Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Control your anger. If you have anger towards others, they control you."

- Miyamoto Musashi

"What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it from happening again."

- Anne Frank

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

- Francis of Assisi

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 21, 2023

2. The Reagan Lesson for the Trumpian Right on Ukraine and China

3. As hold on Bakhmut slips, Ukrainian forces push to encircle city

4. How a CCP Propaganda Campaign Targeted the Dalai Lama

5. China’s backlash against comedy stirs more fears

6. Russian forces capture Bakhmut, a symbolic but costly victory

7. Bakhmut: Zelensky indicates Russia has control of city

8. The U.S. Left Them Behind. They Crossed a Jungle to Get Here Anyway. (Afghanistan)

9. Turn Ukraine Into a Bristling Porcupine

10. Russia claims to have Bakhmut but top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over

11. Russia and China hit back at a G7 that saw them as a threat

12. The Alarming Reality of a Coming Nuclear Arms Race

13. FBI Searched Jan. 6 Rioters and George Floyd Demonstrators in Spy Database

14. Does America Still Need Europe?

15. What Washington Gets Wrong About Deterrence

16. Amid leak of U.S. secrets, Pentagon hunts how documents left air base

17. China’s Port Power

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 21, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-21-2023

Key Takeaways

Wagner Group mercenaries likely secured the western administrative borders of Bakhmut City while Ukrainian forces are continuing to prioritize counterattacks on Bakhmut’s outskirts.
ISW previously forecasted that Wagner offensive operations would likely culminate after months of attritional urban combat, and it is unlikely that Wagner will continue fighting beyond Bakhmut at its current depleted state.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the Wagner Group and the Russian military on May 21 for capturing Bakhmut.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin predictably claimed the victory over Bakhmut City entirely for himself and his forces.
Russian reactions to the claimed capture of Bakhmut illustrate an increasingly growing divide between the Kremlin’s domestic presentation of the war and the ultranationalist milblogger community’s coverage of Russian operations in Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden stated on May 21 that the US will train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation aircraft, including F-16s, to augment Ukraine’s defense capabilities in the long term.
Former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s “Club of Angry Patriots” social movement opened a St. Petersburg chapter with an inaugural event on May 21.
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and south of Kreminna.
Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Donetsk City-Avdiivka frontline but have not made any verifiable territorial gains.
Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a deep strike against a Russian headquarters at an airfield in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, with a Storm Shadow missile.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that seven regiments and four battalions from Chechnya are operating in Ukraine as of May 20.
Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying filtration measures in occupied Ukraine to find Ukrainian partisans.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 21, 2023

May 21, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 21, 2023

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

May 21, 2023, 6:30pm 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 12:30pm ET on May 21. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 22 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Wagner Group mercenaries likely secured the western administrative borders of Bakhmut City while Ukrainian forces are continuing to prioritize counterattacks on Bakhmut’s outskirts. Ukrainian military officials reported that Ukrainian forces control an “insignificant” part of southwestern Bakhmut City around the T0504 highway — a tacit acknowledgement that Russian forces have secured the rest of western and northwestern Bakhmut, if not all of it.[1] These officials’ statements indicate that Ukrainian forces withdrew from the remaining areas in Bakhmut except those adjacent to the two highways into the city. Geolocated footage published on May 21 showed Wagner forces raising Russian and Wagner flags over a residential building in westernmost Bakhmut.[2] The Wagner Group’s likely capture of the last remaining small area of western Bakhmut does not impact ongoing Ukrainian counterattacks north or south of Bakhmut, nor does it impact Ukrainian control over the ground lines of communications (GLOCs) around Bakhmut that exhausted Wagner forces would need to reach in order to conduct further offensive operations. Russian forces will likely need additional reinforcements to hold Bakhmut City and its flanks at the expense of operations in other directions. ISW has observed artillery units of the 132nd Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (which was previously observed in the Avdiivka area) operating in the Bakhmut direction.[3]

Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian forces lost part of the dominant heights around Bakhmut and noted that sustained Ukrainian advances could lead to a tactical encirclement of Wagner forces in Bakhmut.[4] The Ukrainian 3rd Separate Assault Brigade stated on May 20 that the brigade’s counterattacks have expanded the Ukrainian salient in the Bakhmut area to 1,750 meters wide by 700 meters deep in an unspecified area.[5] Geolocated footage showed the Ukrainian 3rd Separate Assault Brigade striking unspecified Russian forces south of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and engaging with the Russian 200th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 14th Army Corps (Northern Fleet) northeast of Bohdanivka (5km northwest of Bakhmut).[6] Russian conventional forces such as the 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade are unsuccessfully attempting to regain lost positions and respond to Ukrainian counterattacks on Bakhmut’s flanks, actions that are consistent with ISW’s assessment that Ukrainian forces regained the tactical initiative around Bakhmut.[7] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian conventional forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations south of Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), in the direction of Hryhorivka (about 6km northwest of Bakhmut), and in the direction of Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut), and Russian milbloggers also noted the failed Russian assaults on Bakhmut’s flanks.[8]

ISW previously forecasted that Wagner offensive operations would likely culminate after months of attritional urban combat, and it is unlikely that Wagner will continue fighting beyond Bakhmut at its current depleted state. ISW assessed that Wagner forces were nearing culmination when they decided to fight though Bakhmut City. Wagner forces were enabled to continue offensive operations past that culmination point as Russian regular forces took responsibility for Bakhmut’s flanks, allowing Wagner to concentrate on the urban fight. Wagner forces began showing signs that they would be unable to pursue offensive operations beyond Bakhmut City from at least late December 2022.[9] A Russian milblogger claimed on May 21 that Wagner forces have not directly attacked Khromove and Ivanivske — settlements immediately west and southwest of Bakhmut — since capturing Bakhmut.”[10] Commander of the Vostok Battalion Alexander Khodakovsky stated that, “driven in [their] head by the inertia of the offensive, [Russian forces] did not want to promptly recognize the depletion of [Russian] offensive potential and did not take care to set up necessary defenses” in captured areas.[11] Former Russian officer Igor Girkin stated that all Russian forces are now exhausted after decisively committing to win an unnecessary battle for Bakhmut and claimed that exhausted Wagner mercenaries stopped immediately at the outskirts of Bakhmut “as they crawled” to the city’s administrative border.[12] Russian regular forces situated on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks are also unlikely to push west towards Kostyantynivka or north towards Slovyansk amid Ukrainian counterattacks in the Bakhmut area any time soon. Russian conventional forces will be even more unlikely to pursue offensive operations if Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin delivers on his stated intent to withdraw Wagner personnel from Bakhmut City on May 25.[13] It is currently unclear if Prigozhin will actually withdraw his forces from Bakhmut, but some milbloggers are speculating that Prigozhin will commit Wagner to a different “critical” frontline at the end of the month.[14] Russian forces faced a similar culmination following highly attritional infantry attacks in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in June–July 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the Wagner Group and the Russian military on May 21 for capturing Bakhmut.[15] Putin directly attributed the capture of the city to Wagner mercenaries, while noting that Russian regular forces provided “necessary support and flank protection” for the Battle of Bakhmut. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) similarly announced that Russia captured Bakhmut because of Wagner assaults in the city and aviation and artillery support from the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces.[16] Putin and the MoD likely directly acknowledged Wagner’s responsibility for the capture of Bakhmut to avoid a repetition of the backlash that followed their immediate failure to do so when Wagner captured Soledar on January 12.[17] Putin’s acknowledgement of Wagner’s role in Bakhmut is the first time that he himself has directly credited Wagner with a battlefield victory. Putin likely took this step because Prigozhin has thoroughly established Wagner’s responsibility for operations in Bakhmut within the Russian information space. Putin and the MoD likely sought to mitigate Prigozhin’s ability to claim sole responsibility for the capture of Bakhmut by emphasizing that regular Russian forces aided in the effort.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin predictably claimed the victory over Bakhmut City entirely for himself and his forces. Prigozhin stated on May 21 that “it is a total lie” that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) helped Wagner capture the city and said that no one from the Russian MoD was in Bakhmut.[18] Prigozhin claimed that Wagner practically received no help from the Russian military except from former overall theater commander Army General Sergey Surovikin and Russian Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics-turned-Wagner-Group-deputy-commander Colonel General Mikhail Mizinstev.[19] Prigozhin claimed that that the 305th Artillery Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) helped Wagner after being subordinated to Wagner’s command. Prigozhin also acknowledged that the 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) played a ”satisfactory” role in controlling one of the flanks around Bakhmut.[20] Prigozhin argued that the Russian command will attempt to claim the victory over Bakhmut when Wagner transfers the city to regular Russian forces and stated that the situation will be similar to how the MoD took much of Wagner’s alleged credit for capturing Palmyra, Syria, in 2016.[21]

Prigozhin is likely attempting to solidify Wagner as solely responsible for Bakhmut’s capture before the Kremlin and the MoD can craft a response. Russian sources widely congratulated Wagner for the capture of Bakhmut and accepted Prigozhin’s May 20 claim — rather than Putin’s statement — as the official announcement of the city’s capture.[22] Russian sources also amplified footage of Wagner forces placing a Wagner Group flag — not a Russian flag — at the highest point in Bakhmut, likely an intentional snub of the MoD.[23] Prigozhin will likely use Wagner’s perceived responsibility for Bakhmut’s alleged capture to advocate for more supplies, responsibilities, and privileges for Wagner as he did following Wagner’s involvement in the capture of Popasna in May 2022.[24] Prigozhin will also likely use Wagner’s role in the alleged capture of Bakhmut to intensify his efforts to establish himself as the central figure of the Russian ultranationalist community.

Russian reactions to the claimed capture of Bakhmut illustrate an increasingly growing divide between the Kremlin’s domestic presentation of the war and the ultranationalist milblogger community’s coverage of Russian operations in Ukraine. Russian state television portrayed the alleged capture of Bakhmut as a seminal historic event and claimed that the city’s capture would facilitate Russian operations to capture Slovyansk (41km northwest of Bakhmut) and Kramatorsk (35km northwest of Bakhmut) and even Dnipro City (roughly 215km west of Bakhmut).[25] The Kremlin likely attempted to oversell the significance of the capture of Bakhmut as a historical victory due to the continued lack of tactical success in Ukraine, with one Russian state media outlet outrageously commenting that Wagner personnel in Bakhmut must feel like “their grandfathers in Berlin.”[26]

Russian ultranationalist milbloggers celebrated the alleged capture of Bakhmut but emphasized that “Bakhmut is not Berlin” and that the capture of the city would be simply another step in ongoing difficult operations to achieve Russian objectives in Ukraine.[27] Russian milbloggers responded to the alleged capture of Bakhmut by discussing more immediate possible Russian operations to capture Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut), Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), and Chasiv Yar (12km west of Bakhmut).[28] Other prominent Russian milbloggers responded to the capture of Bakhmut by focusing on possible imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive operations instead of possible future Russian offensive operations.[29] Russian milbloggers shifted to more conservative expectations of Russian operations as the attritional offensive to capture Bakhmut continued from winter into spring of 2023, and they have largely abandoned their previous high expectations that the capture of Bakhmut would lead to a collapse of Ukrainian lines in the area and Russian advances up to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.[30] Russian milbloggers’ more realistic views about both Russian capabilities in Ukraine and the relevance of the Bakhmut offensive highlight the divergence between two very different segments of the pro-war Russian information space: the more optimistic presentation of the war offered by the Kremlin and the more informed presentation of the war offered by milbloggers. These growing differences will likely continue to undermine the Kremlin’s ability to shape the Russian information space.

US President Joe Biden stated on May 21 that the US will train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation aircraft, including F-16s, to augment Ukraine’s defense capabilities in the long term. Biden stated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave him a “flat assurance” that Ukrainian forces will not use Western-provided F-16s to strike Russian territory.[31] Biden reiterated that Ukraine will not use F-16s in its anticipated counteroffensive and framed the provision of F-16s as part of a longer-term effort to augment Ukraine’s defensive capabilities as Ukraine’s operational needs evolve.[32] Biden expanded on this argument, stating that the US did not pledge to send Ukraine tanks earlier because Ukraine did not need tanks earlier.[33] ISW has assessed that the need to send Ukraine Western tanks, including M1s, became apparent in June 2022.[34]

ISW previously assessed in January 2023 that delays in the provision to Ukraine of Western long-range fires systems, advanced air defense systems, and tanks have limited Ukraine’s ability to take advantage of opportunities for larger counter-offensive operations presented by flaws and failures in Russian military operations.[35] The inevitable delay between the pledge to send such systems and the Ukrainians’ ability to use them calls for the provision of such systems at the earliest indications that they will be required, not when the situation becomes dire.[36] Had Western leaders started setting conditions for Ukraine to use Western tanks in June 2022, when the first clear indicators appeared that Western tanks would be needed, Ukrainian forces would have been able to start using them in November or December. The continual delays in providing Western materiel when it became apparent that it is or will soon be needed have thus contributed to the protraction of the conflict.[37]

Former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s “Club of Angry Patriots” social movement opened a St. Petersburg chapter with an inaugural event on May 21. The event’s speakers discussed their dissatisfaction with the way elements of Russia’s "military-political elite” are not trying to decisively defeat Ukraine and instead are focusing efforts on maintaining current Russian gains in Ukraine and holding negotiations with the West.[38] They also discussed how the Club of Angry Patriots is creating an “alternative center of power” that should help achieve the final destruction of the Ukrainian state and the further mobilization of the Russian nation to that end.[39] Speakers also discussed how the Russian elite that formed against the backdrop of the 1990s period of privatization and "the post-Soviet catastrophe” has “rotted.”[40]

The opening of the club in St. Petersburg is likely a continuation of Igor Girkin’s political feud with Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. The Wagner Group opened its first official national headquarters in St. Petersburg in November 2022.[41] The Angry Patriots Club accused Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of supporting efforts to freeze the war in Ukraine in April 2023.[42] Girkin launched the “Club of Angry Patriots” social movement as a new effort in April 2023 likely aimed at protecting the influence of the Russian pro-war faction within the Kremlin.[43]

Key Takeaways

Wagner Group mercenaries likely secured the western administrative borders of Bakhmut City while Ukrainian forces are continuing to prioritize counterattacks on Bakhmut’s outskirts.
ISW previously forecasted that Wagner offensive operations would likely culminate after months of attritional urban combat, and it is unlikely that Wagner will continue fighting beyond Bakhmut at its current depleted state.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the Wagner Group and the Russian military on May 21 for capturing Bakhmut.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin predictably claimed the victory over Bakhmut City entirely for himself and his forces.
Russian reactions to the claimed capture of Bakhmut illustrate an increasingly growing divide between the Kremlin’s domestic presentation of the war and the ultranationalist milblogger community’s coverage of Russian operations in Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden stated on May 21 that the US will train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation aircraft, including F-16s, to augment Ukraine’s defense capabilities in the long term.
Former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s “Club of Angry Patriots” social movement opened a St. Petersburg chapter with an inaugural event on May 21.
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and south of Kreminna.
Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Donetsk City-Avdiivka frontline but have not made any verifiable territorial gains.
Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a deep strike against a Russian headquarters at an airfield in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, with a Storm Shadow missile.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that seven regiments and four battalions from Chechnya are operating in Ukraine as of May 20.
Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying filtration measures in occupied Ukraine to find Ukrainian partisans.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and south of Kreminna on May 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and Ivano-Dariivka (23km south of Kreminna).[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Stelmakhivka (16km west of Svatove), Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna), Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna), and Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna).[45] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces advanced towards Hryhorivka (11km south of Kreminna) on May 20, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[46]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck rear Russian positions in Kalynove-Borshuvate, Luhansk Oblast (34km south of Severodonetsk) with HIMARS rockets on the night of May 20 to 21.[47]

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

See topline text on Bakhmut.

Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Donetsk City-Avdiivka frontline but have not made any verifiable territorial gains on May 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations in the directions of Avdiivka, Marinka (18km west of Donetsk City), Pervomaiske (15km northwest of Donetsk City), Novokalynove (12km north of Avdiivka), and Sieverne (14km northwest of Donetsk City).[48] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces intensified offensive operations on the Donetsk City frontline and attacked: in western and northern parts of Marinka; in the direction of Pervomaiske; on the southwestern and eastern approaches to Avdiivka; and in Novokalynove.[49] The milblogger added that Russian forces only advanced in Novokalynove and captured an unspecified nearby road — likely the T0511 highway.[50] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced towards Sieverne from the Vodyane (7km southwest of Avdiivka) direction, and that fighting is ongoing in Pervomaiske, Opytne (just east of Vodyane and Sieverne), and Marinka.[51] ISW has not observed any visual confirmation of these claims. Geolocated footage published on May 20 showed Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions near the H-20 highway northeast of Krasnohorivka.[52]

Russian forces continued localized attacks on settlements southwest of Donetsk City on May 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults on Novomykhailivka (about 30km southwest of Donetsk City) and continued to use aviation and artillery to target nearby settlements.[53] Kremlin-affiliated sources claimed that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near Novomykhailivka.[54]

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

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a deep strike against a Russian headquarters at an airfield in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, with Storm Shadow missiles on May 21. Ukraine’s Strategic Communications Center reported that Ukrainian forces struck an unspecified Russian headquarters in Berdyansk on May 21.[55] Geolocated pictures show smoke rising in the direction of the Berdyansk airfield.[56] Russian milbloggers reported that Ukrainian forces struck the mess hall at the Berdyansk airfield with a Storm Shadow missile in the early morning on May 21.[57] Battle damage from the strike is unclear as of this publication; one prominent Russian source reported that the struck mess hall had already been vacated by the time of the strike’s impact.[58] A Russian source reported that Ukraine’s recent deep strikes against the airfield in Mariupol on May 19 and the airfield in Berdyansk on May 21 are part of a new Ukrainian effort to “thin out” Russian aviation stationed along the Sea of Azov Coast.[59] Berdyansk is a coastal town on the Sea of Azov and is located about 100km from the frontline — well outside of the operational range of US-provided HIMARS.

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in Kherson or Zaporizhia oblasts on May 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces in Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts continued conducting defensive operations across the frontline.[60] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported on May 21 that Russian forces in southern Ukraine continue establishing defensive positions and that Ukrainian forces have not observed any significant change in Russian forces’ composition or positions.[61]

Russian forces continue shelling Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhia Oblast and west (right) bank Kherson Oblast.[62] Geolocated footage posted on May 21 shows elements of the Russian 503rd Motor Rifle Regiment (19th Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army) shelling Ukrainian forces north of Nesteryanka, Zaporizhia Oblast (about 11km southwest of Orikhiv).[63] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces “remind” Ukrainian forces of their presence on the Kinburn Spit by shelling Ochakiv and Kutsurub hromadas in Mykolaiv Oblast and the Dnipro–Bug River estuary.[64] A Russian source claimed that Russian fires destroyed a Ukrainian observation post in an unspecified area on the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River used to adjust fires against east (left) bank Kherson Oblast on May 21.[65]

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

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that seven regiments and four battalions from Chechnya are operating in Ukraine as of May 20 during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyatigorsk, Stavropol Krai.[66] Kadyrov claimed that this figure encompasses Chechen units with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard), including volunteers with Kadyrov’s “Akhmat” special forces.[67] Kadyrov also claimed that roughly 200 volunteers from Chechnya deploy to the front in Ukraine every week after training.[68] Kadyrov recently claimed on May 8 that 3,300 personnel comprise the “Sever Akhmat” Special Purpose Regiment, and if the claimed seven Chechen regiments are all nominally this size then Kadyrov’s figure for Chechen forces in Ukraine could total roughly a nominal 25,000 personnel not accounting for losses.[69] The real number of Chechen forces in Ukraine in these claimed formations would likely be far lower due to combat losses and degradation. ISW has only observed Akhmat special forces battalions operating in Ukraine and has not seen visual confirmation of Chechen formations at the echelon of a regiment operating in Ukraine.[70] ISW has previously observed Chechen units in offensive operations around Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast and likely in internal security roles in Zaporizhia Oblast — operations that are consistent with a force composition of at most 25,000 personnel.[71] This figure, if accurate, would represent a relatively disproportionate number of personnel serving in Ukraine from a single Russian federal subject but would be less than the more significant force that Kadyrov has previously tried to portray Chechen forces as fielding.[72] ISW previously assessed that Kadyrov is likely attempting to increase Chechnya’s role in operations in Ukraine and the wider Russian military sphere to retain favor with Putin.[73]

Russian pundits on state television stated on May 21 that Russia needs three to four million personnel in Ukraine to achieve Russia’s military objectives.[74] These comments are likely a part of domestic information operations aiming to set conditions for the Kremlin’s widespread contract service recruitment campaign and the ongoing information operation to portray the war in Ukraine as existential. These comments do not reflect any real intention in the Kremlin to conduct a wider mobilization that would produce an amount of personnel anywhere near these figures.

A Russian milblogger claimed on May 21 that an Iranian Il-76TD military cargo plane flew to Moscow and regularly does so.[75] Russian forces have been increasingly using Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 drones in its new limited air campaign in Ukraine over the past month, and it is likely that Russian forces are increasingly reliant on Iranian deliveries of the drone systems.[76] ISW assesses that the Kremlin will likely continue to pursue mutually beneficial military-economic programs with Iran in order to ensure continued Iranian material support for Russian operations in Ukraine.[77]

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

Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying filtration measures in occupied Ukraine to find Ukrainian partisans. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on May 21 that Russian occupation forces significantly increased the number of checkpoints in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast and that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) personnel are searching cars with dogs to find partisans.[78] Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryushchenko reported on May 21 that Russian occupation authorities are installing new equipment throughout Mariupol to track civilians’ cell phone connections and listen to calls made to Ukrainians outside of Russian-occupied areas.[79]

Russian occupations authorities are reportedly strengthening their passportization regimes in occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on May 21 that Russian occupation authorities continue to intensify repressive measures against the residents in occupied territories who have not received Russian passports. The report states that non-passport holders cannot go to the hospital and that Russian authorities threaten to confiscate cars of Ukrainian civilians who do not hold Russian passports when they pass through checkpoints.[80] Luhansk Oblast Military Administration Head Artem Lusohor reported on May 21 that Russian occupation authorities are requiring school-age children to have Russian passports to obtain educational certificates.[81] Lysohor noted that Russian occupation authorities originally required students to have Russian passports to take exams.[82]

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.

Nothing significant to report.

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.

2. The Reagan Lesson for the Trumpian Right on Ukraine and China

Excerpts:

The U.S. has “a lot of catching up to do” rebuilding its military deterrent after decades of neglect. So far the political will isn’t in evidence. But if Washington starts to take that task seriously, Beijing’s rulers may find, as Reagan suggested of the Soviets, that they liked the arms race better when they were the only ones running it.

