadership to the needs and wants of the rank and file.

“Fort Bliss is now gonna be the new drip gods and rizz kings of the army,” one drip correspondent wrote on the unofficial Army Reddit.

14. Soldier earns 'Ace of Syria' nickname after downing 6 drones

Soldier earns 'Ace of Syria' nickname after downing 6 drones

Spc. Dylan Green recently took an air defense course at Fort Drum, New York.

BY PATTY NIEBERG | PUBLISHED APR 2, 2024 11:47 AM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 2, 2024

A 10th Mountain Division soldier earned the nickname “Ace of Syria” after shooting down six drones during attacks a forward operating base he was assigned to defend in the northeastern part of the country.

Army Spc. Dylan Green, an infantryman with the 10th Mountain’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, earned the “ace” moniker after his fifth confirmed kill of a one-way drone, according to an Army press release.

“The sergeant major told me that I had five kills and said I was an ace,” said Green, at a forward operating base in northeastern Syria.

Green, a forward area air defense and nighthawk operator, said he had “no idea what to expect” when he got to Syria. He had attended an air defense course at Fort Drum which included practice and real-world simulations with drone equipment. The Houston Texas native was chosen by his unit leadership to attend Fort Drum’s air defense course despite his only three years in the Army and no deployments.

Green was assigned to the Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force – Levant, according to the Army. He was awarded an Army Achievement Medal with “C” Device in December by Commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla.

U.S. Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command, presents an Army Achievement Medal with “C” Device to Spc. Dylan A. Green, a forward area air defense and nighthawk operator on Dec. 14, 2023. Green was awarded the ARCAM for shooting down six drones. Photo by U.S. Army Reserve Jeffrey Daniel.

“I fell back on my training and all the practice,” Green said. “If you just do the right thing and stick to your training, then you can grow a lot.”

Green received more training once he arrived in northeastern Syria “to counter specific threats in the area,” according to the release.

Soldiers like Green assigned to posts in Syria have found themselves on the cutting edge of anti-drone fights since last October. A drone strike that month resulted in close to 20 cases of Traumatic Brain Injuries among Americans at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq and a base on the Jordan-Syria border known as Tower 22. Another Iraq attack at al-Harir airbase in Erbil left a pilot with the 82nd Airborne critically injured with catastrophic injuries.

The Pentagon has confirmed over 100 subsequent drone attacks on U.S. troops in the region, including one on Jan. 28 which killed three National Guard soldiers at an American base known as Tower 22 in northeast Jordan. The installation is near the Al Tanf garrison which sits just across the border in Syria, where other U.S. troops are based.

The U.S. military has been slowly building up its training and education on drone systems and methods to counter them following the proliferation of drones on the battlefield in the Ukraine-Russia war and attacks on U.S. troops in the Red Sea. Since November, U.S. Navy assets in the Middle East have been fighting off Uncrewed Aerial Systems, UAS, from Iranian-backed militias almost weekly. In March, American, British and French forces shot down 28 one-way attack drones launched by Houthi forces from Yemen.

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The Army has added electronic warfare training to some of the earliest lessons in recruit training and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne are even dropping munitions from drones, taking a page right out of lessons learned from Ukraine.

On Monday, the Pentagon shot down another drone near the al-Tanf base but on the Syria side “out of an abundance of caution.”

The Army is also investing in commercially made anti-drone systems like the Coyote munitions, “a ground-launched, radar-guided interceptor, with kinetic and non-kinetic variants, that integrates into fixed site-low, slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems and mobile-slow, small-unmanned aircraft system integrated defeat systems.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 2, 2024

15. Leading the charge: Transforming US Army systems through digital engineering

Leading the charge: Transforming US Army systems through digital engineering

Enabling technologies such as AI and multi-cloud environments can enhance a digital engineering approach.

BY

JOSH JACKSON

APRIL 2, 2024

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · April 2, 2024

The U.S. Army faces a critical challenge in the immediate and near-future: the efficient modernization of existing systems to meet the demands of an ever-evolving threat landscape. Traditional methods to solve that challenge no longer suffice in a rapidly advancing technological era, which means the Army must embrace innovative approaches to ensure it remains agile, adaptable and ready for any potential engagement.

Presently, the U.S. Army employs a vast array of systems of which many have been in service for decades. While these systems are fully capable today, there are many challenges in updating them to keep pace with emerging technologies and evolving mission requirements. Traditional approaches to modernization often involve lengthy procurement cycles, inefficient interoperability of proprietary systems, and fragmented technology insertion processes. This results in inefficiencies, expense and limited interoperability between systems, hindering mission readiness. The industrial base must do better.

The Army is already shifting to digital engineering combined with technology-agnostic open integration, complementing the recent Department of Defense Digital Engineering Directive. Digital engineering involves the use of advanced modeling, simulation and data analytics to design, analyze and optimize complex systems throughout their lifecycle. By adopting digital engineering practices, we can streamline development processes, improve collaboration between stakeholders and accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge capabilities to the warfighter.

Furthermore, embracing technology-agnostic open integration allows users to break free from vendor lock-in and proprietary solutions. Instead of being tied to specific vendors or platforms, we can leverage open standards and interoperable architectures to seamlessly integrate components from multiple sources. This not only enhances flexibility and choice but also fosters innovation and competition across the defense ecosystem.

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Implementing digital engineering and open integration is not without its challenges. One major obstacle is the prevalence of closed architectures and proprietary systems within the ecosystem. Many legacy systems were developed using vertically integrated proprietary technologies, making them difficult to integrate with other systems.

Vendor lock-in is another significant barrier to overcome. Original Equipment Manufacturers often design their systems with proprietary interfaces and protocols, making it challenging to swap out components or integrate third-party solutions. This limits the ability to leverage the best technologies available and hampers interoperability between systems.

Additionally, the lack of common terminology and frames of reference in the design and build of systems can impede collaboration and hinder progress. Without standardized language and processes, stakeholders may struggle to communicate effectively and align their efforts towards common objectives.

To overcome these obstacles, enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-cloud environments can enhance a digital engineering approach. AI can help automate and optimize various aspects of the digital engineering process, from design and analysis to testing and validation. By harnessing the power of AI, we can accelerate decision-making, identify potential issues early in the development cycle and optimize system performance.

Additionally, embracing multi-cloud environments allows solution providers to take advantage of the scalability, flexibility and resilience offered by cloud computing without concern over switching costs. Distributing workloads across multiple cloud providers helps avoid vendor lock-in and ensures redundancy and availability in systems. This also enables industry to leverage best-of-breed services from different cloud providers, maximizing innovation and cost-effectiveness.

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The implementation of digital engineering combined with technology-agnostic open integration is essential for the efficient modernization of existing systems. By embracing these principles, industry partners can help the Army overcome the challenges of closed designs, vendor lock and lack of common terminology, while leveraging enabling technologies such as AI and multi-cloud environments to drive innovation, modernize legacy systems and maintain the military’s technological edge on the battlefield.

As stated by the Defense Acquisition University, digital engineering is an “integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal.” It is imperative that we embrace digital engineering as a cornerstone of our modernization efforts. Together, we can ensure that the U.S. Army remains the most advanced and lethal fighting force in the world.

Josh Jackson is Executive Vice President of the Army Business Group at SAIC.

Written by Josh Jackson

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · April 2, 2024

16. To reinvent itself, the US Air Force must go big on small drones

To reinvent itself, the US Air Force must go big on small drones

Defense News · by Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco · April 2, 2024

“The changing character of war is coming upon us,” said Gen. David W. Allvin, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, warning, “The theater of war is going to require us to fight different. This will be part of the reinvention of our Air Force and airpower into the future.”

That reinvention should include thinking smaller and embracing small drones. Other services employ airpower in support of land and sea operations, but it is only the Air Force that is charged with gaining air control as its primary focus. If the service is to accomplish this mission, it will need to operate in the air littoral — the airspace from the Earth’s surface to about 15,000 feet, below the level where high-end fighters and bombers typically operate. Airpower has always had innate strengths — unmatched in its maneuverability, speed, and range. But it has also always faced limitations: air forces, unlike armies, cannot live in their primary domain, and the aircraft they fly are expensive, limiting the size of the fleet even for the wealthiest of nations. As a result, the occupation of the airspace could occur for a time, but it was ultimately ephemeral. Once friendly aircraft left the airspace, any surviving adversary aircraft could return to access and exploit it.

Today, continuing technological advancement and falling costs have opened new possibilities for occupying the air domain. Air forces can now operate large numbers of small, relatively cheap drones in the air littoral. A single system cannot persist indefinitely in this airspace, but large numbers of them can achieve persistence indirectly, by continually rotating in and out of the air littoral. To date, however, the Air Force has focused mainly on countering the small drone threat to its air bases, both at home and overseas. But this approach misses the broader point: the air littoral is becoming increasingly central to air warfare, and if the Air Force fails to prepare for this future, other services may fill the gap, but they lack what General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold called “airmindedness” — the specialist expertise and distinct perspective of airmen — to employ it to maximum effect.

Take the contest to control the air littoral in East Asia: China recognizes that air superiority is essential to a successful amphibious invasion. Saturating the air littoral over landing beaches and nearby waters with continuous waves of small sensing, decoy, and weaponized drones would deny China control of the air littoral and create numerous hard-to-solve and time-consuming dilemmas for the People’s Liberation Army. Drones cycled fast enough into the airspace could overwhelm China’s targeting process and in turn inflict significant losses on its invasion forces. Chinese commanders would have to decide how much “clearance” is needed in the air, and for how long, and risk depleting their anti-air missiles in the process. It would also put them on the losing end of the cost curve, as destroying enough of these cheap drones will only grow harder and costlier still as rotational persistence continues to increase in the air littoral.

As Gen. Allvin warns, the U.S. Air Force is not currently structured or equipped to make the air littoral a combat domain, but it should move quickly to close this gap. Both the Ukrainian and Russian military have established specialized drone units, with the Ukrainians even recently unveiling plans to create a separate drone service. Yet the entire Joint Force — including the United States Air Force — is still operating without small-drone units. The US Air Force ought to fill this gap and can bring an air-minded perspective to operating in the air littoral.

To start, the U.S. Air Force should create and incorporate low-end, close-in air occupation elements and capability in its restructuring for great power competition. In designing the Air Force for both deterrence and, if deterrence fails, defense against revisionist powers, the service should simultaneously embrace the concept of air denial, despite the historic cult of the offensive, and the small-drone revolution.

With no significant history of either at-scale, small-drone operations or air-denial tactics, the next critical step will be to cultivate innovation and creative new ideas and tactics. This will likely not come from today’s legacy pilot force — instead, the Air Force needs a fresh dose of airminded thinking from “digitally native” airmen, who are intuitively much more capable than senior pilots of understanding the non-linear, and one-to-many interactions of humans and machines. Development of that airmindedness, then, is the critical foundation, and one which should be laid from the ground up. From basic training onward, airmen should be as familiar with small drones as Marines are with their rifles.

Gen. Allvin is fond of quoting Maj. Gen. Hugh J. Knerr, one of the pioneers of American airpower: “Do not get trapped in paradigms of the past,” Allvin recently reminded his service. “Whatever it is, we need to understand this is a unique capability, unique opportunity for us to understand how to best employ, deploy, and integrate this into the invention of the Air Force,” he added. The US Air Force should take that spirit of invention to the air littoral.

Col. Maximilian K. Bremer, U.S. Air Force, is the director of the Special Programs Division at Air Mobility Command.

Kelly Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, an adjunct professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, and a nonresident fellow at the Brute Krulak Center of the Marine Corps University.

This commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Defense Department, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Marine Corps, or Marine Corps University.

17. Space Force Guardians advance SOF Space interoperability during Emerald Warrior exercise

Space Force Guardians advance SOF Space interoperability during Emerald Warrior exercise

afsoc.af.mil · March 25, 2024

• Published
• By Maj. Jessica Gross & 1st Lt. Cassandra Saphore
• Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --

Air Force Special Operations Command, in collaboration with the United States Space Force Special Operations Element (USSFSOE), unveiled the 527th Space Aggressor Squadron full suite of capabilities for the first time during its annual Emerald Warrior exercise, underscoring the unique and invaluable role of USSF Guardians in advancing SOF Space integration.

Emerald Warrior is an AFSOC-sponsored combined joint exercise that provides realistic, relevant, high-end training to prepare special operations forces, conventional forces and international partners for the evolving strategic environment.

The USSFSOE coordinated Guardian support to deliver specialized space expertise, space-related intelligence and integration over the three-week exercise. As representatives of the newest service, the USSFSOE is responsible for space coordination and support to U.S. Special Operations Command.

“The United States Space Force Special Operations Element is strengthening the SOF-Space relationship by integrating our service capabilities into SOCOM exercises like Emerald Warrior,” said Maj. Jonathan Green, USSFSOE plans and programs chief. “These exercises and training opportunities provide Guardians and SOF personnel with much needed interoperability for future joint operations.”

Support for the exercise from the 527th SAS included joint personnel from the USAF, USMC and USSF.

During the exercise, they replicated satellite communication and GPS-based electromagnetic interference to emulate a contested, degraded, operationally limited environment prevalent in areas of operation around the world. This support provided operators the real-world experience that they require.

“Our team allows units to operate in a realistic radio frequency limited environment, providing commanders the benefit of preparing their units with the most effective training,” said U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Bryan Hernandez, 527th SAS mission commander.

