Quotes of the Day:

“You must think for yourself or others will do your thinking for you.” 

- Henry David Thoreau

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held, is no evidence, whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” 

- Bertrand Russell.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” 

- Seneca

1. Special Ops Civilian Chief Speaks of Future of Community

2. Wendy Sherman Out at State after Report Alleging She Delayed China Sanctions

3. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 12, 2023

4. Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Moscow denies reports of Ukrainian breakthroughs

5. Russia acknowledges retreat north of Bakhmut, Wagner boss calls it a 'rout'65. Why the US delayed China sanctions after shooting down a spy balloon

6. Why the US delayed China sanctions after shooting down a spy balloon

7. Russia wants "Family Guy" banned over "offensive" depiction of country

8. What Happened to Russian Hybrid War?

9. Help! My Political Beliefs Were Altered by a Chatbot!

10. Disinformation, Covert Influence, and Cyber-Espionage Still a Major Problem on Social Media, Latest Meta Report Reveals

11. How Taiwan once used female voice to win hearts and minds in China

12. In China, the Police Came for the Consultants. Now the C.E.O.s Are Alarmed.

13. G7 finance heads face tricky trade-off in debating steps to counter China

14. Exclusive: G7 summit statement to target China's 'economic coercion'

15. Should India enter into a military alliance with the US against China?

16. Ukraine's path to victory

17. Ukraine has choice of targets as it plots counteroffensive

18. EXPLAINED: Why Russia’s Bakhmut Denials Are Signs of ‘Increased Panic’

19. 

1. Special Ops Civilian Chief Speaks of Future of Community

Though not specifically articulated this way by ASD SO/LIC this is part of the SOF value proposition:

SOCOM is focused on winning in highly complex and ambiguous environments for small investment, SOCOM solves (or contributes to solving), highly complex, politically sensitive, ambiguous problems – in any environment using highly trained problem solvers.

The “SOF Way” is unconventional, irregular, asymmetric, asynchronous, and done alongside the US government interagency team, as well as with Allies and Partners.

Excerpts:

He also ensures special ops forces have the right capabilities, and that the forces are ready for their missions under the National Defense Strategy.

As such, Maier is sort of a cross between a policy advisor and a service secretary. When Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III speaks to the service secretaries, Maier is there.

Part of the value proposition is special operations forces' extensive and deep relationships with partners and allies around the globe, Maier said. "These generational relationships enable SOF to expose vulnerabilities, identify opportunities and create enduring advantage over our competitors — many of whom have very few, if any, allies and partners," he said.

Included in this is the fact that special operations forces have access and influence generated by long-term commitments to building partner capacity and improving interoperability. This provides "expanded low-cost options to gain awareness, shape the operating environment, and present adversaries with multiple dilemmas," Maier said. "We provide these options to policy makers across the spectrum of competition, often without needing to risk high profile U.S. military presence or major financial investments."

...

Looking to the future, Maier emphasized people, technologies and organizations. "These three dimensions will be part of a future operating concept that we have been developing jointly with [U.S. Special Operations Command] that will detail our vision for SOF to operate alongside the joint force in the future and guide force design considerations," he said.

Some important points from the ASD SO/LIC.

First, the next evolution (or revolution) for SOF requires that the ASD SO/LIC be granted "service" authorities and not execute "service-like" responsibilities. The Nunn Cohen Amendment will be fully realized when there is ownership of LIC and SOF will be "self actualized" when the ASD SO/LIC has service authorities (not a separate service but ASD SO/LIC must have service authorities to properly manage the SOF enterprise.)

Second, the generational relationships have long existed and continue to exist. I recall an SF NCO in the Philippines knowing more general officers in the AFP than any officer because he and his fellow SF NCOs had been training with those G.O.s since they were Second Lieutenants.  This was especially true wherever we had permanently stationed SF overseas (DET-A in Berlin, the Taiwan Resident Detachment, 46th Company in Thailand, 8th Special Action Force (SAF) in Panama, SAFASIA in Okinawa, and Special Forces Detachment Korea (which continues to operate and sustain relationships as the longest serving Special Forces unit stationed in Asia). There is another way to look at the generational aspect and that is the employment of retired G.O.s and SF NCOs. As an example I know one G.O. who since retirement continued to work in Ukraine capitalizing on his long term relationships to support US national security (and help solve problems). That same general officer, who also had operational experience in Asia while on active duty, is now serving as a bridge between Ukraine and Taiwan. I know an NCO who immigrated to the US who has been rotating between Ukraine and Korea for more than a decade after retirement capitalizing on not only his relationships but his extraordinarily fluent language skills in Russian, Ukrainian, Korean, (among others). Both are serving the interests of US national security but not directed or supported by anyone in the government only doing so because of their world view and dedication to serving the nation in any capacity for which they have the skills (true American patriots). The bottom line is we need to develop long term relationships (and language skills) among our young NCOs and officers, nurture and develop those relationships throughout their careers, and then be able to call on them to continue to contribute in retirement. 

Lastly, I am going to repeat a rumor I have heard from the action officer level and not from any general officer or senior leader to illustrate what I think is an important point. The future operating concept had supposedly been developed. That operating concept is clearly the responsibility of USSOCOM. With the advent of Sec 922 from the NDAA (2017 I think) and the insertion of the ASD SO/LIC in the ADCON chain of command (POTUS to SECDEF to ASD SO/LIC to Cdr, USSOCOM) the ASD SO/LIC is executing service like responsibilities. The previous acting SECDEF of the last administration tried to codify Congress' intent by directing that ASD SO/LIC report directly to the SECDEF and bypassing the USD (P). The current SECDEF partially reversed that and issued a memo that for policy issues the ASD SO/LIC would report to the USD (P) and for SOF ADCON issues the ASD SO/LIC would report directly to the SECDEF. Probably a good compromise. Now for the rumored issue: apparently the future operating concept for SOF (clearly an ADCON responsibility as part of the organize, train, and equip Title 10 service function) was developed and out of courtesy, the ASD SO/LIC submitted it to the USD(P). But it was apparently staffed for USD(P) approval and it has been held up for months. If this is true that seems to be a process foul and not in accordance with the SECDEF memo. This could have been prevented if ASD SO/LIC had service authorities to manage SOF and again if accurate, illustrates the problems caused by an OSD staff section (USD(P)) having unnecessary (and incorrect?) authority over a service (or service like) entity as well as over a Combatant Command. The USD(P) would not and could not take the same action over an Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Space Force future operating concept or over any of the Combatant Commands. Yet he continues to exercise this "authority" over SOF. We need to get the USD (P) out of the SOF business (unless my rumor is inaccurate and the USD(P) does stay out of SOF business, which I doubt).

Special Ops Civilian Chief Speaks of Future of Community

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

230125-F-UB655-0698

Special operators engage enemies during a training scenario in Arizona, Jan. 25, 2023. The Air Force’s 24th Special Operations Wing is the U.S. Special Operations Command’s tactical air-ground integration force. It enables global access, precision strike, personnel recovery and battlefield surgery.

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Special operations forces are carefully, but quickly, adjusting their mission sets to account for the world of strategic competition, said Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict.

Maier, who spoke yesterday at the Special Operations Forces Week Conference in Tampa, Florida, is responsible for overseeing and advocating for special operations throughout the Defense Department.

He also ensures special ops forces have the right capabilities, and that the forces are ready for their missions under the National Defense Strategy.

Spotlight: National Defense Strategy

As such, Maier is sort of a cross between a policy advisor and a service secretary. When Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III speaks to the service secretaries, Maier is there.

Maier also advocates for special operations capabilities. "Even as we continue our well-established roles of counterterrorism and crisis response, we are increasingly challenged to show our value in integrated deterrence and campaigning," he said. "My team and I work daily to ensure the value proposition of SOF against strategic competitors is accounted for and incorporated into the department's processes and planning and most importantly in decisions."

Maier works to ensure special operations capabilities are considered in everything from war games to budget decisions. The "value proposition" of special ops forces needs to be baked into the National Defense Strategy, he said. "It's very important that this community not only understands that for themselves, but also that it is not exclusively this community that is advancing that value proposition," he said.

Part of the value proposition is special operations forces' extensive and deep relationships with partners and allies around the globe, Maier said. "These generational relationships enable SOF to expose vulnerabilities, identify opportunities and create enduring advantage over our competitors — many of whom have very few, if any, allies and partners," he said.

Included in this is the fact that special operations forces have access and influence generated by long-term commitments to building partner capacity and improving interoperability. This provides "expanded low-cost options to gain awareness, shape the operating environment, and present adversaries with multiple dilemmas," Maier said. "We provide these options to policy makers across the spectrum of competition, often without needing to risk high profile U.S. military presence or major financial investments."

Special Forces

A U.S. Army 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Green Beret prepares to jump out of a Boeing C-130 transport aircraft during a joint operation with Canadian special forces. The service members were participating in Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation 23-2 in Alaska, March 31, 2023.

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Finally, special operators have the multidomain skills and expertise needed to provide leaders with creative, tailorable and asymmetric options that can create dilemmas and alter decision making for adversaries, he said.

Looking to the future, Maier emphasized people, technologies and organizations. "These three dimensions will be part of a future operating concept that we have been developing jointly with [U.S. Special Operations Command] that will detail our vision for SOF to operate alongside the joint force in the future and guide force design considerations," he said.

People will always be the lead in any special operations consideration. "In the future, investing in our people is a cornerstone to ensure SOF is ready to take on our nation's toughest challenges because it is not a question of if, but when, the call will come," he said.

Navy SEALs

Navy SEALs participate in a special operations forces interoperability exercise aboard the USS Florida and an Air Force CV-22 Osprey, Feb. 26, 2023. The Florida is an Ohio-class guided-missile submarine.

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"We also continue to prioritize a diverse, capable force by removing barriers to participation in advancement in SOF — an operational imperative — if we are to succeed in an ever more complex geopolitical environment and remain the most lethal SOF enterprise the world has ever known," he continued.

On the tech side, all leaders must ensure special operators are at the cutting edge of what is possible, Maier said. His office and U.S. Special Operations Command jointly issued capabilities and programming guidance that forms the basis of procurement for the next five years. SOF also must be a leader in integrating data-driven technologies.

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

2. Wendy Sherman Out at State after Report Alleging She Delayed China Sanctions

As a smart China expert has pointed out, the PRC and US have different views of meetings among leaders. The US looks at meetings as productive ways to reduce tensions. The PRC looks at having a meeting as giving a favor to the US.

Excerpt:

Chinese diplomats have repeatedly demanded U.S. policy concessions from the Biden administration in exchange for an audience with their top officials.

Wendy Sherman Out at State after Report Alleging She Delayed China Sanctions

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/wendy-sherman-out-at-state-after-report-alleging-she-delayed-china-sanctions/

By JIMMY QUINN

·         

·         

May 12, 2023 2:12 PM

Wendy Sherman, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, will retire from the State Department at the end of June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement this morning. The announcement came the day after a bombshell Reuters report that revealed Sherman had blocked certain sanctions measures targeting the Chinese Communist Party.

“On behalf of the Department, I thank Wendy for her service,” Blinken said, in a lengthy statement recapitulating her various State Department roles over three presidential administrations. “I wish her and her family all the best in their next chapter.” Blinken also credited her with building out the administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific, adding that “she has overseen our efforts to strengthen the Department’s capabilities to manage our relationship with the People’s Republic of China, and built greater convergence with allies and partners.”

Yesterday, Reuters published a report detailing Sherman’s role in delaying long-scheduled measures on the department’s “competitive actions” calendar — a list of policies designed to counter Beijing’s malign activities. In the wake of the Chinese spy-balloon incident in February, Sherman had reportedly ordered that certain actions be delayed, including tighter restrictions on Huawei and sanctions punishing officials from the CCP’s United Front Work Department for their role in the Uyghur genocide.

Soon after the balloon episode, Rick Waters, the department official who leads State’s in-house China policy cell, wrote in a February 6 email obtained by Reuters: “Guidance from S (Secretary of State) is to push non-balloon action to the right so we can focus on symmetric and calibrated response. We can revisit other actions in a few weeks.” Sources told the outlet that Sherman oversees the State Department’s approach to China and that Waters told staff in late March that Sherman said the department would move on from the balloon incident, as she wanted Blinken to reschedule a trip to Beijing that had been postponed.

Reuters also reported that Sherman’s directives had “damaged morale” within that cell, called China House.

The State Department responded to National Review‘s request for comment about the potential link between Sherman’s retirement and the Reuters story only by forwarding Blinken’s statement from this morning.

The perspective attributed to Sherman by the report appears to reflect the Biden administration’s broader approach to engaging China after the spy-balloon incident. “We’re seeking to move beyond that,” a senior administration official told reporters yesterday, after national-security adviser Jake Sullivan met top CCP diplomat Wang Yi for a hastily organized round of talks in Vienna. The conversations, which took place over eight hours split between Wednesday and Thursday, were “candid, substantive, and constructive,” the senior official said.

Chinese diplomats have repeatedly demanded U.S. policy concessions from the Biden administration in exchange for an audience with their top officials.

“The Chinese side noted that what the US should do is to establish a correct understanding of China, prevent strategic misjudgments, abandon the Cold War mentality, stop containment and suppression, stop engaging in zero-sum games, return to rationality and pragmatism, and meet China halfway to promote the stabilization of China-US relations,” the CCP’s Global Times propaganda outfit said in an English-language article about the meeting, attributing the comment to a “senior Chinese official.”

The White House, however, claims that it doesn’t accept Chinese demands for such concessions.

“We really push back anytime there’s preconditions before there’s diplomatic conversations. For us, managing competition responsibly, part of stabilizing relationships is having those conversations regardless of what’s going on, regardless of which actions are happening on either side,” the senior U.S. official said yesterday.

3. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 12, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-12-2023

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian forces have made gains northwest of Bakhmut in localized counterattacks as of May 12.
• Russian milbloggers and other prominent voices in the pro-war information space continue to respond to recent Ukrainian counterattacks with varying degrees of caution and anxiety.
• Ukrainian and American officials stated that Ukrainian forces have not yet started the planned counteroffensive.
• Senior Russian officials proposed a series of domestic repression and censorship measures during the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on May 11.
• Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s newly formed “Club of Angry Patriots” held a press conference on May 12 to discuss its discontent with the current Russian conduct of the war in Ukraine.
• U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety accused South Africa of loading a Russian ship with ammunition and weapons in December 2022, contradicting its proclaimed neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) attempted to distract from and assuage information space paranoia over a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive on the Kharkiv-Luhansk front.
• Russian forces continue limited ground attacks in and around Bakhmut.
• Russian sources continue to speculate about potential Ukrainian counteroffensive preparations in southern Ukraine.
• Russian forces continue to recruit convicts and establish volunteer battalions as a part of crypto-mobilization efforts.
• Senior Russian officials are claiming that they are taking active measures to return displaced and illegally deported Ukrainian civilians, including Ukrainian children, to occupied Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 12, 2023

May 12, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 12, 2023

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

May 12, 2023, 6:15pm 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 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 cutoff for this product was 3:00 pm ET on May 12. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 13 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Important Note: ISW has reindexed its map layer for reported Ukrainian counteroffensives on May 12, 2023. We removed reported Ukrainian counteroffensive coded before May 1, 2023, in order to delineate more clearly new Ukrainian territorial gains from gains secured in previous Ukrainian counteroffensives. ISW retained a few reported Ukrainian counteroffensives polygons from before May 1, 2023, specifically on the Dnipro River Delta south of Kherson Oblast, to preserve context in that complex area of operations. May 1, 2023, is an arbitrary date and does not mark the beginning or end of any assessed Ukrainian or Russian effort. ISW has reindexed its map layers before and similarly removed old reported Ukrainian counteroffensives around Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, and Sumy oblasts following the conclusion of the Battle of Kyiv in April 2022. 

Ukrainian forces have made gains northwest of Bakhmut in localized counterattacks as of May 12. Geolocated footage posted on May 12 shows Russian forces fleeing Ukrainian artillery fire on the southern bank of the Berkhivske Reservoir, about 4km northwest of Bakhmut.[1] This footage visually confirms claims made by a number of Russian milbloggers that Ukrainian forces made gains northwest of Bakhmut in the area between Bohdanivka and Berkhivka.[2] One Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (14th Army Corps, Northern Fleet) lost their positions in the area between Hryhorivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka (about 6km northwest of Bakhmut).[3] Several Russian sources warned that Ukrainian forces may be attempting to encircle the Wagner Group within Bakhmut.[4] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Priogozhin emphasized that Ukrainian forces are approaching Berkhivka and claimed that Ukraine now holds positions within 500m of Bakhmut’s northwestern city limits.[5] Russian milbloggers additionally reported that Ukrainian troops are counterattacking towards Khromove (3km west of Bakhmut), Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), and Klishchiivka (6km southwest of Bakhmut).[6] One Russian milblogger claimed that the situation southwest of Bakhmut near Mayorsk has stabilized following Ukrainian attacks on positions of the 1st Donetsk People’s Republic Army Corps.[7] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) rejected claims made by other Russian sources regarding Ukrainian advances and claimed instead that elements of the 4th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (Luhansk People’s Republic) and 200th  Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (14th Army Corps, Northern Fleet) repelled all attacks in the Berkhivka area ”taking into account the favorable conditions of the Berkhivske Reservoir.”[8]

Russian milbloggers and other prominent voices in the pro-war information space continue to respond to recent Ukrainian counterattacks with varying degrees of caution and anxiety. Many milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian activity around Bakhmut marks the official beginning of the anticipated spring counteroffensive and speculated about where Ukraine’s main effort will take place.[9] Several prominent Russian voices, however, urged caution and restraint in responding to the counteroffensive, suggesting that some milbloggers are advocating for the application of certain lessons they took from the information space meltdown during Ukraine’s successful Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives. Some milbloggers warned that reports about Ukrainian success could be a deliberate Ukrainian attempt to sow panic.[10] Another milblogger warned against accepting all reports that Ukrainian activities are “psychological operations” at face value and voiced concern about Russian propaganda responses to the counterattacks.[11] One milblogger suggested that credible reports of Ukrainian counterattacks do not mean that “everything is on fire,” cautioning the audience against falling into despair.[12] The milblogger remarked that telling the truth about Ukrainian operations does not amount to ”sowing panic.”[13] The overall Russian information space response appears to be focused on the idea of avoiding spreading panic.

Ukrainian and American officials stated that Ukrainian forces have not yet started the planned counteroffensive. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on May 12 that Ukrainian forces are still conducting defensive operations, which sometimes include counterattacks and other unspecified active actions.[14] A senior US military official and a senior Western official stated on May 12 that Ukrainian forces have started conducting “shaping” operations in advance of the counteroffensive.[15] Western reporting on this subject notably contradicts Russian sources, many of which have claimed the counteroffensive is officially underway.

Senior Russian officials proposed a series of domestic repression and censorship measures during the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on May 11. The theme of the forum centered on the criminalization of “Russophobia,” a measure that Russian Human Rights Council Chairperson Valery Fadeev proposed and Deputy Minister of Justice Andrey Loginov and Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova supported.[16] Moskalkova defined Russophobia as a “misanthropic ideology,” and a State Duma deputy claimed that the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Russian officials for the kidnapping of Ukrainian children to Russia is an example of “Russophobia.”[17] Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Sviridenko announced an expansion of the law against ”foreign agents” to include a section penalizing ”third parties” for aiding foreign agents in violating Russian law.[18] Russian Investigative Committee Chairperson Alexander Bastrykin asked Russian Constitutional Court Chairperson Valery Zorkin to look into ways of establishing an unspecified state ideology in the Russian Constitution, which Bastrykin claimed would require the Duma to adopt a new constitution rather than pass an amendment.[19] Russian Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuichenko supported Bastrykin’s proposal, but Zorkin noted that the current constitution contains a set of values that can ”allow civil society to connect.”[20] Senior Russian officials’ introduction of such proposals indicates that the Kremlin may be gauging the information space reaction to increased repression measures and setting conditions for long-term strengthening of these measures.

Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s newly formed “Club of Angry Patriots” held a press conference on May 12 to discuss its discontent with the current Russian conduct of the war in Ukraine. Former self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) “People’s Governor” Pavel Gubarev emphasized that the goal of the “special military operation” should be the “elimination of Ukrainian statehood,” and “Another Russia” political party coordinator Mikhail Aksel accused Russian authorities of not taking the steps needed to realize the goals of the war.[21] Girkin himself reiterated his belief that the Russian military in its current state cannot achieve decisive battlefield results and criticized the inaction of Russian leadership.[22] As ISW has previously assessed, the Club of Angry Patriots is using its platform to launch specific critiques at the inner circles of Russian leadership while protecting a pro-war faction within the Kremlin.[23] The public format of this press conference is additionally noteworthy--Girkin and other members of the club typically use their individual Telegram channels to propagate their talking points, and a public press conference suggests that they have had some success in reaching broader audiences, potentially as domestic pro-war factions are increasingly discontent with the way Russia has been fighting the war thus far. The Club of Angry Patriots notably held the press conference during a period of high information space agitation about a future Ukrainian counteroffensive, which may inflame some factions’ criticisms of senior Russian leadership for poor performance in the war.

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety accused South Africa of loading a Russian ship with ammunition and weapons in December 2022, contradicting its proclaimed neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.[24] Brigety stated on May 11 that a sanctioned Russian vessel containing weapons departed the Simon’s Town naval base in Cape Town on December 9, 2022, and arrived in Novorossiysk on February 22, 2023.[25] White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby stated on May 12 that these reports are a “serious issue” as the US has consistently and strongly urged other countries not to supply weapons to Russia.[26] South African officials stated that there is no evidence to support US accusations and summoned Brigety on May 12 after criticizing his statements.[27]

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian forces have made gains northwest of Bakhmut in localized counterattacks as of May 12.
• Russian milbloggers and other prominent voices in the pro-war information space continue to respond to recent Ukrainian counterattacks with varying degrees of caution and anxiety.
• Ukrainian and American officials stated that Ukrainian forces have not yet started the planned counteroffensive.
• Senior Russian officials proposed a series of domestic repression and censorship measures during the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on May 11.
• Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin’s newly formed “Club of Angry Patriots” held a press conference on May 12 to discuss its discontent with the current Russian conduct of the war in Ukraine.
• U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety accused South Africa of loading a Russian ship with ammunition and weapons in December 2022, contradicting its proclaimed neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) attempted to distract from and assuage information space paranoia over a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive on the Kharkiv-Luhansk front.
• Russian forces continue limited ground attacks in and around Bakhmut.
• Russian sources continue to speculate about potential Ukrainian counteroffensive preparations in southern Ukraine.
• Russian forces continue to recruit convicts and establish volunteer battalions as a part of crypto-mobilization efforts.
• Senior Russian officials are claiming that they are taking active measures to return displaced and illegally deported Ukrainian civilians, including Ukrainian children, to occupied Ukraine.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) attempted to distract from and assuage information space paranoia over a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive on the Kharkiv-Luhansk front. The Russian MoD denied that Ukrainian forces broke through Russian lines in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions on May 11, instead claiming that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups near Kotlyarivka, Kharkiv Oblast (25km northwest of Svatove), and Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna) and Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast.[28] The MoD also posted footage on May 12 of Russian forces using T-90, T-80, and T-72B3 tanks, and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles conducting ground attacks near Spirne (26km south of Kreminna).[29] Geolocation of the Russian MoD’s footage indicates that Russian forces only made marginal advances west of Spirne.[30]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on May 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in the Serebrianska forest area (10km south of Kreminna.[31] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks towards Stelmakhivka (15km northwest of Svatove), Terny (16km west of Kreminna), and Torske (14km west of Kreminna).[32]

Ukrainian forces continue to target Russian rear areas in Luhansk Oblast, sparking some information space fear about Ukrainian long range strike capabilities. Geolocated footage shows the aftermath of explosions at the Luhansk Machine Building Plant in Luhansk City (roughly 80-100km behind the front line) on May 12.[33] A Russian milblogger speculated that Ukrainian forces may have used a long-range weapon, such as a cruise missile or the newly delivered Storm Shadow missiles, in this strike.[34] Other milbloggers claimed that it is too early to tell which weapon Ukrainian forces used but warned that the whole of the Russian rear in Luhansk Oblast is within range of Storm Shadow missiles.[35]

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

Russian forces continued ground attacks in and around Bakhmut on May 12 against the backdrop of localized Ukrainian counterattacks. Geolocated footage posted on May 12 shows that Russian forces have advanced between Marshal Tolbukhin and Iryna Levchenko streets in northwestern Bakhmut.[36] Russian sources claimed that Wagner fighters captured 220m of territory in Bakhmut and are attacking three main fortified areas in the northwestern sector of the city.[37] Prigozhin claimed that Ukraine holds 2.18 square kilometers of territory in Bakhmut.[38] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces additionally conducted unsuccessful offensive operations towards Stupochky (11km southwest of Bakhmut just south of the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut road), Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), and Hryhorivka (9km northwest of Bakhmut).[39] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Force Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty stated on May 12 that over 40 combat clashes have occurred in the Bakhmut direction over the past day and that the situation for Russian forces is overall worsening because Wagner is being supplanted by motorized rifle and paratrooper elements that are comprised of poorly trained and motivated mobilized personnel.[40]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline on May 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Avdiivka and on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City near Marinka and Novomykhailivka.[41] Geolocated footage posted on May 11 shows that Russian forces have made marginal advances within 2km southeast of Avdiivka.[42] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have changed the direction of attacks on Avdiivka from the southwest to the east and are attempting to advance on Avdiivka from the Krutka Balka area.[43]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on May 12. Russian forces shelled the Vuhledar area (30km southwest of Donetsk City) but did not conduct any ground attacks towards the settlement.[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that reports of Ukrainian activity in Hulyaipole-Polohy area in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast are false.[45] A Russian milblogger posted footage reportedly of Russian airstrikes on the Hulyaipole area.[46]

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

Russian sources continue to speculate about potential Ukrainian counteroffensive preparations in southern Ukraine. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation deputy Vladimir Rogov claimed on May 11 that he could not confirm reports that Ukrainian forces launched the full-scale counteroffensive in the Zaporizhia direction.[47] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo claimed on May 11 that the situation along the frontline near the Dnipro River is stable and that some Russian occupation officials were spreading false information that they found sensational.[48] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are concentrating forces in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts, while another claimed that reports that Ukrainian forces are accumulating boats on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River is unconfirmed.[49] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces from an unspecified area of the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River.[50]

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

Russian authorities continue to recruit prisoners to augment crypto-mobilization efforts. Russian opposition outlet Mobilization News, citing Russian human rights organization Gulagu.net, reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) recruited 400 prisoners including those with HIV and hepatitis from Kama penal colonies in Perm Krai on May 8 and 9.[51]  BBC and Russian opposition outlet MediaZona confirmed the deaths of 10,230 Russian personnel, including 3,953 convicts, in Ukraine since December 1, 2022. BBC reported that since February 2022 most convicts have served under Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic proxy forces. ISW has previously reported on the Russian MoD’s efforts to recruit convicts.[52]

Russian forces continue to establish volunteer units to support crypto-mobilization efforts. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are forming a separate motorized rifle brigade of the Southern Military District in Stavropol Krai in order to strengthen Russian forces in Ukraine.[53] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the contract personnel of the brigade are motivated to make money but have little motivation to participate in combat. Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov also claimed that volunteers who receive training at the Special Forces University in Gudermes, Chechnya depart every week from Chechnya to fight in Ukraine and that another group of volunteers just left for Ukraine.[54]

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

Senior Russian officials are claiming that they are taking active measures to return displaced and illegally deported Ukrainian civilians, including Ukrainian children, to occupied Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 12 instructed the Russian government to add a subparagraph to the State Migration Policy to create conditions necessary to return civilians who had fled their homes in occupied territories after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[55] Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova claimed that Ukraine contacted Russia to return Ukrainian children and their parents from Russia and that she provided data on Ukrainian children and their parents believed to be in Russia.[56] Lvova-Belova fell short of promising returns of civilians, however, instead claiming that the Russian Commissioner’s Office will examine the request and provide the information that it can.