Perhaps the most important Cold War lesson: There is nothing inevitable about the current moment. “I’m not trying to be at all sanguine,” Mr. Inboden says. But it would “be a mistake to lock ourselves into thinking the present trend line will continue.” Don’t assume “that geopolitical and national security trend lines are linear” or that China “will always be this economic dynamo.”

Mr. Inboden notes that his students, born long after the Berlin Wall fell, can slip into thinking that a peaceful end to that contest was foreordained. “Anyone can look back now,” see “what a decrepit colossus” the Soviet Union was, and think the U.S. triumph was inevitable. But it didn’t look that way in 1981. Mr. Inboden says his book aims to capture the Cold War’s “radical uncertainty.”

“There’s an argument embedded in that about the contingency of history, the importance of leadership—that presidents matter.” They “have choices. They can go this way or they can go that way. And the fate of the world can rest on that.”

The Reagan Lesson for the Trumpian Right on Ukraine and China

Historian William Inboden considers the Cold War’s lessons for today’s Republican Party.

By Kate Bachelder OdellFollow

May 19, 2023 5:20 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-a-lot-we-can-learn-from-reagan-inboden-foreign-policy-ukraine-china-soviets-506f0bf8

Middleburg, Va.

Inflation has been running at its highest rate in decades. American society is restive and divided. There’s a public perception that the country’s glory days are over, that democratic capitalism is a spent force. U.S. standing and influence abroad are in decline. America not long ago withdrew in disgrace from one of the longest wars in its history. A communist superpower appears ascendant and is building up military force at a ferocious pace.

William Inboden could be talking about today, but he’s describing the world in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president. “If you were to do an overall scoreboard in the Cold War at the time,” he says, “it would have looked to most objective observers like the Soviets were winning and the United States was losing. At best it’s a tie, but the previous decade had been by most standards a good one for the Soviet bloc and a bad one for the free world.”

He ticks off a list: “The Soviets had a more formidable, capable military than we did when Reagan takes office.” Beginning in the early 1970s, “on every continent in the global south of the developing world—Asia, Latin America and Africa—Soviet-sponsored communist insurgencies and revolutions are winning.” Communism “seems to be the wave of the future.”

The U.S., meanwhile, “has a really rough run of stagflation. And it’s not just a bad economic cycle. There’s a growing sense—maybe free-market economies just don’t work. Maybe this entire system is broken.” On top of all that, “we have radically underinvested in defense” and are weathering the “demoralization” of Vietnam and Watergate.

A decade later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Mr. Inboden, 50, a Yale-educated historian, runs the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. He recently published “The Peacemaker,” a history of President Reagan’s foreign policy. When we meet for a fireside interview in the lobby of a countryside hotel where he’s come for a conference, I ask him about the Cold War lessons for today’s precarious world, in which China and Russia are working in tandem to displace the West.

It’s a particularly pertinent question given today’s divisions in the Republican Party, a prominent faction of which argues that America is in inexorable decline and should pull back from shaping world events. Reagan was, in Mr. Inboden’s words, the last “unequivocally successful two-term Republican president, especially on foreign policy.” Yet he is no longer universally admired in his party. “None of us are expecting another Reagan to come galloping to rescue us,” Mr. Inboden says, “but if we’re going to learn anything from history, let’s at least start with the last time that we seemed to get something significant right.”

Reagan was the first Cold War president to “imagine a world without the Soviet Union,” Mr. Inboden says. He “fundamentally rejected much of the conventional wisdom, or what seemed to be Cold War realities. One of those was that the Soviet Union is a permanent part of the geopolitical landscape.”

He took office nearly six decades after the Soviet Union’s establishment. “So it seems to be a given—countries don’t just up and disappear,” Mr. Inboden says. But Reagan had the “strategic imagination” to reject a prevailing view that the best the U.S. could do was to lose the Cold War “as slowly as possible.”

Reagan didn’t naively believe America always comes out on top. He saw the Cold War as a contest of ideas and had a new theory about how to advance American principles and interests. He called communism a “barbarous assault on the human spirit” and the Berlin Wall “as ugly as the idea behind it.” He didn’t flinch from arming unsavory enemies of communism such as the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

The 40th president abandoned what Mr. Inboden calls the playbook of “meetings for meetings’ sake.” He “waited to start doing that diplomacy until he felt like he had the hard power of the United States” backing him up. He built a 600-ship Navy and deployed Pershing II missiles in Europe expecting it would strengthen America’s hand in future diplomatic negotiations to pare back nuclear weapons. It worked. Not long after he left office in 1989, the standoff ended peacefully.

But so what? Reagan is dead and the times are different. China is building a military force in the Pacific while Russia seeks to conquer Ukraine and stalks Europe. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin clinked champagne glasses at a March meeting in Moscow.

Here’s where the analogies begin: “The first Cold War was a global standoff against a nuclear-armed superpower on the Eurasian landmass,” Mr. Inboden says. So is the current competition with China. “It’s a military contest. It’s an economic one. It’s a political one. It’s even an ideological one—I do think this is fundamentally a battle of ideas.” America’s adversaries again think they have a better way of organizing the world.

Meanwhile, America’s social divisions are deeper, and today publishing a long dispatch about how Reagan was a good president will inspire angry letters from some on the Trumpian right. A growing left-right populist condominium thinks America is a failed project and should have the humility to reduce its footprint around the world.

The proxy debate is over U.S. lethal aid for Ukraine, which Mr. Inboden anchors in the Reagan doctrine of supporting enemies of communism and part of a “great American tradition” that “if you want to fight for your freedom, we will support you” and it’s “better for us if you prevail.”

Some Republicans have said the U.S. should stop sending weapons to Kyiv and focus on China, particularly the threat to Taiwan. By contrast, Reagan understood the Cold War as a global contest, and Mr. Inboden says this is another one.

Mr. Inboden, a self-described “China hawk,” says the U.S. can’t focus only on Beijing “and exclude the rest of the world, because China is playing in the rest of the world. And you cannot hermetically seal off one region from another.”

If “we’re going to ask our allies in Asia to stand fast with us on a more confrontational, assertive posture toward China, a lot of their trust in us, commitment to us, or even our credibility, will depend on how they see us acting in other parts of the world. Do they see us cut and run and abandon the Ukrainians?” Will Europe help the U.S. check China if the U.S. leaves “the festering wound of a defeated Ukraine in their backyard”?

Another line of argument is that the U.S. needs to stop supporting Ukraine and focus on cultural scourges at home—a false dilemma. Mr. Inboden says Reagan’s conservative critics sometimes underrate the extent to which the Gipper was a “Tocquevillian social conservative.” His famous “Morning in America” re-election ad includes a vignette that “this afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married.”

Reagan saw cultural renewal as essential to restoring America’s standing in the world as a free society built on “the eternal values of family, of community, of faith,” Mr. Inboden says.

Some on both the left and right think the U.S. is at bottom no better than its adversaries. “Reagan emphatically rejected moral equivalence in the Cold War,” Mr. Inboden says. “That was deeply offensive to him.” The 1983 “evil empire” speech acknowledged America’s own “legacy of evil,” namely slavery and racism. But Reagan said: “The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.”

These ideas helped re-elect Reagan in a landslide and elect George H.W. Bush in 1988. How can a Republican aiming for the White House in 2024 tap in to the same winning themes? Mr. Inboden lets out a small sigh. “I’ve wrestled with this a lot,” he says. “It will start with an honest net assessment of the challenges we face.”

Reagan’s optimism about America didn’t preclude him from admitting that “we’ve got some big problems right now” and they will “not be easy to overcome,” Mr. Inboden says. Reagan frequently “reminded the American people of our own history”—that 1979 wasn’t the first time the country’s condition looked grim. Take Reagan’s 1984 speech in Normandy on the 40th anniversary of D-Day: The U.S. had learned “bitter lessons” from two world wars, Reagan said. “It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost.”

What about Ukraine, where polls suggest some 40% of Republicans think the U.S. is doing “too much”? Donald Trump has said that he could end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours,” details still to come. Ron DeSantis earlier this spring said the U.S. shouldn’t get involved in a “territorial dispute,” though he later hedged his remarks. Mr. Inboden sees an opening for a case for U.S. support rooted in American national interest. President Biden “hasn’t given a single memorable speech on Ukraine,” he says. That has left a vacuum.

More broadly, perhaps the electorate would reward “a convictional politician” like Reagan. “He knew that he was asking the American people to support him and join him on a fairly radical new change of direction—on economic policy, on defense policy, on his new Cold War strategy,” Mr. Inboden says. “He knew he couldn’t just expect them to come along—that he needed to explain to them what he was trying to do, diagnose the problem, and invite or welcome their support. He took that education and persuasion part of self-government very seriously.”

Reagan made a “sustained, sophisticated set of arguments” on “the virtues of a free society, the illegitimacy of communism” and kept pressing that case even as his approval rating dipped during the 1982 recession. Later he accepted “real political risks in his own right flank” by working with Mikhail Gorbachev. “If your policies are going to work, and you can communicate that to the American people, the political favor will follow.”

There are differences between today’s challenges and the Cold War’s. The U.S. is “much more economically interdependent with China” than it was with the Soviet Union, Mr. Inboden notes. He worries that the Chinese Communist Party has “taken a page” from Reagan’s defense buildup by focusing not only on military mass but on weapons systems that offer an asymmetric advantage—for example, a long-range missile arsenal designed to push U.S. aircraft carriers out of the Pacific.

Still, Reagan understood that authoritarian societies are inherently vulnerable and can be far more precarious than they appear. “I’ve never met Xi Jinping,” Mr. Inboden says. “But I will speculate here that when he puts his head on his pillow at night, his first worry is not necessarily the United States. It’s his people: ‘How do I make sure they don’t turn against me?’ ”

The U.S. has “a lot of catching up to do” rebuilding its military deterrent after decades of neglect. So far the political will isn’t in evidence. But if Washington starts to take that task seriously, Beijing’s rulers may find, as Reagan suggested of the Soviets, that they liked the arms race better when they were the only ones running it.

Perhaps the most important Cold War lesson: There is nothing inevitable about the current moment. “I’m not trying to be at all sanguine,” Mr. Inboden says. But it would “be a mistake to lock ourselves into thinking the present trend line will continue.” Don’t assume “that geopolitical and national security trend lines are linear” or that China “will always be this economic dynamo.”

Mr. Inboden notes that his students, born long after the Berlin Wall fell, can slip into thinking that a peaceful end to that contest was foreordained. “Anyone can look back now,” see “what a decrepit colossus” the Soviet Union was, and think the U.S. triumph was inevitable. But it didn’t look that way in 1981. Mr. Inboden says his book aims to capture the Cold War’s “radical uncertainty.”

“There’s an argument embedded in that about the contingency of history, the importance of leadership—that presidents matter.” They “have choices. They can go this way or they can go that way. And the fate of the world can rest on that.”

Mrs. Odell is a member of the Journal’s editorial board and a 2022 Robert Novak fellow.

As hold on Bakhmut slips, Ukrainian forces push to encircle city

By Adam Taylor and Anastacia Galouchka

May 21, 2023 at 6:56 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Adam Taylor · May 21, 2023

KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have been reduced to small footholds in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which despite its limited strategic importance has emerged as the war’s bloodiest battlefield. But they have made gains on the Russian flanks, in a move to encircle the city and extend the fight there, according to Ukrainian officials and military personnel in the field.

“I’m in the trenches. We’ve fortified ourselves in the positions” that Russia once held, Yuriy, a soldier in the Ukrainian Army’s Fifth Separate Assault Brigade, wrote in a text message from a position to the south of Bakhmut, near the village of Klishchiivka. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Around us are a lot of dead Russians,” he said.

Ukraine still holds slivers of the city, including the area around what has become a landmark of Ukraine’s last redoubt: a destroyed sculpture of a Soviet MiG fighter jet, according to multiple military personnel involved in defending the position, which Russian forces continue to contest.

Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s eastern military commander who made a surprise visit to the front lines Sunday, acknowledged that Ukraine controlled only a “small part” of Bakhmut, but said that the new aim was to surround the city in a “tactical encirclement,” echoing a statement posted to Telegram by Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar.

Word of this strategy to prolong the fight, regardless of who technically had control of the city, emerged as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky painted a bleak picture of the state of the battle in response to questions posed during a visit to Hiroshima, Japan, for a Group of Seven summit meeting. His remarks raised questions about what a Ukrainian victory would look like, given the destruction of the city and the costs its defenders have already paid.

“You have to understand, there is nothing,” Zelesnky said Sunday — nothing of Bakhmut as it once stood left to control.

The city, in the northeast of Donetsk region, was the home to some 70,000 people before Russia invaded Ukraine last year. It has since been decimated, hit by some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict, as Russian troops and Wagner Group mercenary forces, made up largely of freed Russian prisoners, gained ground block by block.

On Saturday, Wagner founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin claimed that his forces had at last captured the entire city and the Kremlin released a statement from Russian President Vladimir Putin that praised the liberation of the city, referring to it by the Soviet-Russian name, Artyomovsk. Ukraine rejected the claims.

The full capture would be a rare win for Moscow, which has struggled to lock in clear victories since the early days of the war.

But the Russian side has been riven with internal differences over Bakhmut, with Prighozin unleashing a steam of public criticism of his Russian military counterparts over their handling of the assault. Ukrainian forces have been able to exploit these differences to hold off an enemy that greatly outnumbers them.

Stanislav Bunyatov, 22, a soldier with the 24th Separate Assault Battalion who was injured on Wednesday in fighting near the villages of Klishchiivka and Ivanivske, said that his unit was able to attack during a period when Wagner mercenaries were being replaced by Russian soldiers.

“They were not ready for us,” said Bunyatov, who is in the city of Dnipro recovering from an injury caused by grenade shrapnel.

Accounts of Ukrainian success outside of Bakhmut stand in contrast to tales of setbacks within the city. On the roads to Chasiv Yar, a town to the west of Bakhmut that serves as a staging ground for Ukrainian forces, some soldiers offered pessimistic views of the battle for the city.

“Bakhmut is done,” a 47-year-old soldier in the 24th Brigade, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share his candid assessment, said Sunday. He said he had been in the city the day before.

Ukrainian advances have been reported in nearby areas, with commanders announcing on May 9 — Victory Day in Russia — that they had taken more than a square mile of territory to the city’s south. Officials have portrayed this as a strategic move.

Such advances make it “very difficult for the enemy to stay in Bakhmut,” Maliar wrote on Telegram on Sunday, referring to the capture of high ground outside the city.

The fight for Bakhmut has confounded some analysts, who described it as strategically irrelevant to the broader war. Ukraine is currently preparing a long-awaited spring counteroffensive where it will hope to penetrate Russian defenses on at least one part of its 200-mile front line.

If Russian forces are tied up in Bakhmut, some have argued, it could hurt their preparedness elsewhere.

President Biden said in Hiroshima on Sunday that Russia had suffered more than 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut, a startling figure if accurate.

Russia’s difficulty in holding the city may be compounded by Prighozin’s claim the he intends to withdraw Wagner fighters from the city in favor of new business opportunities in Sudan.

Ukraine, some pessimism aside, appears willing to continue the fight. Bunyatov, the soldier recovering from a grenade injury, said he hopes to return to the front lines, preferably in Bakhmut.

“My brothers in arms are there,” he said.

The Washington Post · by Adam Taylor · May 21, 2023

4. How a CCP Propaganda Campaign Targeted the Dalai Lama

Excerpts:

It is clear that democracies must better supervise YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., or these powerful platforms will be hijacked and used as tools in the hands of authoritarians, at home or abroad. It all begins with the media industry’s hunger for algorithmic scandal profits: Trust in our democracies is undermined as online audiences are attracted with ever more outrageous fake “clickbait” to make them stay on the site and be re-packaged as ad targets.

Enter the Chinese Communist Party: Its gigantic, high-tech, AI-driven influence machine is clearly increasingly well-honed and more efficient, worldwide. It is getting dramatically better at playing on our prejudices and ignorance, as in this case. Defending against it is an ever greater challenge than guarding against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The whole affair also points to the decline of trust in scholars. Media everywhere simply relayed the clickbait propaganda, without looking anything up; much less consulting with anthropologists or others knowledgeable of Tibetan culture. In some ways, it’s anthropology that has absented itself from the stage: In our public “woke” posture, we have abdicated our original job of explaining cultural difference. That leaves the stage even more open to malicious actors.

We can be sure that China’s propaganda machine is constantly looking for new “gold” – for example, to attack the world’s sympathy for Taiwan.

How a CCP Propaganda Campaign Targeted the Dalai Lama

The latest smear campaign succeeded beyond China’s wildest dreams by playing into Western ignorance about Tibetan culture – and self-righteous “cancel culture” on social media.

thediplomat.com · by Magnus Fiskesjö · May 20, 2023

On April 8, 2023, a new global smear campaign against the Dalai Lama was unleashed on social media.

This, in itself, wasn’t news. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, has lived in exile in India since 1959, when he was forced to flee his homeland, occupied by Mao’s China. He remains deeply loved in Tibet, but the Chinese regime has made it a criminal offense even to have a photo of him. And ever since 1959, Chinese officials have been vilifying him in every medium possible.

But while this latest round is almost certainly also disinformation “Made in China,” it represents a new approach: Attempting to paint the Dalai Lama as a pedophile. The trick succeeded beyond belief, with millions of people in the United States, Europe, and beyond – due to prior prejudice coupled with the self-righteous tendency to jump to conclusions, combined with widespread ignorance about Tibet.

As the Tibetan exile activist Lhadon Tethong pointed out in a recent public conversation, the goal was very likely also to distract the world from the new dramatic oppression inside Chinese-occupied Tibet. U.N. human rights experts just issued a warning that Chinese authorities are detaining large numbers of both children and adults in Tibet, to erase their culture and turn them into Chinese-speaking laborers – modeled after the massive parallel genocide against the Uyghurs.

Others suggest that the smear campaign had an element of revenge, for the recent successful inauguration of a ethnic Mongol boy born in the United States, to the third highest reincarnated post in Tibetan Buddhism – in the presence of 600 Mongol VIP guests in Dharamsala, India, the Dalai Lama’s home in exile. This shows the global vitality of Tibetan Buddhism, which China has struggled for decades to stamp out, and strengthens the Tibetan community’s hand for the eventual designation of a successor to the Dalai Lama himself.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

But how did the April campaign begin? The raw material came from a rather ordinary occasion in Dharamsala. An Indian mother working with Tibetan refugee charities had managed to book her young son (about 8 years old) to meet the Dalai Lama. This took place on February 28, without much notice. Film clips were posted online, commemorating the happy occasion.

A month passed. The Chinese propaganda offices were probably brainstorming how to counter the expected renewed criticism of China. They have, in recent years, put new resources into manipulating social media abroad, not just at home; using global platforms, not Chinese ones.

The propaganda officers must have felt like they struck gold when they found the video from February. They cut out a section to make it look like the Dalai Lama wanted to kiss the 8-year-old boy. (He does stick his tongue out, and even says, in halting English, “Suck my tongue!”)

Using a Twitter account started up in February, the clip was sent out with the slur “Pedo-Dalai Lama.” It spread through linked bot accounts and networks of trusted pro-regime people around the world. Within days, it had millions of hits. And so it continued, with lots of memes piling on. Suddenly, many people with only the vaguest notion of the Dalai Lama could be heard condemning him.

I first heard about the clip from an otherwise well-informed academic colleague, who condemned the Dalai Lama, saying “He’s gone too far! He should have understood that this ruins his reputation.”

But what actually happened? It turns out that in Tibet, it is customary to feed one’s children by mouth – a custom that apparently survives, not least in the Dalai Lama’s old home district, Amdo. From this background comes the standing joke that elderly Tibetans resort to, when they have run out of treats or sweets to give their grandchild: They’ll stick out their tongue, and say to the child, “You may eat my tongue, for I have nothing else left.” That the Dalai Lama said “suck” instead of “eat” was perhaps because he was thinking of candy, not food – the original Tibetan wording is che le sa, literally “eat my tongue.”

There’s nothing “sexual” in the full video. The Dalai Lama talks with the boy about how as a child, he often quarreled with his older brother, jokingly pushing his head onto the boy’s shoulder, to show how. He then places his forehead against the boy’s forehead – another traditional gesture of respect, called oothuk (like formally shaking hands, in the West).

The boy himself was interviewed afterwards, as was his mother (who sat a few meters away during the whole interaction). Both were overjoyed to have had this moment. Nothing inappropriate happened – note that the boy was actually kissed both on the cheek and on the mouth (a kiss called po, which children also traditionally receive from elders), just before the Dalai Lama stuck out his tongue – which in turn signaled that they were done.

Originally the Indian boy asked if he could “hug” the Dalai Lama. At first the Dalai Lama did not understand the English word. In Tibet people usually don’t hug, nor do they shake hands. But he got the best of both worlds: oothuk, po, and the “che le sa” joke; plus a hug, a handshake and a chat, as we see in the full video.

For me as an anthropologist, the whole incident illustrated not just the “dirty minds” of Western viewers (which many in India complain about), but how cultural differences and bodily practices can be mis-translated.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

We have to admire the “anthropological” skills of the Chinese propaganda department: They knew their audience and immediately saw an opening. Most people in the West have no clue about Tibetan cultural practices, let alone about “eat my tongue” as a non-sexual concept. Plus, many Westerners know of Catholic priests convicted of pedophilia. Combining the two, Chinese propagandists saw an opening for suggesting that the Dalai Lama too, as a male “priest” of sorts, is a pedophile.

The trick succeeded, beyond expectations: Damage was inflicted globally, to the reputation of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people. Few Western media made any space for talking about China’s new large-scale atrocities in Tibet.

Curiously, the Dalai Lama’s office itself issued an apology for “the hurt his words may have caused.” This frustrated many Tibetans. Most don’t think there is reason to apologize to the world, not even tactically — actually, the apology for “any hurt caused” may have to do with the propensity of Tibetan Buddhists to take on negative feelings (regardless of guilt). There were spontaneous demonstrations in Dharamsala and in Ladakh in support of the Dalai Lama; journalist Tenzin Pema wanted the world to apologize to Tibet.

While pondering all this, an old memory emerged in my mind. During my own anthropological fieldwork with the Wa people in the border areas between China and Myanmar, I saw a young woman sitting a short distance away, with her baby son. The woman suddenly began to feed the baby by mouth! I had never seen that before, and turned away as if in shame. It seemed so incredibly private … and sexual. But the sexualization, of course, was only in my own mind. No Wa people would find this feeding the least bit sexual. To feed babies with the mouth is what Wa people do every day – probably in many places around the world not yet conquered by plastics.