“The relationship between the USSF and special operations is imperative as we address next-generation challenges related to great power competition,” said Green. “We will continue to integrate space capabilities and personnel with special operations to meet joint warfighter needs.”

afsoc.af.mil · March 25, 2024

18. Taiwan earthquake: what is known and what happens next

Taiwan earthquake: what is known and what happens next - Asia Times

Self-governing island bracing for after tremors of an earthquake that could send economic shockwaves worldwide

asiatimes.com · by Dee Ninis · April 3, 2024

Earlier today (April 3), a major earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck the central east coast of Taiwan, roughly 20 kilometers south of the city of Hualien.

Locals near the epicenter described severe to violent ground shaking during the quake – strong enough to make standing and driving a vehicle difficult. It was reportedly felt across the country, as well as in neighboring China.

So, what do we know so far about the quake and what the impacts may be?

Death and damage

News outlets have reported at least four people have died and dozens were injured as a result of the quake.

While much of Taiwan’s population lives on the west coast of the country, Hualien City is one of the largest population centers on the east coast. Its population is roughly 100,000.

Building damage has been reported in the region near the epicenter of the earthquake, including in Hualien City.

Landslides also occurred along the mountainous central east coast.

A tsunami warning was issued for Taiwan and nearby countries including Japan and the Philippines. At the time of writing, a 30 cm tsunami was reported along the south coast of Japan. This would have shown up as a noticeable swell on the shore but is unlikely to cause significant damage.

The biggest surge in a tsunami is not always the first surge so it is possible a larger tsunami wave may eventuate, but as time passes this becomes increasingly unlikely.

Was there any warning?

Although earthquakes cannot be predicted, Taiwan has an early warning system.

This system detects ground shaking as it happens in the epicentral region, and immediately sends an alert that travels faster than the seismic energy and associated ground shaking.

It likely provided crucial seconds of warning for those living away from the epicenter to take cover.

What kind of quake was it?

Initial estimates suggest the earthquake rupture began between 10 and 40 kilometers beneath the earth’s surface.

A shallower earthquake will generally produce stronger ground shaking than a deeper earthquake, and is therefore more likely to result in damage to nearby buildings.

The latest analysis of data from this earthquake suggests the earthquake was at the shallow end of this range, and likely produced a rupture which broke the surface. Satellite data of the Earth’s surface will tell us more about ground deformation within the coming days.

The earthquake rupture occurred on a reverse fault. This is where the quake lifts up one side of the Earth’s crust relative to the other. This can produce a vertical displacement of the ocean floor, which can generate a tsunami.

Approximately three hours after the initial quake, there have already been 13 aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0 – all large enough to produce their own ground shaking across much of the country.

Strong aftershocks may cause the collapse of buildings that were only damaged in the main shock.

History of quakes in the area

The Hualien region has experienced earthquakes before. In February 2018, this region produced an earthquake of magnitude 6.4, which sadly resulted in 17 deaths.

That earthquake was the main event of a sequence of seismic events in early 2018, including a foreshock of magnitude 6.1. A foreshock is an earthquake of smaller magnitude which precedes a larger earthquake in the same region within days or weeks. We don’t know a quake is a foreshock until the mainshock occurs.

According to my analysis of available earthquake data, the Hualien region experiences earthquakes bigger than magnitude 7 about once every 30 years.

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The largest recent recorded earthquake in onshore Taiwan was the magnitude 7.6 Chi-Chi quake (sometimes spelled in English as the Jiji quake) that struck in 1999.

More than 2,400 people lost their lives as a result of this earthquake.

Today’s magnitude 7.4 earthquake will likely continue to produce aftershocks for days and weeks to come.

We can’t rule out the possibility today’s earthquake was not even the biggest event in this sequence, although as time passes the likelihood of a larger associated event decreases.

Where can I get more information?

Be cautious about what you see or read on social media; in the initial aftermath of a natural disaster people often share footage that actually depicts other disasters.

For updates, I recommend following Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration, which is reporting on aftershocks and tsunami warnings as more information comes to hand.

Dee Ninis is Earthquake Scientist, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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asiatimes.com · by Dee Ninis · April 3, 2024

19. Dereliction of Duty: Israeli Blunders on the Way to October 7

Excerpts:

Conclusion

Israel lost the war on its first day, Oct. 7. This was a devastating defeat that cost much blood and many hostages. Those who remain still face dire conditions, torture, and rape. Israeli citizens also lost confidence in their state, which is a crisis that will have long-term effects extending well beyond the villages and towns of the Western Negev.

The blunders did not end on that day. Systemic dysfunction of the Israeli state was evident in the days immediately following the attack: abandoning the hostages and going to war without clear political goals. Yet an initial analysis of such multi-layered and multi-systemic failures of Oct. 7 shows that Israel cannot wait until the end of the war to learn from these blunders. Many of the principal causes behind these blunders continue to erode the basic interests of the state. Israel should examine the core assumptions of its security establishment and completely overhaul its leadership. Continuing to stumble blindly forward will only cost more innocent lives.

Dereliction of Duty: Israeli Blunders on the Way to October 7 - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Boaz Atzili · April 3, 2024

On Oct. 7, 2023, a nonstate actor, the violent Palestinian organization in control of the impoverished Gaza Strip, inflicted the worst defeat in the history of the country with the strongest military in the Middle East. In Israel, where policy debates revolve around keeping citizens secure, the most common question on Oct. 7 was: “Where is the army?” Hamas is, of course, responsible for the atrocities it committed, which cost the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis, injured many thousands, and resulted in the kidnapping of more than 250 people, including my cousin and his wife.

Yet the fact that the Palestinian terrorist organization was able to do so was a direct result of Israel’s government and its defense apparatus’ dereliction of duty. The resulting war in the Middle East will likely continue for the foreseeable future, postponing a thorough Israeli investigation and delaying a public discussion of the worst disaster in the history of the state. For this reason, it is important to be candid in discussing those now.

The Oct. 7 disaster was a result of a series of long-term, complex, and multi-systemic blunders. Some Israeli leaders, both political and military, already declared that they will take responsibility (even though it’s not immediately clear what this declaration entails). Others, chief among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, refuse to take responsibility. Any future investigation, if given the proper mandate, will likely illuminate the larger picture. However, a preliminary evaluation points to seven parallel blunders at different levels of decision-making: preventing a partner for peace, deterrence misperception, failed intelligence analysis, the regime change blunder, neglecting defense, shifting operational focus, and fighting the wrong war.

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Preventing a Partner for Peace

Since the Second Intifada, most Israeli governments have acted under the assumption that the status quo is ideal and that any diplomatic progress or peace initiatives are a threat to Israeli interests. This assumption has weakened the moderate Palestinian forces and strengthened the extremists. This has made it easier for Israel to argue that there is “nobody to talk to” on the other side. In the words of the hard right-wing finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an Asset.”

This trend includes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who gave Gaza to Hamas on a silver platter when he chose a unilateral withdrawal in 2005 to avoid giving a diplomatic achievement to the Palestinian Authority. And it includes all the Netanyahu governments, which in recent years have been quite open about their preference for Hamas over the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu has refused to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority on anything besides Israel’s security arrangement and simultaneously allowed Qatari and other funding to go to Hamas unimpeded. Prime Minister Naftali Bennet took a similar position, and Yair Lapid may well have if he had been in power long enough. The only exception in the last two decades was Ehud Olmert’s brief time as prime minister. This is not to say Israel is the sole culprit in the lack of progress, but that it was a willing partner in it.

An integral part of this status quo policy was the perception that you could “manage” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That translated into deepening the occupation in the West Bank, allowing Israeli settlements to flourish, facilitating de facto apartheid, increasing military activity, blockading the Gaza Strip, paying Hamas to “buy quiet,” and, from time to time, conducting “deterrence operations” to retaliate for Hamas’ missile attacks.

Another integral part of this policy was foiling any serious diplomatic initiatives, such as the Saudi initiative in the early 2000s or the push for peace during Barack Obama’s first administration. On Oct. 7, it became clear that strengthening the extremist enemy led, inevitably, to a stronger and more extreme enemy.

Deterrence Misperception

Over the course of decades, the concept of deterrence in the Israeli military and defense establishment became more and more detached from its rational origins. Instead of a concept based on cost-benefit analysis, it gradually became an assumption.

From time to time, politicians or senior officers would sound the alarm about the “loss of Israel’s deterrence posture,” and then the military would go to a “deterrence operation” or “operation between wars” in order to “charge the deterrence batteries.”

As far as I know, there have been no after-the-fact evaluations to examine whether the operations or small wars actually left Israel’s enemies deterred. The assumption was that the more the enemy suffered, the more it would be deterred. At least as far as Hamas (as well as Hizballah) goes, this assumption is fundamentally wrong. These organizations measure their success in political support and not in retaining their infrastructure or manpower. Therefore, Israel’s “deterrence operations” only increased their political support and helped the extremist organizations, rather than hurt them. As a result, through each round of fighting over the last 18 years, Hamas has demonstrated higher capacities and improved fighting abilities. Deterrence, clearly, did not work.

Failed Intelligence Analysis

The assumption that Hamas was deterred from taking extreme measures also prevented a serious evaluation of intelligence data. We know now that Israel’s intelligence agencies had ample information on Hamas’ training and preparation for a widespread and exceptional operation in the Gaza Strip. Israel actually obtained the blueprint of the attack (without specifics and dates), but intelligence officers viewed it as a fantasy and wishful thinking.

There were indications from human intelligence, signals intelligence, and imagery that something big was on the move. For example, military intelligence was aware that ample Israeli SIM cards in Gaza were suddenly activated on Oct. 6. Some of the information reached high-ranking officers, but it evidently did not raise the alarm — at least not enough to significantly change the Israel Defense Forces’ preparedness or alert level. A meeting between the chief of staff, the commander of the southern front, and other officers on Friday night before the attack concluded that the risk was minimal and did not result in significant special measures or alarming the force’s Gaza Division. The ingenuity and resourcefulness of Hamas in planning Oct. 7 is undeniable, yet Israel’s intelligence organizations’ inability to connect the many dots was, quite clearly, affected by the deterrence blunder discussed above.

The Regime Change Blunder

Hamas had been preparing for Oct. 7 for a long time, yet the most extreme government in Israel’s history supplied it with a remarkable opportunity. The Netanyahu government’s “judicial overhaul” and other steps to weaken and erode the Israeli democracy created deep divides among the Israeli public. This fracture created an image of systemic weakness and a vulnerability to a multi-front assault (including by Hizballah and Iran, and forces in the West Bank), which will ultimately leave Israel devastated or defeated.

Netanyahu’s government, of course, will try (and already tries) to deflect the blame onto the mass protests against the government. Yet it is clear that the blame lies with Netanyahu, who initiated moves to change the state’s regime fundamentally and ignored the alerts of many senior officers in the Israeli security establishment.

High-ranking officers in the military, even including Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, tried to alert Netanyahu of the security threat that an eroding Israeli democracy posed. The prime minister refused to discuss the issue and even tried to fire Gallant after he aired the threat publicly. Netanyahu and his coalition partners are culpable for this blunder.

Neglecting Defense

In the Israel Defense Forces’ ethos, there is no such thing as defense. The “D” in the acronym for the Israeli army is long forgotten, in favor of “the best defense is a good offense.” Yes, Israel has invested heavily in defensive measures along the Gaza border in the last decades, including the Iron Dome missile defense system, measures blocking Hamas tunnels from entering Israeli territory, fortified rooms in private houses, and sheltered public spaces in the Gaza Envelope. Those measures have saved many lives over the years. Yet these defensive measures were perceived by the Israeli security apparatus as not a goal in and of itself. Rather, these were means to allow more time and freedom of action for the offense to operate without the pressure of mounting civilian casualties. And fewer casualties also enabled the government to evade diplomatic solutions. Furthermore, the defensive investment has been vastly reduced since the inception of the current Israeli government.

In the combat units of the Israel Defense Forces, the time, resources, and operational and tactical attention devoted to defense are negligible in comparison to those devoted to offense and conquest. Indeed, offense is operationally more complex than defense, but the government’s neglect of defense went beyond that. It was ideological. It is no wonder, then, that while the Kibbutzim and towns of the Western Negev were desperately waiting for hours for the military to save them from the brutal and massive assault from Hamas, the Israeli Air Force was elsewhere, already attacking targets in Gaza. To be clear, fighters and bombers are not tools with which to fight an invasion in your own territory. But it is still telling that within hours of the attack, only two attack helicopters (under the air force command in the Israel Defense Forces) were available to protect Israeli territory while a forceful bombardment of Gaza was already happening.

Shifting Operational Focus

The Israeli government during all of Netanyahu’s years as prime minister prioritized the West Bank over the border with the Gaza Strip. This trend has dramatically accelerated since the establishment of the current government in 2022, under which this priority is clearly expressed in resource allocation.

Slowly, investment in the Gaza Division and its defense of Western Negev has deteriorated. The civil emergency squads in the border villages were also perceived as a nuisance and not a defensive asset. As a result, they were deprived of weapons and training. The underground barrier that Israel built under the fence separating it from Gaza has increased the illusion of security provided by the military and the government. Many of these resources were redirected to the West Bank, where increasing settler provocations and attacks on Palestinians necessitated a larger force to prepare for an expected backlash. On Oct. 7, one weakened and neglected division stood unprepared in front of a large, well-armed, well-prepared, and flexible Hamas force. At the same time, settlements in the West Bank were safe and sound.