Russian sources claimed that unknown actors attempted to assassinate two Russian occupation officials in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast on May 11. Russian sources claimed on May 11 that an unidentified individual attempted to use an improvised explosive device (IED) to assassinate the occupied Zaporizhia Oblast Regional Court Chairman, injuring two security guards but failing to kill or wound the chairman.[57] Russian sources claimed on May 11 that unknown actor attempted to use an IED to kill the occupied Zaporizhia Oblast Deputy Minister of Construction.[58] Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that the official was transported to a local hospital with injuries.[59]

Russian occupation authorities continue to announce patronage-like programs with Russian regions. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik stated on May 12 that the Republic of Tartarstan is officially the patron of Rubizhne, occupied Luhansk Oblast.[60] Pasechnik also thanked the Tartar Republic for its existing patronage of Lysychansk.[61]

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

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on May 12 that the 120th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade conducted combat training exercises. The Belarusian MoD also claimed it is commissioning new reinforcements who are or will soon take part in various training to support existing units.[62]

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.

4. Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Moscow denies reports of Ukrainian breakthroughs

Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Moscow denies reports of Ukrainian breakthroughs

Reuters · by Reuters

May 11 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry on Thursday denied reports that Ukrainian forces had broken through in various places along the front lines and said the military situation was under control.

Moscow reacted after Russian military bloggers, writing on Telegram, reported what they said were Ukrainian advances north and south of the city of Bakhmut, with some suggesting a long-awaited counter offensive by pro-Kyiv forces had started.

CONFLICT

* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia's invasion force had yet to start even as his generals claimed some of their biggest battlefield successes in months.

* A Ukrainian brigade commander fighting in the ruins of Bakhmut said Russian mercenary forces have stepped up shelling and artillery attacks in recent days and were not facing a munitions shortage, despite its chief's claims to the contrary.

* Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Thursday that the situation on the flanks near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was unfolding in line with the "worst of all expected scenarios".

* A Ukrainian drone attacked an oil storage depot in the Russian border region of Bryansk, the local governor said on Thursday. There were no casualties.

* Russia's military operation against Ukraine is "very difficult" but certain goals have been achieved, Tass news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

BLACK SEA GRAIN DEAL

* Officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations on Thursday discussed U.N. proposals on a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, which Moscow has threatened to quit on May 18 over obstacles to its own grain and fertilizer exports.

ARMS

* The United States envoy to South Africa said he was confident that a Russian ship had picked up weapons in South Africa, in a possible breach of Pretoria's declared neutrality in the Ukraine conflict.

* South Africa has undertaken to institute an independent inquiry led by a retired judge into an alleged arms shipment to Russia, South Africa's presidency said on Thursday.

* The United States has serious concerns about the docking of a sanctioned Russian cargo vessel at a South African naval port in December last year and has raised those concerns directly with multiple South African officials, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.

* The European Union has not observed any significant smuggling of weapons into Europe from wartime Ukraine, the European Commission's top internal affairs official said during a visit to Kyiv.

* Britain has supplied Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, a Western official said, which would allow its forces to hit Russian troops and logistics hubs deep behind the front line.

DIPLOMACY

* Ukraine has received $16.7 billion in financial aid from its Western partners so far this year, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said on Thursday.

* The EU is discussing its 11th package of sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine, meant to focus on those circumventing existing trade restrictions.

* Germany led calls urging caution against targeting China under new EU sanctions, five diplomatic sources said.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday, diplomatic sources said.

* Lawmakers accused the Pentagon of effectively undermining war crimes prosecution of Russia by blocking the sharing of U.S. military intelligence with the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

EUROPEAN UNION

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday said he had approved a plan to reform criminal and law enforcement systems, a key element in plans to secure quick membership of the European Union.

ECONOMY

* Ukraine raised record proceeds from selling small state assets in the first quarter of this year despite Russia's invasion and aims to privatise thousands more in an economic overhaul, the head of the State Property Fund said.

INSIDE RUSSIA

* Two Russian soldiers from Kamchatka in the far east have been sentenced to two-and-a-half years each in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, human rights group OVD-Info said.

IN-DEPTH STORIES

* INSIGHT-Communities torn as Ukraine turns its back on Moscow-linked church.

* INSIGHT-How Russians end up in a far-right militia fighting in Ukraine.

* EXCLUSIVE-Turkey defers $600 mln Russian energy payment -sources

* EXCLUSIVE-Oilfield firm SLB retrenches as Russia sanctions squeeze

* FOCUS-Why eastern Europe's grain producers face a perfect storm

* INSIGHT-Ukraine farms lose workers to war, complicating tough harvest

* ANALYSIS-Russia's mercenary boss deepens fog of Ukraine war while deflecting blame

* COLUMN-Global ammunition race may decide Ukraine war

Compiled by Reuters editors; Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

5. Russia acknowledges retreat north of Bakhmut, Wagner boss calls it a 'rout'

Russia acknowledges retreat north of Bakhmut, Wagner boss calls it a 'rout'

Reuters · by Olena Harmash

• Summary
• Russia says some troops north of Bakhmut pull back to regroup
• 'A rout, not a regrouping,' says mercenary head
• Russia says 1,000 men, 40 tanks involved in Ukrainian assault
• Ukraine military says its forces advance

KYIV, May 12 (Reuters) - Moscow acknowledged on Friday that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine's battlefield city of Bakhmut after a new Ukrainian offensive, in a retreat that the head of Russia's Wagner private army called a rout.

The setback for Russia, which follows similar reports of Ukrainian advances south of the city, suggests a coordinated push by Kyiv to encircle Russian forces in Bakhmut, Moscow's main objective for months during the war's bloodiest fighting.

"In three days of counter-offensive activity, the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Bakhmut sector have liberated 17.3 sq. km (6.6 sq. miles) of territory," Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for the "east" group of Ukrainian forces, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Both sides are now reporting the biggest Ukrainian gains in six months, although Ukraine has given few details and played down suggestions a huge, long-planned counteroffensive has officially begun.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukraine had launched an assault north of Bakhmut with more than 1,000 troops and up to 40 tanks, a scale that if confirmed would amount to the biggest Ukrainian offensive since November.

The Russians had repelled 26 attacks but troops in one area had fallen back to regroup in more favourable positions near the Berkhivka reservoir northwest of Bakhmut, Konashenkov said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner forces that have led the campaign in the city, said in an audio message: "What Konashenkov described, unfortunately, is called 'a rout' and not a regrouping".

In a separate video message, Prigozhin said the Ukrainians had seized high ground overlooking Bakhmut and opened the main highway leading into the city from the West.

"The loss of the Berkhivka reservoir - the loss of this territory they gave up - that's 5 sq km, just today," Prigozhin said.

"The enemy has completely freed up the Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut road which we had blocked. The enemy is now able to use this road, and secondly they have taken tactical high ground under which Bakhmut is located," said Prigozhin, who has repeatedly denounced Russia's regular military over the past week for failing to supply his men in Bakhmut.

Russian-installed officials said two missiles hit an industrial complex in Luhansk, in Russian-occupied territory around 100 km (60 miles) behind the front. Video posted on the internet showed huge columns of smoke above the city. The strike, just beyond the range of the main battlefield rockets Ukraine has previously deployed, came a day after Britain announced it was sending longer-range cruise missiles.

Ukrainian servicemen ride atop of a tank on a road to the frontline town of Bakhmut, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 12, 2023. REUTERS/Sofiia Gatilova

The Ukrainian advance near Bakhmut appears to have begun on Tuesday when a Ukrainian unit southwest of the city said it defeated a Russian brigade, recapturing a swathe of land. Prigozhin also said the Russian brigade there fled.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the situation in the area.

In its evening report on Friday, the Ukrainian military command described fighting in Bakhmut and Russian shelling of nearby towns, but made no mention of any advance or Russian withdrawal.

Prigozhin, whose fighters have been battling to push Ukrainian forces out of Bakhmut's Western outskirts, has said the north and south flanks, guarded by regular Russian troops, were crumbling. Russia's defence ministry denies this.

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russians were "already internally ready for defeat".

"They have already lost this war in their minds. We must put pressure on them every day so that their sense of defeat turns into their flight, their mistakes, their losses."

TURNING POINT

In Kostiantynivka, about 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Bakhmut, firefighters were battling a blaze at a house that went up in flames after it was struck by Russian shells.

"It hit the roof and the roof collapsed. My neighbour rushed outside and started shouting, asking for help," said Oleksandr Lazorka, who lives next door. "We pulled out a blind woman - an elderly, blind woman - from under the rubble and then the fire erupted."

The 15-month-old war in Ukraine is at a turning point, after six months during which Kyiv kept its troops on the defensive while Russia mounted a winter campaign that brought the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War Two but yielded scant gains.

Since the start of this year, Kyiv has received hundreds of new Western tanks and armoured vehicles, holding them back in preparation for a counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory.

Ukrainian officials have played down the suggestion that their offensive is already under way: Zelenskiy said in an interview this week Kyiv needed more time for equipment to arrive. Prigozhin called that deceptive and said the Bakhmut advances amounted to the start of Kyiv's campaign.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux Writing by Kevin Liffey

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Olena Harmash

6. Why the US delayed China sanctions after shooting down a spy balloon

May 11, 20231:17 AM EDTLast Updated 3 hours ago

Why the US delayed China sanctions after shooting down a spy balloon

By Michael Martina

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/why-us-delayed-china-sanctions-after-shooting-down-spy-balloon-2023-05-11/

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - When an alleged Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States in February, some U.S. officials were confident the incursion would galvanize the U.S. bureaucracy to push forward a slate of actions to counter China.

Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.

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The delays to items on the department's "competitive actions" calendar, a classified rolling list of steps the Biden administration has planned related to China, have alarmed some U.S. officials and revealed a divide between those in the U.S. government pushing for tougher action against China and others advocating a more restrained approach.

While the State Department signaled U.S. displeasure over the balloon by postponing Secretary of State Antony Blinken's scheduled visit to Beijing, an internal State Department message reviewed by Reuters shows senior U.S. officials delaying planned actions against China.

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who leads the China House policy division, said in a Feb. 6 email to staff that has not been previously reported: "Guidance from S (Secretary of State) is to push non-balloon actions to the right so we can focus on symmetric and calibrated response. We can revisit other actions in a few weeks."

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The sources said many measures have yet to be revived. The decision to postpone export licensing rules for telecom equipment maker Huawei and sanctions against Chinese officials for abuses of Uyghurs, has damaged morale at China House, they said.

President Joe Biden's administration has sought to prevent a further deterioration in ties with China's Communist government, which many analysts say have hit the lowest point since they began in 1979.

Former diplomats and members of Congress from both parties have argued that the U.S. must keep channels of communication open with Beijing to avoid misunderstandings and navigate crises.

But the sources said the current policy hews too closely to an earlier strategy of engagement that enabled China to extract concessions in exchange for high-level dialogues that often yielded few tangible results.

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Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, they said Blinken had largely delegated China policy duties to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the United States' second ranked diplomat.

In response to questions from Reuters, a senior State Department official said that under the Biden administration, the State Department had "coordinated with the interagency on a record-setting number of sanctions, export controls, and other competitive actions" toward China.

"Without commenting on specific actions, this work is sensitive and complex, and obviously sequencing is essential to maximize impact and make sure our messaging is clear and lands precisely," the official said.

Sherman did not respond to a request for comment.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 9, she said the department was "modernizing" its work and would "keep pushing back against the PRC's (People's Republic of China) aggressive military, diplomatic, and economic practices."

'KEEPING CHANNELS OPEN'

In late March, Waters told a staff meeting that the State Department would "move on" from the balloon incident with China, following guidance from Sherman who was eager to reschedule the Blinken trip, two of the sources said.

One Chinese official confirmed to Reuters that a renewed Blinken visit would be more likely if the U.S. accommodated Beijing's wish to shelve the issue, adding that China had conveyed it did not want the FBI to release details of its investigation into the downed balloon.

The two sources said the FBI report had originally been anticipated for mid-April release.

The FBI declined to comment on any report. The State Department told Reuters it had never discussed the issue with the bureau and declined to comment on discussions with China over the matter.

Asked about the release of the FBI report at a May 2 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Daniel Kritenbrink, the department's top diplomat for East Asia, said: "I absolutely support making sure that people are aware of what happened."

He added that the department was committed to managing competition between the U.S. and China.

"Part of that, in our mind, has to involve senior-level communication, keeping channels open," Kritenbrink said.

Craig Singleton, a China expert of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the State Department was "caught in a trap of its own making," forgoing actions aimed at maximizing U.S. leverage in its eagerness to resume high-level exchanges.

"This decision, while well-intentioned, strengthens China's hand," Singleton said.