My own momentary confusion is comparable to the Western herd-mentality reaction against the Dalai Lama. Most who encountered the planted materials on social media reached instantly for the globalized Hollywood morality they have been inculcated with, and did not seek even a minimal contextualization. It was enough for the propaganda just to supply a hint of pedophilia: People quickly filled in the “obvious” interpretation, and the indignation that the Dalai Lama is a such a child abuser.

Interestingly, this is the same phenomenon we’ve seen in the oratory of former U.S. President Donald Trump. As George Lakoff, Janet McIntosh, and others have observed, when he wants to say something really awful, he speaks in unfinished sentences. The crowds fill in the rest, and they love it; it gives them a sense of righteousness. In the case of the Dalai Lama, the Chinese propaganda dangled the bait in a very similar fashion. The difference was that this was mostly not about right-wing nationalists, but leftist virtue signaling. Yet the clinically fact-free implication worked in exactly the same way.

Many people do know about the tongue being used as greetings among Tibetan adults – like they’ve seen the tongues of New Zealand Maori warriors. Even so, very few people who saw the video clip stopped to think: “Is there something we’re missing about how this is framed – by who, and why?”

Even Slavoj Zizek – one of the few Western commentators who picked up on the Tibetan meaning of “Eat my tongue!” – failed to ask why so few people gave pause, instead quickly defaulting to Western morality.

The Chinese regime’s social media influencer experts must have known this – that’s why they were so successful, globally. I had a look at my own country, Sweden. The biggest daily paper, Aftonbladet, told readers without context that the Dalai Lama was “under fire” for asking a boy to “suck his tongue.” In a second article the paper quoted Cardi B, the American rapper celebrity, launching a general attack on those who abuse children – such as the Dalai Lama! Other media similarly played up the “scandal” while saying nothing at all about the Tibetan culture, or about the new concentration camps in Tibet.

In the United States, the venerated Associated Press was much the same. Self-righteous defenders of children were falling over each other in what might best be described as a herd stampede. Media figures swallowed the planted allegations whole, condemning the Dalai Lama and demanding investigations. Cardi B’s instant intervention can be seen on the equally arrogant Jason Lee Podcast, on YouTube. Another example was the “Megyn Kelly Show,” on the day after the incident trigger; note how Kelly starts off by assuming it all took place in Tibet, as if the Dalai Lama was not forced into exile 65 years ago.

All of this compounds the injury and insult already inflicted on the Tibetan people, whose suffering under Chinese occupation now also includes watching how they are maligned through China’s successful smear campaign, which people around the world swallow indiscriminately, as if the case was closed even before it opened.

Several better-informed writers in India (such as Kaveri Gill, Dilshad Noor, Utpal Kumar, and others) chose instead to reflect on the lessons we learn from this horror story about our social media afflictions. As they suggest, there are major new issues here for us non-Tibetans.

It is clear that democracies must better supervise YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., or these powerful platforms will be hijacked and used as tools in the hands of authoritarians, at home or abroad. It all begins with the media industry’s hunger for algorithmic scandal profits: Trust in our democracies is undermined as online audiences are attracted with ever more outrageous fake “clickbait” to make them stay on the site and be re-packaged as ad targets.

Enter the Chinese Communist Party: Its gigantic, high-tech, AI-driven influence machine is clearly increasingly well-honed and more efficient, worldwide. It is getting dramatically better at playing on our prejudices and ignorance, as in this case. Defending against it is an ever greater challenge than guarding against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The whole affair also points to the decline of trust in scholars. Media everywhere simply relayed the clickbait propaganda, without looking anything up; much less consulting with anthropologists or others knowledgeable of Tibetan culture. In some ways, it’s anthropology that has absented itself from the stage: In our public “woke” posture, we have abdicated our original job of explaining cultural difference. That leaves the stage even more open to malicious actors.

We can be sure that China’s propaganda machine is constantly looking for new “gold” – for example, to attack the world’s sympathy for Taiwan.

GUEST AUTHOR

Magnus Fiskesjö

Magnus Fiskesjö teaches anthropology and Asian studies at Cornell University. He previously served as cultural attaché at the Swedish embassy in Beijing, and as director of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, in Stockholm, Sweden.

thediplomat.com · by Magnus Fiskesjö · May 20, 2023

5. China’s backlash against comedy stirs more fears

The CCP is afraid of comedy. Could it bring them down? (note sarcasm).

Excerpts:

Li, whose stage name was House, nevertheless went viral when an audience member posted a description of a joke he had made during a set on Saturday last week, suggesting that it was demeaning to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Beijing police wrote on their Sina Weibo account that they were investigating Li.

The Beijing Culture and Tourism Bureau fined Xiaoguo 14.7 million yuan (US$2.13 million) and barred the company from hosting performances in Beijing and Shanghai, saying it would “never allow any company or individual [to] use the Chinese capital as a stage to wantonly slander the glorious image of the PLA.”

Other comedy companies, including Beijing’s Danliren Culture Media, have cleared their performance schedules without explanation.

A staffer at Danlinren on Friday said that she was not aware why the company had canceled its comedy shows in Beijing. Xiaoguo on Wednesday blamed the incident on “major loopholes in management” and terminated its contract with Li.

Li, who has apologized for the joke, did not respond to requests for comment.

China’s leadership “fed an atmosphere of paranoia and fear over national security risks, defined so expansively that anything can be an attack,” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project, a US-based research group.

Sun, May 21, 2023 page5

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2023/05/21/2003800179?utm_source=pocket_saves

China’s backlash against comedy stirs more fears

Reuters, BEIJING and SHANGHAI
One joke by a Chinese comedian about the nation’s military has spurred online uproar, a US$2 million fine, a police probe, a sweep of canceled shows and fears for the survival of Chinese stand-up comedy, a rare refuge for somewhat free speech.
The furor over Li Haoshi’s (李昊石) wisecrack in Beijing last weekend marks the biggest scandal yet for a form of entertainment that, despite China’s tightening censorship regime, had managed to gain popularity with performances in small groups and material that managed to just toe the line.
“Stand-up comedy has been the last bastion in which people ... can still enjoy entertaining commentary about public life,” said Beijing-based independent political analyst Wu Qiang (吳強). “After this, the space for stand-up comedy and public expression in general will inevitably keep shrinking.”

A person walks past a venue for stand-up comedy company Xiaoguo Culture Media Co in Beijing on Friday.

Photo: Reuters
The Chinese State Council’s information office, which handles media queries on behalf of the government, did not respond to a request for comment.
China’s comedy scene rose quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic as people spent more time indoors watching viral streamed comedy shows. The most popular were produced by Xiaoguo Culture Media Co, the firm at the center of the current uproar.
Following reports that the broadcasts were increasingly subject to censorship, especially when it came to sensitive subjects such as Shanghai’s lockdown, offline shows proliferated, in part because of a perception that comedians were freer to speak in front of small groups than vast broadcast audiences.
“I fear this could spell a clampdown on the whole industry,” said a US-based Chinese comedian who uses the stage name Kite.
She declined to give her real name, fearing repercussions.
“Stand-up comedy allows us to find small happiness amidst suffering. This is why I think we should try to do something to resist the clampdown. If we don’t do anything, we won’t even have the freedom to joke in future,” she said.
A Beijing-based comedian, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, said that a number of their shows had been canceled in the wake of the incident and that they feared for the future of the stand-up scene.
Audiences at comedy events in China are often asked not to record jokes or performances, in part because of an awareness that a short clip can be quickly taken out of context on Chinese social media.
Li, whose stage name was House, nevertheless went viral when an audience member posted a description of a joke he had made during a set on Saturday last week, suggesting that it was demeaning to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Beijing police wrote on their Sina Weibo account that they were investigating Li.
The Beijing Culture and Tourism Bureau fined Xiaoguo 14.7 million yuan (US$2.13 million) and barred the company from hosting performances in Beijing and Shanghai, saying it would “never allow any company or individual [to] use the Chinese capital as a stage to wantonly slander the glorious image of the PLA.”
Other comedy companies, including Beijing’s Danliren Culture Media, have cleared their performance schedules without explanation.
A staffer at Danlinren on Friday said that she was not aware why the company had canceled its comedy shows in Beijing. Xiaoguo on Wednesday blamed the incident on “major loopholes in management” and terminated its contract with Li.
Li, who has apologized for the joke, did not respond to requests for comment.
China’s leadership “fed an atmosphere of paranoia and fear over national security risks, defined so expansively that anything can be an attack,” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project, a US-based research group.
“A punchline is treated with the same alarm as a real assault on the nation,” he said.

6. Russian forces capture Bakhmut, a symbolic but costly victory

But have they? Is this an accurate report?

Russian forces capture Bakhmut, a symbolic but costly victory

President Vladimir Putin's first major battlefield victory in nearly a year is a symbolic prize that comes as his troops are being forced onto the backfoot around the city and beyond.

NBC News · by Mithil Aggarwal

Russian forces have claimed full control of Bakhmut, ending an intense monthslong battle for the eastern city that came to embody Ukrainian resistance.

The news will serve as a symbolic boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but his first major battlefield victory in nearly a year may be a fleeting one, with his military forced onto the backfoot around the city and beyond.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has spent the weekend rallying support from world leaders, was asked about the city's status ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden in Japan at the G7 summit.

Bakhmut has been the site of some of the heaviest battles with the Russian troops, pictured here on Feb. 27, 2023. Yevhen Titov / AP

Asked if the city was under Russian control he said, “I think no, but you have to understand there is nothing. They destroyed our city. There are no buildings. It’s a pity, a tragedy but for today Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing of this place, just ground and a lot of dead Russians.”

He added that Ukrainian defenders “did strong work in the city.”

Zelenskyy's spokesman Sergii Nykyforov later clarified on Facebook that his’ “no” was referring to Russia’s assertion that it had taken the city.

Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose fighters led the costly Russian push for the city, claimed Saturday to have finally captured it. Russia’s defense ministry also said in a Telegram post that the city’s “liberation,” had been completed.

A statement posted to the Russian president’s website on Sunday said Vladimir Putin had congratulate Wagner forces and the military “on the completion of the operation,” to liberate the city.

Watch: Reporter braves Russian shelling to visit Bakhmut frontline

May 19, 202303:57

After a litany of setbacks, Moscow focused on seizing Bakhmut over the winter in the hopes of a much-needed success that could also serve as a stepping stone to the rest of the surrounding industrial heartland known as the Donbas. Ukraine sought to wear down Russian forces by forcing a protracted fight that turned into the longest and bloodiest of the war, buying time for its military to prepare a crucial counteroffensive.

In recent days Kyiv's troops have clawed back ground on the city’s flanks, exposing bitter divisions between the Kremlin’s military leaders and leading an angry Prigozhin to say his troops inside the city were at risk of encirclement.

The city's symbolic weight had grown with each day that Ukrainian defenders held out against waves of Russian attacks. That resistance became a point of national pride, with the phrase "Bakhmut holds" becoming a daily patriotic rallying cry.

It holds no longer, but Kyiv may feel it has served its purpose.

Russia will control a city left in ruins, with residents forced to flee or face dire conditions.Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images file

Casualties and counteroffensives

Russian forces sought to surround and relentlessly shell Bakhmut after claiming control of the neighboring town of Soledar in January. As the Russians ramped up their assault, officials in Kyiv voiced increasing alarm for the troops clinging on in Bakhmut.

NBC News visited the city in February and found a dire situation for the few thousand civilians who had stayed behind from an estimated pre-war population of around 80,000. Known for its salt and gypsum mines, Bakhmut had become a ghost town, with residents sheltering in basements from the relentless thuds of artillery fire.

But Zelenskyy defied the urging of some analysts and opted to reinforce his troops defending the city rather than withdraw, hoping to frustrate the Russians further and inflict more costly losses on the invaders.

Those hopes appear to have been fulfilled, though Ukrainian troops undoubtedly suffered huge losses themselves.

Ukraine opted to reinforce Bakhmut in recent months despite a dire situation that saw it control just a single road into the city.Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP - Getty Images

20,000 of the Kremlin’s forces were killed in Ukraine between December and May alone, the United States estimated recently — half of them Wagner fighters whose combat was focused in Bakhmut.

Prigozhin, a longtime Putin associate and oligarch, has become a public face of Russia's war in recent months behind vocal criticism of Moscow's military leaders and the assault led by his band of ex-convicts.

The mercenary leader has angrily denounced Russia’s regular army, accusing them of starving his men of ammunition and abandoning ground they had captured. On Saturday he said his Wagner forces would now pull out of Bakhmut in five days to rest, handing the city's ruins over to the military.

Prigozhin had threatened to withdraw from the city after releasing a series of furious video messages aimed at Russia's military leaders.@concordgroup_official / AFP - Getty Images

His public feud with the Kremlin's top brass has escalated in recent weeks as his troops inside Bakhmut edged forward even as Russia's army was suddenly driven back on the city's flanks, in Ukraine's first significant gains for months.

While Moscow's capture of the city belies the challenges it now faces, Kyiv has its eyes on prizes to come.

Zelenskyy spent the weekend in Japan attending the Group of Seven summit of world leaders, the latest stop on a recent global tour that has seen him rally allied support and secure new military aid that could prove decisive in the battles ahead.

Ukraine is preparing a sweeping counteroffensive that will aim to seize back land across the front lines of the war.

Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, where intense artillery battles have left the city and surrounding land scarred by months of war.Libkos / AP file

Bakhmut lies in the northeastern part of Donetsk province, one half of the Donbas. It's one of four provinces that Putin illegally annexed last fall, despite the fact that its troops only partially control the areas, with that territory now in Kyiv's sights.

Western officials and military analysts have said that Russia capturing Bakhmut would be a blow for Ukraine, but was unlikely to prove a decisive turning point in the conflict.

Bakhmut's “significance lies in the fact that both sides have invested a great deal of blood in it,” Frank Ledwidge, a former British military intelligence officer and a senior lecturer of law and strategy at the University of Portsmouth in England, told NBC News earlier this year.

“I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in March. “The fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight,” he added.

Instead it is Kyiv that is looking to turn the tide in the weeks ahead.

Mithil Aggarwal

Mithil Aggarwal is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong.

Reuters, Associated Press and Patrick Smith contributed.

NBC News · by Mithil Aggarwal

7. Bakhmut: Zelensky indicates Russia has control of city

A pyrrhic victory for Russia?

Excerpt:

The city had been destroyed, he said. The leader of the Wagner Russian paramilitary group said in a video on Saturday that his forces had captured the city - a claim Ukrainian officials initially denied.

Bakhmut: Zelensky indicates Russia has control of city

BBC · by Menu

Published
2 minutes ago

About sharing

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have confirmed that Russia has won the long-running and bloody battle for the city of Bakhmut.

Asked on Sunday whether Ukraine had control of the eastern Ukrainian city, Mr Zelensky said: "I think not."

The city had been destroyed, he said. The leader of the Wagner Russian paramilitary group said in a video on Saturday that his forces had captured the city - a claim Ukrainian officials initially denied.

Analysts say that Bakhmut is of little strategic value to Moscow, but its capture is a symbolic victory for Russia after the longest battle of the Ukraine war so far.

Western officials estimate between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in Bakhmut, while Ukraine's military has also paid a heavy price.

Mr Zelensky was asked about Bakhmut at the meeting of G7 nations in Hiroshima, where he has joined key negotiations.

"You have to understand there is nothing" there, he said, according to the AFP news agency.

"For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts."

Hardly a building remains standing in the city, and nearly its entire population has fled.

Mr Zelensky has previously called the city "a fortress" of Ukrainian morale.

Ukraine's hope is that the long-running battle has exhausted Russia's army and supplies.

This is a breaking story and will be updated shortly

BBC · by Menu

8. The U.S. Left Them Behind. They Crossed a Jungle to Get Here Anyway. (Afghanistan)

The will to survive.

Excerpts:

She and her husband, Ali, pleaded for help from a half-dozen nations — many of which they’d worked with — and found an American refugee program they might be eligible for. Taiba said she sent off her information, but never heard back.

“They left us behind,” she said of the Americans. “Sometimes I think maybe God left all Afghans behind.”

For months, Taiba kept trying to make it to America any way she could — even by foot. She and her husband fled with their 2-year-old son, first to Pakistan, then to South America, joining the vast human tide of desperation pressing north toward the United States.

The U.S. Left Them Behind. They Crossed a Jungle to Get Here Anyway.

The New York Times · by Julie Turkewitz · May 21, 2023

For thousands of Afghans, the American withdrawal from Kabul was just the beginning of a long, dangerous search for safety.

Credit...

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

Photographs and Video by Federico Rios

Our journalists trekked with Afghan migrants as they traveled from South America to the United States.

May 21, 2023

Leer en español

Taiba was being hunted by the men she had put behind bars.

The death threats came as the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban marched across her country, she said. In the chaos, cell doors were flung open, freeing the rapists and abusers she had helped send to prison.

“We will find you,” the callers growled. “We will kill you.”

Taiba’s entire life had been shaped by the American vision of a democratic Afghanistan: She had studied law, worked with the Americans to fight violence against women and ultimately became a top government official for women’s rights, gathering testimony that put abusers away.

But after saving so many women’s lives, she was suddenly trying to save her own.

She and her husband, Ali, pleaded for help from a half-dozen nations — many of which they’d worked with — and found an American refugee program they might be eligible for. Taiba said she sent off her information, but never heard back.

“They left us behind,” she said of the Americans. “Sometimes I think maybe God left all Afghans behind.”

For months, Taiba kept trying to make it to America any way she could — even by foot. She and her husband fled with their 2-year-old son, first to Pakistan, then to South America, joining the vast human tide of desperation pressing north toward the United States.

Ali, Taiba and their son hiking through the jungle in Panama. “I never wanted to leave my country,” Taiba said.

Like thousands of Afghans who have taken this same, unfathomable route to escape the Taliban and their country’s economic collapse in the last 17 months, they trudged through the jungle, slept on the forest floor amid fire ants and snakes, hid their money in their food to fool thieves and crossed the sliver of land connecting North and South America — the treacherous Darién Gap.

Now, after more than 16,000 miles, Taiba and her family had finally reached it: the American border.

In the darkness, Taiba crawled into a drainage tunnel under a highway. When she emerged, she saw two enormous steel fences, the last barriers between her old life and what she hoped would be a new one. A smuggler flung a ladder over the first wall.

Taiba gripped the rungs and began to climb into the country that had helped define her. She knew the Americans were turning away asylum seekers. A single thought consumed her.

Once she got in, would they let her stay?

Taiba and her family crossed at a place where two walls divide Mexico and the United States.

‘The failure is happening right now.’

Frantic parents breached airport gates with suitcases and children in hand. Panicked crowds climbed jet wings and clung to the sides of departing American planes. A few tried to hang on, lost their grip and fell from the skies.

It was August 2021, and the Taliban had swept into Kabul just as American troops pulled out, ending a 20-year occupation that left Afghanistan in the hands of the very militants Washington had ousted.

The images seemed a tragic coda to America’s longest war. But for countless Afghans, the frenetic days of the U.S. withdrawal were only the beginning of a long, harrowing search for safety.

The new Taliban administration turned back decades of civil liberties, particularly for women. Afghans who had supported the West were terrified of being persecuted, and a careening economy pushed millions near starvation. Many Afghans fled to Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, often finding only short-term visas or worse — beatings, detention and deportation.

Thousands tried for Europe, climbing into cargo trucks or taking flimsy boats across the Mediterranean Sea. At least 1,250 Afghan migrants have died trying to find refuge since the American withdrawal, the United Nations says.

Outside the airport in Kabul during the American evacuation in 2021.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Many others set their sights even farther: the United States.

More than 3,600 Afghans have traveled the same agonizing route as Taiba since the beginning of 2022, according to tallies in Panama, one of the most perilous sections of the journey. Many of them had partnered with the West for years — lawyers, human rights advocates, members of the Afghan government or security forces. They packed up their children, parents or entire families, sold their apartments and borrowed enormous sums to pay for the passage, convinced there was nothing left for them back home.

Their journeys represent the collision of two of President Biden’s biggest policy crises: the hasty American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the record number of migrants crossing the U.S. border.

Now, the fallout from a faraway war that many Americans thought was over is landing at the president’s doorstep: Afghan men, women and children climbing over border walls under the cover of night, desperate to join a nation that, they feel, left them behind.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan is not just a failure “in the rearview mirror,” said Francis Hoang, a former U.S. Army captain who runs an organization to help Afghans immigrate, called Allied Airlift 21.

“The failure is happening right now,” he said.

Angiza, front left in blue, traveled with her family from Afghanistan, 17 people in all.

The Afghans wend through about a dozen countries, for months or longer. Nearly all are robbed or extorted; some are kidnapped or jailed. Others are fought over by rival smugglers or sent back to countries they already passed through. Parents and children are torn apart by the authorities. Babies have been born along the way.

The Times traveled with a group of 54 Afghans through one of the hardest parts of the journey, the notorious Darién Gap, and interviewed nearly 100 people making the trek. Many spoke English, had entwined their lives with the Western mission in Afghanistan and hoped that, as American allies, they would be received with open arms.

Most set out for the U.S. border after flying to Brazil, which offers humanitarian visas for Afghans. From there, the smuggler fees mounted quickly, often costing $10,000 a person or more, sealing in the Afghans a conviction that they had to reach the United States, where they could earn enough money to dig out from debt and help their relatives back home.

One Escape Route

Most migrants from Afghanistan set out for the U.S. border after flying to Brazil. This is one of the many routes Afghans have taken on their trek, winding through about a dozen countries, with the trip lasting for months or longer.

By The New York Times

Niazi, 41, traveled with his wife and three sons, all wearing New York baseball caps. He described working in the Afghan president’s protective service, and showed off pictures of himself guarding Laura Bush, the American first lady, and President Barack Obama.

He then played a surveillance video of people he identified as members of the Taliban, beating his brothers as they searched for him. He had applied for a special U.S. visa, he said, but because he had worked for the Afghan government, not directly for the Americans, he wasn’t eligible.

Ali and Nazanin, a pair of doctors in their 20s who had recently married, were risking the journey, too. Like Taiba and her family, they are Hazara, an ethnic minority massacred by the Taliban during their first regime in the 1990s, and believed they could never be safe under the new government.

“I am thinking about my future child,” said Ali.