Fighting the Wrong War

One of the most crucial questions regarding Oct. 7 is “Where was the army?” Throughout this day, for very long hours, a hodgepodge group of people fought valiantly — the civil emergency squads in the Kibbutzim, police in the towns, security guards at the Nova music festival, and simple civilians. But the military was nowhere to be seen. Even given the blunder of shifting operational focus discussed above, Israel is geographically small, and whole regiments can get from one side of the country to the other in a few hours. They could certainly get from the West Bank to the Gaza border. Part of the explanation could be Hamas’ success in neutralizing the Gaza Division, which was supposed to coordinate such force movements and was damaged in the first act of the invasion.

Beyond that, much of the answer stems from the fact that the Israel Defense Forces, as well as the political leadership, planned for and expected a limited and pointed terror attack, rather than a massive strike along the entire front. Despite the information that was constantly streaming up from the battlefield, Israel’s senior decision-makers did not understand the severity of the situation until it was too late. The military fought the war for which it was prepared, not the one that was unfolding on the ground.

In case of a terror attack, the Israel Defense Forces’ doctrine called for a mission of special forces, who were trained and equipped accordingly. Such special forces indeed arrived relatively quickly in several instances. For example, Yamam, the police SWAT team, helped thwart a significant Hamas attack on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and prevented terrorists from entering the Kibbutz. Fighters of the Shaldag unit fought against the Hamas assault on Kibbutz Beeri. But these are small units with light weapons that were not built for the scale of defense needed on Oct. 7. There was no effective and coordinated Israel Defense Forces extensive response to the attack simply because, as the New York Times investigation concluded, “The Israel Defense Forces did not even have a plan to respond to a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli soil.”

Conclusion

Israel lost the war on its first day, Oct. 7. This was a devastating defeat that cost much blood and many hostages. Those who remain still face dire conditions, torture, and rape. Israeli citizens also lost confidence in their state, which is a crisis that will have long-term effects extending well beyond the villages and towns of the Western Negev.

The blunders did not end on that day. Systemic dysfunction of the Israeli state was evident in the days immediately following the attack: abandoning the hostages and going to war without clear political goals. Yet an initial analysis of such multi-layered and multi-systemic failures of Oct. 7 shows that Israel cannot wait until the end of the war to learn from these blunders. Many of the principal causes behind these blunders continue to erode the basic interests of the state. Israel should examine the core assumptions of its security establishment and completely overhaul its leadership. Continuing to stumble blindly forward will only cost more innocent lives.

Become a Member

Boaz Atzili is an associate professor at the foreign policy and global security department in American University’s School of International Service. He is an expert of territorial conflicts and international security, and his books include Good Fences Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors (Columbia University Press, 2018, with Wendy Pearlman).

Image: Matty Stern

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Boaz Atzili · April 3, 2024

​20. Innovation Adoption for All: Scaling Across Department of Defense

Conclusion:

None of these six factors by themselves will be enough to field necessary capabilities at speed and scale. However, when they are combined, and senior leaders assemble the right talent, the likelihood of programs succeeding increases immeasurably. In other words, this challenge is about people, culture, and implementation more than policies and regulations. The deputy secretary, along with the Joint Staff, should codify these six factors into an innovation adoption doctrine that can be scaled across the department. Fielding emerging capabilities at speed and scale is vital to maintain America’s edge against China, ensure deterrence, and prevail should deterrence fail. These six factors should not be six consecutive miracles, but the way business is done at the Department of Defense.

Innovation Adoption for All: Scaling Across Department of Defense - War on the Rocks

ROBERT WORK, MICHAEL BROWN, AND ELLEN LORD

warontherocks.com · by Robert Work · April 3, 2024

Across the Department of Defense, today’s watchword is innovation. In 2018, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and the first chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, aptly declared that “the [Department of Defense] does not have an innovation problem; it has an innovation adoption problem.” Unlike the fundamental technologies behind nuclear-powered submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and stealth aircraft, an increasing percentage of the technological breakthroughs that provide a real combat edge for U.S. warfighters are coming from commercial firms outside the traditional defense industrial base. Through the endeavors of organizations like the Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, and Army Futures Command, myriad opportunities exist to build prototypes to solve military problems.

Leaders from the secretary of defense on down argue that the department must move faster when it comes to delivering capabilities to warfighters that can offset increasingly urgent and sophisticated threats. The challenge is not incubating innovation, it is moving it from laboratories and testing grounds to the field. We believe that six factors — built on a foundation of talent and not requiring any new authorities — can scale innovation adoption across the Department of Defense. These factors include a clear problem definition, an empowered program team, an identified transition partner, a contracting vehicle, steady funding, and senior-leader support. These cannot be achieved in a piecemeal fashion. To work, they should become business-as-usual for the department rather than six consecutive miracles of defense innovation and acquisition.

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Existing Elements

In its Fiscal Year 2025 budget, the Department of Defense acknowledges the importance of fielding innovative products at scale by committing $1 billion over two fiscal years to field thousands of autonomous, attritable drones through its flagship Replicator program. In February, Doug Beck, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, released a strategy for what he terms the Defense Innovation Unit 3.0. This is the next iteration of an organization originally chartered to serve as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the Department of Defense that aims to “rapidly deliver commercially derived capabilities to the warfighter“ in order to “build and sustain enduring advantage.” The FY2024 Defense Appropriations Act gives the Defense Innovation Unit almost $1 billion to pursue its new strategy. These examples showcase how delivering new combat capabilities at speed and scale is a top priority at the highest levels within the department.

Inside the Department of Defense, innovation is about far more than increasing the pace of technology development at military service laboratories, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, federally funded research centers, university-affiliated research centers, and major prime contractors. Innovation encompasses the concepts and processes that provide combat advantage. Of course, new technologies are synonymous with innovation, but any innovation’s ultimate relevance is how it can improve warfighting capabilities to address challenges posed by strategic competitors like China and Russia. Innovation now also includes embracing the digital world of software-created digital twins; aggregating disparate data for use by AI and machine-learning algorithms; and employing modeling, simulation, and wargaming. The department has recognized the gains made by our strategic competitors to embrace new technology applications that have narrowed our nation’s military edge. While American ingenuity and creativity continue to allow the Department of Defense to produce innovative warfighting capabilities, most efforts are led by special organizations, outside the “regular” structure of the department.

The Defense Innovation Unit, the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office, and the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office are focused on delivering high-performance hardware, software, and services quickly and at scale. These teams enjoy regular access to senior Department of Defense leaders and are staffed with high-potential military and career personnel. Unfortunately, they lack the scale to drive innovation across the entire department. We must learn from their success, understand why they are successful, and use these insights to help transform the department’s “normal” capability development and acquisition processes.

Recently, several commissions and study groups — many of which the authors have participated in —have attempted to catalyze change with a particular emphasis on budgeting and acquisition reforms. For example, the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Commission released its final report in early March with numerous recommendations to fundamentally streamline the resourcing process while improving transparency with Congress. In January, the Atlantic Council released its report on defense innovation adoption. The Department of Defense and Congress would do well to act on the recommendations found in these two reports.

Fortunately, the department largely has the authorities and processes for these reforms. While new authorities and approaches are urgently needed for greater budget flexibility, the department can speed up its modernization today through more widespread training of the workforce along with the corresponding championing of policy implementation by leadership. For example, Other Transactions Authorities, Middle Tier Acquisitions, and the Software Acquisition Pathway are existing authorities and approaches that are generally faster and more flexible than traditional acquisition paths. They enable new suppliers to join the defense ecosystem and ultimately bring new capabilities to the field faster than the legacy acquisition system. Unfortunately, they are not as widely adopted throughout the department as they could be.

The Defense Innovation Unit has made extensive use of Other Transactions Authorities in its effort to rapidly develop 80 prototypes and transition no less than 52 of them to fielded capabilities. This demonstrates what is possible when flexible authorities are combined with an empowered organization. Furthermore, the relatively new Adaptive Acquisition Framework provides an overarching approach for program managers and other acquisition officials to align programmatic needs using what we term “creative compliance.” While this term is likely to strike many as dangerous, it’s about changing the underlying culture to mitigate, rather than eliminate, risk in policy implementation while remaining in compliance with legal requirements. Ultimately, the issue of how we address risk is a foundational issue for any department-wide reform and is worth its own article.

The Department of Defense does act quickly when properly motivated and catalyzed by effective leadership. The Joint Force’s improvements to “golden hour” medical care in Afghanistan and the rapid acquisition of the Reaper drone fleet are successful efforts in meeting combat needs on an operationally relevant timeline. More recently, the department has had some notable successes in quickly fielding counter-drone systems, albeit in relatively small numbers. As another example, the Space Development Agency put in orbit innovative satellites for targeting and missile tracking in roughly two and a half years. These examples of transformative change span different capabilities and unique problems across multiple administrations.

Six Factors for Innovation at Scale

We believe that there are six factors that when combined unlock the ability to quickly deliver needed capabilities at relevant scales. Additionally, talent is the “secret sauce” that binds them all together. Without the right talent, achieving each factor is impossible. These factors will not come as a surprise to anyone with knowledge of what it takes to get things done within the department. Taken together, they represent not just an outline for a successful effort but also a roadmap for broader cultural reform.

The first factor is a clear definition of the problem. Different from a formal requirement, this is a concise statement of what problem is going to be solved in the context of a larger mission and overarching strategic guidance like the National Defense Strategy. To address many of today’s urgent challenges, we should turn first to existing, often commercially derived systems that can be quickly scaled. Defining the problem should not result in a narrow requirement that includes a prescribed technology approach that limits creativity. More effective is an iterative approach with warfighter feedback that leads to the best solution. This opens the aperture, avoids eliminating a host of viable, commercially derived options, and creates a broad, competitive solutions ecosystem.

The second factor is an empowered program team that serves as the “quarterback” of the whole effort. More than “dual-fluency” talent that understands the language of both commercial technology and national security, an empowered program team should also be cross-functional — combining operators, technologists, engineers, acquisition professionals, security experts, and budgeteers. Each of these roles should be filled by the right talent from across the enterprise with the vision and drive to execute the program. Senior leaders should take personal interest in getting the right talent to the empowered team. Crucially, senior leaders should create a culture of risk tolerance where risks are either thoughtfully mitigated or judged to be worth accepting.

While the Department of Defense currently stresses the need for multi-functional acquisition teams, the objective of today’s approach is program execution and meeting a defined requirement. We believe the objective should be expanded to achieve better mission-solution fits, iteration, and project scaling. The program team is also critical in building close, trusted, and mutually beneficial partnerships with industry that can bring the capabilities of both the government and the private sector to bear on the problem. This reimagines the role of the program team by expanding their responsibilities and defining success based on mission rather than execution performance or strict process compliance. Ultimately, the program team is the fulcrum around which all the other elements revolve.

The third factor is a transition partner who will “own” the new capability once it transitions to a full-scale program. This partner is the end-user who owns the mission, can provide feedback to vendors during testing, advocates for funding, and develops the training and sustainment strategies vital to ultimate program success. For traditional defense products — such as ships, aircraft, and missiles — this transition partner is often a program executive office identified and integrated from the beginning. However, for more emergent and non-traditional capabilities, the transition partner is often not immediately identified nor involved in the acquisition process.

This identified transition partner is key to fielding a capability rapidly as it ultimately owns the risks associated with using a given capability and its integration into a larger architecture. Fielding a capability rapidly is clearly demonstrated in operational testing where end users can accept “good enough” and phased certifications to meet urgent needs. This short-circuits a lengthy process designed to completely eliminate risk rather than evaluate it. Without establishing a path from the laboratory through testing to the field at the outset of a program, the valley of death will prove nigh impossible to cross.

The fourth factor is a contracting vehicle. While one of the more obvious elements in programmatic success, we want to draw specific attention to new contracting methods such as Other Transition Authorities and Commercial Solutions Openings that can rapidly support the development and fielding of emerging capabilities. These new contracting methods provide the empowered program team with flexibility, scale, and speed to move from prototype to production. Matching contract type to program is also imperative as it allows the program team to proactively manage issues such as data rights, supply chains, and manufacturability. Knowledge of these new contracting methods and creativity in using them represent areas where the Department of Defense can leverage a best practice more widely.

The fifth factor is steady funding. This is closely related to the contracting vehicle but should be considered an independent element since an in-place contract is no guarantee of obligated funds. Consistent funding is needed so that the capability provider, regardless of type or size, can make smart planning choices in development and production. Furthermore, steady funding is one of the most important aspects of attracting matching capital from outside sources. The need for steady funding also represents buy-in both from broader departmental budget offices and Congress. This is the ultimate form of stakeholder consensus.

The sixth and final factor is senior leader support that ensures success and breaks bureaucratic logjams by providing rapid direction, streamlining processes, and creating an overarching, supporting culture of risk-taking. Senior support is key in ensuring that the program team and the transition partner have the right talent in place. Leadership also helps to create and maintain the important linkage between the program team and the transition partner. Senior leadership is the top cover to ensure continued support for iterative processes through the early failures that will inevitably happen. As an example, the Strategic Capabilities Office was championed and aggressively supported by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, notably leading to the creation of an anti-ship capability for the SM-6 surface-to-air missile. Innovation can thrive and grow when it is supported.