DELAYS TO HUAWEI CONTROLS

China House - formally the Office of China Coordination - was launched in December as a reorganization of the department's China desk, intended to sharpen policies across regions where China's expanding influence challenges the U.S. and its allies.

The four sources Reuters spoke to for this story all voiced concern that the State Department risked failing in its efforts to rebuff what many in the West view as China's ambition to displace the U.S. as world leader.

China's embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The sources said the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security had prepared rules to revoke Huawei-related export control licenses, even those covering less sensitive technology. The departments of defense and energy were ready to back the changes in late February, but Sherman did not support stricter rules as the State Department was seeking to revive Blinken's visit, they said.

The four agencies on the End-User Review Committee that decides such actions did not vote on the matter because of State Department opposition, they said.

"The licensing rule has been written. There is draft Federal Register language," one source said.

State Department officials declined to comment specifically on the licensing rules. One official said that Sherman did not call the Commerce Department to delay any Huawei actions.

Commerce told Reuters it does not comment on deliberations about specific companies, and that it works with other parts of the government to "continually assess our export controls."

The defense and energy departments did not respond to a request for comment.

The State Department also pushed off sanctions against Chinese officials, including some at the Central Committee's United Front Work Department bureau responsible for policies in Xinjiang, where the U.S. government says Beijing is committing genocide against Muslim Uyghurs.

China denies all abuses.

Those sanctions, prepared and delayed for the first time in October 2022 and delayed again in mid-January because it was deemed too close to Blinken's visit, have yet to be released, three of the sources said.

Resistance to such actions has contributed to staffing struggles at China House, with vacancy rates as high as 40%, the four sources said.

Senior officials acknowledged morale problems at China House, but denied they were linked to policy.

"We are in the midst of a re-org. It's hard," one of the senior department officials said.

The State Department has struggled with staffing and morale issues left over from a Trump administration-era hiring freeze.

But some staff recently have requested reassignment, said the sources, who argued that the delays signaled to working-level officials that China actions are not a priority.

"Even when we are on the one-yard line, we debate whether we should cross," another source said.

7. Russia wants "Family Guy" banned over "offensive" depiction of country

Our best influence operations capabilities reside in our commercial entertainment industry. That is probably true for most democracies.

Russia wants "Family Guy" banned over "offensive" depiction of country

Newsweek · by Jamie Burton · May 10, 2023

Family Guy has taken its funny moments too far according to one Russian official, who deemed a recent skit on the show as "deliberately offensive."

The backlash came after episodes 19 and 20 of the show's 21st season, "From Russia with Love" and "Adult Education." The characters Meg, Stewie and Brian go to Chelyabinsk, and in a two-parter, Meg decides to stay to start a relationship with Russian hacker Ivan. Loving her new surroundings, Meg sings a parody of Beauty and the Beast song "Belle" about the Russian city.

Russian officials have slammed "Family Guy" for how they portrayed the city of Chelyabinsk in the latest episode from Season 21 of the Fox show. In "Adult Education," Meg Griffin stays in Russia to start a relationship with Russian hacker Ivan (pictured). FOX photos

The use of stereotypes within the musical number has angered Chelyabinsk region deputy Yana Lantratova. Speaking to Russian publication Rise, she spoke out against the depiction of her city, and called for a ban of the adult cartoon in Russia.

"The artist has the right to his vision, but this is a deliberately offensive artistic image that has nothing to do with reality," Lantratova said. "This is a deliberate work against our country. Information warfare through artistic works. They deliberately create an image of Russia as a country where everyone is unhappy with life, drinking, using drugs, taking bribes."

Major Eastern European news outlet Nexta reported that Lantratova is calling for a ban on the show." The two-parter formed the Season 21 finale for the long-running Fox comedy.

State Duma deputies demand a ban on the "Family Guy" episode about the Russian city of Chelyabinsk

"The artist has the right to his vision, but this is a deliberately offensive artistic image that has nothing to do with reality. This is a deliberate work against our country.… pic.twitter.com/2b5E0XzarN

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 9, 2023

While the singing voice used for the character of Meg Griffin in the skit appears to be different, Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis voices her usually. Outside of the song, Kunis showed off her ability to speak Russian in the role. Kunis and her husband Ashton Kutcher have both pledged their support to Ukraine in their ongoing war with Russia.

The depiction of Chelyabinsk, and the purported offensive nature of Family Guy, was discussed online. Sergej Sumlenny, an Eastern European expert with a strong Twitter following, suggested the animated representation of Chelyabink's surroundings was actually accurate in the episode, sharing what he claimed to be a picture of the real city.

no, but I have seen real Chelyabinsk, and this video is very authentic :) pic.twitter.com/N7OsOaDPqN

— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) May 10, 2023

"I have seen real Chelyabinsk, and this video is very authentic," he wrote on Twitter. A number of other Twitter users shared images of the city of Chelyabinsk and made similar observations.

Others weighed in with similar thoughts. "Is this supposed to be Chelyabinsk or every Russian city outside Moscow and Saint Petersburg?" one Twitter user joked, getting hundreds of likes in doing so.

Newsweek · by Jamie Burton · May 10, 2023

8. What Happened to Russian Hybrid War?

Excerpts:

Despite the mixed results, the Kremlin will pursue its hybrid efforts. Lacking the positive soft powers of affection, cultural reach, and economic development, it has few other options but to destabilize Western countries, while issuing propaganda, as it attempts to maintain support for its aggression.

What Happened to Russian Hybrid War?

The Ukraine invasion marked an aggressive extension of the Kremlin’s hybrid war tactics. But non-military approaches remain central to Russia’s plans.

cepa.org · by Kseniya Kirillova · May 5, 2023

The tactic of hybrid warfare favored by the Kremlin has become known as the “Gerasimov Doctrine” after its creator, General Valery Gerasimov, who now heads the General Staff. The line between war and peace is being erased, and modern wars are also being waged by non-military means, he wrote in February 2013.

Gerasimov even treated the formation of opposition and mass protests as part of the new war – and suggested responding to such “threats” with a combination of military and non-military methods. Non-military activities included bribing or intimidating public officials, fanning the flames of public discontent, and supporting the opposition with illegally planted armed groups.

The following year, Gerasimov’s ideas were further developed and detailed by Andrey Bezrukov, a former spy and member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Like Gerasimov, he accused the West of waging a “multi-dimensional war” combining military and non-military means. As a “retaliatory measure,” he proposed the maximum involvement of civilian populations in a “war of a new type,” with “armies of supporters”, including on social networks.

Bezrukov called for a sharp increase in investment in intelligence and counterintelligence, the active embedding of agents among potential enemies, and a focus on propaganda and hackers. He also proposed the creation of private military companies (PMCs) based on veteran organizations which could operate abroad in order to “buy those who are corrupted and eliminate those who do not stop after a warning.”

Russia actively pursued the tactics of hybrid war, both against Ukraine and the West. However, in 2019, Gerasimov changed tack with a new plan which called for an emphasis on “issues of preparation for war and its conduct by the armed forces.” Gerasimov said Russia’s enemies were also getting ready for a large-scale war, and therefore an “active defense strategy” was needed with “a set of proactive measures to neutralize threats to the security of the state.”

It was under this pretext that the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, the new Gerasimov Doctrine does not mean the Kremlin has abandoned its former hybrid tactics and pursuit of soft power. On the contrary, they are being actively used both in relation to the West and the global South.

In the West, Moscow’s plan is to split alliances and reduce support for Ukraine. These goals are pursued with the help of propaganda and attempt to use individual countries, such as Hungary and Serbia, as agents of influence in international organizations. In addition, Russia aims to provoke popular discontent and weaken Western countries through destabilization. This strategy was openly proclaimed by the pro-Kremlin political scientist Dmitry Yevstafiev, who called on Russia to look for “weak links in the collective West.”

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Elsewhere, Russia’s main geopolitical goal is the creation of a broad anti-Western coalition. Ideally, the Kremlin hopes emerging Eastern powers will actively join a new partition of the world, thereby normalizing its behavior. Russian propaganda seized on a recent statement by Lu Shaye, the Chinese ambassador to France, that “the states of the former Soviet Union have no status under current international law.” Pro-Kremlin analysts, using Lu’s words, sought to show that “the era of borders cast in granite is ending” and that “borders are no longer inviolable.”

The Kremlin’s minimum goal from its strategy in the non-Western world is now the creation of space to circumvent sanctions. But it wants more and is working to convince its potential partners of the danger of a “rebirth of colonialism” while presenting itself as their main defender against this resurgence.

The need to fight against the “neo-colonial West” has become one of the main narratives used by Vladimir Putin. In practice, however, other countries — while skeptical of the West and sympathetic to Russia’s use of military force — are not keen to join the fight under Russian leadership, but are using its difficult geopolitical situation, and its cheap energy resources, to their advantage. This applies to both China and Iran.

The Kremlin has also been trying to develop relations with African countries, but the situation is far from straightforward. Sergei Konyashin, a former Russian diplomat on the continent, admitted in August that Moscow had not been able to achieve much success. It does not have enough people or resources for the work, and the priorities of its foreign policy are determined by the Kremlin without reference to the up-to-date analysis of the situation on the ground, he said. He also recalled seeing the private interests of specific people prevailing over the needs of the state during his time as an official in the region.

This assessment was confirmed by pro-Kremlin analysts at the Valdai Club, who in April published two papers on the situation. One analyzed the key cooperation summits in Africa and showed that, while the Russia-Africa summit saw the signing of agreements worth $12.5bn, the equivalent US-Africa summit produced $55bn worth of deals and the EU-Africa summit resulted in a $168bn investment package. The Kremlin cannot alter the fact that it is economically puny.

The second document, which analyzed the votes of African countries at the UN General Assembly, also made difficult reading for the Kremlin. The authors noted that 30 of the 54 African nations voted for the resolution on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and not one opposed it. In total, Kremlin analysts counted only 19 countries that did not support any of the resolutions against Russia, and 10 of them either abstained or did not vote. Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Mali turned out to be the most loyal to the Kremlin.

Despite the mixed results, the Kremlin will pursue its hybrid efforts. Lacking the positive soft powers of affection, cultural reach, and economic development, it has few other options but to destabilize Western countries, while issuing propaganda, as it attempts to maintain support for its aggression.

Kseniya Kirillova is an analyst focused on Russian society, mentality, propaganda, and foreign policy. The author of numerous articles for the Jamestown Foundation, she has also written for the Atlantic Council, Stratfor, and others.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Read More From Europe's Edge

CEPA's online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America.

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cepa.org · by Kseniya Kirillova · May 5, 2023

9. Help! My Political Beliefs Were Altered by a Chatbot!

The ultimate influence operation.

• KEYWORDS: CHRISTOPHER MIMS

Help! My Political Beliefs Were Altered by a Chatbot!

AI assistants may be able to change our views without our realizing it. Says one expert: ‘What’s interesting here is the subtlety.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-bard-bing-ai-political-beliefs-151a0fe4?mod=hp_lead_pos11

When we ask ChatGPT or another bot to draft a memo, email, or presentation, we think these artificial-intelligence assistants are doing our bidding. A growing body of research shows that they also can change our thinking—without our knowing.

One of the latest studies in this vein, from researchers spread across the globe, found that when subjects were asked to use an AI to help them write an essay, that AI could nudge them to write an essay either for or against a particular view, depending on the bias of the algorithm. Performing this exercise also measurably influenced the subjects’ opinions on the topic, after the exercise.

“You may not even know that you are being influenced,” says Mor Naaman, a professor in the information science department at Cornell University, and the senior author of the paper. He calls this phenomenon “latent persuasion.”

These studies raise an alarming prospect: As AI makes us more productive, it may also alter our opinions in subtle and unanticipated ways. This influence may be more akin to the way humans sway one another through collaboration and social norms, than to the kind of mass-media and social media influence we’re familiar with.

Researchers who have uncovered this phenomenon believe that the best defense against this new form of psychological influence—indeed, the only one, for now—is making more people aware of it. In the long run, other defenses, such as regulators mandating transparency about how AI algorithms work, and what human biases they mimic, may be helpful.

All of this could lead to a future in which people choose which AIs they use—at work and at home, in the office and in the education of their children—based on which human values are expressed in the responses that AI gives.

And some AIs may have different “personalities”—including political persuasions. If you’re composing an email to your colleagues at the environmental not-for-profit where you work, you might use something called, hypothetically, ProgressiveGPT. Someone else, drafting a missive for their conservative PAC on social media, might use, say, GOPGPT. Still others might mix and match traits and viewpoints in their chosen AIs, which could someday be personalized to convincingly mimic their writing style.

By extension, in the future, companies and other organizations might offer AIs that are purpose-built, from the ground up, for different tasks. Someone in sales might use an AI assistant tuned to be more persuasive—call it SalesGPT. Someone in customer service might use one trained to be extra polite—SupportGPT.

How AIs can change our minds

Looking at previous research adds nuance to the story of latent persuasion. One study from 2021 showed that the AI-powered automatic responses that Google’s Gmail suggests—called “smart replies”—which tend to be quite positive, influence people to communicate more positively in general. A second study found that smart replies, which are used billions of times a day, can influence those who receive such replies to feel the sender is warmer and more cooperative.

Building tools that will allow users to engage with AI to craft emails, marketing material, advertising, presentations, spreadsheets and the like is the express goal of Microsoft and Google, not to mention dozens if not hundreds of startups. On Wednesday, Google announced that its latest large language model, PaLM 2, will be used in 25 products across the company.

OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, which partners with OpenAI, have all been eager to highlight their work on responsible AI, which includes examining possible harms of AI and addressing them. Sarah Bird, a leader on Microsoft’s responsible-AI team, recently told me that experimenting in public and rapidly responding to any issues that arise in its AIs is a key strategy for the company.