Two grandfathers, one who said he had worked for the toppled Afghan government, traveled with their families, 17 people in all. Mohammad Sharif, who said he was a former Afghan police officer, and his wife, Rahima, came too, carrying their infant son, born two months before in Brazil.

Nearly all of them asked to be identified only by their first names, to protect relatives back in Afghanistan.

Mozhgan, 20, was the most talkative. She had been in the 11th grade when the Taliban entered Kabul and she could no longer go to school.

Mozhgan in Mexico City. “The men can go out,” she said of life under the Taliban. “What about us? We don’t have life.”

The American presence had opened the world for her. She spoke multiple languages, including English, Hindi and bits of Chinese. She watched Marvel movies and listened to BTS, the Korean pop group whose music had turned her from what she called a “shy, sad, corner girl” into a confident, inquisitive woman.

She dreamed of being a fashion designer or a reporter, like the women in American movies. Her sister, Samira, 16, thought about being an astronaut. Under the Taliban, which have barred women from most public spaces, those lives were now impossible.

“Like being on a road with no destination,” Mozhgan called it.

Their family, also Hazara, considered legal paths to the United States, Mozhgan said, but determined they would “take years.”

Then a bomb went off at their brother’s school in Kabul, most likely an attack by Islamic State militants challenging the Taliban, and her father decided to flee.

“You don’t know if you will survive,” she said, “so we have to take action now.”

Taiba’s husband, Ali, center, with their son on his back. In the United States, he said, “I am going to accept any job that I can do.”

Thousands of despairing migrants have made the daunting jungle crossing from South America to the United States for years.

But before the Americans left Afghanistan and the Taliban took over, Afghans were hardly ever among them. Officials in Panama say that only about 100 Afghans in total crossed the jungle from 2010 to 2019.

Now, hundreds of Afghans are risking it every month, officials say, part of a historic crush of people pouring through the Darién, the only way from South America to the United States by land.

The Darién is a roadless, mountainous tangle, considered a last resort for decades, with notorious hardships: rivers that sweep away bodies, hills that cause heart attacks, mud that nearly swallows children, bandits who rob, kidnap, assault and kill.

But with the economic and political havoc of recent years, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, interest in the Darién has exploded — along with relentless advertising on TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp by smugglers and migrants alike, sometimes presenting the route like a family outing that almost anyone can manage.

“Safe. 100 percent trustworthy. Special packages with transport, lodging and food,” reads one Facebook post showing people holding hands as they stroll toward a fluttering American flag. “Guaranteed.”

Fewer than 11,000 people crossed the jungle each year, on average, from 2010 to 2020. But this year, officials say, as many as 400,000 are expected to make the journey, nearly all of them headed to the United States.

And while most are from Venezuela, Haiti and Ecuador, the route has increasingly become a United Nations of migration, with a growing number from China, India, Nigeria, Somalia and elsewhere.

Mr. Biden is trying hard to shut it down. In April, he and his allies in the region announced a 60-day campaign intended to end the illicit movement of people through the Darién. His administration has also imposed new rules that are expected to make it harder for all asylum seekers, including Afghans, to enter the United States.

Many of the Afghans on the journey knew Mr. Biden was clamping down on immigration, but said they were coming anyway — no matter the hardship.

“If 10 times I am sent back,” said Ali, the doctor, “10 times I will return.”

A group of Afghan women living at the São Paulo airport.

‘Are we going to survive?’

A village formed in Terminal B of São Paulo-Guarulhos airport: Afghans sleeping under wool blankets strung like tents across luggage carts.

It was December 2022, and most of them had arrived in Brazil days before, even weeks, carrying the last of their belongings and only a vague idea of what to do next.

They could stay in Brazil, even work. But few spoke Portuguese, and the nation’s minimum wage was only about $250 a month. Most had large families — five, 10 or 20 people — to support back home. Many had borrowed their relatives’ last savings to make it this far, and if they didn’t pay it back, their families would go hungry.

“The only hope in the family is me,” said Haroon, 27, an engineer who had recently arrived in Brazil.

So, many of the Afghans soon took off, their minds fixed on the United States.

They crossed Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, passed liked batons from smuggler to smuggler.

On a starless night in March, Taiba and her husband, Ali, waded toward a boat in Colombia with 50 other Afghans, headed for the Darién Gap. A haze blurred a full moon.

People are loaded on to a smugglers’ boat that will take them into Panama, where they will begin their trek through the Darién Gap.

Their road map was nothing more than a terse, three-page PDF circulating around the world, sometimes on WhatsApp chains. Written in Persian, it offered advice on getting from Brazil all the way through Mexico, listing a few smuggler contacts and pithy travel tips.

In Colombia, “always remember to keep 10 dollars in your passport,” to pay off police officers who threaten arrest. In the jungle, “the first day is stressful.” In Mexico, “make sure to hide all your documents and money.”

Taiba and Ali’s son, a round-cheeked toddler who had just turned 3, was getting heavy, so they often strapped him to the back of a cousin, Jalil, 24, a kickboxing coach and an ideal bodyguard for the journey ahead.

Jalil carrying Ali and Taiba’s son in the jungle.

Most of the Afghans had heard about the dangers of the Darién, and their smuggler offered them the so-called V.I.P. route — $420 a person, versus the more common $300 — that cut the trip to about four days, from as many as eight or nine.

As Taiba climbed into the boat, packing in with dozens of others like cargo, she tried to make sense of how much her life had changed in the last two years.

She and Ali had met as university students. He later worked as a translator for Spanish troops, he said, before taking a job with a United Nations contractor. Until the Taliban took over, they were happy — and in love with the Afghanistan they were helping to build. Then, as fighters swept into Kabul, Taiba raced to her office to burn documents, hoping to protect herself and other women, she said, before fleeing to another city.

For months, they pleaded with governments for help, until Uruguay agreed to take them in. But in Montevideo, the capital, they quickly decided that they couldn’t earn enough to support their families back home. Taiba argued for heading north.

Now, she was having regrets.

A boat captain barked at them to turn off their phones, so they could travel undetected by the police. The motor roared, and the 54 Afghans sped up the coast, crying, vomiting and praying. Many had never seen an ocean or sea.

“Are we going to drown?” Mozhgan wondered out loud. “Or are we going to survive?”

The next day, they entered the forest and trudged up three mountains, the last of which is known locally as La Llorona, the crying woman. They fell often, lanced their hands on spiked trees, dragged boots filled with mud and at times collapsed from exhaustion. The former policeman’s son cried constantly.

Mohammad Sharif, the former policeman, washing his son in the Darién Gap.

Mohammad Rahim, 60, one of the two grandfathers in the family of 17, fared the worst, stopping many times each hour to lay in the dirt. His children knelt beside him, massaging his body back to life. Murmuring prayers, the other Afghans wondered if he would make it.

Near the top of La Llorona, Ahmad, 24, an engineer, began to break down.

“I am crazy to come here!” he yelled, banging his machete into the tree roots knotting the ground.

He had tried to enter the United States legally, applying for a humanitarian parole program in 2021, he said, but never heard back.

“No one cares about us!” he yelled. “We have important people left in Afghanistan and no one cares!”

Mohammad Rahim is cared for by his son Bahlol.

In the final days of the American occupation in 2021, the Biden administration airlifted roughly 88,500 Afghans out of the country, an effort the American president called “extraordinary.”

“Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it,” Mr. Biden told the American public afterward.

But many tens of thousands of other Afghans worked with the U.S. government or American organizations during the war, and could be at risk of retaliation, according to #AfghanEvac, a group of organizations helping Afghans seeking resettlement.

Fewer than 25,000 Afghans have received special visas or refugee status in the United States since the airlifts in 2021, government data shows. And the options are scarcer for people who didn’t work with the United States but might still be in danger.

Roughly 52,000 Afghans have applied for a program called humanitarian parole. As of mid-April, just 760 people had been approved.

By comparison, more than 300,000 Ukrainians arrived in the United States under various programs in just over a year.

“I don’t understand why the world has had their arms so open to Ukrainians and so closed to Afghans,” said Shawn VanDiver, the U.S. Navy veteran who started #AfghanEvac.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, said the administration was working to enhance an already robust resettlement program for Afghans. She called it “part of our long-term commitment to our Afghan allies.”

Many of the Afghans in the jungle said they didn’t feel that commitment.

“We did a lot of things for the American people,” said Niazi, the father who showed pictures of himself as a guard with President Obama. “But the American people just left us.”

A steep dirt hill signaled the Afghans’ last push through the wilderness. Finally, they had reached a camp constructed by an Indigenous group, the Emberá. Taiba stared slack-jawed at the generators, wooden platforms and women selling fried chicken and Coca-Cola.

In the morning, the Emberá led them to canoes and, for $25 a person, ferried them to a checkpoint in Panama, where officials counted them, took down their nationalities and sent them on their way north.

Mohammad Azim, 70, the other grandfather, rushed to the river to wash himself. Then, beneath a fence topped by barbed wire, he knelt to pray — thankful that he made it, apprehensive about the thousands of miles to go.

Mohammad Azim at a migration checkpoint after crossing the Darién Gap.

‘Everything is dark.’

The group of 54 splintered soon after.

Taiba and her family took a bus through Costa Rica, walked for hours until they found a car through Nicaragua, and were forced to pay bribes to the police in Honduras. In Guatemala, they hiked through more forest, then paid another smuggler to get them from a bus to a boat, across a river and into a truck, all the way to southern Mexico.

Back in Uruguay, Taiba had shed her head scarf to blend in and cut her hair when it began to fall out. By now, she had lost 20 pounds and watched her child lose 15 percent of his body weight.

If the Americans didn’t take her, she thought, maybe she would just keep going — to Canada, where, she imagined, the government might be more welcoming.

Ali, the doctor who vowed to keep trying to make it to the United States even if he was “sent back” 10 times, proved prescient. Near the American border, he and his wife were stopped by the Mexican police, robbed and put on a bus across Mexico, back to the border with Guatemala.

They set out again from there, only to be apprehended for a second time and jailed for about a week.

Mozhgan and her younger sister Morsal in Mexico City. After the jungle, they headed north in a series of boats. “My mom was, like, freaking out,” Mozhgan said. “We didn’t come all the way here to die in the ocean.”

News about other Afghans who tried to cross into the United States trickled in.

Milad, 29, a lawyer, climbed over the wall with his wife and children, ages 2 and 4. They were held in U.S. detention in Calexico, Calif., he said, and told they would be taken to a hotel. Instead, U.S. border officials put them in a white van with blacked out windows that dropped them on the street in Mexicali, Mexico, he said. His cousin Tamim, 27, a journalist, said he had a similar experience.

Ahmad Faheem Majeed, 28, a former Afghan Air Force intelligence officer who crossed into Texas in September 2022, was detained and charged with failing to enter at a designated checkpoint, a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty and was held in U.S. custody for eight months, court records show.

“I helped these Americans,” he said from Eden Detention Center in Texas, sometimes near tears. “I am not understanding why they are not helping me.”

U.S. homeland security officials declined to discuss their cases.

Mozhgan’s family made it to Mexico City, but was scared to continue without immigration paperwork issued by the Mexican government, which they thought would shield them from arrest. They waited in line for days before heading north.

Taiba and her family boarded a bus from Mexico City to the U.S. border.

“The pleasure of travel,” the motto on the bus said. It had been a year since they left Afghanistan.

Ali, Taiba and their son traveling by bus from Mexico City to Tijuana.

A weariness set in, her hope nearly buried by exhaustion. Criminals and the police stopped the bus repeatedly to extort money. On the third night, they reached Tijuana, border lights twinkling in the distance. It was early April.

The next evening, a smuggler brought them to the drainage tunnel in the middle of the city. As they climbed the first border fence, they could see wildflowers and a highway on the other side.

Taiba lowered herself to the ground with anticipation, her feet landing on dirt.

They had made it — or so they thought.

They spent a cold night in an immigration netherworld, of sorts, trapped between two border fences. In the morning, U.S. Border Patrol officers swept them up. After so many thousands of miles, they said, their welcome was a detention center.

They had hoped to claim asylum then and there. Instead, U.S. officials handed them documents clarifying that each was an “alien present in the United States,” subject to deportation.

They could fight removal at a court hearing, set for June 30, 2025, on the other side of the country, in Boston.

The place at the U.S. border where Taiba and Ali cross with their son and cousin.

To apply for asylum, they would have to navigate the process on their own, or find a lawyer. Until then, they couldn’t work.

A charity briefly put them in a hotel room, but the questions began to gnaw: How would they eat? Where could they live? Was this the American dream?

“Everything is dark,” said Taiba’s husband, Ali.

The others faced similar challenges.

Milad, the lawyer, tried the crossing again and made it, landing a kitchen job under the table. Ali and Nazanin, the doctors, finally got to the border and across it, then made their way to her brother’s home in Georgia. Niazi, the presidential guard, wound up in a shelter in San Diego, wondering how to get his three boys into classes — they had lost two years of schooling.

None of the families had a lawyer or a clear idea of how to survive, much less feed their families back home in Afghanistan. Most began writing desperate messages to migrant aid organizations, but the groups were overwhelmed, and the Afghans rarely heard back.

Mozhgan’s family faced a different terror: She had gone missing.

She had scaled the first border fence, then spent three nights between the walls. Finally, immigration officials carted her family to detention — but she and an older brother, both over 18, were treated as single adults and kept in custody, while the rest of the family was released in California.

They had fled Afghanistan together and spent months trekking through unforgiving terrain, evading bandits and dodging corrupt police officers — only to be separated, without any contact, in the country where they hoped to find refuge.

Her mother, Anisa, was frantic, said Mozhgan’s father, Abdul. “We might not be able to see them again,” he recalled her saying.

Their children were released about a week later and reunited with the family.

Taiba kept moving. In early May, an aid group in New York offered a spot in a shelter and the family headed east, bound for more uncertainty. Without asylum, they faced a life in the shadows, like millions of other undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Her husband had always assumed the Darién would be the hardest part of the journey.

“But when I emerged from the jungle, we have seen, ‘No,’” he said. “The difficulties are forever.”

Federico Rios contributed reporting from Brazil, Mexico and the Darién Gap, and Ruhullah Khapalwak from Vancouver.

The New York Times · by Julie Turkewitz · May 21, 2023

9. Turn Ukraine Into a Bristling Porcupine

Excerpts:

There seem to be four stable choices for Ukraine that won’t just pause the war. First, Ukraine could become a full NATO member protected by the alliance’s guarantee—enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—to come to Ukraine’s defense if Russia attacks again in the future. Second, Ukraine could receive some kind of new NATO status, which de facto integrates its armed forces with NATO militaries without the collective defense clause under Article 5. Third, Ukraine could sign bilateral security guarantees with select countries that pledge to come to Kyiv’s aid in the event of war. And fourth, the West could turn Ukraine into a bristling porcupine, armed to the hilt with massive Western training and other support, so that it would be all but impossible for Russia to swallow.

...

Finally, all military training needs to be geared toward one goal: to make the Ukrainian armed forces proficient at conducting combined arms operations at scale. A rigorous regime of training and military exercises inside and outside Ukraine, supported by partners, will be crucial in exploiting Ukraine’s asymmetrical advantage.

Turn Ukraine Into a Bristling Porcupine

No matter how this war ends, Russia will need to be deterred from attacking again.

By Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow for cyber power and future conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Foreign Policy · by Franz-Stefan Gady · May 22, 2023

The Spanish American philosopher George Santanaya once remarked that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” In truth, however, all high-intensity wars eventually end, and Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine will end at some point, too. When this happens—whether as a result of victory or mutual exhaustion, whether the guns remain silent or some degree of fighting continues along a static front line—the West needs a game plan to deter future Russian aggression. It must make sure that this will not be a repeat of 2014, when Russia paused its invasion in Crimea and the Donbas while it prepared for a full-on war. This time, there must not be a follow-on war a few years down the road.

There seem to be four stable choices for Ukraine that won’t just pause the war. First, Ukraine could become a full NATO member protected by the alliance’s guarantee—enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—to come to Ukraine’s defense if Russia attacks again in the future. Second, Ukraine could receive some kind of new NATO status, which de facto integrates its armed forces with NATO militaries without the collective defense clause under Article 5. Third, Ukraine could sign bilateral security guarantees with select countries that pledge to come to Kyiv’s aid in the event of war. And fourth, the West could turn Ukraine into a bristling porcupine, armed to the hilt with massive Western training and other support, so that it would be all but impossible for Russia to swallow.

It goes without saying that these options are not mutually exclusive. Helping rearm and train Ukraine will probably be part of any scenario. In the short term, however, only a clear, committed porcupine strategy is likely to be both politically feasible and truly capable of deterring Russia.

First, there is still no consensus among NATO member states on whether Ukraine should join the alliance; a premature push by some members will likely trigger vetoes by others. Second, a new NATO status of de facto integration into the alliance short of an Article 5 guarantee could be the worst of both worlds for Kyiv: It could trigger further Russian escalation while leaving Ukraine uncertain about the precise military support it would receive in case of war. Third, security guarantees by Western powers without a concrete military commitment would be a no-go for Ukraine for similar reasons. It has already been burned by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Britain, France, Russia, and the United States pledged to guarantee Ukraine’s security and borders in return for Kyiv giving up nuclear weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union. Who would believe the United States this time, let alone France or Germany, that they would intervene?

Consequently, the only practical policy to deter Russia once a cease-fire is in place is to help turn Ukraine into a formidable military porcupine with hardened, lethal quills. This should be accomplished by a core group of countries coordinated under a military assistance command under the auspices of the United States. For Ukraine, the porcupine strategy means keeping its economy on a war footing to produce arms, raise weapons technology to a NATO standard, and otherwise sustain a formidable military over the long term.

Only a clear, committed porcupine strategy is likely to be both politically feasible and truly capable of deterring Russia.

Last week, we got the first serious hint that the West may be moving toward a porcupine strategy for post-war Ukraine. Along with a massive, $3 billion package of immediate military aid, Germany announced a long-term program to supply more than $8.5 billion more over the next nine years. Meanwhile, German defense contractor Rheinmetall became the latest company to reach a long-term agreement with Ukraine. It will construct a major facility in Ukraine to build and service tanks and other military vehicles. It is already an important deterrence signal to Moscow that Berlin is supporting Ukraine militarily in the long term. Britain and France also announced deliveries or pledges of long-range attack drones, Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, light tanks, armored vehicles, and air defense systems. Although these are for the current war, the fact that Ukraine is increasingly shifting to more advanced Western systems will help it transition to a Western-style military after the war.

An ideal porcupine strategy is built around the assumption that the defender’s sharp quills can inflict enough pain on the attacker to convince him that he will not attain his goals on the battlefield. That does not necessarily require the defender to be stronger than the attacker. Rather, it means helping Ukraine rearm and train in an agile, lighter way to make sure it can fight a flexible defensive military campaign against any future invading Russian force. It needs to be clear to the Russians that any attack would meet continuous ambushes, counterattacks, and hits by long-range artillery and missiles. Then, when the attacking Russians are already severely depleted, the bulk of Ukraine’s well-armed, well-trained force would push back or destroy the invaders. It is a porcupine strategy with a hammer blow at the end.

As the ongoing war demonstrates, a porcupine defense strategy for Ukraine needs to acknowledge that any future war is likely to be similarly dominated by large-scale land battles, mutual attrition, and the need for lots of firepower and protection from it. This needs to be reflected in a long-term rearmament plan for Ukraine. Therefore, in addition to man-portable anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems; loitering munitions; and cheap, expendable drones and other attritable platforms, Ukraine would need adequate numbers of main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored self-propelled howitzers.

To deter Russia from attacking again, some of the long-term priorities are the same ones Ukraine has now. First and foremost is firepower. Ukraine needs multiple launch rocket systems, howitzers, loitering munitions, as well as adequate stockpiles of guided and unguided munitions. Another priority—both now and long-term—is air defense systems of all types and ranges. Any Ukrainian defense strategy needs to be built around denying Ukrainian airspace to Russian bomber formations and other aircraft, as well as reducing the impact of missile and drone attacks.

In the medium- to long-term, a comprehensive air defense strategy will also require at least two squadrons of Western-made fighter aircraft capable of being armed with beyond-visual range air-to-air missiles, JDAM-bombs, and long-range, air-launched cruise missiles. These will help cover gaps in ground-based air defenses and provide ground formations with close air support. Last week’s decision by the United States and several European countries to supply F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and train Ukrainian pilots is therefore not only good news for Kyiv in the current war, but a welcome step in a long-term air defense strategy. After firepower, ground-based air defense, and fighter jets, other priorities for long-term deterrence include main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and man-portable anti-tank guided missile systems.

The real secret sauce of Ukraine porcupine strategy in the medium term, however, won’t be specific hardware—it will be the ability to conduct combined arms operations at scale. Battle networks and management systems that link weapon systems with sensors such as a satellites, reconnaissance drones could provide Ukraine with an important asymmetrical advantage over Russia. More effective information-sharing would give Ukrainian military commanders superior situational awareness of the battlefield, which in turn would accelerate the pace of decisions and action. It is an old military adage: Whoever aims better and shoots faster will live longer. Battle networks enabling faster information-sharing could give Ukraine an asymmetric advantage by identifying targets faster on the battlefield, hitting them more precisely and quickly than the Russians, and using less ammunition in the process.

For the Ukrainians to gain these abilities over the Russians, it would require investments in new battle management systems, including machine-learning algorithms that could help quickly identify Russian targets and recommend a unit or weapon to engage them. It would also require sustained investments in new sensors, such as uncrewed aerial vehicles used for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance missions, as well as new satellite constellations. The Ukrainian armed forces would also need evaluate whether their almost complete dependency on commercial StarLink satellites for network connectivity makes sense; a more resilient alternative system is likely required in the medium to long term.

Some of these developments are already happening in Ukraine now—but only in a rudimentary and piecemeal fashion. Despite media reports of a concerted Western effort to support Ukraine with targeting and engagement, any such help with battle management has been limited. In addition to further investments in cyber defenses and electronic warfare capabilities, closing what military planners call the “kill chain”—the links from the detection of a target to the individual soldiers or weapons platforms on the battlefield—would mean a more concerted Western-supported effort to help Ukraine adopt novel operating and doctrinal concepts that exploit technology to improve speed and accuracy.

Finally, all military training needs to be geared toward one goal: to make the Ukrainian armed forces proficient at conducting combined arms operations at scale. A rigorous regime of training and military exercises inside and outside Ukraine, supported by partners, will be crucial in exploiting Ukraine’s asymmetrical advantage.