Conclusion

None of these six factors by themselves will be enough to field necessary capabilities at speed and scale. However, when they are combined, and senior leaders assemble the right talent, the likelihood of programs succeeding increases immeasurably. In other words, this challenge is about people, culture, and implementation more than policies and regulations. The deputy secretary, along with the Joint Staff, should codify these six factors into an innovation adoption doctrine that can be scaled across the department. Fielding emerging capabilities at speed and scale is vital to maintain America’s edge against China, ensure deterrence, and prevail should deterrence fail. These six factors should not be six consecutive miracles, but the way business is done at the Department of Defense.

Become a Member

Robert Work spent 27 years on active duty in the Marine Corps as an artillery officer. He was the undersecretary of the Navy in the first Obama administration and the deputy secretary of defense from 2014 to 2018, serving alongside three different secretaries across two administrations. He is the distinguished senior fellow for defense and national security at the Center for a New American Security and serves as one of the chairs of its Defense Technology Task Force.

Ellen Lord serves on public and private company boards in addition to advising a variety of businesses. She is on the Board of Advisors at the Center for a New American Security and serves as one of the chairs of its Defense Technology Task Force. She served as the first under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, and spent more than 30 years in the automotive and defense industries, including as president and CEO of Textron Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Textron Inc., from 2012 to 2017.

Michael Brown is a partner at Shield Capital and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is on the Board of Advisors at the Center for a New American Security and serves as one of the chairs of its Defense Technology Task Force. He was the director of the Defense Innovation Unit from 2018 to 2022. He previously served as the CEO of two public technology companies in Silicon Valley: cybersecurity firm Symantec Corporation (2014–2016) and computer-hardware maker Quantum Corporation (1995–2001).

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Robert Work · April 3, 2024

21. What the TikTok Bill Gets Wrong

Excerpts:

Ultimately, the United States must enhance its data security without targeting firms or individuals based on their national origin or on their relationships with foreigners as a first line of defense. This is essential to protecting the dynamism of the country’s innovation and the dignity of its workers, especially crucial in an era of strained U.S.-Chinese relations. Encouraging the flourishing of relationships between the country’s tech sectors can help prevent political tensions from evolving into outright hostilities.

Any effort to respond to the risks associated with Chinese apps is likely to fail unless the United States first shores up its own digital protections—especially because new technologies’ ownership structures and user bases increasingly transcend national borders. Passing more comprehensive national data-security regulation may sound like a tall order for the current Congress, but it should not be if members care as much about technology’s national security implications as the House’s remarkably unified vote on the TikTok bill suggests. Such a move would also give the United States more international credibility in countering Chinese efforts to expand its extraterritorial data oversight by allowing the U.S. government to work more constructively with allies and partners. In its current form, however, the TikTok bill reveals—and will likely entrench—an increasingly inadequate American approach to regulating technology.

What the TikTok Bill Gets Wrong

Congress Should Regulate All Social Media Apps—Not Just Chinese Ones

By Aynne Kokas

April 3, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty · April 3, 2024

On March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that would ban Americans from accessing the video app TikTok if its parent company, ByteDance, headquartered in China, does not sell its stake within six months. In some ways, the so-called TikTok bill appeared to be a remarkably strong piece of legislation: it passed by an overwhelming 352-vote majority, reflecting a rare degree of cross-party consensus. And it went beyond TikTok, banning other apps controlled by ByteDance. The bill also put other existing or future apps linked to the United States’ top strategic competitors—China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia—on notice, warning that they, too, could become subject to penalties such as fines, forced divestment of ownership, or forced termination of operations.

The legislation is meant to address a wide range of problems: one of the bill’s co-authors, Republican Representative Mike Gallagher, of Wisconsin, has cited national security briefings that indicate that TikTok violates user privacy, targets journalists, and facilitates election interference. FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the Chinese government could control millions of devices via the app, likely without the knowledge of users. Beyond these national security concerns are economic ones. ByteDance, unlike its U.S. competitors, can operate in both China and the United States, which gives it an advantage in developing social media algorithms and A.I. products.

Although the bill focuses on TikTok, it applies to all apps substantially linked to the four countries U.S. law defines as “adversaries.”. This broader remit avoids violating the Constitution’s bill of attainder clause, which prohibits legislation from imposing a punishment on a specific person or group of people without a trial. But the TikTok bill retains a problematic focus on individuals—individual firms and certain kinds of people. That focus risks entrenching an overall U.S. policy that targets specific companies and people instead of systematically reviewing the safety of different categories of technology products.

Although U.S. senators from both main political parties share a desire to regulate TikTok, the TikTok bill is currently stalled in the Senate as legislators discuss revising its language and approach. The United States’ drawn-out effort to scrutinize TikTok itself demonstrates that attempting to regulate individual firms takes too long and yields uncertain results. And the bill’s components related to foreign individuals would encourage discrimination based on national origin against kinds of people who compose an irreplaceable part of the U.S. tech sector’s workforce. If it is passed in its current form, the bill will put pressure on corporate and personal relationships that are vital in their own way to U.S. national security—the collaborations between Chinese and U.S. tech entrepreneurs, which help disincentivize outright hostility between their countries’ governments.

Rather than ferreting out individual companies, as the TikTok bill demands, the U.S. government should align with allies and partners such as Europe and Japan—and even individual states such as California, Utah, and Virginia, which have already passed data-privacy laws designed to protect how consumer data is collected and used. This push needs to occur in a larger regulatory environment that supports increased consumer data protection, improved user education, and new digital trade agreements. TikTok does present the United States a distinctive national-security challenge because of its soaring popularity among Americans and where its parent company is located. But TikTok’s hazards constitute only part of a much larger, porous, and underregulated U.S. tech ecosystem. The TikTok bill is the wrong solution to a real problem.

TRENDING THREAT

TikTok, in its current form, began its life in 2018 when ByteDance, a leading Chinese Internet technology company, merged a niche Chinese youth entertainment app with Musical.ly, an internationally popular Chinese music-video-creation app it had acquired the year before. By late 2019, the app had 55 million North American users, on par with LinkedIn; this put TikTok 15th in the ranking of the most popular social media apps in America. U.S. politicians began to voice concerns about TikTok, however, only after Americans’ use of it exploded during the lockdowns instituted in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alleging TikTok constituted a threat to national security and to the U.S. economy, in the summer of 2020 President Donald Trump attempted to ban the app from operating in the United States via an executive order. He also issued an executive order prohibiting American individuals and companies from conducting transactions with another Chinese-owned social media app, WeChat, effectively seeking to shutter the app’s U.S. operations. ByteDance filed a series of legal challenges stalling the proposed ban, insisting that it would prefer halting the app’s U.S. operations to selling it.

In June 2021, President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s orders banning Chinese apps. But the Biden administration continued to direct the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the interagency committee that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments, to investigate TikTok. In December 2022, President Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, prohibiting TikTok’s use on all devices issued by the federal government.

TikTok is by no means the only app operating in America that platforms disinformation.

Congress ramped up its scrutiny of TikTok in 2023: in March of that year, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, introduced the RESTRICT Act, which authorized the Commerce Department to review certain transactions between the United States and foreign adversaries and to take actions to, in the language of the bill, “identify, deter, disrupt, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate … any risk” that the review identified. That same month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee called TikTok CEO Shou Chew to testify about the app’s data privacy and child-safety practices. In January 2024, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee also grilled Chew in a hearing on child online safety. And on March 5, Gallagher and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, of Illinois, introduced the TikTok bill, moving it to passage in the House within a week.

TikTok is by no means the only app operating in America that platforms disinformation and facilitates election interference. But TikTok does differ meaningfully from its American competitors when it comes to the oversight of its algorithm. Many social-media apps seek to obscure how they train and run their algorithms, increasing the risk that they will platform misinformation or engage in exploitative data-gathering practices. The Chinese government’s regulations, however, offer a much larger range of legal mechanisms by which to pressure Chinese apps both politically and economically.

The Chinese government has added additional layers of control over TikTok specifically: in 2020, China added content recommendation algorithms to its list of controlled exports, indicating that Beijing views TikTok’s algorithm as so key to Chinese national security that the government can ban it from being accessed by foreign powers. Under China’s 2021 Data Security Law and its 2021 Personal Information Protection Law, ByteDance is also now subject to national security data audits. Such moves raised legitimate concerns among American lawmakers about whether China may seek to access foreign users’ data or deploy TikTok to run disinformation and political influence campaigns.

CONTENT MISMANAGEMENT

A bipartisan consensus in the House is an exceptional thing. The TikTok bill has drawn new attention to the app’s profound influence on the U.S. tech and information ecosystem. Its effort, in particular, to ensure that users can regain access to their data prior to any ban of the app going into effect sets an important precedent. In 2020, after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States forced the Chinese tech company Beijing Kunlun to sell the LGBTQ social media app Grindr, users did not have such data protections.

But the act has more drawbacks than benefits. Apps may be designated as “controlled by a foreign adversary” if their owners or parent companies are subject to direct regulatory oversight by the Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, or Russian governments—for instance, by being headquartered in those countries. But they may also get the designation if they are at least 20 percent owned by firms linked to those countries or by those countries’ citizens. And the bill states that apps can even acquire the designation merely if they are “subject to direction or control” by companies linked to U.S. adversaries. The bill does not explain what “subject to direction or control” means.

That vagueness generates a major deficiency: how the bill approaches the challenge of determining the national origin of corporations operating in the United States. ByteDance, for example, is headquartered in Beijing but registered in the Cayman Islands. The location of a company’s headquarters plays a significant role in how it is governed, yet where firms are headquartered does not fully indicate which governments have leverage over their operations. Companies such as Tesla have broad business exposure to the Chinese market. Trying to pin down apps’ ownership structures and financial influences would require regulators to become forensic accountants.

The TikTok bill infuses new uncertainty into the U.S. tech industry.

And determining the national origin of shareholders in publicly held firms, let alone private ones, presents a huge logistical challenge—to say nothing of the 20 percent control as a metric for influence. Vaguer still is the bill’s definition of a person “subject to the direction or control of a foreign adversary.” Such a broad definition could apply to many U.S. firms or individuals operating within China that must follow Chinese regulations and policy directives to maintain their operations.

Practically speaking, the act also infuses uncertainty into the U.S. tech industry. The 180-day divestment timeline fails to reflect the realities of divestment and acquisition for large tech companies. Beijing Kunlun’s forced divestment of Grindr took a year, and that firm was smaller than many that the bill might force to divest, with far fewer users and less antitrust risk.

The lack of procedural clarity in the process of designating foreign-adversary-controlled apps makes it likelier that the process will become politicized, too. Chinese firms in the United States are gathering sensitive user data in areas such as health, gaming, baby monitoring, and home security. A process focused on naming and shaming individual firms rather than one protecting the entire tech ecosystem would likely primarily benefit lobbying firms, which will undoubtedly be retained for lucrative contracts by firms concerned about their risk exposure.

DIGITAL DIVIDE

Beyond these particular defects, the TikTok bill’s weakness reveals a more foundational challenge in the U.S. digital regulatory landscape. When regulating their digital ecosystems, most of the United States’ allies prioritize giving users the rights to their data. Such an approach anticipates the new risks that emerging technologies may present before the technologies begin to operate at scale. Unlike in the United States, all firms operating in the European Union and Japan must follow national laws in those markets regarding the use and processing of personal data. By targeting individual firms rather than securing the U.S. digital ecosystem, the United States is moving further away from consensus with our allies and partners on data security issues.

The United States has long regulated technologies only after they have become pervasive or problematic. With a few notable exceptions, the U.S. regulatory system affords personal data limited protections. This approach has stimulated innovation: in the United States’ fast-paced, cash-rich tech landscape, the ability to access large swaths of user data has allowed for the emergence of global powerhouse apps and tech platforms.

The U.S. government’s comparatively hands-off approach when it comes to the tech sector, however, may be becoming a hindrance to national security. U.S. tech firms increasingly rely on exploitative data-gathering practices to support their business models. The extent to which the United States’ regulatory framework is driven by corporate financial interests poses increasing dangers when it comes to new technologies such as AI, because it tends to prioritize profit over security and ethics. A lack of regulatory oversight and user protections means that in the United States, Chinese companies are not required to offer the kinds of assurances and transparency that they appear willing to provide elsewhere. In response to Europe’s more stringent regulations on the use of personal data, for example, TikTok has made its European terms of service attentive to data protection.

BUG FIX

The TikTok bill is a response to a real risk in the U.S. digital ecosystem. But if the Senate passes the legislation and President Biden signs it, it will likely introduce new challenges to tech regulation, requiring lawmakers to monitor a rapidly evolving field continuously rather than putting the onus on corporations operating in the United States to track how they put consumers and national security at risk. If the TikTok bill fails to gain passage in the Senate, lawmakers would do well to push for more comprehensive protections.

Rather than target individual firms, the government must think bigger. It must first better enforce existing regulations, increasing the fines that firms face for violating existing laws. Divestment bans offer an intriguing option, but they should not be the first line of defense against data trafficking.