The team at OpenAI has written that the company is “committed to robustly addressing this issue [bias] and being transparent about both our intentions and our progress.” OpenAI has also published a portion of its guidelines for how its systems should handle political and cultural topics. They include the mandate that its algorithms should not affiliate with one side or another when generating text on a “culture war” topic or judge either side as good or bad.  

Jigsaw is a unit within Google that is involved in advising, and building tools for, people within the company who work on large language models—which power today’s chat-based AIs—says Lucy Vasserman, head of engineering and product at Jigsaw. When I asked her about the possibility of latent persuasion, she said that such research shows how important it is for Jigsaw to study and understand how interacting with AI affects people.

“It’s not obvious when we create something new how people will interact with it, and how it will affect them,” she adds.

MORE KEYWORDS

• Chatbots Are Digesting the Internet. The Internet Wants to Get Paid.
• The Secret History of AI, and a Hint at What’s Next
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See more...

“Compared to research about recommendation systems and filter bubbles and rabbit holes on social media, whether due to AI or not, what is interesting here is the subtlety,” says Dr. Naaman, one of the researchers who uncovered latent persuasion.

In his research, the topic that subjects were moved to change their minds about was whether or not social media is good for society. Dr. Naaman and his colleagues picked this topic in part because it’s not an issue about which people tend to have deeply held beliefs, which would be harder to change. An AI primed to be biased to be in favor of social media tended to guide subjects to write an essay that accorded with that bias, and the opposite happened when the AI was primed to be biased against social media.

Potential negative uses of this feature of generative AI abound: Autocratic governments could mandate that social media and productivity tools all nudge their citizens to communicate in a certain way. Even absent any ill intent, students might be unconsciously nudged to adopt certain views when using AIs to help them learn.

Unpacking the ‘beliefs’ of an AI

It’s one thing to convince experimental subjects that social media is, or is not, a net benefit to society. But in the real world, what are the biases of the generative AI systems we are using? 

AI algorithms like ChatGPT don’t have beliefs, says Tatsunori Hashimoto, an assistant professor of computer science who is part of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. But they do reflect opinions gained from their training, and those opinions can be measured.

In a recent paper, Dr. Hashimoto and his colleagues used years of nationwide survey results from the Pew Research Center to see how well different large language models—the systems that underpin AIs like ChatGPT—reflect the views of Americans.

Because Americans have such a wide range of views, what the researchers looked at was whether the responses AIs offered, and how often they offered them, matched the responses, and frequency of those responses, of Americans. This is known as the distribution of those responses. And they “polled” these AIs by asking them the same multiple-choice questions that Pew researchers asked Americans.

Alignment rankings of AI language model responses to the views of self-identified ideological groups in Pew Research Center surveys

Least aligned

Most aligned

AI21 Labs models

Very

conservative

Very

liberal

Moderate

j1-grande

j1-jumbo

j1-grande-v2-beta

OpenAI models

Very

conservative

Very

liberal

Moderate

ada

davinci

text-ada-001

text-davinci-001

text-davinci-002

text-davinci-003

Note: The coloring is normalized by row to highlight the groups a given model is most/least aligned to.

Source: ‘Whose Opinions Do Language Models Reflect?,’ Shibani Santurkar, Esin Durmus, Faisal Ladhak, Cinoo Lee, Percy Liang, Tatsunori Hashimoto

Dr. Hashimoto and colleagues found that the distribution of responses of large language models from companies like OpenAI don’t match those of Americans overall. Of all groups surveyed by Pew, the views that OpenAI’s models most closely matched were the views of college-educated people. Notably, that also seems to be the group most represented among the pool of people who were tasked with helping to tune these AIs to give better answers—although the evidence here is more circumstantial, says Dr. Hashimoto.

One of the challenges of creating large language models is that, because of the complexity of these systems and the open-endedness of our interactions with them, it seems very difficult to entirely remove opinions and subjectivity from them without also sacrificing the utility of these systems, says Dr. Hashimoto.

Because these models are trained on data that can be taken from anywhere—including, in many cases, scrapes of wide swaths of the internet—they inevitably represent the opinions and biases contained in the texts they ingest, whether those are messages on public forums or the contents of Wikipedia articles. Those opinions are further shaped—deliberately and not—by the process of giving these models human feedback, so that they don’t answer questions that their creators deem off-limits, such as how to build a bomb, or spew content their creators deem toxic.

“This is a really active area of research, and the questions include what are the right guardrails and where in the training process do you put those guardrails,” says Ms. Vasserman.

This isn’t to say that the AIs many of us are already using are just algorithmic clones of the perspectives and values of the relatively young, college-educated, West-coast-dwelling people who have been building and fine-tuning them. For example, while these models tend to give responses typical of Democrats on many issues—like gun control—they give responses more typical of Republicans on other issues—like religion.

Evaluating the opinions of AIs will be an ongoing task, as models are updated and as new ones come out. Dr. Hashimoto’s paper does not cover the very latest versions of OpenAI’s models, or those from Google or Microsoft, but evaluations of those models and many more will be released on a regular basis, as part of a project at Stanford known as Holistic Evaluation of Language Models.

Picking an AI based on its ‘values’

Once people are equipped with information about the biases of the AIs they are using, they might decide on that basis which to use, and in what context, says Lydia Chilton, a professor of computer science at Columbia University. Doing so could return a sense of agency to people using AIs to help them create content or help them communicate, and help them avoid any sense of threat from latent persuasion, she adds.

It’s also possible that people will find that they can consciously use the power of AI to nudge themselves toward expressing different points of view and styles of communication. An AI programmed to make our communications more positive and empathetic could go a long way toward helping us connect online, for example.

“I find it laborious to be exciting and happy-sounding,” says Dr. Chilton. “Caffeine generally helps, but ChatGPT can also help.”

For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the May 13, 2023, print edition as 'Help! My Political Beliefs Were Altered by a Chatbot!'.

10. Disinformation, Covert Influence, and Cyber-Espionage Still a Major Problem on Social Media, Latest Meta Report Reveals

Disinformation, Covert Influence, and Cyber-Espionage Still a Major Problem on Social Media, Latest Meta Report Reveals - The Debrief

thedebrief.org · by Tim McMillan · May 8, 2023

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, released its 2023 first-quarter Adversarial Threats Report, offering the latest insights on how bad actors use social media for malicious activities.

The report focuses on three key adversarial trends observed by Meta’s security teams during the first three months of 2023. These include malware campaigns, covert influence operations, and cyber espionage by state-sponsored adversarial threat networks and private for-hire disinformation firms.

Meta’s Chief Information Security Officer, Guy Rosen, discussing these latest threats, said malware operators have taken a keen interest in exploiting public interest in emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies like ChatGPT.

“Our threat research has shown time and again that malware operators, just like spammers, are very attuned to what’s trendy at any given moment. They latch onto hot-button issues and popular topics to get people’s attention,” Rosen said.

“The latest wave of malware campaigns have taken notice of generative AI technology that’s captured people’s imagination and excitement.”

In March alone, Meta security teams uncovered 10 malware families posing as ChatGPT or similar AI chatbot tools, and over 1,000 malicious URLs had been blocked on Meta’s family of social media apps.

“Some of these malicious extensions did include working ChatGPT functionality alongside the malware,” Rosen said. “This was likely to avoid suspicion from the stores and from users.”

The report shared findings on nine adversarial networks using social media for cyber espionage and covert influence operations.

120 Facebook and Instagram accounts were disabled after being linked to a state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) group operating out of Pakistan.

According to the Meta, the Pakistan-based APT group was engaged in coordinated cyber espionage operations, primarily targeting military personnel in India and the Pakistan Air Force.

Using fictitious social media personas, the Pakistan-based APT group posed as recruiters for legitimate and fake defense companies, military personnel, journalists, and women looking to make a romantic connection to build trust with their intended targets.

The group’s ultimate goal was targeting victims with a type of malware known as GravityRAT. Described as a “low-sophistication” spyware program, security experts say GravityRAT has been used to target members of the Indian armed forces since at least 2015.

Another 110 Facebook and Instagram accounts were disabled after they were found to be linked with a cyber espionage operation run out of South Asia by a hacking group known as Bahamut APT.

Meta says Bahamut APT hackers posed as tech recruiters at large tech companies, journalists, students, and activists to trick targets into sharing sensitive information or installing malware on Android mobile devices.

Bahamut APT’s primary targets included military personnel, government employees, and activists in Pakistan and India, including disputed areas in the Kashmir region.

Finally, Meta says it disabled 50 Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with the Indian-based hacking group Patchwork APT.

Patchwork APT used fake personas, posing as journalists in the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, to trick targets into clicking on malicious links or downloading malicious apps that would give hackers access to a victim’s computer or mobile devices.

The primary targets of Patchwork APT were military personnel, activists, and minority groups in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Tibet region, and China.

Meta said it also disrupted six major networks engaged in operations to covertly influence public opinion, which Meta terms “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

In one example, 40 Facebook accounts, eight pages, and one group were found to be linked with an Iranian covert influence operation targeting Israel, Bahrain, and France.

The group used its fake profiles to distribute allegedly damaging information supposedly hacked from various government agencies, educational institutions, logistics and transport companies, or news outlets.

“We cannot confirm if any of the claimed attacks against these entities have, in fact, occurred. We removed this network before it was able to gain a following among authentic communities on our platforms,” wrote Meta.

Another 153 accounts, 79 pages, and 37 groups were removed after being discovered as part of two large-scale Chinese covert influence operations.

Through an extensive fictitious presence across social media and the internet, the groups disparaged Uyghur activists and critics of the Chinese state and shared misinformation to influence public geopolitical views favorable to China.

One of the two groups additionally tried to hire “part-time” protesters for various causes, such as the alleged discharge of nuclear waste from Fukushima in Japan and protests in Budapest against George Soros. One group spent $74,000 in ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta says one of the groups showed similarities to another Chinese-based influence group that was discovered and disabled in September 2022. Specifically, the group was almost exclusively active from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, with a dip in activity during lunchtime.

Security analysts said the other group is believed to be linked to the Chinese IT company, Xi’an Tianwendian Network Technology.

In one of the more interesting highlights from the recent Adversarial Threats Report, Meta called out an apparent American-based misinformation-for-hire firm.

According to Meta, Predictvia, a business registered in Miami, Florida, posed as news media outlets, journalists, and lifestyle brands on 28 fake Facebook and Instagram accounts and 54 Facebook pages as part of a covert political influence operation targeting elections in Guatemala and Honduras.

The accounts shared memes and long-and-short-form text posts in Spanish criticizing the mayor of the Guatemalan city of San Juan Sacatepéquez, Juan Carlos Pellecer, and the alleged political corruption of the president of the Honduran Congress, Luis Redondo.

Ironically, a website attributed to the company says, “Predictvia is in [sic] the front line of the fight against misinformation” and claims its platform “monitors and controls coordinated efforts to manipulate public discourse through fake social media accounts and other digital assets.”

Meta says it has banned Predictvia from using its services and issued the firm a Cease and Desist letter.

Half of the covert influence operations highlighted in the Meta report were linked to private entities, including a political marketing consultancy in Togo called the Groupe Panafricain pour le Commerce et l’Investissement (GPCI).

Meta notes that its 1st quarter Adversarial Threats Report does not represent all the adversarial threats security teams discovered. Instead, it is meant to highlight some key trends analysts detected.

“This report is not meant to reflect the entirety of our security enforcements, but to share notable trends and investigations to help inform our community’s understanding of the evolving security threats we see,” the Meta report reads.

Independent security experts say the amount of disinformation, covert influence, and cyber espionage operations not being detected by internal social media security teams is likely far higher than those being caught.

In an October 2022 article in The Conversation, three academic experts on social media gave Meta’s current handling of misinformation a letter grade of C, B-, and C.

“One important consideration: Users are not constrained to using just one platform. One company’s intervention may backfire and promote cross-platform diffusion of misinformation,” said Dr. Dam Hee Kim, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Arizona.

“Major social media platforms may need to coordinate efforts to combat misinformation.”

Meta’s significant stake in the social media ecosphere is Facebook and Instagram. However, the company notes that nearly every detected covert influence operation used coordinated fictitious entities across almost every corner of the internet, including on Twitter, Telegram, YouTube, Medium, TikTok, Blogspot, Reddit, and had their own website domains.

“We’ve seen that our and industry’s efforts are forcing threat actors to rapidly evolve their tactics in attempts to evade detection and enable persistence,” said Rosen. “One way they do this is by spreading across as many platforms as they can to protect against enforcement by any one service.”

“When bad actors count on us to work in silos while they target people far and wide across the internet, we need to work together as an industry to protect people.”

Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com

thedebrief.org · by Tim McMillan · May 8, 2023

11. How Taiwan once used female voice to win hearts and minds in China

How Taiwan once used female voice to win hearts and minds in China

NPR · by Emily Feng

China is pressuring Taiwan residents using misinformation and propaganda. Taiwan once used information warfare to sway Chinese citizens to defect to Taiwan. Among its key tools: The female voice.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

China has long vowed to take control of Taiwan. It continues to pressure residents of the democratic island through online misinformation and propaganda. But decades ago, Taiwan once used its own form of information warfare to sway Chinese citizens to defect to Taiwan. One of its key tools - the female voice. NPR's Emily Feng brings us this story about the women and the music behind that effort.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SWEET ON YOU")

TERESA TENG: (Singing in Mandarin).

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: To this day, you can hear the soft, crooning ballads of Taiwanese pop star Deng Lijun or Teresa Teng everywhere in both China and Taiwan, including here from a set of massive outdoor speakers on the remote Taiwanese island of Kinmen, just a few miles from China's coast.