All of this would be beneficial to Western partners as well. Future warfighting concepts and doctrines, such as multi-domain operations, rest on the premise of information superiority and accelerated, technology-driven kill chains. Western militaries could therefore see their support for Ukraine as part of their own experimentation and learning phase to prepare for 21st-century warfare. Organizing broad, long-term support for Ukraine could also serve as a blueprint for future public-private partnerships between technology firms, defense contractors, and the military across the NATO alliance. If both Ukraine and Western militaries benefit in multiple ways, it would help justify some of the significant cost of supporting Ukraine. Fusing Western ideas for the future of warfare with practical input from what is now the world’s most experienced fighting force in high-intensity conventional warfare could prove tremendously helpful many ways. For example, it could help Western planners draft new operational concepts and doctrines. It could also help trigger necessary changes in force structure following a rigid and systematic joint review of lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

Of course, the precise shape and form of future military assistance will depend on how the war in Ukraine ends. One thing is already sure: Whether Putin stays or not, Russia will rearm. Moscow will likely make the reconstitution of its military power a national priority, if history is any guide. Europe and the United States consequently need to take the necessary steps today in order to prepare for rapid and substantial military support for Ukraine once the hot phase of the war is over. Importantly, this includes expanding the production capacity of the European and U.S. defense industries, including by negotiating guaranteed multiyear contracts as soon as possible.

Other urgent requirements include the expansion of training facilities to accommodate large Ukrainian formations; more complex and frequent military exercises focused on high-intensity warfare; and a systematic effort to distill the war’s lessons, absorb them institutionally, and apply them during military training. It would also mean swifter adaptation of emerging technological capabilities, such as machine learning-supported battle-management systems, that would enable Ukraine to establish information and fire superiority over Russian forces. Finally, it would entail a broader effort to work with select contractors to help maintain a military-technological edge over Russia. This edge will be key in Ukraine’s and the West’s ability to maintain a tactical advantage on the future battlefield. The strongest deterrent against a future war in Eastern Europe will lie not only in Ukraine’s capacity to be a bristling porcupine, but also in all of Europe’s ability to defend itself against future Russian aggression.

Foreign Policy · by Franz-Stefan Gady · May 22, 2023

10. Russia claims to have Bakhmut but top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over

Excerpts:

“The importance of our mission of staying in Bakhmut lies in distracting a significant enemy force,” said Taras Deiak, a commander of a special unit of a volunteer battalion. “We are paying a high price for this.”

The northern and southern flanks regained by Ukraine are located near two highways that lead to Chasiv Yar, a town 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Bakhmut, that serve as key logistics supply routes. One is dubbed the “road of life.”

Ukrainian forces passing this road often came under fire from Russians positioned along nearby strategic heights. Armored vehicles and pickup trucks driving toward the city to replenish Ukrainian troops were frequently destroyed.

With those high plains now under Ukrainian control, its forces have more breathing room.

“This will help us design new logistic chains to deliver ammunition in and evacuate the injured or killed boys,” said Deiak, speaking from inside Bakhmut on Thursday, two days before Russia claimed control of the city. “Now it is easier to deliver supplies, rotate troops, (carry out) evacuations.”

Russia claims to have Bakhmut but top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · May 22, 2023

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Although Russia claims it has won control of Ukraine’s eastern city of Bakhmut, after a grinding nine-month conflict in which tens of thousands of fighters have died, top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over.

Ukrainian officials acknowledge they now control only a small part of Bakhmut.

But, Ukraine says, their fighters’ presence has played a key role in their strategy of exhausting the Russian military. And they say their current positions in the areas surrounding Bakhmut will let them strike back inside the 400-year-old city.

“Despite the fact that we now control a small part of Bakhmut, the importance of its defense does not lose its relevance,” said Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “This gives us the opportunity to enter the city in case of a change in the situation. And it will definitely happen.”

The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in Bakhmut. Russia’s defense ministry said Wagner mercenaries backed by Russian troops had seized the city, but Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Bakhmut was not being fully occupied.

In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. Holding a Russian flag before a group of at least nine masked fighters in body army who were toting heavy weapons, Prigozhin proclaimed: “This afternoon at 12:00, Bakhmut was completely taken.”

More important for Ukraine has been the high numbers of Russian casualties and sapping of the morale of enemy troops for the the small patch of the 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) front line as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive in the 15-month-old war.

“The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut. They lost part of the heights around the city. The continuing advance of our troops in the suburbs greatly complicates the enemy’s presence,” said Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. “Our troops have taken the city in a semi-encirclement, which gives us the opportunity to destroy the enemy.”

About 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, Bakhmut was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines and home to about 80,000 people before the war, in a country of more than 43 million.

Russia-Ukraine War

UN watchdog: Ukrainian nuclear plant loses power supply again, is 'extremely vulnerable'

G7 ends with Ukraine in focus as Zelenskyy meets world leaders and Russia claims disputed gains

Estonia, Latvia plan joint purchase of German medium-range IRIS-T air defense systems

'Exhaust them': Why Ukraine has fought Russia for every inch of Bakhmut, despite high cost

The city, named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, was known for its sparkling wine produced in underground caves. It was popular among tourists for its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th century mansions. All are now reduced to a smoldering wasteland.

Fought over so fiercely by Russia and Ukraine in recent months has been Bakhmut’s urban center, where Ukrainian commanders have conceded Moscow controlled more than 90%. But even now, Ukrainian forces are making significant advances near strategic roads through the countryside just outside, chipping away at Russia’s northern and southern flanks by the meter (yard) with the aim of encircling Wagner fighters inside the city.

Ukrainian military leaders say their months-long resistance has been worthwhile because it limited Russia’s capabilities elsewhere and enabled Ukrainian advances.

“The main idea is to exhaust them, then to attack,” Ukrainian Col. Yevhen Mezhevikin, commander of a specialized group fighting in Bakhmut, said Thursday.

Russia has deployed reinforcements to Bakhmut to replenish the lost northern and southern flanks and prevent more Ukrainian breakthroughs, according to Ukrainian officials and outside observers. Russian President Vladimir Putin badly needs to claim victory in Bakhmut, where Russian forces have focused their efforts, analysts say, especially after a winter offensive by his forces failed to capture other cities and towns along the front.

Ukraine’s tactical gains in the rural area outside urban Bakhmut could be more significant than they seem, according to some analysts.

“It was almost like the Ukrainians just took advantage of the fact that, actually, the Russian lines were weak,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews. “The Russian army has suffered such high losses and is so worn out around Bakhmut that ... it cannot go forward anymore.”

Ukrainian forces in the outskirts of Bakhmut and in the city bore relentless artillery attacks until a month ago. Then, Ukrainian forces positioned south of the city spotted their chance for a breakthrough after reconnaissance drones showed the southern Russian flank had gone on the defensive, Col. Mezhevikin said.

After fierce fighting for weeks, Ukrainian units made their first advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut since it was invaded nine months ago.

In all, nearly 20 square kilometers (8 square miles) of territory were recaptured, Maliar said in an interview last week. Hundreds of meters more have been regained almost every day since, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s Operational Command East.

“Previously we were only holding the lines and didn’t let Russians advance further into our territory. What has happened now is our first advance (since the battle started),” Maliar said.

Victory in Bakhmut does not necessarily bring Russia any closer to capturing the Donetsk region — Putin’s stated aim of the war. Rather, it opens the door to more grinding battles in the direction of Sloviansk or Kostiantynivka, 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank.

Satellite imagery released this week shows infrastructure, apartment blocks and iconic buildings reduced to rubble.

In the last week, days before Russia announced the city had fallen into their control, Ukrainian forces retained only a handful of buildings amid constant Russian bombardment. Outnumbered and outgunned, they described nightmarish days.

Russia’s artillery dominance was so overwhelming, accompanied by continuous human waves of mercenaries, that defensive positions could not be held for long.

“The importance of our mission of staying in Bakhmut lies in distracting a significant enemy force,” said Taras Deiak, a commander of a special unit of a volunteer battalion. “We are paying a high price for this.”

The northern and southern flanks regained by Ukraine are located near two highways that lead to Chasiv Yar, a town 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Bakhmut, that serve as key logistics supply routes. One is dubbed the “road of life.”

Ukrainian forces passing this road often came under fire from Russians positioned along nearby strategic heights. Armored vehicles and pickup trucks driving toward the city to replenish Ukrainian troops were frequently destroyed.

With those high plains now under Ukrainian control, its forces have more breathing room.

“This will help us design new logistic chains to deliver ammunition in and evacuate the injured or killed boys,” said Deiak, speaking from inside Bakhmut on Thursday, two days before Russia claimed control of the city. “Now it is easier to deliver supplies, rotate troops, (carry out) evacuations.”

___

Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · May 22, 2023

11. Russia and China hit back at a G7 that saw them as a threat

Excerpts:

Beijing’s retort later Saturday urged the G7 “not to become an accomplice” in American “economic coercion.”

“The massive unilateral sanctions and acts of ‘decoupling’ and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the US the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values,” it continued.

Russia and China hit back at a G7 that saw them as a threat | CNN

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · May 21, 2023

CNN —

Moscow and Beijing lashed out against the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima, where leaders of major democracies pledged new measures targeting Russia and spoke in one voice on their growing concerns over China.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday slammed the G7 for indulging in their “own greatness” with an agenda that aimed to “deter” Russia and China.

Meanwhile China’s Foreign Ministry accused G7 leaders of “hindering international peace” and said the group needed to “reflect on its behavior and change course.”

Beijing had made “serious démarches” to host country Japan and “other parties” over their decision to “smear and attack” China, it said.

Both Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and how to handle an increasingly assertive Beijing have loomed over the three-day gathering of the world’s leading industrialized democracies taking place in Japan – just across regional seas from both countries – where Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise, in-person appearance.

G7 member countries made the group’s most detailed articulation of a shared position on China to date – stressing the need to cooperate with the world’s second-largest economy, but also to counter its “malign practices” and “coercion” in a landmark joint communique Saturday.

Leaders also pledged new steps to choke off Russia’s ability to finance and fuel its war, and vowed in a dedicated statement to ramp up coordination on their economic security – a thinly veiled warning from members against what they see as the weaponization of trade from China, and also Russia.

The G7 agreements follow a hardening of attitudes on China in some European capitals, despite differing views on how to handle relations with the key economic partner, deemed by the US as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”

Countering China’s ‘coercion’

Beijing’s retort later Saturday urged the G7 “not to become an accomplice” in American “economic coercion.”

“The massive unilateral sanctions and acts of ‘decoupling’ and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the US the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values,” it continued.

G7 member countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union also joins as a non-country member.

A number of non-G7 leaders also attended the summit, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Albanese on Sunday said he has been concerned “for some time” over China’s actions, including its military activities in the South China Sea, and called for “transparency” by Beijing over the detention of Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

BORODYANKA, UKRAINE - 2023/05/06: Graffiti by French street artist Christian Guemy aka C215 depicting a Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka which is shown on one of the apartment buildings destroyed by the Russian army a few months ago in the city of Borodyanka, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. (Photo by Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Biden to meet with Zelensky amid Russia's war in Ukraine

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also on Sunday said China “presents the greatest risk to security and prosperity,” adding its behavior is “increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad.”

China’s image in Europe has taken a severe hit over the past 15 months as leaders there have watched China’s Xi Jinping tighten ties with fellow authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as Moscow’s invasion sparked a massive humanitarian crisis and Moscow’s leader was accused of war crimes by an international court.

Beijing’s increased military aggression toward Taiwan – the self-ruling democracy the Chinese Communist Party claims as its territory but has never ruled – and economic penalties against Lithuania following a disagreement over Taiwan have also played a role in shifting sentiment.

Concern about such incidents was reflected in the G7 statement on ensuring economic security and countering economic coercion, which did not explicitly mention China.

The G7 leaders’ ability to sign onto a statement “so specifically directed at Beijing” would have been “hard to believe” two years ago, according to Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

“The bottom line is that the G7 has shown it will increasingly focus on China and will try to maintain a coordinated policy approach. That’s a major development,” he said.

War in Ukraine

The G7 agreements land as China has been marshaling its diplomats in a concerted attempt to repair ties with Europe, largely by recasting itself as a potential agent of peace in the war in Ukraine, even if that claim has been met with widespread skepticism among Western nations.

Last week as European leaders headed to Asia, Chinese special envoy Li Hui began his own European tour billed by Beijing as a means to promote peace talks.

Li, who was dispatched after Xi late last month made his first call to Zelensky since the Russian invasion, visited Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he fronted China’s vision of a “political settlement.”

U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during the G7 Summit at the Grand Prince Hotel in Hiroshima, Japan, May 21, 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

G7 talks culminate Sunday with in-person appeal from Zelensky

That calls for a ceasefire but not for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory first – a scenario which critics say could serve to cement Russia’s illegal land grab in the country and runs counter to Ukraine’s own peace plan.

Zelensky’s travel to the G7 in Asia is also “a way of putting pressure on China,” according to Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an emeritus professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

The message to China is for it “to be more more outgoing in its support for a solution” that aligns with Kyiv’s interests in terms of its territorial integrity and Russian troops pulling out from Ukraine, he said.

When asked about the possibility of China playing a role in ending Russia’s war, a senior White House official on Saturday said the US hopes that Xi views this week’s summit as a signal of “resolve.”

“We would hope that what President Xi and the (People’s Republic of China) extract from what they’ve been seeing here … is that there’s an awful lot of resolve to continue to support Ukraine … and that China could have a meaningful role in helping end this war,” the official said.

CNN’s Sugam Pokharel and Darya Tarasova in London, Shawn Deng in Toronto, Alex Stambaugh in Hong Kong, Angus Watson in Sydney and Betsy Klein in Washington contributed to this report.

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · May 21, 2023

12. The Alarming Reality of a Coming Nuclear Arms Race

Excerpts:

All these advances could drastically degrade China’s ability to retaliate against a U.S. first strike—in other words, they could drastically degrade China’s ability to deter a U.S. first strike. Therefore, Xi (or someone in his entourage) calculates that China needs more nukes to maintain its second-strike capability.

Some of these fears are exaggerated. Most U.S. smart bombs don’t have the range to hit Chinese nuclear forces, even if launched near the coast. Cyber strikes against nuclear launch centers are, at least as far as we know, a bit hypothetical. Missile defenses don’t work all that well against long-range ballistic missiles.

Still, leaders tend to plan against worst-case scenarios, especially if the political climate is tense—and U.S.-Chinese relations are particularly tense. Even if they warm up, as seems to be the case, the military’s planning, which the tensions helped galvanize into being, would probably continue.

And so the cycle spirals. As Russia and China steps up their nuclear efforts, the U.S. will feel the need to respond accordingly—which will spur Russia, China, or both to step into another round. If Iran builds a bomb, if North Korea builds more bombs and figures out how to put them on a missile, if a second Trump administration compels South Korea and other allies to build their own nuclear weapons … then such cycles could spiral in other parts of the world as well.

If the world were calmer, if the world’s leaders felt more secure, maybe they would heed Prime Minister Kishida’s words at the G7 conference this weekend. But we will have to wait till another day.

The Alarming Reality of a Coming Nuclear Arms Race

Japan told world leaders to work for “a world without nuclear weapons” at the G7—but the tide is turning in the opposite direction.

BY FRED KAPLAN

MAY 20, 20235:50 AM

Slate · by Fred Kaplan · May 20, 2023

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by CGinspiration/Getty Images Plus, scanrail/Getty Images Plus, and Franck Robichon - Pool/Getty Images.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided to hold this weekend’s G7 meeting in Hiroshima—the first city destroyed by an atom bomb at the end of World War II—as a way of urging his fellow leaders to work for “a world without nuclear weapons.” Now, he said, “is the moment we must insist on the need to revitalize … nuclear disarmament.”

His colleagues— the leaders of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy—will no doubt take a moment to bow their heads and mourn the tragedy of the past, then return to the summit’s real agenda: tightening sanctions on Russia, upping the arming of Ukraine, and figuring out how to deal with China.

The fact is, the world is less disposed to nuclear arms control than at any time in the last half-century—and the pressures for a renewed nuclear arms race, this time involving more than just two players, are disturbingly intense.

The pattern is clear: Russia has dropped out of the forum that monitors compliance with the New START arms-reduction treaty, which Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin extended just two years ago. Both the United States and Russia are developing new versions of all their nuclear-tipped armaments—land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, cruise missiles, and more. China seems on a course to achieve parity with the two larger powers, tripling the number of its nuclear warheads over the next decade. North Korea keeps churning out more A-bombs and testing new missiles. Iran creeps closer to a weapons-grade enrichment of uranium. South Korean leaders openly talk about possibly building an atomic arsenal too; officers in other technically advanced countries whisper about it behind closed doors.

Why are these pressures intensifying now?

The demonstrable fact is, if a country has nuclear weapons, it’s less likely to be attacked. That’s what “nuclear deterrence” is about: “If you nuke me, I’ll nuke you.” And it’s not just nuclear attacks that are deterred. “Even if you just attack me with conventional weapons, I might respond by nuking you.”

This, of course, is why the U.S. and its NATO allies haven’t directly intervened in the Ukraine war. If they’d done so, Ukraine’s army would likely be pushing toward, or perhaps beyond, the Russian border. But Putin has threatened to use nukes if he faces an existential threat. Maybe he’s bluffing, but it would be irresponsible to bet the house that he is.

All of the presidents, prime ministers, and tyrants plowing their way toward possible nuclear arsenals—or enlarging their real, existing arsenals—have reasons for doing so. They may be unsound or illogical reasons. But they are based on real fears, which leave open plenty of doors for certain advisers in their midst to make the case that nukes will solve their problems.

North Korea is the most obvious case. Kim Jong-un has nothing going for him but nuclear weapons. His country is impoverished. It has no natural resources. Like his two predecessors in the Kim dynasty, he feels surrounded by enemies (“a shrimp among whales,” as his grandfather, Kim il-sung, put it). His father, Kim Jong-il, developed nukes not only as deterrents but as bargaining chips to extract economic aid. The current leader, seeing that tactic’s limits, accelerated the program—as a deterrent for its own sake, and perhaps as back-up for threats of aggression. He is also confident that his one real ally, China, will let him do so because the threat keeps U.S. air and naval forces bottled up in northeast Asia and thus less able to concentrate their firepower near Beijing’s areas of interest along the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

South Korea’s nuclear contemplations were sparked by North Korea’s real program—and by fears that the United States might welch on its longstanding promise to come to Seoul’s aid in the event of armed aggression. When Donald Trump was president, he openly said he might end this commitment. Just this past April, President Joe Biden struck a deal to involve South Koreans in U.S. military planning—including nuclear planning—if they stopped talking about going nuclear themselves. But Trump or someone like him may ascend to the White House again, and so the mulling won’t cease entirely.

Iran played the bargaining-chip game. In 2015, along with six other nations, it signed an accord in which Iran dismantled most of its nuclear program—essentially closing off all paths to a nuclear weapon—and the other countries lifted an array of economic sanctions, thus permitting it to join the world economy. The verification clauses were very tight; international inspectors attested several times that Iran was complying with the deal. Then, in 2018, President Donald Trump abrogated the accord, re-imposed sanctions, and forced the other countries to re-impose sanctions as well.

The results were twofold. First, after a year of seeking some way around the blockade, Iran restarted its nuclear program. Second, and more broadly, Iran and other countries—especially those led by tyrants—are suspicious of making any sort of deal with the U.S., knowing that some future president might simply step out of it. This very much includes North Korea.

Kim, the mullahs of Tehran, and others mulling the nuclear option certainly recall as well the fate of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who agreed to give up his nascent nuclear-weapons program and wound up dead at the hands of rebels who were aided by NATO air strikes. (The rebellion, which rose up as a proper reaction to a campaign of murderous cruelty against his own people, took place eight years after he dismantled his nuclear program, but other tyrants took note: in the interim, he got nothing in exchange for dismantling his program.)

What about the larger powers—the U.S. and Russia, with their 1,500 nuclear warheads each, plus stockpiles of more in reserve? What have they got to worry about?

The U.S. is developing new weapons mainly because its existing missiles, planes, and submarines are getting old. Actually, only a few of them are verging on obsolescence; most could be modified for many more years. (Minuteman ICBMs, a half-century old, still work fine; ditto for B-52 bombers whose airframes are older still.) But even if some new models are needed, do we need them in the same number? For instance, do we need 400 ICBMs, given the many hundred missiles on submarines that can attack the same targets and do so from underwater positions that can’t be detected or preemptively attacked? No one has made the case that we do; more appalling, almost no one in Congress, or even in the think-tank world, has asked officials to make the case. It has come down to theatrics: Russia and China are building new weapons—in some cases, more weapons (which the U.S. is not doing)—so we have to do so, too, at a cost of roughly $50 billion a year. Nobody in a position of power is contesting this.

Why is Russia playing this game? Mainly because Putin is getting desperate. Well into the 1970s, the United States had thousands—at one point, as many as 7,000—nuclear weapons in Western Europe. These included aerial bombs, short-range missiles, even nuclear artillery shells. They dated from a time when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies far outnumbered the U.S. and NATO in conventional troops and weapons. Nukes were seen as a way of compensating for this inferiority—both to deter an invasion and to counter an invasion if it actually occurred. (We’ve dismantled all but 100 or so of these weapons, all of them aerial bombs.)

Today the situation is reversed: The U.S. and NATO hold an edge over Russia in conventional arms, and Russia is compensating by retaining—and “modernizing”—a large nuclear arsenal to use on the battlefield. The idea is even crazier now than it was a half century ago: Europe is so densely populated that the “smallest” nuclear weapon would kill lots of civilians and would prompt retaliation, and likely escalation. Russia could not “win” in any meaningful sense.

Russia has therefore added a twist to this form of deterrence—a strategy called “escalate to de-escalate.” The idea is this: If NATO is winning a conventional war, Russia would launch a few tactical nuclear weapons—not for any specific military purpose, but to shock Western leaders into ending the war, before it reels out of control. Is this threat plausible? Yes. (See the war in Ukraine.) The U.S. has built “low-yield” nuclear weapons (about 8 kilotons in explosive power, two-thirds the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb), so that we could “retaliate In kind” to Russia’s peculiar escalation. Is this threat plausible? Who knows?

The point is, there is a logic to the U.S. and Russian impulses to build new types of nuclear weapons—though it has an insane premise. It would require a politically secure and sage leader to step out of the rabbit hole, point out that it leads only to catastrophe, and do something to snap both sides out of the race.

Biden has shown in the past that he understands the insanity of a nuclear arms race—and of much about “nuclear strategy.” But there is no way for him and Putin to come to a meeting of minds on this right now; there is really no way for him to do so, even with the U.S. Congress. So we are stuck here for a while, and can only hope that Putin doesn’t get too desperate—and that our luck (by which I mean the whole world’s luck in staving off nuclear catastrophe for the past 78 years) holds for a little longer.