Currently, different states have different regulations on data protection, and the federal government must fulfill its duty to regulate the U.S. economy by working to align these policies. It should scrutinize underregulated data brokers and companies that gather biodata, including firms that are located in the United States. In July 2022, a much more comprehensive bill—the American Data Privacy and Protection Act—was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee with near-unanimous support. Its progress toward a vote stalled in part due to lobbying by the tech industry. While that bill was imperfect, reviving it would be a good place to start establishing a more panoramic, affirmative vision for digital security that brings the United States’ practices more in line with those of other democracies.

Ultimately, the United States must enhance its data security without targeting firms or individuals based on their national origin or on their relationships with foreigners as a first line of defense. This is essential to protecting the dynamism of the country’s innovation and the dignity of its workers, especially crucial in an era of strained U.S.-Chinese relations. Encouraging the flourishing of relationships between the country’s tech sectors can help prevent political tensions from evolving into outright hostilities.

Any effort to respond to the risks associated with Chinese apps is likely to fail unless the United States first shores up its own digital protections—especially because new technologies’ ownership structures and user bases increasingly transcend national borders. Passing more comprehensive national data-security regulation may sound like a tall order for the current Congress, but it should not be if members care as much about technology’s national security implications as the House’s remarkably unified vote on the TikTok bill suggests. Such a move would also give the United States more international credibility in countering Chinese efforts to expand its extraterritorial data oversight by allowing the U.S. government to work more constructively with allies and partners. In its current form, however, the TikTok bill reveals—and will likely entrench—an increasingly inadequate American approach to regulating technology.

• AYNNE KOKAS is a Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, C. K. Yen Professor at UVA’s Miller Center, and the director of UVA’s East Asia Center. She is also the author of Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty.

Foreign Affairs · by Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty · April 3, 2024

22. A Detente Option for Iran

Excerpt:

Weaker powers such as Iran have an advantage over powers many times their size. Because they have a limited number of adversaries and everything to lose, they are often more highly motivated than their powerful opponents. Yet because they are weaker, they rarely win. An overall win for the United States, which has global interests and myriad other priorities, is also unlikely—meaning that a string of small victories on the most important issues is the right target. Further restricting Iran’s actions and introducing more predictability in the Middle East would be a great improvement. Iran has learned to play the current game well, and it understands its advantages. Although the United States cannot erase all the conditions that favor Iran, it can work to level the battlefield with Iran, advance the security of U.S. partners and allies, and diminish the possibility of a U.S.-Iranian conflict that inflames the entire Middle East.

A Detente Option for Iran

America Needs a Simpler Policy—but Not Rapprochement

By Jon B. Alterman

April 3, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Jon B. Alterman · April 3, 2024

On April 1, Israeli warplanes attacked a building in Damascus that is part of the Iranian embassy there, killing seven senior figures in the Iranian military. Tehran has yet to respond. But when it does, the scale and nature of its actions will help answer a basic question at the heart of many debates about the current situation in the Middle East: Has U.S. deterrence worked against Iran?

Washington has had its difficulties with Iran since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979, and since then, the United States has struggled to find a successful strategy for dealing with it. Despite the fact that the U.S. economy is more than 16 times as large as Iran’s and its military budget more than 100 times as large, Iran has consistency blocked U.S. efforts to create a stable regional order. Although it is hard to think of any measure in which Tehran is even vaguely competitive with Washington, all U.S. efforts to sideline Iran have failed for most of the last four decades. This presents a puzzle. The disparities between the two sides are so great that it could be supposed that deterring Iran’s malign behavior would be a straightforward question of properly calibrating U.S. policy and resolve. This was the logic behind the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign from 2018–21, and it has also informed Washington’s course in the Middle East following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. But that assumption is mistaken.

The problem is not with deterrence. Rather, it is that Washington has been trying to do too much with Tehran, with too limited a set of tools, over too long a period of time. Although prioritizing U.S. objectives and adopting a more flexible set of responses will not fix the Middle East, it will certainly improve it. Iran may remain a challenge for U.S. policymakers—but it will at least become a more predictable one.

A SLIPPERY ADVERSARY

For the last 45 years, the United States has tried to deter and compel Iran. But this is the wrong approach. Deterrence theory is not suited to dealing with the sorts of challenges that Tehran presents today. Deterrence was developed during the Cold War, when—from the successful testing of a Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991—U.S. strategists were rightly preoccupied with preventing a global catastrophe. To that end, they labored mightily to persuade the Soviet Union to not abandon the status quo by using nuclear weapons. At heart, Washington’s strategy was a bet that if nuclear war broke out, the conflict would impose massive, unbearable costs on both sides. The hope was that the U.S. nuclear arsenal on land and sea and in the air, combined with a show of resolve, would ensure Soviet inaction. Costly as it was, neither side would then pay the much higher costs of all-out war. “Compellence,” meanwhile, is the effort to persuade an adversary to stop or reverse an action it has already begun. Compellence is much harder than deterrence, as it requires an adversary to stop doing something already in motion, and it requires the compeller to follow through on their specific threats. It is estimated that compellence works only about a third of the time, often because the other side refuses to capitulate.

Neither deterrence nor compellence theory has solved the problem of what to do with Iran. From the Islamic Republic’s founding, the United States has had to decide whether to take Iran’s revolutionary rhetoric literally—and given both its tone and Iran’s support for violent nonstate actors throughout the region, it has often seemed foolish not to. Successive U.S. presidents have accordingly regarded Iran’s efforts to project strength as threatening, and Tehran, in turn, has perceived Washington’s responses as equally so. Each pushed the other toward developing greater capabilities, which each responded to by increasing its military strength in the region. Covert action also increased. Not surprisingly, the United States became preoccupied with the threats coming from Iran, and Iran became preoccupied with the threats coming from the United States.

Iran responded to these challenges by developing a flexible, robust, and dynamic set of tools designed to blunt the effects of U.S. pressure. Conscious that it could not win a conventional war with the United States, Iran invested in developing its own paramilitary organizations and creating, training, and supplying nonstate actors throughout the region. Iran has also built a significant overseas intelligence presence capable of sabotaging local infrastructure and supporting regional opposition movements. Tehran has invested in highly capable missile and drone programs, and its spies have waged cyberwarfare on neighboring countries’ systems. Iran’s nuclear efforts are another weapon in its arsenal, and Tehran accelerates, decelerates, and even occasionally abandons its program in response to changing conditions. These responses are all inherently flexible. Iran is constantly probing which actions elicit which reactions, and it uses ever more creative tactics to do so. In particular, Tehran seeks to make its actions “attributable but deniable,” in the words of a former CIA operations veteran, and accordingly sows just enough confusion to forestall an immediate response from targeted states or their Western allies. But Iran also relies on the diversity and dispersion of its tools to make its adversaries reluctant to respond directly.

Iran’s neighbors are all within range of its missiles. Initially, that engendered indifference to Tehran’s nuclear program. Indeed, more than a decade ago, Kuwait’s foreign minister privately waved off his country’s concern at the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon, asking, “If they already have a gun to your head, what does it matter if they point a cannon at your back?” Iran’s neighbors continue to doubt that they can pressure Tehran to behave better. In August 2022, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates restored diplomatic relations with Iran; they were followed by Saudi Arabia nine months later. Kuwaiti and Emirati officials said privately that they did so because they thought diplomatic ties would create more predictability in their relations with Iran, not because they thought good relations with Iran were possible.

STOP IT!

When seeking to deter Iranian threats, the task for the United States and its allies could not be more different from the task they faced deterring the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Then, the goal was simply to persuade the Soviets to not act in a specific way. The Iranians, by contrast, are acting in an evolving set of ways, both directly and indirectly. Compelling them to stop all their malign actions, in multiple locations, using multiple instruments, is a game of whack-a-mole. The challenge is made even more difficult by Washington’s tendency to project its own assumptions on Iran and assume it understands the Iranian mindset. Events have proved this belief dangerously wrong. U.S. policymakers, for example, have long worked on the assumption that Iran does not want to be sanctioned. Yet many of the most powerful figures in the country and their families—including former Petroleum Minister Rostam Ghasemi and former National Security Adviser Ali Shamkhani—have been accused of being deeply involved with smuggling networks. The profitability of their activities lies precisely in the perpetuation of sanctions. The luxurious villas and sports cars of Lavasan, a city just 30 minutes northeast of Tehran, are a tribute to how well some powerful Iranians are doing under the American sanctions regime. Nor is it correct to assume that Iran fears a limited military confrontation. Iran was indifferent to military casualties in its war with Iraq in the 1980s, continually sending waves of ill-trained troops into battle to draw Iraqi fire and detonate land mines. Although many Iranian leaders came to decide that the tactic was wasteful, Tehran has nonetheless remained willing to risk its soldiers’ lives, even when the country’s strategic interests are not directly at stake. Most recently, Iran has lost hundreds if not thousands of soldiers in Syria, despite their purportedly serving in an advisory role.

The United States is also part of the problem. The complexity and variety of Iranian actions that Washington finds offensive makes it difficult to develop a political consensus in the United States to reduce pressures on Iran. As U.S. rhetoric on Iran seems to become only more confrontational, Tehran’s conviction hardens that U.S. hostility is either constant or increasing—and thus inevitable. The Iranian leadership has, as a consequence, decided that its only option is to invest more heavily in what one Iranian scholar called “Iran’s instruments of deterrence,” seeking to persuade Washington that the costs of direct conflict would be too high to contemplate. The two principal means of doing so are Iran’s missile program and its network of allied militias, the so-called axis of resistance that spans Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories. The sophistication and utility of Tehran’s arsenal was demonstrated in a series of strikes on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019. Meanwhile, the reach of its proxies has become evident in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, as Houthi assaults on Red Sea shipping squeeze global trade, Hezbollah threatens Israel’s northern border, and proxy groups in Iraq and Syria attack U.S. troops deployed to prevent the return of the Islamic State (or ISIS).

Although the United States has refrained from direct strikes on Iran, some in Congress, including two U.S. Senators, Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, and Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, argue that any strategy that does not involve military attacks on Iranian soil is doomed to fail. “The only thing the Iranian regime understands is force,” Graham recently declared. “Until they pay a price with their infrastructure and their personnel, the attacks on U.S. troops will continue.” The solution is to “hit Iran now,” he added. “Hit them hard.” This would, at a minimum, risk a broad regional war in which Iran would unleash the full force of its “instruments of deterrence,” seriously threatening U.S. allies and tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the region. It could also require the United States to fight yet another sustained military operation in the Middle East at a time when Washington’s attention is increasingly on the Asia-Pacific. Past administrations have been careful not to cross this line. Even the Trump administration’s January 2020 assassination of the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, took place on Iraqi soil—not in Iran. Although this may have been a consequence of logistics or intelligence, it also shows Washington’s reluctance to operate on Iranian territory.

NO WAR, BUT NO PEACE

Washington’s strategy has had one notable success: it has clearly succeeded in deterring Iran from escalation. Iranian proxies have ended their efforts to target U.S. facilities since a drone linked to pro-Iranian forces killed three U.S. soldiers in northern Jordan on January 28. After the attack, U.S. warplanes struck the facilities of Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria, killing some 45 people. Washington’s capability and willingness to decisively destroy a wide range of targets persuaded the Iranians to end their attacks on U.S. outposts, at least for now. But the United States has not succeeded in compelling Iran to roll back the use of its asymmetric tools.

This general failure can be attributed to the disparities between the United States and Iran. The United States is a wealthy global power with assets and interests everywhere. It has a keen interest in sustaining global order, which not coincidentally leaves Washington in a commanding global position. The Iranian government, by contrast, has grown accustomed to deprivation and the lack of development, and it has relatively little overseas that it is determined to preserve. Its interest is in subverting the global order, which it does with two things in mind: the knowledge that the U.S. interest in sustaining that order will make the United States act conservatively and within the boundaries of international law, and that Iranian protests against the global order will win sympathy from governments and billions of people who object to it. That is why, since taking office in August 2021, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has abandoned rapprochement with the United States and focused instead on attacking the global status quo. To that end, Iran has forged closer ties with China and Russia, which have their own interests in diminishing U.S. hegemony and are happy to quietly abet Iran’s efforts. Time is on Tehran’s side. Iran has learned to adapt to U.S. efforts to isolate it, and its current leadership is strengthened and enriched by most U.S. sanctions.

SMALL WINS ARE STILL WINS

Washington can manage the problem of Iran by using a three-pronged approach. First, the United States should rigorously prioritize its objectives with Iran. Although Washington should not be willing to accept all manner of Iranian misbehavior, Tehran should nonetheless have a clear understanding of what is most important to Washington. Too long a list invites Iranian picking and choosing, and the United States should be the one picking and choosing. Direct attacks on U.S. personnel should remain off-limits, as should the development of nuclear weapons. But the United States should not seek to be the chief opponent of Iran’s myriad illegal international activities, including smuggling and hostilities against neighboring states. Washington should, instead, work to help build the capabilities of friendly states in the region to respond to Iran.

Second, the United States should be less predictable in its responses to Iranian actions. Because Tehran constantly probes U.S. responses, it knows where Washington’s redlines have been drawn and, therefore, precisely where it must stop. A more flexible U.S. approach would help persuade the Iranians that low-level activities can have higher-than-expected costs; this, in turn, would diminish Iranian experimentation and cause the Iranians to use more restraint. The United States needs to develop more ways to threaten Iranian government assets, especially military and intelligence targets. U.S. options should include limited military action and cyberattacks.