I'm standing in front of a three-story tall set of concrete speakers, and it's just blasting Deng Lijun songs in the direction of the Chinese mainland.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FENG: Not to be outdone, on the other side of the street, China set up its own speakers.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FENG: Until 1991, the speakers blasted patriotic propaganda to any Taiwanese living within earshot. This was information warfare 1970s style, each side trying to get the other on their side ideologically and possibly to even get their citizens to defect.

ZHEN MEIHUI: (Through interpreter) I was so happy I had an opportunity to be sent to Taiwan's outlying islands. My family asked what I would do going to such a dangerous place, but I thought, how great is that?

FENG: This is Zhen Meihui. She just retired from a long career as a radio journalist. But in her first job in her 20s, she lived on a military base on Matsu, another Taiwanese island just miles off China's coast. There, under tight security, she recorded broadcasts designed to be blasted on giant speakers towards China.

ZHEN: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: She demonstrates how she used to record. "Dear compatriots," she says, stretching out her syllables, the only way her voice could carry far and still sound clear. In 1979, when she was on Matsu, Taiwan was then run under martial law by a one-party authoritarian state. Its primary mission was to invade and take control of China. Zhen not only played music and relayed propaganda messages.

ZHEN: (Through interpreter) We'd get assignments from the Intelligence Bureau to transmit Morse code encryption numbers to Taiwan spies in China like this. (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Other broadcasts tried to entice Chinese pilots to defect and bring with them military intel from China. Here's another newsreader, Chen Xiaoping.

CHEN XIAOPING: (Through interpreter) Planes then couldn't carry enough fuel to fly directly from China to Taiwan. So I would teach listeners some techniques like how to wave your airplane wing flaps a certain way to signal to allies, I am defecting. I want to go to Taiwan.

FENG: But Taiwan's Mandarin pop music was by far the most important tool, played into China either through speakers near its coast or by powerful shortwave radio signals. For a decade, starting in 1979, Chen even ran a talk show called "Teresa Time," an hour dedicated to just playing Teresa Teng songs on shortwave for listeners in China.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMALL TOWN STORY")

TENG: (Singing in Mandarin).

FENG: China, of course, did its best to block Taiwan's broadcasts.

CHEN: (Through interpreter) China always interfered with the broadcast, but Teresa Teng sang lyrics with such clear enunciation, and her voice was so sweet and lovely. So her compatriots in China loved to listen to her.

FENG: Teresa Teng's music was not officially allowed in communist China then, but people there coveted cassette tapes with her music copied on them, smuggled in from the then-British colony of Hong Kong. To this day, she remains incredibly popular across the Chinese-speaking world despite her tragically early death 28 years ago this week. And Teng's music continues to transcend ideologies that divide the Taiwan Strait. For example, when political tensions eased in the early 2000s, Taiwanese host Chen Xiaoping finally set foot on the Chinese mainland. She met some of her former listeners and their children there.

CHEN: (Through interpreter) I realized there was no such thing called hatred between us.

FENG: As a young broadcaster, she'd been trained to think of Chinese people as gongfei, or communist bandits, as Taiwanese propaganda called them. But traveling to China, she realized...

CHEN: (Through interpreter) In a closed environment, we became mysterious to each other. But seeing each other in the same room, we realized we are not very different.

FENG: As in they were all people - people who want happiness and health and to listen to Teresa Teng's music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WO ZHI ZAI HU NI")

TENG: (Singing in Mandarin).

FENG: Emily Feng, NPR News, Kinmen Island, Taiwan.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WO ZHI ZAI HU NI")

TENG: (Singing in Mandarin).

NPR · by Emily Feng

​12. In China, the Police Came for the Consultants. Now the C.E.O.s Are Alarmed.

In China, the Police Came for the Consultants. Now the C.E.O.s Are Alarmed.​

By Daisuke Wakabayashi, Ana Swanson and Lauren Hirsch

Daisuke Wakabayashi, who covers business in Asia, reported from Seoul. Ana Swanson reported from Washington, and Lauren Hirsch from New York.​

The New York Times · by Lauren Hirsch · May 12, 2023

Foreign businesses, a top Chinese official said in March, “are not foreigners, but family.” Then came a crackdown on firms with foreign ties.

• Send any friend a story
• As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

At the China Development Forum in Beijing in March, a top government official welcomed foreign investment, calling businesses from outside China “family.”

Daisuke Wakabayashi, who covers business in Asia, reported from Seoul. Ana Swanson reported from Washington, and Lauren Hirsch from New York.

May 12, 2023, 11:45 a.m. ET

The China Development Forum, a high-profile, government-hosted conference with a who’s who of international executives in attendance, was a moment for Beijing to renew its efforts to win over foreign businesses.

Businesses from outside China “are not foreigners, but family,” said Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister. State media reported that the chief executives of Apple, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble were at the forum, held in late March. Many of the dozens of business leaders there were on their first trip to China since the country had closed its markets to the world and derailed its economy with harsh Covid policies.

Mr. Wang pledged to remove obstacles preventing firms from investing more — 2023, he declared, was “Invest in China year.”

The good will did not last long.

The recent targeting of consulting and advisory firms with foreign ties through raids, detainments and arrests has reignited concerns about doing business in China. Executives, whether at midsize manufacturers or large corporations, are exploring how to reduce the threats to their businesses and protect their employees.

Over the last few years, as China has grown less business-friendly, some companies and investors were already starting to consider, for the first time in decades, whether the risks of investing in the country might outweigh the potential benefits.

The supply chain disruptions wrought by “zero-Covid” awakened companies to the downside of reliance on China. The geopolitical standoff between Washington and Beijing elevated the risk, forcing many multinationals to draft contingency plans for an alternative to China and to find ways to “decouple.”

Leaders of global companies were welcomed at the China Development Forum, held in Beijing in March, which featured panels like one that included chief executives from energy, automotive and manufacturing.Credit...Jing Xu/Reuters

And as Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, demands that Beijing bolster its national security and limit information to foreign governments and companies, some businesses are taking action.

Dan Harris, a Seattle lawyer who works with foreign companies in China, said he has heard from an unusually large number of businesses in recent weeks looking for ways to reduce their presence in China without leaving the market altogether.

One of his clients, a U.S. furniture manufacturer, is working on a deal to distribute its products through a Chinese firm so it can remove its American employees from the country. A U.S. education company, also a client, is shutting its China units and licensing its technology to its current Chinese employees. He declined to offer more detail, because he advises clients not to discuss leaving China until they are gone.

“The government in China is accelerating decoupling rather than trying to slow down,” said Andrew Collier, managing director at Orient Capital, an economic research firm based in Hong Kong. “If corporations feel that their operations are constantly open to incursion, they’re not going to be comfortable operating within that environment.”

Reports of raids or official security visits at prominent consulting firms in the last few months, including American outfits such as the Mintz Group and Bain & Company and most recently Capvision Partners, a consulting company with headquarters in New York and Shanghai, have raised alarm. Such firms help foreign businesses assess investments before they sink money into a company. They play a particularly crucial role in China, where reliable information is hard to secure and can come with a premium. Capvision disclosed in a regulatory filing two years ago that most of its expert researchers were paid about $200 per hour, with some making as much as $10,000 an hour.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV this week showed Chinese police conducting law enforcement work during a raid at the Capvision office in Shanghai.Credit...CCTV, via Associated Press

Revisions approved last month to China’s counterespionage law deepened the uneasiness because they formally broadened the law’s already sweeping definition of what constitutes spying. Employees at foreign companies in China could be targeted as spies for normal business practices such as gathering information on competitors, markets and industry.

At a conference on China hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Wednesday, Suzanne Clarke, the chamber’s chief executive, said the new counterespionage law and crackdown on consulting firms “have ratcheted up risk and uncertainty in the market.”

At a meeting of finance ministers of the Group of 7 in Niigata, Japan on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said many G7 members were also concerned by China’s actions and “looking to see what we could jointly do to try to counter this kind of behavior.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington, said that China welcomed foreign companies. “China is a law-based country,” he said. “All companies in China must operate in accordance with the law.”

China has always been risky for foreign businesses. During its rise to becoming the world’s second-largest economy, companies disregarded many red flags. But now, with growth stagnating and risks multiplying, the calculation is different.

The closed Beijing office of the Mintz Group in March.

Deal making in China has slowed. U.S. companies announced 25 business deals in China in 2022, down from 56 the previous year, according to the data service firm Dealogic.

Advisers to businesses looking to invest say that new areas of focus include Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Last year, U.S. deal makers announced 28 deals in Singapore, 24 in Japan and 21 in South Korea — all about the same or slightly more than the year before.

At the chamber’s event this week, Heather Clark, a lobbyist with the drugmaker Eli Lilly, which first opened an office in Shanghai in 1918 and again in 1993, said money flowing out of China underscored the need to seek countries that are more pro-business.

“Every company in this room is re-evaluating their China strategies,” said Ms. Clark during a panel discussion with the two leaders of the House Select Committee on China, which has been holding hearings on China’s economic and security threat to the United States and will make recommendations to Congress.

“So where is that investment going to go in the future? It’s going to come back to the United States, and it’s going to go to other friendly countries,” she said.

While companies and investors may think deeply about putting new money into China, a divorce from China is unlikely — at least in the short term.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week that G7 nations are concerned by China’s actions.Credit...Pool photo by Shuji Kajiyama

For manufacturers, no other country can challenge China’s infrastructure and the size of its skilled work force. Companies with products to sell are reluctant to walk away from a market with 1.4 billion potential consumers.

James McGregor, the chairman for Greater China for the advisory firm APCO Worldwide, said the formula for U.S. businesses remains “you can’t not be there.”

An executive with operations in China said many C.E.O.s of client companies are now asking if their goods can be made somewhere else — but it is often the same companies’ operations or engineering staff who insist it’s impossible to achieve the required quality elsewhere. The executive asked not to be identified because there is so much sensitivity around China.

“Nobody that I know of is actually leaving China,” said Michael McAdoo, a partner in the global trade group at Boston Consulting Group. “They’re just maybe looking at other places where they can balance that investment they’ve made historically there.”

By extending new security measures throughout the economy, China is amplifying what was already one of the biggest risks of investing in China: lack of transparency.

“It’s going to backfire,” said Mr. Collier of Orient Capital, who has done due diligence work in China. “Anybody who wants to build a $50 million plant is not going to be comfortable doing it because they won’t be able to do any investigation of the location, the land involved, the partners or anything.”

Victoria Kim and Claire Fu contributed reporting from Seoul.

The New York Times · by Lauren Hirsch · May 12, 2023

13. G7 finance heads face tricky trade-off in debating steps to counter China

G7 finance heads face tricky trade-off in debating steps to counter China

Reuters · by Andrea Shalal

• Summary
• Washington pushing for targeted controls on investment to China
• Germany, Japan lukewarm on idea given impact on their economies
• U.S. debt ceiling standoff keeps G7 policymakers wary of risks
• Germany voices hope for 'grown-up' decision on U.S. debt woes

NIIGATA, Japan, May 12 (Reuters) - Finance leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies will debate this week the idea of implementing targeted controls on investments to China, which analysts see as a double-edged sword that could make little headway.

China is much on the minds of G7 finance leaders gathering in the Japanese city of Niigata, with current chair Japan leading fresh efforts to diversify supply chains and reduce their heavy reliance on Beijing.

But the group is not on the same page in terms of how far it should go in countering China, as hurting trade with the world's second-largest economy could deal a heavy blow to export-reliant countries such as Germany and Japan.

The G7 nations can little afford further risks to their fragile economies, with Washington struggling to resolve a debt ceiling stand-off that could tip the U.S. economy into recession.

A scheduled meeting on Friday between U.S. President Joe Biden and top lawmakers was postponed until early next week as the two sides seek a compromise to avoid a catastrophic default.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Friday he hoped U.S. politicians would come to a "grown-up" decision on talks to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling - the maximum amount the U.S. government is authorised to borrow - warning there was a risk to the global economy if they did not.

COUNTERING CHINA'S 'ECONOMIC COERCION'

The United States is at the forefront in pushing for stronger steps against China. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday many members of the G7 economies shared U.S. concerns about China's use of "economic coercion" against other countries, and were considering ways to counter such behaviour.

Germany is increasingly wary of China as a strategic rival and has considered steps to reassess bilateral ties, but is cautious of being seen as forging a G7 front against China.

Preliminary data provided to Reuters showed Germany's direct investment in China continues to rise even as its government wants to "derisk" their relationship with Beijing.

While the G7 leaders' summit next week could see debate on implementing targeted controls on investments to China, any screening of investments would be targeted to strategically important areas, a German government source said on Thursday.

The discussions among the finance leaders will lay the groundwork for the summit in Hiroshima.

Host Japan is cautious about the idea of outbound investment controls against China given the huge impact it could have on global trade and its own economy.

"Restricting outbound investment would be quite difficult," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt told the Nikkei newspaper on Thursday the G7 must counter China's economic coercion, though made no mention of investment controls.

SUPPLY CHAIN DIVERSIFICATION

Another initiative to be endorsed by the G7 is to create partnerships with low and middle-income nations to diversify supply chains away from countries like China.

Japan has invited six non-G7 countries, including Brazil, India and Indonesia, for an outreach meeting on Friday where supply chain partnerships will be discussed.

Analysts, however, are sceptical on how effective such steps to counter China would be.

"It's very difficult to leave China out given its economic might," said Toru Nishihama, chief emerging market economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "Doing so could divide world trade, damage global growth and hurt G7 economies themselves."

The G7 finance leaders are expected to issue a joint statement after their three-day meeting ends on Saturday.

Reporting by Leika Kihara and Andrea Shalal, Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto, Takaya Yamaguchi and Christian Kraemer; Editing by Kim Coghill

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Andrea Shalal

14. Exclusive: G7 summit statement to target China's 'economic coercion'

Hmmm.. perhaps the G7 will agree with my China thesis: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.