China is a somewhat different matter. Beijing built its first atom bombs in the mid-1960s and has never deployed more than a few hundred of them. This is because it has followed a policy of “minimal deterrence”—the idea that you build enough nukes so that, if a foe strikes you with nuclear weapons, you can strike back with enough force to devastate his country. This can be done with a few hundred nukes. (Britain and France, which have independent nuclear arsenals, long ago came to this same conclusion. Israel has about 200 nukes, though it has never officially acknowledged this.)

Now, though, something has changed: China has dug a lot of ICBM silos and may well soon fill them with ICBMs. It’s also producing these missiles. At the current rate, its arsenal of 400 nuclear warheads will rise to 1,500 by 2035. Why?

First, Xi Jinping wants to be a global power by around that time, and 1,500 would put him at parity with the U.S. and Russia. This is silly symbolism—though one could ask why he feels the need to waste money in the same way that Americans and Russia waste money. Still, he has learned that nukes are a tangible token of power, so here he goes.

Second, Xi has detected real shifts in the balance of power. CNA, a Virginia-based military research center, recently published a paper analyzing official Chinese writings on nuclear strategy. The paper concludes that, in recently years, China has taken note of new U.S. non-nuclear weapons that can do things that only nukes could do in the past. For example, “smart bombs,” even if armed with conventional explosives, are so accurate that they could disable or destroy blast-hardened missile sites. (In the old days, only the high blast of a nuclear bomb could do this.) A cyber strike could sever the communication links between a Chinese commander and his nuclear weapons, making it impossible to launch them. Missile-defense systems could shoot down Chinese nukes as they approach their targets.

All these advances could drastically degrade China’s ability to retaliate against a U.S. first strike—in other words, they could drastically degrade China’s ability to deter a U.S. first strike. Therefore, Xi (or someone in his entourage) calculates that China needs more nukes to maintain its second-strike capability.

Some of these fears are exaggerated. Most U.S. smart bombs don’t have the range to hit Chinese nuclear forces, even if launched near the coast. Cyber strikes against nuclear launch centers are, at least as far as we know, a bit hypothetical. Missile defenses don’t work all that well against long-range ballistic missiles.

Still, leaders tend to plan against worst-case scenarios, especially if the political climate is tense—and U.S.-Chinese relations are particularly tense. Even if they warm up, as seems to be the case, the military’s planning, which the tensions helped galvanize into being, would probably continue.

And so the cycle spirals. As Russia and China steps up their nuclear efforts, the U.S. will feel the need to respond accordingly—which will spur Russia, China, or both to step into another round. If Iran builds a bomb, if North Korea builds more bombs and figures out how to put them on a missile, if a second Trump administration compels South Korea and other allies to build their own nuclear weapons … then such cycles could spiral in other parts of the world as well.

If the world were calmer, if the world’s leaders felt more secure, maybe they would heed Prime Minister Kishida’s words at the G7 conference this weekend. But we will have to wait till another day.

Slate · by Fred Kaplan · May 20, 2023

13. FBI Searched Jan. 6 Rioters and George Floyd Demonstrators in Spy Database

Excerpts:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a tribunal of U.S. District Court judges appointed by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to review Justice Department applications for surveillance, operates largely in secret.

While the FISA Court writes its own opinions and is independent from the executive branch, its opinions must undergo a declassification process that is overseen by the attorney general and director of national intelligence. The opinions released Friday, from April 2022, remained classified for longer than usual, prompting some privacy advocates to warn the delay could hamper congressional debate concerning the Section 702 reauthorization. The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the administration seeking their release.

The Biden administration also declined to declassify details about a new “sensitive technique” of surveillance performed under Section 702 that required the court to weigh its legality, keeping Americans in the dark about a method of spying even as it lobbies lawmakers to renew the expiring portions of the law. The decision to keep them secret was made by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to protect sensitive sources and methods, officials said. Classified versions of the approved court opinion and related material have been shared with Congress and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

“The government has dramatically expanded its spying under Section 702 in ways never contemplated by Congress, but it’s refusing to tell Americans what it’s doing,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s national security project. “This secrecy is completely unacceptable in a democracy—Americans must know what this surveillance law allows the government to do.”

FBI Searched Jan. 6 Rioters and George Floyd Demonstrators in Spy Database

Agency used foreign spying law to gather intelligence in what one lawmaker called ‘shocking abuses’

By Dustin VolzFollow

and Byron TauFollow

Updated May 19, 2023 5:23 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-improperly-searched-spy-database-for-information-on-americans-court-says-2f12bcd?mod=us_more_pos6

WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation improperly searched a trove of intelligence gathered through a foreign spying law for information on people suspected of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the George Floyd protests, a court opinion released Friday showed.

Despite a lack of evidence, the FBI performed more than a dozen searches of raw foreign intelligence data related to people believed to be involved in the Capitol riot to hunt for foreign ties, the court said. Separately, three Jan. 6 searches were conducted that used more than 23,000 search terms such as an email account to look for evidence of foreign influence in relation to an unidentified group involved in the riot. The Justice Department later determined there was insufficient factual support for the searches.

FBI analysts also searched for information related to 133 people arrested in the aftermath of the protests prompted by the killing of Floyd, a Black man who died pleading for his life while a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. Due to redactions in the opinion, it wasn’t clear whether the searches related to individuals protesting racism and police brutality, or to counterprotesters. A senior FBI official declined to clarify. Four Minneapolis police officers have been convicted of crimes in connection with Floyd’s death, including Derek Chauvin, found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 22-and-1/2 years in prison.

In a separate incident, the bureau ran identifying terms of 19,000 American donors to an unnamed congressional campaign through the foreign intelligence database. An official said the search involved a congressional candidate and not a current member of Congress. A later review by Justice Department lawyers concluded that only eight of the thousands of terms had a plausible connection to foreign government activity.

Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. PHOTO: JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

FBI officials also ran more than 400 U.S. defense contractors and holders of security clearances through the foreign intelligence database despite no evidence they were being targeted by a foreign power. And between 2016 and 2020, the FBI routinely ran identifying terms of people who appeared in police homicide reports, “including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses and suspects.”

The revelations were contained in a heavily redacted opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which said the violations were significant and often due to analysts not understanding existing search rules. Analysts use select identifiers, like a phone number, to search a vast database of calls, text messages, emails and more gathered under a foreign eavesdropping law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Intelligence and surveillance activities under the law are supposed to be limited to targeting foreign nationals located abroad who are believed to be agents of a foreign power or members of an international terrorist group.

But because of the nature of modern, globally linked digital communications, U.S. spy agencies collect a great deal of information about Americans through the program, such as when an American is talking to someone abroad. Under existing law, the FBI may search its data about Americans in some instances, without having to obtain a warrant.

Biden administration officials say the law is one of the government’s most vital national security tools, but privacy advocates from both ends of the political spectrum have pushed for changes in part due to how it has been used to search data belonging to Americans.

The revelations are the latest examples to demonstrate what critics say are inappropriate uses of the spying powers at issue. They underscore many of the concerns that privacy advocates have raised about U.S. intelligence programs after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: that the vast troves of internet data collected by the federal government ostensibly for intelligence gathering are being routinely used in domestic criminal matters.

The incidents described by the court happened before the FBI completed a series of internal reforms, national security officials said. PHOTO: BRYAN OLIN DOZIER/ZUMA PRESS

FBI Director Christopher Wray “told us we can sleep well at night because of the FBI’s so-called FISA reforms. But it was worse than we thought,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over FISA 702 renewal.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), said the newly disclosed opinion revealed “shocking abuses of FISA Section 702, in particular the FBI’s warrantless searches through 702 data for information on Americans.” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the opinion showed the need for additional changes beyond the Justice Department’s own reforms, “to ensure that the FBI, and other agencies, are faithful stewards of this powerful and irreplaceable national security tool.”

Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. Those steps, adopted within the past few years, are intended to reduce incidents of noncompliance.

“We’re not trying to hide from this stuff,” a senior FBI official said. “This type of noncompliance is unacceptable, and that’s why we put these reforms in place to stop that from happening.”

Agents are generally only supposed to search U.S. intelligence databases if they have a specific factual basis to believe that the search will return evidence of a crime or foreign intelligence information. Lawyers at the Justice Department’s National Security Division later concluded many of these domestic queries related to Jan. 6, U.S. civil unrest and general criminal investigation were improper, according to partially redacted passages in the newly released documents.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a tribunal of U.S. District Court judges appointed by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to review Justice Department applications for surveillance, operates largely in secret.

While the FISA Court writes its own opinions and is independent from the executive branch, its opinions must undergo a declassification process that is overseen by the attorney general and director of national intelligence. The opinions released Friday, from April 2022, remained classified for longer than usual, prompting some privacy advocates to warn the delay could hamper congressional debate concerning the Section 702 reauthorization. The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the administration seeking their release.

The Biden administration also declined to declassify details about a new “sensitive technique” of surveillance performed under Section 702 that required the court to weigh its legality, keeping Americans in the dark about a method of spying even as it lobbies lawmakers to renew the expiring portions of the law. The decision to keep them secret was made by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to protect sensitive sources and methods, officials said. Classified versions of the approved court opinion and related material have been shared with Congress and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

“The government has dramatically expanded its spying under Section 702 in ways never contemplated by Congress, but it’s refusing to tell Americans what it’s doing,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s national security project. “This secrecy is completely unacceptable in a democracy—Americans must know what this surveillance law allows the government to do.”

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com and Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com

Appeared in the May 20, 2023, print edition as 'FBI Misused Spy Database, FISA Court Says'.

14. Does America Still Need Europe?

Excerpts (from Dr. Mazarr's response):

The authors’ real target, in fact, seems to be not so much the dangers of the United States’ European posture but the problems of U.S. foreign policy writ large. “Acting as Europe’s protector fuels U.S. hubris and allows Washington to discount the often valuable advice of its friends,” they contend. What needs correcting is “the fantasy that the United States alone can shape the world as it wants.”

The limitations of such broad propositions become apparent when applied to specific cases. The U.S. role in Europe, which has helped produce peace and stability for 75 years, is a prime example. There is no reason to believe that Washington’s inclination to embark on risky foreign adventures is affected by its commitments in Europe. These commitments have remained steady since 1945, while the United States’ eagerness to intervene elsewhere has waxed and waned. Ashford, Shifrinson, and Wertheim see little value in Washington’s European role, but even they cannot bring themselves to call for a hard break. They counsel withdrawals of an uncertain degree, at an ill-defined pace, to snuff out vague risks and achieve dubious gains.

They make their case, moreover, at a very odd moment. “It is hard to envision better circumstances” to begin a U.S. disengagement, they contend, writing that the alternative “is to stick with a deteriorating status quo that suppresses Europe’s defense capabilities and asks ever more of Washington.” These are puzzling claims. Europe today is confronting the most intense security crisis since the Cold War ended. The United States and its NATO allies are collaborating to assist Ukraine. Those allies, including France and Germany, have made a raft of new commitments to strengthen their defenses, and the alliance is rushing to restore its ability to operate effectively. This is not a “deteriorating status quo.” In the face of this renewed transatlantic resolve, for the United States to perform an abrupt about-face and signal an intention to renounce the burdens of European security would be among the most confounding and self-defeating acts of a great power in modern history.

Does America Still Need Europe?

Debating an “Asia First” Approach

By Emma Ashford, Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, and Stephen Wertheim; Michael J. Mazarr

May 22, 2023

Foreign Affairs · May 22, 2023

Europe Must Step Up

Emma Ashford, Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, and Stephen Wertheim

As French President Emmanuel Macron travelled back from Beijing in April, he sparked an uproar. Speaking to reporters, Macron stated that European and U.S. interests were diverging, particularly in their approaches toward Asia. “The worst thing for Europe,” he said, “would be just when we have finally managed to clarify our strategic position, we end up pulled into a world of crises that are not our own.”

Washington greeted Macron’s comments with dismay. The Biden administration has been at pains to project an image of Western unity under stable U.S. leadership. However, the French president’s remarks intensified the simmering debate over whether the United States should seek to pull European states into its competition with China, or should instead reduce its leading role in the defense of Europe in order to prioritize security needs in Asia.

For many analysts in Washington, the latter move would be a costly mistake. As the political scientist Michael Mazarr recently wrote in Foreign Affairs (“Why America Still Needs Europe,” April 17), significantly downgrading the United States’ defense commitments in Europe would “validate the grim picture that China and Russia now paint of a United States that is pitilessly self-interested and transactional, and would severely undermine the United States’ painstaking attempts to build a reputation as that rare great power that offers something to the world other than naked ambition.”

This is a common refrain among those who believe that any meaningful U.S. military drawdown from Europe—most likely involving other states stepping up to shoulder the lion’s share of the defense burden—would sever U.S. ties with the continent and even the world. Pulling back, they argue, is prohibitively risky, would save little money, and could destroy broader cooperation between the United States and Europe.

This concern is overblown. It rests on excessive optimism about the United States’ ability to deter both China and Russia indefinitely and on unwarranted pessimism about the trajectory of a more capable Europe. In reality, countries on both sides of the Atlantic would benefit from transferring most of the responsibility for defending Europe to Europeans themselves, allowing the United States to shift to a supporting role. The result is more likely to be a balanced and sustainable transatlantic partnership than a transatlantic divorce. The alternative, meanwhile, is to stick with a deteriorating status quo that suppresses Europe’s defense capabilities and asks ever more of Washington.

SPREAD TOO THIN?

Arguments for trimming the United States’ commitments to Europe are nothing new. In 1959, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower complained that, by refusing to replace U.S. military forces with their own, European members of NATO were coming close to “making a sucker out of Uncle Sam.” Policymakers in successive administrations, both Republican and Democrat, voiced similar concerns. Recently, however, the debate has been reshaped by the alignment of “Asia first” hawks with foreign policy realists who favor strategic restraint. The hawks, preoccupied with the rise of China, fear that U.S. commitments in Europe could undermine priorities in Asia. The realists, on the other hand, have long argued for U.S. retrenchment from Europe on geopolitical and budgetary grounds.

The case for European defense is straightforward: with the rise of China and the intensification of the Chinese-U.S. rivalry, the United States gains little and sacrifices much by serving as the primary security provider for European countries that can afford to fund their own defense against Russia. If anything, the poor battlefield performance of Russian forces in Ukraine suggests that U.S. retrenchment might be more achievable than previously thought.

Mazarr challenges this assessment. He claims that U.S. commitments to Europe and Asia entail few practical tradeoffs and that a U.S. drawdown in Europe would save hardly any money. He arrives at these conclusions by assuming that what matters is whether the United States’ peacetime military presence is sustainable. The prospect of a deterrence failure in Europe or Asia is largely excluded from his analysis.

The United States is not capable of conducting full-scale operations against China and Russia simultaneously.

Mazarr is probably correct that a significant peacetime presence in both theaters is feasible in the short term. But war in at least one region is a real and growing possibility that cannot be discounted. Direct conflicts with China or Russia have become likelier in recent years, and there is a sizable gap between the rhetoric of U.S. leaders and the country’s military capabilities. Although policymakers talk about deterring both China and Russia indefinitely, the 2018 National Defense Strategy effectively abandoned plans for the United States to maintain forces sufficient to fight wars in two regions—let alone against two major powers— at once.

Today, the United States military is not capable of conducting full-scale operations against China and Russia simultaneously. The United States’ adversaries know this, and the knowledge may embolden them to test Washington’s commitments. Peacetime deterrence and wartime defense, in other words, are connected. Inadequate defenses weaken deterrence, so plans for peace cannot be separated from plans for war. Recognizing the growing risk since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, U.S. allies in both Europe and Asia have called on Washington to devote more resources to their regions.

We are less worried than some Asia firsters that China intends to invade Taiwan in the immediate future, so long as Taiwan does not declare independence and the United States does not treat the island as permanently separate from mainland China. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to ignore the medium- and long-term risks. A future crisis over Taiwan or the nearby Diaoyu/Senkaku islands could abruptly pull the United States away from Europe. Such a situation could hand Russia an opportunity to challenge or invade suddenly exposed neighbors. To count on the United States always being able and willing to devote significant additional resources to Europe, should war break out, is to put all the transatlantic alliance’s eggs in one already overloaded basket.

The unipolar moment is over and the United States faces a rising Asian challenger.

Thankfully, no one needs to take such a gamble. The European states of NATO and the EU possess vastly greater latent military power than Russia can muster. According to the World Bank, the European Union had a GDP more than nine times larger than that of Russia in 2021, and the war in Ukraine has widened the gap still further. Even the much-maligned military spending of EU members is already almost four times greater than Russia’s, and the EU has roughly three times the population of Russia. Moreover, Moscow’s forces have been degraded by the war in Ukraine, giving Europe a unique window to convert its resources into effective and coordinated defenses.

When Mazarr does consider the possibility of war in Europe, he understates the costs of the current level of the United States’ commitment to the region’s security. Even if Washington were to step back now, Mazarr contends, a war in Europe would drag the United States back in, thus nullifying the benefits of retrenchment in the first place. “It is inconceivable that a U.S. president could sit by and do nothing as Europe fought for its life against a brutal autocrat,” he writes. But there is a world of difference between doing nothing and deploying the First Armored Division. The United States has transformed the course of the current war in Ukraine without engaging in direct combat, by providing arms, training, and intelligence to Kyiv. If Russia were to attack a member of NATO, the United States would retain a spectrum of retaliatory options. NATO’s Article V requires its members to take “such action as [they] deem necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” It does not require the United States to join the fight from the get-go, much less to fight in any particular way. If Europe could do more to protect itself, the United States could do less—potentially much less in future decades.

Above all, the Russian threat should be gauged accurately and not inflated. For the foreseeable future, Russia will lack the military power and economic resources to overrun the European continent and thereby threaten the United States’ vital interests. Its botched invasion of Ukraine has illustrated this reality, as has the clear desire of Russia’s neighbors to check Moscow’s ambitions. Because Russia cannot become a European hegemon, Washington needs to develop realistic policy options commensurate with the threat posed to U.S. interests. The United States can remain a constructive NATO ally with a largely offshore troop presence.

COMPLETING THE PIVOT TO ASIA

Even if deterrence succeeds in both theaters for the time being, maintaining the status quo imposes significant tradeoffs. Mazarr downplays them by arguing that different types of forces and weapons systems are needed in Europe, which requires troops and tanks on the ground, and Asia, which requires support in the sea and the air. Certainly, there is some truth to this distinction; the United States is not going to station armored divisions along the Pacific Island chains. Mazarr’s position has the most merit in the near term. Because a Chinese invasion of Taiwan remains unlikely, it is not necessary to immediately curtail aid to Ukraine in order to ramp up deliveries in Asia, as some Asia firsters, such as the defense analyst Elbridge Colby, have urged Washington to do.

Yet some of the most important weapons platforms are in high demand in both regions and face production bottlenecks. Whereas existing weapons shipments to Ukraine have mostly come from U.S. stockpiles, future procurement will rely on the ability of U.S. arms manufacturers to fulfill orders. This could bring Asian and European needs into conflict. The air force, in particular, is liable to be overtaxed by increasing demands from both theaters for aerial refueling and transportation, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

Strategic priorities will ultimately dictate how the United States organizes its forces and which weapons it chooses to procure. If Asia is consistently deemed to be the most important theater for U.S. interests, then the Pentagon will put a premium on procuring systems and designing forces optimized for conflicts in the Indo-Pacific. This means that it will devote fewer resources to those assets better suited to Europe (or the Middle East, for that matter). Likewise, the relative strength of the services will be determined by strategic priorities—and how they shape the defense budget. In the long run, European defense needs will be in competition with Asian ones. Mazarr is correct that the direct financial cost of maintaining current U.S. forces in Europe is relatively small as a proportion of the overall defense budget, but this is selective accounting. The true cost of the U.S. presence includes the opportunity costs of directing procurement and staffing dollars away from certain capabilities and toward others. Even if Congress were to spend significantly more money on defense, as some advocate, this would only mitigate the tradeoff rather than resolve it. Such expenditure would, in any case, come at the expense of pressing domestic needs and entail real political risk.

In addition, a dominant U.S. military presence has long suppressed the development of homegrown European defense capabilities and hindered defense cooperation among European states. This outcome was more than a byproduct of U.S. policy: it was a goal. As they forged the post–Cold War security system, the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations sought to prevent Europe from building military capabilities that would duplicate those of the United States or displace its leadership in NATO. U.S. officials wished to sustain U.S. military primacy, worrying that European states could not be trusted to manage their own affairs. But today, the unipolar moment is over and the United States faces a rising Asian challenger, problems elsewhere, and discontent at home. A course correction is needed. The transatlantic defense burden should begin to shift now. It is hard to envision better circumstances for doing so—and it is easy to envision far worse ones down the line.

STAY OR GO?

Critics of a greater transatlantic division of labor typically rely on three arguments. The first is that such a division should be organized more by issue than by geography. Mazarr, for example, suggests that the United States should look to its European allies to take on an active role in the Asia-Pacific region, even if they make modest contributions. But it makes little sense to expect European states to allocate scarce resources to the other side of the world while they remain reliant on the United States, a Pacific power, for their own defense. That is a bad deal for the United States. Although some might hope that this dependence will entangle European states in the Asian theater, it neither guarantees that Europe will follow the United States into Asia nor builds European states into capable actors that can reduce U.S. military burdens.

The second argument is that the United States reaps benefits from its existing alliance network that it would lose were it to adopt a more restrained role in European defense. On this point, however, Mazarr’s example of U.S.-Scandinavian military cooperation is a revealing one: the United States cooperated with Finland and Sweden long before they moved to join NATO. Many purported areas of benefit, such as intelligence sharing and cybersecurity, are mediated through bilateral ties or arrangements, not through NATO. Such cooperation would almost certainly continue in the absence of a large U.S. troop presence in Europe.

The third argument is that European states would back away from robust transatlantic economic ties if the United States contributed less through NATO. But in prior decades when the United States’ commitment to European security was seriously questioned, transatlantic trade and investment remained robust. Today, the European and U.S. economies are even more deeply integrated. The EU exports more goods to the United States than to any other country, and the EU is the United States’ third-largest goods export partner. As the biggest global blocs of advanced industrialized economies, Europe and North America share common problems and common goals, such as achieving a coordinated transition to green energy. Nor does history suggest that the presence of U.S. troops in Europe enables Washington to prevent European nations from trading with hostile countries. During the Cold War, European states, despite benefitting from U.S. protection, nonetheless opposed trade controls against the Soviet Union. This precedent casts doubt on the notion that the United States can leverage its military presence in Europe to limit or reduce EU-Chinese trade ties.