Third, the United States needs to recognize that its hand is strengthened when Tehran believes that there is some prospect for greater accommodation with Washington. When Iran’s leaders believe that there is no action they can take to blunt U.S. hostility, it encourages them to misbehave. Furthermore, if punishment is inevitable, then an increase in Iranian hostile activities carry no marginal risk. If Tehran believes that Washington is potentially willing to accommodate it, then it will be incentivized to reduce tensions. The goal should be something closer to détente than rapprochement. The more Tehran believes its conflict with Washington is existential, the more committed it will be to its own tools of deterrence. And the more realistically the United States looks at Iran, the more modest it must be about its ability to foster the collapse of Iran’s government, let alone ensure that one more favorable to U.S. interests emerges. Iran’s government may fall under its own weight, and that may benefit U.S. interests. But regime change in Iran should not be a U.S. government objective. U.S. and British support for the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq’s government in 1953 is still remembered in Iran as a moment of national humiliation. Even bringing down an unpopular regime is unlikely to make the United States many friends.

Weaker powers such as Iran have an advantage over powers many times their size. Because they have a limited number of adversaries and everything to lose, they are often more highly motivated than their powerful opponents. Yet because they are weaker, they rarely win. An overall win for the United States, which has global interests and myriad other priorities, is also unlikely—meaning that a string of small victories on the most important issues is the right target. Further restricting Iran’s actions and introducing more predictability in the Middle East would be a great improvement. Iran has learned to play the current game well, and it understands its advantages. Although the United States cannot erase all the conditions that favor Iran, it can work to level the battlefield with Iran, advance the security of U.S. partners and allies, and diminish the possibility of a U.S.-Iranian conflict that inflames the entire Middle East.

• JON B. ALTERMAN is Senior Vice President and Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Foreign Affairs · by Jon B. Alterman · April 3, 2024

23. Expect the unexpected (Interview with Robert Adolph on his service at the UN)

Expect the unexpected

Robert Bruce Adolph, retired UN security advisor turned author, reveals how his eventful career at the UN has led to an equally eventful retirement

https://untoday.org/expect-the-unexpected/

By Mollie Fraser-Andrews*

1 Apr 2024

What inspired you to become an author after such successful military and UN careers?

My first four years of UN civil service were intense, beginning in late 1999. I served initially as the Chief Security Officer for UNAMSIL, the peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone in West Africa. Unfortunately, there was no peace to keep. The Revolutionary United Front, which was composed of many child soldiers, invaded the capital of Freetown in May of 2000. My staff and I conducted a successful fixed- and rotary-wing aerial evacuation of over 200 civil staff under outrageously difficult and dangerous circumstances. My second posting was as UN Security Advisor for Yemen, where I consulted successfully on a dozen international kidnappings, dealt with Somali refugee camp violence, and a tribal gun fight with police that occurred in my apartment building in Sana’a. My later service was in Iraq, where I served in the capacity of what is today called a UN Chief Security Advisor. A jihadist vehicular suicide bomber attacked our headquarters, killing 22 people and wounding over 150 people on 19 August 2003. My wife, who was then acting as a consultant to the WFP, was one of those injured in the assault. My inspiration to become an author was based on these unusual and sometimes terrifying events.

What were the greatest challenges in your career at the UN?

There were a host of challenges. However, the greatest was no doubt faced in Baghdad, where so many of our friends and colleagues were killed by the extremists, including Under-Secretary General Sergio De Mello. We were unarmed and vulnerable. The Jihadists used over a ton of explosives loaded on the flat-bed truck and then drove it straight into our headquarters. The massive explosion collapsed one whole corner of the facility. I write in considerable detail describing the immediate aftermath of the attack, as well as those months leading up to the bombing, and about related events afterward too. Everyone who survived on that scorching summer day in the Canal Hotel (UN Headquarters) was badly traumatized, physically and/or psychologically. Overcoming my fear immediately after the blast… trying to make sense in all the confusion… getting my wife to safety… assigning search teams to scour the building for those still breathing… focusing on saving as many lives as we could. Then, in the wake of all that horror, learning to live with survivor’s guilt. The now iconic photograph of the tattered UN flag flying over the destroyed headquarters led the international news cycle for the next three days.

Why did you call your book, ‘Surviving the United Nations’, and what does it talk about?

Obviously, the book is a memoir. I entitled the work as I did because my survival, as well as the survival of my subordinates and colleagues, was often at risk. Frankly, death seemed always to be tapping on my shoulder. Also, there is a dual meaning here. My UN career was important to me. Regardless, I sometimes fought with my superiors. I had to survive those conflicts too. Tragically, a few of our most senior bosses did not always place a high priority on staff safety and security. So, the choice of this title seemed all but self-evident. My narrative focuses largely on the multiple dangers faced from both outside and within the world’s best known but often least understood international organization.

A career’s horizon reaches no bounds © Lea Diur

What is your opinion on the security system in which UN staff are operating now?

The UN Department of Safety and Security, which was created after the bombing, is far superior. Leadership is now at the Under-Secretary-General level. The quality of officer training is much improved as more money has been allocated. Important internal UN protocols are now established, including the UN Framework for Accountability – something that did not exist during the period covered in my book. Based on recent experience, my concern now is that the pendulum may have swung too far in the opposite direction. Security protocols are supposed to assist agencies in enabling their missions, not act as a straitjacket.

What was the main lesson you learned at the UN?

There are many lessons learned. These are enumerated in what I satirically call, “Bob’s Laws,” which can be found in the appendix of my book. I attempted to capture the wisdom that came my way because of these harrowing experiences. It must be remembered that a life is not defined by what you think, but by what you do. Bob’s Law 26 reflects this truism – “If you choose one word to guide your actions in life, make that word kindness.” I also discovered that working within an institution that is multinational, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multicultural and multi-linguistic requires both patience and understanding.

How do you think the UN can make a difference?

The UN makes a very real difference in people’s lives every single day, especially within the humanitarian community. Nobody else does what UNICEF, WFP, WHO, and UNHCR can. The UN Department of Safety and Security, as well as all the agency security officers, make their mark by performing an essential task – working to preserve the lives of those who are attempting to feed the hungry, house the homeless, protect women and children, eradicate disease, and facilitate peace where there has been none. I am immensely proud of my UN service.

How do you compare the UN to other places you worked at?

I spent 26 years of my life learning the soldier’s trade, the taking of life. Following my retirement from active military service, I served 15 years as a senior UN security advisor, whose job was to preserve life. I find it interesting that the skill sets necessary to perform both functions are much the same. I know that I saved lives while in UN service and there is no better feeling.

What advice would you give staff working at the UN who are operating in difficult security situations?

1. Listen closely to your security advisor. S/he might just know something.

2. The best humanitarian field operators are always well versed in security rules and regulations.

3. You are irreplaceable for your family and friends. If you must take mission-driven risks, ensure that they are well considered.

4. Always develop an escape plan.

ROBERT BRUCE ADOLPH 

Is a successful international speaker, newspaper commentator, and senior Security Consultant. Following his UN retirement, he consulted for Habitat for Humanity International in Lebanon; the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in war-torn Ukraine; and most recently, the UN Development Program in Azerbaijan. Robert has been interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation, TV News and Radio programs, the World Affairs Conference, Italian National Public Radio, Netherlands Atlantic Council, and on multiple US and European podcasts. His book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and with multiple other on-line book sellers.

* Mollie Fraser-Andrews is Editorial Coordinator for UN Today.

24. The Importance of America’s Pacific Family

Excerpts:

Bottom Line

The renegotiation and renewal of elements of the COFAs reintroduced the uniqueness and importance of the region to a new generation in Washington. While the process was tortuous, the fact it was one of the few major foreign policy laws passed during one of the most dysfunctional Congresses in recent memory makes it clear that, on this issue, there was deep bipartisan support.

But it’s not over. Implementation will need close attention, as will monitoring of malign influence in its varied forms. The importance to Beijing of weakening the ties between the U.S. and the freely associated states is in direct inverse proportion to their crucial importance to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Around 100,000 Americans died in the Pacific Theater in World War II and the people of the freely associated states lost family and saw ancestral islands obliterated. The COFAs were born out of that sacrifice. To ensure it wasn’t in vain, that unique bond must be acknowledged, nourished and honored.

This requires direct engagement and an understanding that while all “the Pacific Islands” are different, the freely associated states are special – and from an American perspective, they are family.

The Importance of America’s Pacific Family

thediplomat.com

Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are the United States’ closest allies. And they’re essential for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

By Cleo Paskal

April 03, 2024

From left, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps, Jr., Micronesia’s then-President David Panuelo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and then-Marshall Islands President David Kabua at the State Department in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022.

Credit: Sarah Silbiger/Pool Photo via AP

After years of negotiations, the third iteration of the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) between the United States and the countries of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), are nearing completion. “Compact III” was signed into law in the United States on March 9, shortly after it was completed in Palau and FSM, and it is currently undergoing public consultation in RMI, with approval expected within weeks.

Understanding how the COFAs came to be, what is in them, and what they mean for a free and open Indo-Pacific requires a fundamental rethinking of “the Pacific Islands.”

How Did the COFAs Happen?

The COFAs are unlike any agreement the U.S. has with any other countries – because this region is unlike any other. A bit of (admittedly reductionist) history helps understand why.

The people of what are now Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas (CNMI), Palau, FSM, and RMI have a long history of excellence in seafaring. They crisscrossed the region for centuries until their first major colonization – by Spain. After the Spanish-American war (1898), the U.S. took Guam, and Germany (which already had the Marshall Islands) bought the rest from Spain.

In 1914, Japan took Germany’s possessions during World War I, and was eventually awarded them as the South Seas Mandate by the League of Nations. Imperial Japan colonized the region and increasingly fortified it, allowing Tokyo to project power to areas near Hawaiian waters.

Map of sovereignty and mandate boundary lines in the Pacific. Source: National Geographic Society, 1921

After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States launched an “island hopping” campaign to push Imperial Japanese forces back toward Japan. Some of the most difficult battles of World War II were in, or launched from, this area, including Kwajalein (RMI), Truk Lagoon (FSM), Peleliu (Palau) and Saipan (CNMI).

When the war ended, the region was given to the United States in trust by the United Nations. This “Strategic” Trust Territory consisted of what are now CNMI, Palau, FSM, and RMI. The post war years in the region were turbulent, including the Chinese Communist takeover of mainland China and the Korean War. During those years the Trust Territory was an active part of U.S. defense architecture, including 67 nuclear tests conducted in what is now RMI and covert military training in Saipan.

Eventually a Congress of Micronesia was set up, headquartered in Saipan, with delegates from across the Trust Territory who worked on the question of “what next?” Options were then put to popular votes across the region.

Map of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Source: U.S. government map, 1961

If you were from, say, Yap in FSM at the time of the vote, it is possible your grandparents would have remembered when the island was the hub for a German telegraph cable network laid to bypass the British network. Your parents might have learned Japanese at school and then hidden from American bombers targeting Japanese defenses. And you would have grown up during the U.S. Trust Territories period.

Throughout that period, fellow Micronesians passed through, some blown by the history, including the Chamorros who moved to Yap during the Japanese era and to Tinian under the Americans. And members of your family may have also gone to other parts of Micronesia, for marriage, education, health care, and so on.

Your family history was tied to empires that came and went. You knew your geography meant there was no hiding from geopolitics. You knew that by choosing to be close to the U.S., you would be part of the defense of America, and a target for America’s enemies.

Voting on Independence – and COFA

In the end, the people of CNMI voted to join the United States. The rest – covering a stretch of the Central Pacific around the size of the continental U.S. and running from just west of Hawaii to the Philippines and Guam – chose to form the independent countries of Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Those three countries also agreed to sign COFAs with the United States.

Through the COFAs, the three states have voluntarily granted the United States uniquely extensive defense and security access in their sovereign territories. In the words of the Compacts: “The Government of the United States has full authority and responsibility for security and defense matters in or relating to the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia [and Palau].” This includes a veto over other countries’ military access to the region.

This makes the freely associated states Washington’s most intimate allies by far; no other country gives the United States such access or trusts the U.S. so much with their security.

While often presented as transactional – the freely associated states get money; the U.S. gets an extended defense perimeter – the COFAs are much more complicated than that, especially when viewed from the point of view of the people of these states. As the former Trust Territory was going independent, then U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, in words often invoked by freely associated state leaders still today, “You will always be family to us.”

How Do the COFAs Create “Family”?

Every day the citizens of the freely associated states agree to put themselves between the U.S. and its enemies, they are proving their commitment to the “family.” But what’s in the hundreds of pages of the agreements themselves?

The COFAs are divided into sections. Some parts (for example defense and security agreements) continue until one side withdraws. Others (such as the provision of services) are periodically renegotiated, now on a 20-year cycle.

While there are many similarities in the COFAs between the U.S. and each of the three freely associated states, there are also differences. But, taken as a whole, they protect and foster a deep and unique bond between the three countries and the United States.