Exclusive: G7 summit statement to target China's 'economic coercion'

Reuters · by Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries are set to discuss concern about China's use of "economic coercion" in its dealings abroad as part of their larger joint statement next week, according to a U.S. official familiar with the discussions.

The statement, a likely component of the overall communique that will be released by leaders during the May 19-21 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, is expected to be paired with a broader written proposal on how the seven advanced economies will work together to counter "economic coercion" from any country.

The main G7 statement is set to include "a section specific to China" with a list of concerns that include "economic coercion and other behavior that we have seen specifically from the [People's Republic of China]," the official said on Friday.

A separate "economic security statement will speak more to tools" used to counter coercive efforts from any countries responsible, including planning and coordination, the person said. In each case, the statements are to expected go further than prior statements by the G7.

U.S. President Joe Biden has made China a focus of his foreign policy, working to keep the tense and competitive relationship from veering into one of open conflict, including over self-ruled Taiwan.

The G7, which also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, is closely tied economically to China, the world's biggest exporter and a key market for many of the seven countries' companies.

Last month, China called a statement by the G7 foreign ministers that touched on similar topics "full of arrogance, prejudice against China," and lodged complaints with this year's G7 host, Japan.

Under Biden's predecessor, President Donald Trump, G7 statements often offered only a cursory mention of issues involving China. The Biden administration has pushed for more direct statements.

The joint statement issued by all the G7 leaders every year is intended to signal that the powerful countries are aligned on a range of political and economic issues.

G7 members will also hold out the prospect of further cooperation with China on areas like climate.

"We're not for decoupling the U.S. and Chinese economy, we are for de-risking, we are for diversifying," said the U.S. official. "That principle is very unifying."

Negotiations over the precise language of the leaders' joint declarations are still subject to diplomacy and adjustment before they are released during summit.

CHINA TESTS G7 ALLIANCE

The G7 meeting will be a test of how much the members, all rich democracies, can agree on a common approach to China, the world's second largest economy.

The China terms have been a major subject of the talks currently underway by G7 finance leaders in Niigata, Japan, where they have focused on reducing "over-reliance" of their countries' supply chains on Chinese manufacturing, including by partnering with low- and middle-income countries.

"The U.S. wants to get something hard on paper down in terms of agreement and the other countries are interested, but they're not as interested in putting specifics down on paper on these various instruments and economic statecraft tools," said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center.

In particular, some G7 members are skeptical about signing on to controls on outbound investment in China.

The policies are being drafted partly to help deny China's military access to tools it could use to gain technological superiority, and many in the Biden administration see them as complementary to export controls restricting access to some semiconductors that have the same goal.

"Of course, each member of the G7 is to some extent going to carve their own path on China and yet there are also a set of kind of principles that unite the G7 in a common approach to China," said the U.S. official.

Traveling for the G7 finance meeting in Japan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday that China had clearly used economic coercion with Australia and Lithuania.

Hanging over the meeting was a lack of progress in resolving the U.S. debt ceiling stalemate. A scheduled meeting on Friday between Biden and top lawmakers was postponed until early next week as Biden's Democrats and Republicans seek a compromise to avoid a catastrophic default.

U.S. officials, nonetheless, expect the president to attend the two-day summit as planned, followed by trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia also aimed at shoring up Washington's approach to the China-dominated Asia-Pacific region.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Edited by Heather Timmons

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Trevor Hunnicutt

15. Should India enter into a military alliance with the US against China?

When I read the headline my first thought was based on what I think I know there is no way that this would happen. But there are some interesting comments in this article.

Excerpts:

Similarly, former Indian diplomat Yogesh Gupta argues that helping the United States militarily in its confrontation with China is in India’s interest. “If China is able to forcibly occupy Taiwan, it will change the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific region completely,” Gupta said. “This would also threaten trade in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait from where a lot of India’s trade also passes.”

Gupta told Scroll that the United States being forced to concede Taiwan will boost China’s influence in Asia and its “expansionary behaviour” towards its neighbours will pose a threat to India’s territorial integrity.

Therefore, Gupta rejected Tellis’ argument saying it is a “myopic view”. “No country will tell in advance that they intend to take a certain stand or do so and so,” Gupta said. “But, to say that India won’t help the US in case of a conflict with China is a complete travesty. India will act according to its own interest, but it will help the US. The form of this support will depend on the situation.”

Gupta added that help does not necessarily mean sending troops to Taiwan. “India can apply diversionary pressure on China,” he said. “India can also let the US use Indian military bases. This is a possibility.”

Asked if irreparable damage to ties with Beijing will be a consideration for Delhi, Gupta argued that China was “already antagonised”. “They don’t treat India as an equal,” he said. “But, no country wants a two-front war. If there is a conflict over Taiwan in the East, China won’t want a conflict with India on its western border.”

Similarly, Madan suggests Delhi will play some role in possible confrontations such as Taiwan anyway. “Let’s also be clear – India won’t be unaffected by such a contingency and won’t be able to stay aloof,” Madan argued. “[This is] not because of US pressure. But because geography and interdependence matters.”

Should India enter into a military alliance with the US against China?

India may eventually help the United States militarily in a security contingency involving China, in some form, to protect its own interests, some experts argue

Nachiket Deuskar

12 hours ago

scroll.in · by Nachiket Deuskar

American strategic expert Ashley Tellis’ essay in the prestigious Foreign Affairs magazine on May 1 created more than a ripple among India-US watchers when he argued that the United States strategy of courting India as a partner is a “bad bet” because New Delhi will not follow Washington’s lead in confronting China during a regional crisis. The piece highlighted a long discussion in foreign policy circles: what exactly should a US-India relationship look like in the age of Great Power rivalry between Washington and Beijing?

The United States has increasingly supported India when it comes to defence, hoping that Delhi will reciprocate with military help in case of a confrontation with China. However, Tellis has joined some other scholars to argue that India would not intervene in any such conflict and would instead maintain its strategic autonomy.

However, other experts maintain that Delhi, even if not agreeable to a mutual defence arrangement, is still a good bet for Washington. They argue that India may eventually come around to helping the United States militarily in order to protect its own interests.

The ‘enormous bet’ on India

Michael Schuman, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, suggests that India is a key element of Washington’s China strategy. “India [is] the world’s ultimate swing state,” Schuman suggests.

To this end, in recent years, the United States has increasingly assisted India by granting it access to advanced American technologies and real-time geospatial intelligence. This backing was evident during the China-India clashes in eastern Ladakh in 2020 when Washington reportedly provided Delhi diplomatic and material support.

Similarly, US News & World Report reported in March, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter, that real-time intelligence shared by the United States military had helped India stall a Chinese incursion in Arunachal Pradesh in December. This possibly refers to the India-China clash in Tawang.

Washington has also placed the Quad – a security dialogue between India, the United States, Australia and Japan – at the heart of its Indo-Pacific strategy. Beijing accuses the Quad of being an “Asian NATO” aimed at China. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a mutual defence alliance built during the Cold War against the Soviet Union, agree to defend each other against armed aggression by third parties.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting United States President Joe Biden at the White House. Credit: Narendra Modi/Twitter

This support is an “enormous bet” that the United States has placed on India, presuming that Delhi will “respond favourably” when Washington seeks its support during a crisis involving China, Tellis argued in his article.

Tellis wrote that expectations of some in Washington about India’s role vis-à-vis China have evolved. Over the past two decades, Delhi had gone from being an economic counterweight against Beijing to being a military partner for Washington, Tellis said. “As US-China relations steadily deteriorated during the Trump administration – when Sino-Indian relations hit rock bottom as well – Washington began to entertain the more expansive notion that its support for New Delhi would gradually induce India to play a greater military role in containing China’s growing power,” Tellis wrote.

Consequently, Tellis argued, Washington has bent over backwards to accommodate India’s divergent positions over matters such as sanctions against Russia.

Delhi’s aversion to mutual defence

However, America’s expectations of India are misplaced and Washington needs to exercise caution, Tellis argued. “Delhi will never involve itself in any US confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security,” he wrote. “The Biden administration … should base its policies on a realistic assessment of Indian strategy and not on any delusions of New Delhi becoming a comrade-in-arms during some future crisis with Beijing.”

Tellis argued that the United States and India have divergent ambitions for their security partnership, with Delhi averse to participating in mutual defence deals. He suggested that India does not believe it must materially support the United States in any crisis, including with mutual threat China, in return for Washington’s support. This is because of India’s relative weaknesses against and proximity to China, and to avoid irreparably rupturing ties with Beijing.

Scholars suggest that Tellis expressing concerns about Washington’s expectations from Delhi are significant because he has been a “longest-standing champion” of their bilateral ties. Tellis was closely involved in the 2005 India-United States civil nuclear deal that is seen as a turning point for their bilateral relations. There are others who have been making similar arguments.

Experts such as Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, have emphasised that it is a a widely-accepted notion. that India would not get involved in a potential United States-China confrontation.

Citing Delhi’s emphasis on strategic autonomy and historical distrust between India and the United States, Schuman had similarly pointed out that Washington faces challenges in getting Delhi onboard its China strategy.

“Whether India can be counted on to support the US is an open question,” Schuman wrote in March. “[The legacy of earlier frosty ties] weighs on the relationship to this day, but more important is the mercurial nature of Indian foreign policy, which has been a hallmark of the nation’s sense of its place in the world since its formation in 1947.”

Ashok Kantha, a former Indian ambassador to China, has also suggested that a military pact was unlikely. “On some issues we might be closer to the USA, but we will not join a military alliance,” Kantha had told Newsweek in April.

Tanvi Madan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, had similarly argued in October that the United States and India’s other partners should approach it with pragmatism. “[The United States] should have realistic expectations about what New Delhi might be able to do in the Indo-Pacific, given its border-related, regional and domestic priorities,” she said.

Indian and United States Army soldiers during the Yudh Abhyas military exercise in 2022. Credit: ADGPI Indian Army/Twitter

Still not a bad bet

There are other experts who argue that the United States’ bet on India is not a bad one after all, despite their varying strategic interests.

Ian Hall, the deputy director for research of the Griffith Asia Institute, agrees that India has neither signed up to defend the liberal international order nor fight alongside the United States in East Asia against China. “Liberal international order” refers to the prevailing set of global laws and institutions sculpted under the United States’ dominance since the late 1940s.

However, unlike Tellis, Hall argues that this does not mean that Washington’s engagement with Delhi needs caution. “There is no question that a strong India complicates China’s strategic calculus – which is why the US wants India to get stronger,” Hall told Scroll.

Hall argued that India, in fact, also needs military partnership with the United States to face China’s “full-spectrum challenge”. “For that reason, India abandoned non-alignment to form a partnership with the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s and today it has done the same with the US and its allies,” Hall said.

In similar vein, Madan, who had suggested that Washington should court India pragmatically, says that the metrics to assess the utility of the India-United States partnership cannot solely be seen in terms of whether India will fight alongside the United States against China or if the United States will deploy boots on ground if China attacks India.

In fact, contrary to suggestions that Washington expects Delhi to join its alliance system, Madan cited earlier comments by American officials to argue that India being a military ally of Washington is not a dominant view in the United States administration. “I don’t think [the] Biden administration expects India to engage in collective defence or defend liberal international order,” Madan tweeted.

Shashi Tharoor, an MP and India’s former minister of state for external affairs, argued that while Delhi is cautious of officially participating in such partnerships, it has every reason to forge one given China’s increasing belligerence. “We, too, need to really have partners with an eye on China,” Tharoor told The Atlantic in March.

By accommodating Delhi’s caution, Tharoor said, “America seems to have the patience to let the Indians find their comfort level, which have certainly been progressing in the direction the US would like.”

India may come around

More importantly, experts such as Hall argue that India’s position of not supporting the United States militarily may itself change. “It is certainly possible that India could be involved militarily in a future crisis, for example securing sea lines of communication in the South China Sea,” Hall suggests. “But right now, India lacks the capability to do that, and it may not have that capability until well into the 2040s.”

Similarly, former Indian diplomat Yogesh Gupta argues that helping the United States militarily in its confrontation with China is in India’s interest. “If China is able to forcibly occupy Taiwan, it will change the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific region completely,” Gupta said. “This would also threaten trade in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait from where a lot of India’s trade also passes.”

Gupta told Scroll that the United States being forced to concede Taiwan will boost China’s influence in Asia and its “expansionary behaviour” towards its neighbours will pose a threat to India’s territorial integrity.

Therefore, Gupta rejected Tellis’ argument saying it is a “myopic view”. “No country will tell in advance that they intend to take a certain stand or do so and so,” Gupta said. “But, to say that India won’t help the US in case of a conflict with China is a complete travesty. India will act according to its own interest, but it will help the US. The form of this support will depend on the situation.”

Gupta added that help does not necessarily mean sending troops to Taiwan. “India can apply diversionary pressure on China,” he said. “India can also let the US use Indian military bases. This is a possibility.”

Asked if irreparable damage to ties with Beijing will be a consideration for Delhi, Gupta argued that China was “already antagonised”. “They don’t treat India as an equal,” he said. “But, no country wants a two-front war. If there is a conflict over Taiwan in the East, China won’t want a conflict with India on its western border.”

Similarly, Madan suggests Delhi will play some role in possible confrontations such as Taiwan anyway. “Let’s also be clear – India won’t be unaffected by such a contingency and won’t be able to stay aloof,” Madan argued. “[This is] not because of US pressure. But because geography and interdependence matters.”

scroll.in · by Nachiket Deuskar

16. Ukraine's path to victory

Conclusion:

If there is a Russian offensive, a Ukrainian counter-offensive launched after the Russians have used their operational reserves could yield even greater results, forcing the Kremlin onto the defensive, perhaps even to the point of seeking a ceasefire. If Kyiv and the West are looking for the most plausible path to victory, this is it.