Certainly, European states might become less deferential to Washington if the United States drew down its troops and defense assets while remaining in NATO. On the other hand, they would still have incentives to protect themselves from Chinese spying, surveillance, and economic coercion and to shape global rules and norms in partnership with the United States. The risk of transatlantic commercial decoupling is small, especially given that European states could well diverge from U.S. policy toward China even if the United States retains all its forces in Europe. And the potential benefit—a Europe that can defend itself if needed—is significant.

THE SINEWS OF PEACE

Orchestrating the defense of Europe is costly for the United States, and not just in dollars and cents. Acting as Europe’s protector fuels U.S. hubris and allows Washington to discount the often valuable advice of its friends. When western European governments spoke out against the war in Iraq in 2003, they were ignored even though they were right. If Europe had greater strategic autonomy, Washington would be less prone to engage in the fantasy that the United States alone can shape the world as it wants. U.S. dominance also infantilizes European states by treating them as incapable of providing security for their own citizens and reducing their agency in foreign policy. And it is increasingly risky, as a darkening strategic picture creates the prospect of a sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces under dire circumstances.

Better, then, to empower European allies to begin to fill future gaps in U.S. capacity. The original goal of U.S. policymakers in the decade after World War II was to help Europeans get back on their feet and defend themselves. Yet rather than recognize that these countries are now capable of doing so, some officials in Washington ironically seem to fear this real success, grasping for a reason to make the U.S. presence in Europe permanent and extend U.S. defense commitments further.

For all the criticism he received, Macron is asking the right questions. In the coming decades, what kind of relationship should the United States and Europe seek? Should it be a true partnership that adapts to changing circumstances? Or should it be a lopsided dependency that maintains the entrenched dominance of the United States, leaving European states less as allies and more, as Macron suggested, as vassals? Asking Europe to step up may seem risky, but it is in fact the safer choice.

This transition will not be easy. Building a workable European defense will require deft political maneuvering, nurturing of Europe’s defense industrial base, and an all-around change in strategic culture. It will take time if it is done right. But the result will vindicate the effort. Contrary to what Mazarr and other critics claim, the alliance will become more robust, secure, and sustainable, in keeping with what its postwar creators envisioned. Far from signaling a retreat from international affairs, the United States will demonstrate that it is not an out-of-touch, declining hegemon clinging to its prior preeminence but instead a global leader, seeking to work with capable partners to build a safe and resilient world.

EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. She is the author of Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates.

JOSHUA R. ITZKOWITZ SHIFRINSON is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts.

STEPHEN WERTHEIM is a Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and Catholic University. He is the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.

Michael Mazarr Responds

Michael J. Mazarr

I am delighted that three observers of international politics as perceptive as Emma Ashford, Joshua Shifrinson, and Stephen Wertheim chose to respond to my essay “Why America Still Needs Europe” (April 17). I agree that the United States must be discriminating in its choice of global commitments. But when it comes to the role that the United States should play in Europe, the writers are vague about actual policy recommendations, relying on all-purpose indictments of U.S. power that, although offering important insights, often crumble when applied to specific cases.

EUROPE’S PROTECTOR

To begin with, I struggled to identify what specific policies the authors favor. They argue for a “meaningful U.S. military drawdown from Europe—most likely involving other states stepping up to shoulder the lion’s share of the defense burden” and for “transferring most of the responsibility for defending Europe to Europeans themselves, allowing the United States to shift to a supporting role.” But these phrases are vague. The authors do not indicate what a “meaningful” but not total drawdown would look like, and they do not suggest either a level to which troop numbers should be reduced or a schedule for doing so. They also do not specify whether the United States should take the most extreme step and leave NATO. This ambiguity leaves them in a strategic no man’s land, urging cuts to U.S. forces in Europe but allowing for some lasting military role, staying in NATO (it appears) but hinting at bolder moves later. Such an ambiguous position risks undermining deterrence and threatening the credibility of U.S. global promises without producing the outcomes that the authors want.

Their argument does not acknowledge the fact that Washington has already shifted to a “supporting role” in Europe. At the peak of the Cold War in the 1950s, the United States had over 400,000 personnel in Europe, and as late as the mid-1980s, it had over 300,000. In 2021, there were about 60,000. By contrast, non-U.S. NATO members in 2021 fielded over 1.9 million military personnel, including over 500,000 active-duty forces from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom alone. Nor are the U.S. expenditures as onerous as the authors imply; the direct cost of U.S. forces in Europe—between $30 billion and $40 billion according to IISS—was roughly a tenth of what other NATO members collectively spent on defense in 2022. The United States’ post-Cold War presence in Europe has therefore already seen a “meaningful drawdown.”. If U.S. retrenchment was the key to unlocking more European defense spending, it should have happened already.

Ashford, Shifrinson, and Wertheim never state whether the security of Europe is a vital U.S. interest. If it is not, then it would make sense for the United States to withdraw its forces and leave NATO. But if critical U.S. interests are indeed at stake, as I believe they are, then Washington must take the necessary steps to maintain NATO unity and European stability. The authors do not come down on one side of this issue. They are seeking a process of disengagement serious enough to prompt more allied defense spending but not so radical that it threatens deterrence or U.S. global credibility. No such perfect balance exists.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE?

Nor is it clear what problem the authors are trying to solve. Nowhere do they argue that U.S. forces in Europe create significant risk. They do point to one danger of a lasting commitment to NATO. Washington’s involvement in both Asia and Europe, they claim, creates a risk that it will have to fight wars in both theaters simultaneously, highlighting a lack of capacity that may “embolden [China and Russia] to test Washington’s commitments.” The solution to the United States being unable to fight two wars, I would suggest, is not to abandon Europe but to practice effective deterrence. Indeed, Ashford, Shifrinson, and Wertheim claim that “for the foreseeable future, Russia will lack the military power and economic resources to overrun the European continent.” But if that is true, then deterring attacks on NATO ought to be possible, and the United States is unlikely to confront the feared two-war scenario. And again, the authors’ strategic halfway measures, which stop short of cutting the cord to NATO, will not solve the problem. If the United States stays in the alliance and some troops remain in Europe, then the risk of simultaneous wars will endure.

Ashford, Shifrinson, and Wertheim suggest that Washington could fulfill its commitments under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—a stipulation that requires NATO member states to come to one another’s defense when one of them is attacked—without committing U.S. forces. This, they write, could perhaps be done by sending only military supplies, as Washington has done for Kyiv so far. This is unrealistic for many reasons. Although the phrasing of Article 5 allows such a strategy, Washington has never limited itself to sending supplies to a formal treaty ally that has been attacked. Refusing to send U.S. combat forces would be viewed, in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, as abandonment. This option, moreover, makes sense only if the United States leaves Europe entirely: any U.S. forces remaining on the continent would necessarily draw the United States into a conflict.

The authors’ real target, in fact, seems to be not so much the dangers of the United States’ European posture but the problems of U.S. foreign policy writ large. “Acting as Europe’s protector fuels U.S. hubris and allows Washington to discount the often valuable advice of its friends,” they contend. What needs correcting is “the fantasy that the United States alone can shape the world as it wants.”

The limitations of such broad propositions become apparent when applied to specific cases. The U.S. role in Europe, which has helped produce peace and stability for 75 years, is a prime example. There is no reason to believe that Washington’s inclination to embark on risky foreign adventures is affected by its commitments in Europe. These commitments have remained steady since 1945, while the United States’ eagerness to intervene elsewhere has waxed and waned. Ashford, Shifrinson, and Wertheim see little value in Washington’s European role, but even they cannot bring themselves to call for a hard break. They counsel withdrawals of an uncertain degree, at an ill-defined pace, to snuff out vague risks and achieve dubious gains.

They make their case, moreover, at a very odd moment. “It is hard to envision better circumstances” to begin a U.S. disengagement, they contend, writing that the alternative “is to stick with a deteriorating status quo that suppresses Europe’s defense capabilities and asks ever more of Washington.” These are puzzling claims. Europe today is confronting the most intense security crisis since the Cold War ended. The United States and its NATO allies are collaborating to assist Ukraine. Those allies, including France and Germany, have made a raft of new commitments to strengthen their defenses, and the alliance is rushing to restore its ability to operate effectively. This is not a “deteriorating status quo.” In the face of this renewed transatlantic resolve, for the United States to perform an abrupt about-face and signal an intention to renounce the burdens of European security would be among the most confounding and self-defeating acts of a great power in modern history.

MICHAEL J. MAZARR is Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. She is the author of Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates.

MICHAEL J. MAZARR is Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Foreign Affairs · May 22, 2023

15. What Washington Gets Wrong About Deterrence

Excerpts:

As a matter of policy, however, the key question is how the United States will use the tools it has today to maximize its deterrent effects. From an operational perspective, the Ukraine War has not hurt the military balance versus China. In fact, the United States has demonstrated that it can continue to pursue its Indo-Pacific-focused capabilities while still aiding Ukraine. Moreover, the Ukraine War may even help in the long run if it spurs both the United States and its allies to understand that industrial warfare is not just a topic for the history books and to prepare accordingly.

More importantly, if indeed deterrence is primarily a psychological effect, then another key question is, what packs more of a punch: a few extra Javelins and HIMARs sitting in Taiwan, or seeing a fellow authoritarian regime with whom you have a friendship that knows “no limits” impale itself invading a smaller, weaker neighbor?

In an increasingly precarious world, there is an understandable draw toward strategic reductionism — to focus on China as “pacing threat” to the exclusion of everything else. Giving in to this temptation is a mistake. As a global power, the United States faces multiple challenges; it simply lacks the luxury of getting to choose one adversary in one region. But even if it did get to choose, deterrence is an elastic commodity. While the United States does face some binary strategic choices, deterring China versus fighting Russia in Ukraine is not one of them.

What Washington Gets Wrong About Deterrence - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Raphael S. Cohen · May 22, 2023

Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost 15 months ago, two camps have consistently opposed American military aid. Unsurprisingly, there are the traditional anti-war activists and “restraint” advocates who opposed most American military involvement in foreign wars. While these groups generally condemn Russian aggression, they note that Russia did not directly attack the United States. As such, the costs of long war with Russia and the risks of escalation outweigh the benefits of backing Ukraine.

A second but perhaps more interesting group, though, is the China hawks. While much public attention has been focused on Ukraine, China has ramped up its military pressure on Taiwan and engaged in increasingly caustic rhetoric toward the United States. As a result, some Republican politicians, commentators, and conservative voters have drawn a causal relationship between the two stories. This grafted narrative goes something like this: America’s provision of thousands of pieces of equipment, millions of rounds of ammunition, and tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine has wound up undermining its deterrence vis-à-vis China. A deterrence chit, proponents of this story claim, that has been spent on one region has come at the direct expense of another.

Become a Member

Deterrence, however, is not a tangible object. It is instead a psychological state. While deterrence is not entirely divorced from the tangible things like the deployment of platforms and stockpiles of munitions, perceptions tend to matter more than action itself. This basic insight should help us better understand the perceived “trade-off” between deterring China and fighting Russia. From a purely military perspective, Ukraine aid has not harmed efforts to protect Taiwan as much as its critics claim. More importantly, on a psychological dimension, the Ukraine War — and the robust response of the United States and its allies to the challenge — has strengthened the perception of America and its deterrence capabilities.

A Detriment to Deterrence?

Whether America’s aid to Ukraine actually comes at the expense of its ability to defend Taiwan if necessary is, at best, murky. True, the United States has already obligated over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine. But as high as that number sounds, it is about one-eighth of the Pentagon’s total defense budget, and less than half of the $100 billion comes from military assistance; the rest is humanitarian. Moreover, Congress voted that Ukraine aid would come from supplemental funding, which means that the money spent on supporting Ukraine did not come at the expense of other Defense Department efforts, which include deterring China.

Operationally, the Ukraine war has depleted the Army’s arsenal. The United States has sent thousands of Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger air defense missiles, 155 mm artillery rounds, and scores of HIMARS rocket artillery, howitzers, Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks, and other weapons systems to Ukraine. It will take the defense industrial base some time to replace these losses.

But these “losses” must be taken in context. Despite the war, the Army has doubled down on the capabilities needed for the Pacific fight, including long-range missiles and multi-domain task forces. Much of what the Army supplied to Ukraine has been older weaponry, which will eventually be backfilled with a newer, and presumably better, kit. That, admittedly, will take time given the atrophy in the Western defense industrial base, but the process is slowly under way. The Ukraine War, for example, has prompted the United States to correct a decades-old systemic shortfall in its ability to produce its munitions. And it is not just the Defense Department that recognizes the shortfalls; Congress is seized with correcting the munitions problem, too. Over the long term, the United States could well be in a better position than before the conflict began.

More importantly, geography dictates that stopping a Taiwan invasion would fall mostly to air and maritime forces, neither of which have been impacted much, if at all, by U.S. assistance to Ukraine. The Air Force’s most recent budget request grew the F-35 stealth fighter fleet and the number of KC-46 tankers in order to operate at range in the Indo-Pacific. In December, the service unrolled its new long-range B-21 stealth bomber to much fanfare. Perhaps most importantly, the Air Force continues to buy more long-range munitions meant to dominate the air and sink ships.

The Navy offers a similar story. Like the Air Force, the Navy’s budget request for the coming fiscal year grew by over $11 billion. The service is continuing to buy more Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, Virginia-class attack submarines, and a host of other manned and unmanned naval and air systems — all of which are designed with the Indo-Pacific in mind. As with the Air Force, few if any of these capabilities have been sent to Ukraine. And while the Navy needs more of these capabilities, the defense industrial base suffers from a series of constraints, and so even if resources were redirected from Ukraine, it would not solve the naval shortfalls overnight.

Adding to the already robust growth in the Air Force and Navy is the dramatic growth in allied military capabilities caused by the Ukraine War. While these do directly count toward the Defense Department’s goals, they also factor into the deterrence equation versus China. For example, despite the Ukraine War, a series of allies — including France and, for the first time, Germany — joined air exercises in the Indo-Pacific, as Europe has grown more wary of the threat posed by China.

Ultimately, it is not clear just how much the Ukraine War hurts America’s ability to respond to aggression in the Indo-Pacific. In the short term, the Ukraine War might have taken a toll on the U.S. ability to wage a ground war in the region, but as Secretary Robert Gates quipped, “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia … should have his head examined.” Over the long term, the U.S. military — ground forces included — may come back stronger because of the conflict in Ukraine.

Don’t Sweat the Details

The Ukraine War has depleted American stockpiles, particularly of ground munitions, in the short term. But this raises an interesting question: Does such a shortfall affect deterrence? Perhaps not.

Policymakers too often think about military power in its crudest forms. Case in point: no number of Russian hypersonic missile strikes has deterred the United States and its allies from aiding Ukraine. Similarly, China vastly expanded both its nuclear and conventional military arsenals over the years, but that seemingly has not dampened American willingness to defend Taiwan. Time and again, it’s the bigger picture — such as the likely toll of the conflict in national blood and treasure — that matters to deterrence, rather than how many munitions or platforms are in the arsenal. And so the emphasis should not be on stockpiles, but rather on how the war in Ukraine has shaped the broader strategic narrative of U.S. capabilities and defense.

What, then, might those “big” impressions coming out of Ukraine be? There are at least three of them. First, on the technical level, Western weaponry — even relatively old systems — still work well. One need only look at the hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties and the nearly 10,000 pieces of Russian equipment damaged, destroyed, or captured — including some state-of-the-art systems — to see the tangible effects of American military assistance. Given that Taiwan already receives billions of dollars in U.S. military hardware, that’s got to give Beijing pause.

Strategically, the Ukraine War underscores that the West is neither as weak nor as divided as many presumed. Prior to the Ukraine War, it was an open question as to whether the United States and its allies would fight. After all, the United States was mired in internal strife from a contested election and had just suffered an ignominious defeat in Afghanistan. Polls showed rising isolationism among the American population, pushed by “American First” sentiments on the right and anti-war progressives on the left. Two years ago, a slim majority of Americans supported defending Taiwan if it was attacked — not particularly robust support, especially given that a war with China would almost certainly be long and bloody.

Despite its typical apathy to foreign policy, the American public has shown remarkable and sustained interest in Ukraine a year on. That interest and support are important, as military capability is only half of the deterrence equation. The other — and in some ways more challenging — aspect of the deterrence equation is demonstrating the will to use force.

Critics often note deterrence is context-dependent, and a response to one crisis certainly does not preordain a similar response to another. That is true. But in this case, recent history reinforces Taiwan-specific military investments and less tangible no less important pledges. The Biden administration repeatedly promised an even more robust response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan than it has mounted to Russia in Ukraine, and polls suggest that significant numbers of Americans would support such a move. It’s the cumulative deterrence effect, then, that should be the goal.

Above all, the Ukraine conflict shows that wars are fundamentally unpredictable. In Ukraine, a war that nearly everyone thought would be over in a matter of days and offer a relatively clean Russian victory has ended up dragging on for well over a year and put the Vladimir Putin regime on increasingly shaky ground. That’s an uncomfortable implication for all leaders thinking about using force in the future — no matter whether they are sitting in Moscow, Beijing, or Washington.

Avoiding Strategic Reductionism

At some level, the critics of U.S. support for Ukraine have a point. Deterrence vis-à vis China is eroding. Unlike the American-Russian military balance, at least some military trends are going in China’s favor. As a result, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, unlike President Vladimir Putin, can afford to be patient. No matter what the United States does in Ukraine, in the long run, China will be more difficult to deter as its power and ambition grow.

As a matter of policy, however, the key question is how the United States will use the tools it has today to maximize its deterrent effects. From an operational perspective, the Ukraine War has not hurt the military balance versus China. In fact, the United States has demonstrated that it can continue to pursue its Indo-Pacific-focused capabilities while still aiding Ukraine. Moreover, the Ukraine War may even help in the long run if it spurs both the United States and its allies to understand that industrial warfare is not just a topic for the history books and to prepare accordingly.

More importantly, if indeed deterrence is primarily a psychological effect, then another key question is, what packs more of a punch: a few extra Javelins and HIMARs sitting in Taiwan, or seeing a fellow authoritarian regime with whom you have a friendship that knows “no limits” impale itself invading a smaller, weaker neighbor?

In an increasingly precarious world, there is an understandable draw toward strategic reductionism — to focus on China as “pacing threat” to the exclusion of everything else. Giving in to this temptation is a mistake. As a global power, the United States faces multiple challenges; it simply lacks the luxury of getting to choose one adversary in one region. But even if it did get to choose, deterrence is an elastic commodity. While the United States does face some binary strategic choices, deterring China versus fighting Russia in Ukraine is not one of them.

Become a Member

Raphael S. Cohen is the director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program at the nonpartisan, nonprofit RAND Corporation’s Project AIR FORCE.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Raphael S. Cohen · May 22, 2023

16. Amid leak of U.S. secrets, Pentagon hunts how documents left air base

Amid leak of U.S. secrets, Pentagon hunts how documents left air base

THE DISCORD LEAKS | The chief suspect, Jack Teixeira, appears to have acted alone, but Air Force investigators have descended on a quiet corner of Cape Cod

May 20, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Dan Lamothe · May 20, 2023

BOURNE, Mass. — Far from Washington’s marble floors and limestone facades, an unremarkable military facility in one of New England’s most picturesque shore-side destinations has become ground zero in the extraordinary leak of government secrets that has unnerved foreign capitals, embarrassed the Biden administration and triggered an expansive effort to account for the breach.

Behind the chain-link fencing and towering oaks walling off Joint Base Cape Cod from the public, Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira is alleged to have photographed and smuggled out hundreds of highly classified documents that have revealed in striking, sometimes alarming detail the scope of America’s spying abroad.

The Discord leaks have become one of the most significant disclosures of top-secret intelligence in a decade, creating a moment of crisis for the Pentagon. Since Teixeira’s April 13 arrest, military investigators have spent weeks scouring the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard for evidence to understand whether any others may share in the blame — even if the alleged leaker acted alone in posting the materials online.

The Discord Leaks

Dozens of highly classified documents have been leaked online, revealing sensitive information intended for senior military and intelligence leaders. In an exclusive investigation, The Post also reviewed scores of additional secret documents, most of which have not been made public.

Who leaked the documents? Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was charged in the investigation into leaks of hundreds of pages of classified military intelligence. The Post reported that the individual who leaked the information shared documents with a small circle of online friends on the Discord chat platform.

What do the leaked documents reveal about Ukraine? The documents reveal profound concerns about the war’s trajectory and Kyiv’s capacity to wage a successful offensive against Russian forces. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment among the leaked documents, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023.”

What else do they show? The files include summaries of human intelligence on high-level conversations between world leaders, as well as information about advanced satellite technology the United States uses to spy. They also include intelligence on both allies and adversaries, including Iran and North Korea, as well as Britain, Canada, South Korea and Israel.

What happens now? The leak has far-reaching implications for the United States and its allies. In addition to the Justice Department investigation, officials in several countries said they were assessing the damage from the leaks.

1/5

End of carousel

The personnel who work here are entrusted to analyze intelligence collected by surveillance drones and other U.S. assets, a program that has been suspended by the Pentagon and temporarily reassigned. The fallout has left some who live near the base worried about whether the mission will be stripped away permanently as senior military officials bore in on what happened and whether the unit’s leaders failed to enforce rules meant to safeguard such work.

Teixeira, 21, grew up about an hour away in Dighton, Mass. He’d had a troubled past, federal prosecutors contend, including a suspension from high school after another student reported hearing him make threats of violence and espouse racist views. That alleged episode compelled local law enforcement to deny Teixeira’s request for a firearms permit, though police relented some years later after he joined the military.

It is unclear how, despite those red flags, Teixeira was allowed to enlist in the Air National Guard and maintain access to classified information for so long. The military investigation that was directed by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall seeks to determine whether his unit complied with directives to safeguard classified information, officials told The Washington Post. They declined, however, to say whether it will examine Teixeira’s recruitment as well.

Already, two officers who supervised Teixeira have been suspended pending the results of the review by Lt. Gen. Stephen Davis, the Air Force inspector general. Those personnel have not been identified publicly. Davis and a team of investigators were at Joint Base Cape Cod from April 26 through May 8, said an Air Force official who, like some others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

Separately, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed Pentagon officials last month to lead a review assessing how to improve policies protecting classified information. Among the organizations participating is the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which oversees background checks and investigations required for security clearances, said Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence. Initial recommendations are due to Austin in about two weeks.