For example, unlike most citizens of other Pacific Island countries, citizens of the freely associated states:

• Can freely live and work in the U.S.;
• Can – and do, at very high rates – serve in the U.S. military;
• Have U.S. postal codes (mail to the freely associated states is charged at domestic U.S. rates, meaning, for example, they can order from Amazon as easily as Americans, no small thing given they are at the end of a long supply chain);
• Have school systems that are synchronized to U.S. systems, making moving back and forth and attending higher education in the U.S. easier;
• Have appliances that use U.S. voltage and plugs;
• Aren’t members of the Commonwealth;
• Use American spellings;
• Drive on the right;
• Have presidential electoral systems (not prime ministerial);
• Have access to U.S. weather services, the Federal Aviation Administration and other U.S. government services;
• Tend to favor U.S. sports like baseball and basketball rather than British ones like rugby.

To see just how deep this goes, here are some of the elements contained in the new Compact with Palau, divided into categories: those affecting the U.S. and all three freely associated states; those affecting Palau and Palauans in Palau; and those affecting Palauans in the U.S. This is far from a complete summary of what’s in the new agreement. There are similar provisions for the other two freely associated states, as well.

U.S. and the Freely Associated States

Some of the changes in Compact III are designed to solve some of the problems that dogged this round of negotiations. For example, to avoid the freely associated states falling through the bureaucratic cracks, the U.S. Department of State is now required to have a separate unit with four additional personnel focused on these states.

In addition, to ensure that the freely associated states don’t get boxed in by the “departmental equities” of State and Interior, the U.S. Interagency Group on Freely Associated States is now established by law, instead of merely by Executive Order, and its agenda is determined in consultation with the Defense Department instead of solely by the State and Interior Departments.

Furthermore, the interagency group is required to report to the U.S. president yearly on its achievements through the White House Intergovernmental Affairs Office – and the U.S. President, in turn, is now required to report on these annually to the U.S. Congress.

Palau/Palauans in Palau

Palau has a population of 18,000. Compact III includes $889 million over the 20 years to support, for example, health, education, public safety and justice, climate change and the environment, and auditing.

Compact III also grants authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide U.S. military veterans’ health care in Palau, and to cover costs to travel for care if treatment is unavailable in the country. In addition, the U.S. National Health Service Corps will provide service in Palau and there is assistance to Palau for infants and preschoolers with special needs, mirroring the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Act Part C program.

For infrastructure, Compact III provides for $5 million in FY24, increased annually by 2 percent for the 20 years of the agreement – reaching $7.28 million in FY43. There is also an additional $5 million in FY24 for maintaining infrastructure, increasing annually by 2 percent for 20 years, also reaching $7.28 million in FY43.

When it comes to financial matters, the rules for using U.S. financial assistance are now to be governed by Palau’s laws, which are simpler than the rules applying to U.S. grants. And the U.S.-Palau Advisory Group on Economic Reform has been renamed the Economic Advisory Group for Palau and will make recommendations to both governments regarding Palau’s economic needs (rather than just recommending reforms to Palau).

Palauans in the U.S.

There were a range of programs from which Palauans in the U.S. were excluded from eligibility in 1996. Compact III reinstated a number of them, including food stamps; supplemental security income assistance for low-income elderly and disabled Palauans; temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) for Palauan families in the U.S. with one parent who loses a job; and state social services block grant programs, which vary by U.S. state. Palauans in the U.S. are also eligible for in-state college tuition and Pell Grants.

The basic idea is that Palauans who live, work and pay tax in the U.S. are treated like – yes – family.

Lessons From COFA

For those thinking about “the Pacific Islands” the COFAs highlight several important points.

First, the South Seas Mandate/Trust Territories/freely associated states (and CNMI) region has a common history that is very different from that of the rest of the Pacific Islands. For example, Japanese ancestry is common, as are deep family ties to the U.S.

Second, the leadership of the freely associated states know they are on the strategic frontline and contend daily with major issues, including PRC spy ship incursions, complications with U.S. defense infrastructure plans, regular military exercises and, in the case of Palau and RMI, ties with Taiwan. This also means they are subject to constant PRC political warfare attacks.

Third, geography, history and travel links mean other north Pacific countries, including Japan and Taiwan, are much more important to the freely associated states than they are to other Pacific Islands. There are direct flights from Palau to Manila and Taipei, but getting to Canberra or Wellington can be expensive and lengthy. Also, local employment is very different. In Palau, many small shops are run by Bangladeshis, and Filipinos work across the region in a range of sectors.

This means Australia and New Zealand are of relatively low importance in the freely associated states. Additionally, concerns raised by other Pacific Islanders about access to work visas for agricultural labor in Australia and New Zealand have little relevance for citizens of the freely associated states who can freely work in the U.S. Nor, given their relationship with the U.S., have the freely associated states signed on to Pacific Island-focused trade agreements pushed by Australia and New Zealand, such as PACER Plus.

Additionally, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), calls itself the region’s “top political and economic organisation,” but both the politics and economics of the freely associated states are unlike any others in the region. Given the difference in priorities and realities, and the distances involved, it is not surprising the freely associated states thought the PIF was not an efficient use of their scarce time and resources and they had to be politically strong-armed in to rejoining.

Fourth, the idea that somehow the U.S. is a “lesser” Pacific Islands partner is deeply flawed. Apart from being a Pacific Islands country itself, including Hawaii, Guam, CNMI, and American Samoa, the relationships with the freely associated states are extraordinarily deep. Compare the depth of the U.S-Palau COFA with what Australia is offering Tuvalu in order to see the difference.

In light of this, reconsideration of the zone currently lumped together as “the Pacific Islands” is necessary.

While there are close ties across the Pacific Islands, the familial, cultural, and historic ties between CNMI and the freely associated states (and to a degree Guam) are especially deep. They are also tied together by the strategic imperative of geography. In the case of a “Taiwan contingency,” China would attempt to disable (at the least) U.S. military installations in Guam, CNMI, and the freely associated states. Their risk is exponentially higher than that of Tonga or Vanuatu.

Washington is starting to rediscover the value of the gift given to it by its family in the freely associated states. It would be appreciated in Palau, FSM, and RMI, and understood by the region (and indeed show the value of having a strong relationship with the U.S.), if those ties resulted in greater demonstrations of “family.” For example, no sitting U.S. president has visited any Pacific Islands. If such a visit happens, the first one should be to a freely associated state.

Also, the time is well past due for other nations to create policies that recognize the unique history, present and future of this important region.

For example, most countries base their diplomats to the freely associated states in other countries. India’s ambassador to Philippines is also accredited to Palau and FSM. Meanwhile India’s ambassador to Japan is accredited to RMI. It would make more sense for all three freely associated states to be handled by one office, perhaps Tokyo to facilitate Quad cooperation in the region.

Additionally, given their specific strategic reality, rather than forcing the freely associated states to focus primarily on the Pacific Islands Forum, more credence can be given to the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit consisting of the freely associated states as well as Nauru and Kiribati.

Modern map of the Pacific, showing exclusive economic zones. Source: Provided by author.

Bottom Line

The renegotiation and renewal of elements of the COFAs reintroduced the uniqueness and importance of the region to a new generation in Washington. While the process was tortuous, the fact it was one of the few major foreign policy laws passed during one of the most dysfunctional Congresses in recent memory makes it clear that, on this issue, there was deep bipartisan support.

But it’s not over. Implementation will need close attention, as will monitoring of malign influence in its varied forms. The importance to Beijing of weakening the ties between the U.S. and the freely associated states is in direct inverse proportion to their crucial importance to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Around 100,000 Americans died in the Pacific Theater in World War II and the people of the freely associated states lost family and saw ancestral islands obliterated. The COFAs were born out of that sacrifice. To ensure it wasn’t in vain, that unique bond must be acknowledged, nourished and honored.

This requires direct engagement and an understanding that while all “the Pacific Islands” are different, the freely associated states are special – and from an American perspective, they are family.

Authors

Guest Author

Cleo Paskal

Cleo Paskal is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) focusing on the Indo-Pacific region, in particular, the Pacific Islands and India.

thediplomat.com

25. ‘The Incomparable Mr. Buckley’ Review: Withering Wit and Wisdom

Who is today's William Buckley?

I grew up watching him on Firing Line and reading his essays (and his spy novels). I was always fascinated by his demeanor on television.

‘The Incomparable Mr. Buckley’ Review: Withering Wit and Wisdom

An ‘American Masters’ presentation on PBS traces the intellectual and political life of William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review magazine and the droll but generous host of ‘Firing Line.’

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/television/the-incomparable-mr-buckley-review-william-f-buckley-pbs-american-masters-national-review-gore-vidal-firing-line-bf8f23bb?mod=hp_listc_pos3&utm

By John Anderson

April 2, 2024 4:47 pm ET

William F. Buckley Jr. PHOTO: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

It isn’t a backhanded compliment to say that the funniest show on television this week—or any in recent memory—is “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley.” The “American Masters” production does its ostensible duty, exploring the origins, education and machinations of William F. Buckley Jr. as an architect of American conservatism. But his wit is so sharp, his ripostes so surgical, and his extemporaneous bons mots so witheringly droll that the humor, as well as anything else, explains not just his long and lasting popularity but his ability to charm the opposition.

The Incomparable Mr. Buckley

Friday, 9 p.m., PBS

There is an aging generation of raised-on-TV children for whom the most influential figures in life—with the possible exception of their parents—were Lucille Ball, Julia Child and William F. Buckley, as the host of “Firing Line.” The first two are self-explanatory, but there was something oddly yet naturally telegenic about Buckley, with his ever-arching, editorializing eyebrows, darting tongue and mid-Atlantic accent. He was easily caricatured, but his arguments had to be confronted, and almost always at an elevated level. Among the rhetorical disasters recounted in producer-director Barak Goodman’s documentary are the famous 1965 debate with James Baldwin at Cambridge University and his heated exchanges with Gore Vidal on national television during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. (The show implies there was one “debate,” but the two made several appearances.) It was considered a defeat of Buckley—by Buckley, because he lost his temper.

But elsewhere the subject is presented as a formidable defender of a way of life he saw as under attack and worthy of preservation. Does he or it still have cultural relevance? Where “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley” fails its subject is in not defining well enough the Buckley worldview, or the objectives of the conservative movement he founded. We get his belief system, but not how it is reflected in the conservatism he left behind when he died in 2008. There are some wobbly explanations by learned interviewees (editor Richard Brookhiser, historian Beverly Gage) that Buckley wanted to “conserve” Western civilization, art and music. We hear him wax ecstatic about Bach. He was an ardent Cold Warrior, less ardent perhaps about the cultural issue-making that has come to define Republican politics. Among his many accomplishments and titles—World War II vet, journalist, yachtsman, editor, 30-odd-year host of an intelligent talk show and antagonist of his alma mater (“God and Man at Yale”)— he created National Review magazine, defined conservatism as a movement, knew when to cultivate (Ronald Reagan) and when to cull. (“There is no lunacy of which Robert Welch is incapable,” Buckley said of the John Birch Society founder.)

Today, he would be called an influencer. He distrusted Richard Nixon, predicted Barry Goldwater’s loss in the 1964 presidential race and knew that Reagan was the face his movement needed. He was not an unkind, ungenerous or fawning TV host—he invited Huey Newton, Noam Chomsky and Jesse Jackson on the air; judging by the look on his face, he regarded both Rush Limbaugh and Allen Ginsberg as circus acts. What would he think about Donald Trump? The subject’s son, Christopher Buckley, is asked point-blank and answers, more than diplomatically, that if you look at his father’s writing and commentary, you can easily draw your own conclusion.

The Buckley family story is a tale well told in this almost two-hour production, which can be seen as a bookend to last week’s “Moynihan,” even though Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s liberalism seems far closer to Buckley’s conservatism than do the left and right of today. (Both specials arrive under the PBS “Thought Leaders” banner; “Moynihan” is available online and on the PBS app.) The Buckley money came from William Sr.’s oil explorations in Mexico and he established the family dynasty at Great Elm, the Connecticut estate where William Jr. and his nine siblings were not only raised but educated. It was an idyllic upbringing, influenced by the thinking of ur-libertarian Albert Jay Nock, who was a frequent guest at Great Elm and believed that “The Remnant,” a small minority of enlightened and educable individuals, would be the inheritors and saviors of society. That Buckley perceived himself as being part of that remnant was never a question. Call it perverse, but it was part of his charm.

Mr. Anderson is the Journal’s TV critic.

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the April 3, 2024, print edition as 'William F. Buckley’s Wit and Wisdom'.

26. A new strategic concept could be useful in the US military’s defense of Taiwan BY MIKE POMPEO AND BRYAN CLARK

Excerpts:

There is a way out of this strategic cul-de-sac. The U.S. military could break tradition and field specialized units designed to hedge against high-consequence but low-probability situations that would otherwise dominate its force planning. 

Taking advantage of widely available aerial, naval and undersea drones, “hedge forces” could deny access to an aggressor. Ukraine used this approach to sink half Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and restore its maritime trade while Houthi drones under and above the water have upended worldwide shipping traffic with their attacks across the Red Sea. The U.S. military should exploit these same technologies to disrupt or slow a Chinese invasion. Tangled up in a hedge force’s drones, China’s troop transports and their escorts would also be easier targets for U.S. missiles. 

...

More important, a hedge force could help defense leaders arrest the continued morphing of the U.S. military into a “one-trick pony” optimized to fight a short invasion adjacent to a peer opponent’s homeland but without the capacity for other scenarios or crisis response elsewhere. 