Ukraine's path to victory

The attritional conflict is shifting into a war of manoeuvre

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · May 10, 2023

In “continental warfare”, each side strives to retain and, if possible, increase its “operational reserve” — the sum total of trained and equipped combat units that are not in combat. It is only with an operational reserve that tactical choices can be made: whether to keep forces ready to counter an expected enemy offensive, or to launch an offensive to drive back the enemy, or, better still, to penetrate the enemy front, roll out and encircle enemy forces. It was by a succession of such offensive “envelopments” that the Red Army drove back the Germans from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin. The Allies did the same on a much smaller scale after the 1944 Normandy landings.

Of course, until an operational reserve is built up and offensives can be launched, frontal forces are absolutely necessary, whether to resist an advancing enemy or to keep attacking the enemy, so that it cannot withdraw its frontal forces to build up its own operational reserve. But frontal forces can only fight by attrition, First World War-style, to kill and wound enemy troops in front of them. And an entire war fought by attrition alone must last for years, killing and maiming troops on both sides until one side or the other gives up because of sheer exhaustion.

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That is what happened on November 11, 1918, when Germany surrendered, even though not one Allied soldier had entered German territory, which remained almost undamaged in spite of the British and French air raids that hit a few buildings here and there. It was because Germany was neither devastated nor occupied after its surrender that it could go to war again just 20 years later, with catastrophic consequences. In other words, attrition is not only costly in lives, but it is also inconclusive, for it does not exhaust the will to fight.

Why is this relevant? Ever since the failure of the Russian air assault at the Antonov airfield on the first night of its invasion, which was supposed to open the way for the conquest of Kyiv and the country’s surrender, Ukraine has been fighting a war of attrition. At the cost of mounting casualties, Ukrainian frontal warfare has been successful enough to induce the Russians to withdraw from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, to prevent the seemingly inevitable Russian conquest of Odesa, the country’s premier port, and to limit Russian advances in the most contested Donetsk and Luhansk regions, lately by holding Bakhmut in a house-by-house, street-by-street fight, in spite of relentless attacks by Russia’s Wagner mercenaries.

But the greatest success of Ukraine’s frontal resistance has occurred behind the front, with the gradual build-up of an increasing large, well-trained, and well-armed operational reserve of combat units that could be held back from combat because the frontal forces proved sufficiently strong to stop Russian advances without need of large reinforcements. It means that, for the first time since the start of the war, Ukraine’s war leaders can now take the initiative, instead of just repelling one Russian attack after another in different sectors of the very long front.

They must therefore choose a course of action from within a spectrum of risks and possible gains: from remaining on the defensive overall while launching successive attacks to drive back the Russians in one sector after another, each a limited-risk effort; to the boldest option of concentrating all available forces for a deep-penetration offensive to scythe across the roads and rail lines that sustain Russia’s forces within an entire region. The peculiar geography of the war, dominated by the curve of the great Dnipro river, offers several choices for such a bold move, including the most ambitious: an all-out offensive from Zaporizhzhia all the way to the Black Sea at Berdyans’k, or even at Mariupol, only 40 miles from the Russian border.

Regardless of the chosen sector, unless the Russians have large forces ready to counter-attack powerfully enough to promptly drive back the Ukrainians, the result of an all-out offensive could be a spectacular Russian defeat, complete with an unprecedented number of prisoners. It might even finally provoke challenges to Putin’s direction of the war, and hence his entire leadership.

That Ukraine’s leaders can finally choose between different options is a great advance, even if the chosen option is to hold back the operational reserve until the Russians make a move of their own. This is entirely possible: the assault on Bakhmut that has long dominated the headlines has been intense but also very limited in its scope. The Russians who fought and died in the house-to-house fighting were not the military professionals of the elite forces, nor were they the deployable troops obtained from last year’s call-up of 300,000 reservists, or the units manned by contract soldiers — but rather the Wagner expendables.

This means that there are sufficiently large numbers of uncommitted Russian forces somewhere — perhaps in Belarus, Russia itself or occupied Ukraine — to allow the Kremlin to launch its own offensive. But even that is bound to be inconclusive because only a conquest of Kyiv could be decisive, and that is now an impossibility unless the entire Russian army is mobilised for that purpose.

If there is a Russian offensive, a Ukrainian counter-offensive launched after the Russians have used their operational reserves could yield even greater results, forcing the Kremlin onto the defensive, perhaps even to the point of seeking a ceasefire. If Kyiv and the West are looking for the most plausible path to victory, this is it.

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · May 10, 2023

17. Ukraine has choice of targets as it plots counteroffensive

Ukraine has choice of targets as it plots counteroffensive

At critical point in war, Ukraine could press – or appear to press – in multiple locations to try to push Russians back

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The Guardian · by Dan Sabbagh · May 12, 2023

After 15 months of fighting, the war in Ukraine is heading towards its most critical point. Kyiv has assembled a force – 12 brigades and perhaps 60,000 troops strong, if leaked Pentagon papers are to be believed – equipped largely with Nato-standard tanks, armour and artillery, and trained in part in the west.

At the same time, Russia’s winter offensive is over and it has failed. The campaign to gain ground along the eastern front from Kreminna in the north, to capture Bakhmut in the centre and Vuhledar in the south is faltering, the culminating point often considered by militaries as the optimum point for a counterattack.

Now Ukraine has to demonstrate, given the western weapons it has received, that is has a path to a military victory, that it can push back the Russian invaders. But the question is: where could it attack?

1. Break the land bridge and isolate Crimea

map 1

Ukraine’s advantage, says Ed Arnold, a research fellow at Rusi, the defence thinktank, is that it has choices of where the counterattack could take place. “The hallmark of a good strategy is that it creates options,” he said, and it may even be that Ukraine will press – or appear to press – in a number of locations to try to inflict a serious defeat.

The most obvious point for a Ukrainian attack is to strike from the Zaporizhzhia sector south and south-west towards Melitopol, or possibly south-east towards Berdiansk. The ultimate goal is to cut the road supply links that run close to the coast, but maps of Russian fortifications, based on satellite imagery, show a relatively dense double line of trenches and positions surrounding the key city of Tokmak.

The goal is ultimately to render Russia’s long occupation of Crimea untenable, which could be achieved if the Kerch Bridge, which connects the peninsula to Russia proper, can be blown again – perhaps with the help of newly acquired Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles that could also strike at the key logistics hub of Dzhankoi. But Ukraine knows Russia will fight hard for Crimea, even from a distance, so there may well be advantages to attacking elsewhere.

2. Attack over the Dnipro River into occupied Kherson

map 2

A riskier strategy would be to try to launch an amphibious operation across the Dnipro River farther west, where there are fewer but still plenty of fortifications. Britain expanded its programme of training for Ukrainian soldiers in February to encompass marines, and there have been some reports of marines battling to establish bridgeheads in the islands of the Dnipro delta, west of Oleshky.

A significant attack would be “high risk, high reward”, says Arnold, and he argues it is not obvious that Ukraine needs to try something so risky at this point. It is also unclear whether progress across the delta would be straightforward for a significant attacking force. The area is one of the least reported from in the war, making understanding what is happening in the area difficult.

3. Strike into northern Luhansk and threaten to surround forces in Donbas

Luhansk map

An alternative to an attack aimed at cutting off Crimea would be to strike into the lightly populated northern Luhansk, aimed at cutting off Russian supply lines that tend to run north-south through Svatove on the frontline and Starobilsk beyond to the east, and in turn threatening Russian-held positions farther south.

The area is less likely to be as well defended, and the aspiration would to achieve a repeat of the September Kharkiv offensive where Ukraine exploited a lightly defended area of the Russian lines farther west, and forced a chaotic retreat on Moscow’s forces who were at risk of being outflanked at points during the speedy advance.

Critical here for Ukraine would be to achieve an element of surprise, and, Arnold says, “having the intelligence to identify a Russian weak spot”. An attack in this area could work opportunistically, if the Russians over-defend in the south, while threatening it could force Moscow to move some troops 200 miles or so north-east.

4. Counterattack around Bakhmut

Bakhmut map

Six weeks ago, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Russia’s land forces, appeared to suggest that Ukraine could strike back in Bakhmut, a previously unimportant Donbas city that has become the scene of the fiercest fighting in the war.

At the time, the idea looked unlikely, but finally in recent days Ukraine has launched some limited counterattacks just north of Bakhmut, and again eight miles (14km) to the south-west. Their tentative success suggests Ukraine could try to encircle the battered city, threatening exhausted Russian forces that have only just captured most of it.

The disadvantage is that for all the symbolic value that would be gained from regaining the lost majority of Bakhmut, the Donbas area is less strategically significant. Cutting into Russian lines in the east does not threaten Crimea and any effort to capture the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, occupied since 2014, would be fraught, not least given the difficulty of urban warfare.

Where an attack in the east could help is “if it fixes the Russians in the area”, Arnold says, meaning it forces Moscow to allocate troops to the eastern front, so giving Ukraine greater opportunity in the south. Probing attacks in Bakhmut could be a prelude to an offensive elsewhere.

The Guardian · by Dan Sabbagh · May 12, 2023

18. EXPLAINED: Why Russia’s Bakhmut Denials Are Signs of ‘Increased Panic’

EXPLAINED: Why Russia’s Bakhmut Denials Are Signs of ‘Increased Panic’

kyivpost.com

The Kremlin has been forced to deny claims by pro-Moscow bloggers and the head of the Wagner mercenary group, that Ukrainian troops had made a breakthrough in the flashpoint city of Bakhmut.

What has Russia said?

In short, Russia claims that everything is great and going according to plan for the Kremlin.

In a Telegram post late on Thursday evening, the Russian Ministry of Defense said: "Statements, circulated by individual Telegram channels about 'defense breakthroughs' that took place in different areas along the line of military contact, do not correspond to reality.

“The overall situation in the area of the special military operation is under control.”

Russia elaborated on Friday, claiming: "In the tactical direction of Soledar, the enemy yesterday carried out offensive operations along the entire line of contact, which is more than 95 kilometres long, adding that Ukraine had deployed "more than 1,000 military personnel and up to 40 tanks."

"All the attacks of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been repelled."

Is it under control?

Not in the slightest. As Kyiv Post reported on Wednesday, a fierce Ukrainian counterattack in the Bakhmut sector destroyed Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, killing as many as 500 soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group, in the worst tactical defeat suffered by the Kremlin’s forces in months.

In fierce, close-in fighting, soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, backed by T-64 tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers, wiped out a chain of Russian defensive positions to the southwest of Bakhmut, advancing Ukrainian-controlled territory to the key Bakhmutovka River.

Both the Wagner group’s commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Ukrainian military sources claimed Kyiv’s forces had advanced 2.6 kilometers along a 3-kilometer front line in the area, though western analysts were more reserved in their assessments.

Ukraine said on Friday that its forces had recaptured chunks of territory around Bakhmut.

"The enemy has suffered great losses of manpower. Our defence forces advanced two kilometres (around one mile) near Bakhmut. We did not lose a single position in Bakhmut this week," Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said in a statement on social media.

Prigozhin has also claimed that a regular Russian army infantry unit holding sites in the area abandoned its position, thereby allowing attacking Ukrainian units to outflank his own forces.

AFU tonight, #Bakhmut

You hear more great news in this direction, probably tomorrow pic.twitter.com/KFqL1XEVno

— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) May 11, 2023

Have these claims been verified?

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed that geolocated footage, from May 9 and 10, “indicates that Ukrainian forces likely conducted successful limited counterattacks north of Khromove [immediately west of Bakhmut] and northwest of Bila Hora [14 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut] and made marginal advances in these areas.”

However, it cautioned that it “has not observed visual confirmation of these reported wider Ukrainian advances,” i.e. 2.6 kilometers along a 3-kilometer frontline.

Even so, the movement on the ground and the fact the Russian Ministry of Defense has felt the need to comment, indicates things aren’t going well for Moscow.

What else did Russia say?

Russia said it had repulsed several Ukrainian attacks in the course of the day, adding that the ongoing battle on Thursday evening occurred near Malynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, and involved both air power and artillery.

It did not comment on reports over alleged withdrawals by Russian troops near Bakhmut, but said its forces were "continuing to liberate the western parts" of the city.

How should this be read?

The ISW noted that Russia’s response was made “uncharacteristically quickly”, adding: “Prigozhin’s and the MoD’s responses are reflective of increased panic in the Russian information space over speculations about planned Ukrainian counteroffensives and indicate increased concern among Wagner and Russian MoD leadership, as well as reflecting Kremlin guidance to avoid downplaying Ukrainian successes.”

Are the developments in Bakhmut part of the long-awaited counteroffensive?

Prigozhin seems to think so, saying: "The Ukrainian army's plan is in action ... All the units which have been trained, which have received weapons, tanks and everything they need are already fully engaged.”

But developments in Bakhmut as well as other incidents such as exploding Russian fuel depots and derailed trains are likely all preparatory actions as part of the build-up to the counteroffensive, with the main thrust proper yet to begin.

Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine needs more time before beginning the highly anticipated counter-offensive against Russian forces. "Mentally we're ready ..." Zelensky told the BBC.

"In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet.

"With (what we have) we can go forward and be successful. But we'd lose a lot of people. I think that's unacceptable. So, we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.”

Chris York

Chris is Kyiv Post’s Head of News and has over a decade of experience as a former senior editor and reporter at HuffPost UK. He has an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security and after a stint learning Russian, is now trying to forget it and learn Ukrainian instead.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

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