For example, China’s intensifying interference in Taiwan shipping traffic suggests that a blockade or quarantine is its most likely path to pressure Taiwan militarily. But already overstretched responding to threats in the Middle East, the U.S. fleet would be hard-pressed to protect Taiwan’s sea lanes.

A new strategic concept could be useful in the US military’s defense of Taiwan

BY MIKE POMPEO AND BRYAN CLARK, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 04/02/24 4:00 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/4570280-a-new-strategic-concept-could-be-useful-in-the-us-militarys-defense-of-taiwan/

The Pentagon released its 2025 budget last week, and the implications for U.S. national security are sobering. Not because the Biden administration spends too little on defense, but because the budget shows a military reaching its limits. After a decade of optimizing it to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, defense officials of both parties have rendered the U.S. force too expensive to grow and too small to meet the needs of America and its allies. The U.S. military needs a new approach to hedge against the worst-case scenarios China could impose.

How we got here is not a mystery. China has geographic, strategic and financial advantages over the United States that it could exploit in a fight over Taiwan. An invasion would happen in China’s backyard, allowing it to use homeland-based missiles and aircraft against Taiwan’s defenders. Without the U.S. military’s global responsibilities, China can focus its forces on the Western Pacific. And with younger ships and aircraft and a robust manufacturing base, China can grow its force at lower cost than the U.S. 

Coming off successes in long-range precision strike warfare during the 1990s and 2000s, the Pentagon applied the same model to defending Taiwan. But China’s advantages increasingly make the tactics U.S. forces used in Kosovo or Iraq nearly impossible to execute at the scale needed to stop an invasion. 

The result has been a shrinking U.S. force being boiled down to its most survivable and lethal elements—submarines, stealth bombers and long-range missiles—while everything else is sacrificed on the altar of defeating a Taiwan invasion. Last year, the U.S. Navy and Marines were unable to aid Turkey’s earthquake victims or evacuate U.S. citizens from South Sudan due to a shortage of amphibious warships. Today, destroyers designed to stop Soviet and Chinese submarines or supersonic missiles are being worn out to protect shipping against Houthi drones because there are no frigates to do the job.

The other contributor to the U.S. military’s growing inability to answer the call is defense officials’ insistence on a one-size-fits-all force. To allow units in one geographic region to surge to another and standardize training and equipment, defense officials avoid specialized forces. But with China as the Pentagon’s “pacing challenge,” everything it buys needs to be relevant in countering Beijing, which generally means in an invasion of Taiwan.

There is a way out of this strategic cul-de-sac. The U.S. military could break tradition and field specialized units designed to hedge against high-consequence but low-probability situations that would otherwise dominate its force planning. 

Taking advantage of widely available aerial, naval and undersea drones, “hedge forces” could deny access to an aggressor. Ukraine used this approach to sink half Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and restore its maritime trade while Houthi drones under and above the water have upended worldwide shipping traffic with their attacks across the Red Sea. The U.S. military should exploit these same technologies to disrupt or slow a Chinese invasion. Tangled up in a hedge force’s drones, China’s troop transports and their escorts would also be easier targets for U.S. missiles. 

The Defense Department is already pursuing elements of what could be a future hedge force for Taiwan through initiatives by the Defense Innovation Unit and the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Expanding these efforts that tap today’s unmanned system and software technologies could allow the Pentagon to field a hedge force within a year, rather than waiting a decade or more for the next generation of missiles, submarines or bombers to arrive.

More important, a hedge force could help defense leaders arrest the continued morphing of the U.S. military into a “one-trick pony” optimized to fight a short invasion adjacent to a peer opponent’s homeland but without the capacity for other scenarios or crisis response elsewhere. 

For example, China’s intensifying interference in Taiwan shipping traffic suggests that a blockade or quarantine is its most likely path to pressure Taiwan militarily. But already overstretched responding to threats in the Middle East, the U.S. fleet would be hard-pressed to protect Taiwan’s sea lanes.

The U.S. military has been the deterrent against great power war and global first responder for nearly a century. It is at risk of losing both roles unless defense officials embrace the idea that a general-purpose U.S. force can no longer dominate every situation. The Pentagon needs to build special tools for special situations. Otherwise, an already unstable world will only grow more chaotic.

Mike Pompeo served as secretary of State from 2018-2021 and is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute. Bryan Clark is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at Hudson Institute

27. The Air Force's new $60 million Special Warfare aquatics center honors a fallen pararescueman

The Air Force's new $60 million Special Warfare aquatics center honors a fallen pararescueman

The Maltz Special Warfare Aquatic Training Center is named for a pararescuemen killed on a rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2003.

BY MATT WHITE | PUBLISHED APR 2, 2024 7:16 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · April 2, 2024

Mike Maltz was already a pararescue legend when he submitted his retirement paperwork in early 2003. But within days, the master sergeant pulled it back, accepting instead a final assignment to lead a team of relatively inexperienced PJs, as Pararescue specialists are known, from the 38th Rescue Squadron on an Afghanistan deployment.

On March 23, 2003, during a mission to retrieve two Afghan children from a remote village, the Air Force HH-60 he was on crashed in a pitch-black valley, killing Maltz and five others.

Tuesday, the Air Force christened the Maltz Special Warfare Aquatic Training Center, a $60 million, 76,000-square foot training hub at Joint Base San Antonion-Lackland. The complex houses 12-foot-deep Olympic-sized pools along with medical and therapy facilities, and will serve as a training hub for candidates seeking to join the Air Force Special Warfare fields of Pararescue, Combat Control, Tactical Air Control Party or TACP, and Special Reconnaissance.

The Air Force opened the Maltz Special Warfare Aquatic Training Center on April 2. The $60 million, 76,000-square foot hub will train Special Warfare candidates at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The picture above shows the center with the name “Maltz” under a curtain before the opening ceremony on April 2. Photo from Pararescue Association Facebook.

Pool training has long been at the heart of Air Force Special Warfare selection courses, particularly pararescue and combat control. Students hoping to become PJs and CCTs spend hours each day testing their lung capacity — and mental strength — in a series of increasingly fiendish above- and underwater drills. Though students can swim miles in a day and tread water endlessly during pool training, it is the underwater drills that are most dreaded.

In exercises known as “water confidence” or “water con,” students swim underwater laps without surfacing, tie knots with with ropes at the bottom of the pool and face so-called “drown proofing” drills, bobbing up and down from the bottom of the pool for a single breath with their hands and ankles tied together.

They also face “buddy breathing,” an underwater wrestling matching between two students sharing a single snorkle, and an instructor. The match has only two rules: students can only breath through the snorkle as they share it, and they can’t fight back as instructors pushes them under and twists them in circles.

For decades, Special Warfare airmen faced water con in a pool on Lackland that doubled as a community lap pool in off hours. With the opening of the Maltz center, officials say, the Air Force has a facility to match the training.

The face of pararescue

According to Rob Disney, a former Pararescue chief who knew Maltz well, naming the center after Maltz is a perfect tribute. To many PJs who joined the Air Force just before 9/11 or in the early years of the wars that followed, Maltz was literally the face of Pararescue — the New York native’s portrait was on the cover of a recruiting brochure used widely for much of the 1990s.

“When I first walked into the recruiting office, knowing nothing about Pararescue, I saw Mike on the cover of it,” Disney told Task & Purpose. “Before I even thought about being a PJ, my first thought of the job was him.”

Disney, who retired from the Air Force as a chief master sergeant in 2017, said Maltz was well-known among his generation of PJs from his fearsome reputation as an instructor at the school’s selection course in the mid-1990s. Though the school historically could weed out up to 90% of candidates (a rate that has improved in recent years), those who survived a Maltz-era class held it as a particular point of pride. Students who did tell stories of Maltz throwing mattresses out of windows during dorm inspections and rappeling from the roof of dorms to surprise — and punish — students who thought they had escaped his gaze.

The 90s-era Pararescue tri-fold recruiting brochure featuring Mike Maltz on the cover. Used across the country by Air Force recruiters for many years, the brochure implanted Maltz as the “face of pararescue” in the minds of many recruits in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some who joined after reading the brochure even found Maltz waiting for them as a legendarily fierce instructor at pararescue selection training. Maltz was photographed for the picture while on instructor duty at the selection course. Courtesy Rob Disney.

Class cartoonists — a tradition in Special Warfare training — regularly drew scenes of an enraged Maltz pushing students through pool workouts and PT ‘smoke sessions.’

Disney arrived as a student just after Maltz had left.

“I heard about him, of course,” Disney said. “And I saw the cartoons the earlier classes left behind, and you think, ‘who is this crazy guy?’ So when I finally met him, I’m expecting this guy to be an axe murderer.”

In fact, said Disney, when he reported to his first assignment at Moody Air Force Base, he found Maltz was the most welcoming and friendly there — in his own way.

“On my first day, we went into the scheduling office where Maltz was, and I see him there,” Disney recalls. “He yells out with that New York accent, ‘you Disney? I think your name is pretty goofy.’ And then he laughs at his own joke.”

From that moment on, said Disney, Maltz was a warm friend. Born to a family with a tradition in law enforcement and fire fighting, Maltz was quick to banter and taunt — he took to addressing Disney as “Bobby,” a name Disney has never gone by — but eager to pass on his decades of knowledge and experience to a new generation. Unlike many senior NCOs, Disney said, Maltz relished challenging younger PJs in top physical shape to keep up with his own manic workouts.

“He’d pull up his shirt all the time and say, ‘Hey, Bobby, you ever seen abs like this on a 40-year-old man?'” Disney remembered.

The Maltz Special Warfare Aquatic Training Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland features 12-foot deep training pools. Photo courtesy Combat Control Foundation.

As a field operator, some of Maltz’s rescue missions still ring in Air Force rescue lore. On a mountaineering trip in Alaska in the early 1990s, he led a team that reached the summit of Denali, then while descending came across two German climbers who had fallen ill. The men were at 20,000 feet, literally a mile above any hope of help, suffering from severe hypothermia and cerebral edema— a death sentence under normal conditions. Maltz tied one of the climbers to his own harness and walked the men down the mountain, a rescue credited as the then-highest ever recorded in North America.

Maltz also was one of the U.S. military’s premier freefall jumpmasters, helping develop Pararescue ocean jump procedures still used today.

The same intensity he brought to terrorizing students, Disney said, made him an exceptional leader. He knew every regulation and demanded every member of his team know them too, along with tiny details most missed. On one deployment, Disney said, Maltz told his young assistant team leader to unlock the team’s rifles from a storage rack, which was secured with a 4-digit padlock. When Maltz checked the padlock and found that the younger man had left the lock’s dials in place, revealing the unlock code, Maltz gave the younger PJ a memorably vulgar chewing out.

“With a PJ team, he was extremely meticulous about organization,” Disney said. “Whether organizing an equipment bay, or a deployment schedule, everything had to be in its place. He had a little saying, and he was so friendly with people he’d even introduce himself to strangers with it: ‘Hi, I’m Mike Maltz, I’m a pararescueman, we’re in town putting apples with apples and oranges with oranges.'”

Komodo 11

In 2003, Maltz considered retiring, even putting in for formal retirement orders, but changed his mind for a chance to lead a team in combat. Assigned to rescue helicopters in Kandahar that flew under the callsign “Komodo,” Maltz partnered with Senior Airman Jason Plite, a new PJ who at 21 was half Maltz’s age. On March 23, 2003, Maltz and Plite launched onboard Komodo 11 to retrieve two Afghan children who needed to be evacuated from a clinic.

Disney, by coincidence, was also on the mission, as part of a jump team on the HC-130 tanker assigned to refuel Komodo 11 as it flew. The night, Disney said, was so dark that even with night vision equipment, it was nearly impossible to see the surrounding terrain. As Komodo 11 attempted to join up with the tanker to refuel, Disney remembers, it abruptly dove away and, within seconds, impacted. The crash killed Maltz, Plite, Lt. Col. John Stein, 1st Lt. Tamara Archuleta, Staff Sgt. John Teal and Staff Sgt. Jason Hicks.

“He was the most committed, dedicated, and skilled PJ I ever knew,” said Disney.

The new training facility is not the first memorial to the Komodo 11 PJs.

Plite’s mother, Dawn, has run a foundation in his name since 2003, awarding close to $200,000 in scholarships to almost 70 seniors at Grand Ledge High School in Michigan, Plite’s alma mater. The fund splits the scholarships between students focused on sports and others focused on arts, both of which Plite embraced in high school.

For the last 15 years, Maltz’s brother, Derek, a career DEA agent, has coordinated an annual memorial workout dubbed the Maltz Challenge, each year dedicated to a list of fallen military members. Special operations units, law enforcement agencies and NFL teams all regularly participate.

But even after a career as a PJ — among the military’s most driven and Type-A personalities — Disney still has trouble expressing the sheer force of Maltz’s personality. He recalled a deployment to Kuwait, pre-9/11, when he and the rest of the team were asleep in tents. But from the team’s common room, he could hear vacuuming — a hopeless task in the desert, but one Maltz had assigned himself to fight insomnia.

Trying to sleep, Disney heard the flap to his tent open, then sensed the figure of Maltz hovering over him.

“Bobby,” Maltz whispered. “You asleep? You sleepin’ Bobby?”

It was, said Disney, close to 3 a.m. Other than Maltz, everyone was asleep, and Disney said so.

In a mocking voice, Maltz shot back in the darkness: “You lazy motherf***er. I guess they don’t make’em like they used to.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · April 2, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com