Teixeira, who could face 25 years in prison, remains in custody as the Justice Department’s criminal case proceeds, with a judge deciding Friday that he could do even more damage to national security if released. He also faces additional potential discipline by the military. After the Air Force concludes its investigation, a commander will determine whether he should be charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the official said. In the meantime, the Air Force official said, the service is coordinating closely with the FBI on its investigation.

Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lawyer who has closely watched the case, said military investigators ought to be scrutinizing the broad spectrum of personnel who observed Teixeira throughout his short military career and either could have — or should have — identified and reported him as a security risk.

“It would be derelict of the Air Force,” she said, not to review how Teixeira was recruited. “They absolutely need to be investigating who knew about this, who should have known about this, and if anyone did know about this, what did they do with that information?”

‘Cease and desist’

The work performed here by the 102nd Intelligence Wing is a replacement mission that began after the F-15 fighter jets that had been stationed on Cape Cod for years were relocated in 2008 to Barnes Air National Guard Base in western Massachusetts. About 1,200 personnel are assigned to the unit, including about 705 who serve in a part-time status, said a military official familiar with the unit’s operations.

Two people familiar with the 102nd’s operations said personnel here typically work in groups of up to 30, monitoring live surveillance feeds and photographs generated by drone and other reconnaissance aircraft operating all over the world. The unit’s hub, Otis Air National Guard Base, sits within the larger multiservice facility that also houses Coast Guard search-and-rescue teams, missile warning systems and an Army National Guard combat training center.

Teixeira worked in the intelligence unit’s operations center, performing maintenance on computers and the classified network that collects and disseminates material meant to be seen only by authorized personnel. The position required him and other IT staff assigned here to have a top-secret clearance, even though they have no need to access information about classified programs, the Air Force official said.

Prosecutors, in court documents, have suggested Teixeira became a problem within his unit not long after he was assigned to the 102nd in 2021 but was allowed to continue handling classified information anyway. According to redacted internal memos written by his supervisors, submitted to the court as part of the government’s case to keep him in jail pending trial, he was confronted at least three times after being observed examining or writing notes about classified intelligence unrelated to his primary responsibilities.

One of the memos indicates he disregarded a “cease-and-desist order,” though it is unclear whether any punitive action was taken as a result. He had been offered an opportunity to cross-train as an intelligence analyst but declined, the document says.

Teixeira, in messages posted on Discord, indicated that he knew he should not be sharing classified information, even suggesting that he was aware that doing so could see him treated like Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. soldier who was convicted in 2013 of espionage charges after sharing a cache of classified documents with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

“Idgaf what they say I can or can’t share,” Teixeira wrote, according to court documents, using an acronym for “I don’t give a f---.” “All the sh-t I’ve told you guys I’m not supposed to.”

Air Force officials are deliberating how they might impose new safeguards that would wall off access to sensitive information on a greater need-to-know basis, even among those who already have approval to review classified materials, the Air Force official said.

“Does it make sense,” this person said, “that you could limit an IT professional’s access to pieces and parts? Could you lock down folders? Or could you require certain certificates to view them?”

It’s unclear if the Air Force will disclose the findings of its investigation. Typically, significant details about a high-profile inspector general inquiries are made public but with classified details withheld.

Guard members on Cape Cod who have been sidelined as a result of the breach are “disappointed about the loss of their stellar reputation,” another military official said, adding, “They want to get back to work.”

‘Profoundly frustrating’

Amid the lighthouses and seaside vistas of Joint Base Cape Cod’s surrounding towns, there are few hints of the turmoil that has gripped those reporting for duty inside. But among those with ties to the military mission here, the scandal has prompted disgust.

Donald Quenneville, a retired Air National Guard general who spent most of his 36-year career stationed on Cape Cod, said the incident amounts to a “violation of a trust,” but the impact locally has been blunted some by the base’s evolving relationship with the community. When he first arrived here to fly aircraft in the 1970s, Quenneville recalled, many Guard members lived nearby, and there were frequent, overt reminders of their presence in the habitual rumble of jet engines overhead.

But fewer Guard members are assigned to the base today, he noted, and those who are often commute, as Teixeira did, from long distances in part because of the skyrocketing price of real estate here.

Quenneville, who lives in the nearby town of Falmouth, compared the Air Force investigation now underway to the type of inquiry necessary after an aircraft crash, when officials work to ensure that all causes are identified and necessary changes can be made. “We swore,” he said, “that we would uphold those secrets.”

Some residents have seized on the military’s suspension of the intelligence mission to air their opposition to the size and scope of its presence in the region. In a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) last month, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, an environmental group, wrote that the intelligence mission’s “termination” underscores a need to revisit how the base is used, and whether portions could be used to help address the shortage of affordable housing.

Troy Clarkson, a former civilian base employee who went on to a career in Massachusetts politics, and said he worries that upheaval from the leak leaves the region vulnerable. The installation has survived several rounds of realignments over the years, he said, noting the one that stripped away the fighter jets central to U.S. deterrence of Russia during the Cold War and, later, that were scrambled to New York City in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

“This kid clearly screwed up — but I think his screw-up does not denote a failure in the system,” said Clarkson, now the city manager in Brockton, about an hour to the northwest.

Over hot coffee in the Talk of the Town diner, a few miles west of the base, Clarkson said the community’s relationship with the military was fractured in the 1990s when groundwater contamination from the base leached into surrounding areas. The reaction to the document leak has been more muted by contrast, he said, though he called it a “betrayal” and “profoundly frustrating and disappointing.”

Rick Rege, who splits time between western Massachusetts and a home north of the base in the town of Sandwich, said there must be consequences for the leak, and a review of how IT security is handled in the future. But he doesn’t see the scandal changing how residents feel about the military.

“I think most people will see this as a one-off,” Rege said, “as a renegade kid who did something that he shouldn’t have done.”

The Washington Post · by Dan Lamothe · May 20, 2023

17. China’s Port Power

As the final section heading notes, "A different path to global power."

Did we fail to anticipate this? (did we fail to learn, adapt, and anticipate?

Excerpts:

China’s network of overseas commercial ports has already produced a novel form of power projection. Looking to the future, the PLA is focusing on the ways that these ports can support its growing repertoire of expeditionary operations. Despite a lull in port calls during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese forces continue to employ China’s port assets for noncombat functions like logistics and intelligence.

But should Beijing elect to project high-end combat power through commercial ports, it will face stiff headwinds. Chinese companies’ control over ports in nonallied foreign jurisdictions is hardly secure under wartime or crisis conditions. China’s power will remain constrained by host country authorities and vulnerable to foreign military forces. Ports themselves are fixed targets and have little protection from directed strikes. Mining or scuttling even a single vessel in an approach channel could render an entire port inoperable. Further, a host government might suspend port operations or even move to seize or nationalize Chinese facilities if conflict broke out. There are myriad foreseeable and significant drawbacks to projecting combat power from commercial ports, so the PLA will also almost surely continue its efforts to establish more dedicated overseas bases to meet high-end contingencies.

China has demonstrated that the familiar Anglo-American model of power projection through overseas military bases is not the only pathway to establishing a global military presence. Beijing has demonstrated its capability and willingness to project power from overseas commercial ports. Chinese companies now own and operate a vast portfolio of terminals worldwide, and these assets are highly concentrated under the control of a few key players subject to multiple mechanisms of party-state influence. And China’s continuing expansion in the global ports and maritime transportation industry shows that few countries have been willing to block Chinese firms from operating or acquiring these critical infrastructure assets, despite known security risks. As China seeks greater commercial and military advantage across the world’s oceans, its expansive global network of commercial ports both reflects and amplifies its growing power.

China’s Port Power

The Maritime Network Sustaining Beijing’s Global Military Reach

By Isaac Kardon and Wendy Leutert

May 22, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Isaac Kardon and Wendy Leutert · May 22, 2023

Over the past several years, U.S. national security officials have been intensely focused on China’s growing military power. Having not faced such a powerful challenger since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington now describes Beijing, as the U.S. Annual Threat Assessment put it in February, as a “near-peer competitor.” For the U.S. military, China has also become the “pacing challenge”, the benchmark for just how fast and how far it must adjust to provide effective defense in a more competitive international system.

Yet U.S. defense strategy appears poorly calibrated to the central challenges that China poses. The breakneck modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), showcased in its impressive blue-water navy and increasingly lethal rocket forces, obscures another, equally important foundation of China’s global power projection: its economic position. Not only is China the largest trading partner of many countries, it also now provides much of the critical infrastructure that enables international trade. This controlling influence is especially pronounced in maritime transportation, in which Chinese firms with close links to Beijing have become leaders in financing, designing, building, operating, and owning port terminals across the globe.

This maritime network has crucial implications for China’s power projection. In terms of its military, Beijing will not be able to duplicate Washington’s global posture. Unlike the United States, China does not have the capacity to maintain forward-deployed forces that operate from a network of overseas bases around the globe. The PLA established its first foreign military base at Djibouti in 2017. Six years on, despite significant efforts to do so, Beijing has yet to stand up another one. Instead, it has quietly become a “pier competitor” by leveraging the dual civilian-military uses of Chinese firms’ extensive international network of ocean port infrastructure to buttress the reach of its armed forces.

FROM CONTAINERS TO WARSHIPS

Chinese companies now own or operate terminals in nearly one hundred commercial ports spanning every major world region. The primary business for China’s port network remains international trade, but this critical infrastructure also supports the global operations of the PLA. Of course, commercial port facilities are not typically designed to enable high-end military capabilities. But virtually any commercial port can be employed to serve a range of military missions—and China has begun to do precisely that.

For example, our research has shown an emerging pattern of PLA Navy (PLAN) warships making regular use of dozens of overseas terminals owned and operated by Chinese companies. At these ports, Chinese military vessels not only show the flag for diplomacy but also refuel, resupply, and even undergo specialized maintenance and repairs. Among the facilities used for such purposes are ports in Singapore; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Piraeus, Greece. And China’s commercial port network already provides logistics and intelligence support to sustain the growing range of PLA missions far from Chinese shores.

Beijing’s global port expansion is first and foremost an economic phenomenon, driven largely by commercial factors. More than 90 percent of China’s merchandise trade is seaborne—significantly exceeding the global average of 80 percent. Ocean ports around the globe are essential conduits for China’s immense imports of energy, minerals, agriculture, and other global commodities. Modern container terminals and mega container ships facilitate the export of huge volumes of Chinese-manufactured goods. The centrality of international trade to China’s economic development model charted Beijing’s course to a commanding position in the global maritime transportation industry.

According to data from Drewry Maritime Research and our own research, as of 2022, Chinese firms owned or operated one or more terminals at 36 of the world’s top 100 container ports. An additional 25 of these are on the Chinese mainland, establishing China’s presence in 61 percent of the world’s most active international shipping hubs. Mainland China itself hosts eight of the world’s ten largest ports by total cargo tonnage and seven of the ten largest ports by throughput. By the end of 2022, Chinese firms had acquired ownership and/or operational stakes in 95 ports in 53 countries, spanning every continent except Antarctica.

Virtually any commercial port can serve a range of military missions.

But China’s global port push has been motivated by strategic as well as economic priorities. Beginning in the late 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party made establishing a strong position in global markets and natural resources a central foreign policy objective, offering incentives and material support for Chinese firms to expand rapidly in sectors such as ports and maritime transportation. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping rebranded and amplified these efforts by launching the Belt and Road Initiative, a global campaign to build connections between China and the world through trade, investment, and infrastructure. These policies helped Chinese enterprises in the port sector grow from purely domestic players to global industry leaders.

For Beijing, the factors that make ports commercially attractive—proximity to key markets and resources, major shipping lanes, and maritime chokepoints—also make them valuable for the projection of naval power. While Chinese firms have sometimes sustained long-term projects with little evident commercial merit, such as the Gwadar port in Pakistan and the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, they have also pursued other projects with clear market logic and negligible potential for overt military use, such as the port of Los Angeles. In most cases, however, both commercial and strategic priorities are present: international trade is vital to national welfare and ports are necessary for international trade. Thus, the Chinese government, in its 2015 national military strategy, gave the PLA the “strategic task” pf protecting these overseas interests and trade flows.

Commercial ports have become essential logistics platforms for the PLA’s global operations. At these Chinese-owned and Chinese-operated facilities, navy ships can replenish specialized petroleum, oils, and lubricants; resupply military materiel, equipment, and personnel; and in some facilities, even undergo maintenance and repair. Overseas port facilities likely also augment Beijing’s intelligence capabilities, because Chinese terminal operators gain proprietary information about ship movements and trade transactions. These aggregated data are even more valuable when military cargoes and activities in port are monitored. Because Chinese-owned ports are frequently co-located with host nations’ military bases—like at Haifa, in Israel—their commercial terminals offer convenient sites to observe other militaries’ operational routines, personnel, requirements, and movements.

The extent to which the PLA could operate effectively from China’s overseas commercial port network in wartime, however, is likely limited. Such military use would implicate the host country as well, potentially turning it into a belligerent. And since China lacks military alliances and defense agreements with host countries, it is unlikely that the PLA would depend on dual-use port facilities in the event of conflict. Lack of such formal security commitments also makes China less likely to intervene in conflicts overseas to begin with, thereby diminishing the need for dedicated combat-ready platforms.

But the peacetime military power that PLA navy vessels project through China’s global port network is already reshaping the international security landscape. The PLA’s sustained military presence in strategically important locations may force other navies to alter their force postures and routines, influence global perceptions of China’s military capabilities, and potentially deter other states from challenging China to protect their economic assets and interests. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the nature and extent of China’s port activity and how it serves Beijing’s interests.

LIFELINES AND CHOKEPOINTS

Chinese firms now own and operate port terminals on every continent and major ocean. This network is densest along the commercial sea lanes connecting China to natural resource imports from the Middle East and Africa, and to its major export markets in the Mediterranean. Notably, over half of foreign ports in which a Chinese company has a stake are located along the maritime route running from coastal China through the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, across the Indian Ocean, linking to the Persian Gulf or channeling through the Red Sea and Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea.

PLA and industry analysts call this main east–west sea line of communication China’s “maritime lifeline,” because it links China to its largest export market in Europe and to natural resource imports from the Persian Gulf and Africa. The Chinese government has called securing its supply lines along this route a “strategic task” that the PLA must fulfill—but without access to the specialized military bases typically required for extended out-of-area deployments. Well over half of China’s overseas port projects—57 percent—are also located close to major maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca. Chinese company–run port facilities spanning the globe position the Chinese navy to surveil and potentially deny naval and commercial flows between the world’s major bodies of water.

The military access that the PLA gains from these ports is crucial to its ability to protect China’s trade interests abroad. Circuitous maritime routes connecting coastal China to the world’s major markets and military theaters mean that the Chinese navy needs local port facilities to operate far out of area. For Beijing, making use of fixed terminal locations that are controlled by trusted agents and whose technical characteristics are known offers far more security and reliability than ad hoc calls at friendly ports.

Well over half of Chinese port projects are near maritime chokepoints.

Of course, the ascendance of Chinese commercial firms in the global port industry does not necessarily equal greater power projection for the Chinese military. Several countries, including U.S. allies and partners such as France and Japan, also own and operate large networks of ports, as well as shipping lines, around the world. What makes China’s position unique, however, is the Chinese Communist Party’s domination of China’s political-economic system and its ability to impose its security goals on the conduct of firms at home and abroad. To this end, Beijing has made explicit efforts to better leverage Chinese firms’ commercial port network to serve China’s wider foreign policy.

The Chinese government has multiple ways to exert influence over Chinese companies abroad. At the organizational level, it can do this through state ownership. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are highly responsive to Beijing’s direction because the state is their primary—and in some cases sole—shareholder. Although Beijing guides both privately owned and state-owned firms via government subsidies, extralegal control, and executives’ membership in political bodies, ownership remains a singularly powerful lever of party-state influence. Notably, in the port sector, the concentration of Chinese ownership in just three conglomerates has given Beijing particular leverage. These companies—COSCO Shipping Ports, China Merchants Port (CMPort), and Hutchison Ports (Hutchison)—now account for nearly 80 percent of China’s overseas port holdings. Both a central SOE and a dynamic global transport and logistics player, COSCO is likely subject to the most direct influence from Beijing of these big-three Chinese firms. CMPort—which has pursued some of the most ambitious and conspicuous Chinese port developments, such as in Djibouti and at Hambantota—is owned by the central government but based in Hong Kong. Hutchison is also headquartered in Hong Kong and is the privately owned subsidiary of the conglomerate CK Hutchison; in recent years, however, it has lost much of its relative autonomy from Beijing.

Beijing can also exercise influence over these companies through personnel appointments and membership in party committees. For SOEs like COSCO and China Merchants Group, the Chinese Communist Party appoints their top executives—board chairman, party secretary, and general manager. The state also uses joint appointments, like that of board chairman and party secretary, whereby a single person simultaneous holds top managerial and party leadership posts. The logic is simple: control the leader, control the firm. Company party committees can also shape corporate behavior through their authority to discuss major decisions—including important firm activities or matters involving national security—before they go to the board of directors for final determination.

The Chinese government has multiple ways to exert influence over Chinese companies abroad.

A growing body of Chinese law and regulations requires Chinese companies to make their assets available for military use. This includes defense mobilization and transportation laws and regulations directly authorizing military use of private holdings. Chinese authorities have further required Chinese firms to build and maintain infrastructure and workforces that can accommodate requests for military utilization. The National Defense Mobilization Law, the National Defense Transportation Law, and associated regulations clearly express the party-state’s intent to employ civilian resources for military purposes.

Chinese law also mandates that certain civilian assets be maintained and made available to the PLA if the government orders military mobilization. For example, Article 4 of the 2010 Defense Mobilization Law establishes “the principles of combining civil with military, combining peacetime production with wartime production, and embedding the military in civilian affairs.” Article 36 of the 2017 Defense Transportation Law further stipulates that Chinese firms can be required to support “long-distance and large-scale defense transportation.” Other regulations and industry measures complement this national legislation, such as requirements that civilian port equipment, roads, and facilities meet military engineering standards.

Additionally, since 2015, Beijing has undertaken sweeping military reforms that have further integrated civilian assets and facilities into the PLA’s operational routine. Military commanders are authorized to engage directly with transport enterprises about their overseas assets, use their facilities to pre-position resources, manage specialized parts, fuels, and potentially munitions, and expropriate firm assets if deemed necessary for military operations. Concentration of China’s overseas port facilities in a small handful of Chinese firms facilitates this process.

OUR MAN IN HAMBANTOTA

For overseas port assets to be strategically useful to China, Chinese firms must first acquire and then exercise some degree of control over them. Majority stakes or sole ownership of terminal leases or concessions gives Chinese firms the greatest discretion over how ports are used. A Chinese firm is the majority shareholder in at least one terminal at 55 of 95 overseas ports with Chinese company involvement, and 24 of those are wholly owned. With majority or sole ownership, the Chinese firm’s management can generally prioritize certain vessels and cargos and determine the availability of fuels, parts, and pier-side equipment.

In instances where Chinese firms have operational control of an entire commercial port, more extensive military use is possible. In some 29 overseas ports, Chinese firms operate all terminals—for example, in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and in Kribi, Cameroon. From a strategic perspective, full operational control positions the Chinese firm to determine the development of the port complex as a whole, limit or exclude certain vessels from its use, and even support naval operations at the expense of commercial activity. Exact concession terms are closely held and vary widely across jurisdictions, but such control generally confers significant discretion over day-to-day facility use.

Existing port facilities vary in the degree to which they meet military standards, but those under the greatest levels of Chinese control are often the best suited for military use. For example, COSCO’s majority ownership of the Piraeus Port Authority, in Greece, since 2016 has enabled it to direct the development of the whole complex, including warehousing and shipyards as well as bulk, container, and roll-on/roll-off terminals. Such infrastructure upgrades make these facilities more useful to naval vessels and enable Chinese warships to make technical stops for repairs and maintenance. PLA forces may not have many dedicated bases, but they are making intensive use of commercial facilities to sustain global deployments and support more sophisticated overseas operations.

Through Chinese-owned ports, the PLA can sustain military operations across a broad geographic area.

Although individual ports are themselves important, their strategic value to Beijing derives above all from their networked nature. By coordinating among multiple Chinese company-owned terminals, for example, the PLA can sustain military operations across a broad geographic area. Such coordination is even more readily achieved within a single company, which can directly manage port calls, pier space, warehousing, and other services across its terminal portfolio. The integrated transportation capabilities of large state-owned conglomerates like COSCO thus give the PLA a nearly complete logistics solution. Even though these firms’ commercial networks are not directly under PLA command, Beijing’s ultimate authority over them renders their assets reliable and ready for potential use.

As China’s interests expand around the globe, so, too, does Beijing’s imperative to protect them. In 2019, Chinese defense officials reported that China had 40,000 enterprises in foreign jurisdictions, overseas investments exceeding $7 trillion, over one million citizens working overseas, and 140 million more traveling abroad every year. From the present crisis in Sudan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the COVID-19 pandemic, the list of contingencies threatening China’s citizens, assets, and international trade continues to grow. Faced with a dearth of overseas bases, Chinese military planners have come to depend on China’s commercial port network to protect vulnerable interests abroad. According to Deng Xianwu, captain of the PLAN amphibious transport dock vessel Changbai Shan, “as long as there are Chinese companies, there is a guaranteed forward transportation support point for warships.”

Overseas ports give China valuable logistics and intelligence capabilities at a reasonable material and geopolitical cost. In peacetime, the support functions these ports offer may be sufficient for the PLA to protect China’s economic interests abroad. In wartime, their plausible use would be quite limited—but so, too, is the PLA’s warfighting potential in theaters outside of China’s immediate periphery. Remote forward bases are of little direct value for the conceivable conflicts in which the PLA might be called upon to fight: an invasion of Taiwan, another border war with India, or a third battle with Vietnam in the South China Sea. For now and for the foreseeable future, Beijing does not likely face a strategic imperative to project hard combat power beyond these nearby theaters.

A DIFFERENT PATH TO GLOBAL POWER

China’s network of overseas commercial ports has already produced a novel form of power projection. Looking to the future, the PLA is focusing on the ways that these ports can support its growing repertoire of expeditionary operations. Despite a lull in port calls during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese forces continue to employ China’s port assets for noncombat functions like logistics and intelligence.

But should Beijing elect to project high-end combat power through commercial ports, it will face stiff headwinds. Chinese companies’ control over ports in nonallied foreign jurisdictions is hardly secure under wartime or crisis conditions. China’s power will remain constrained by host country authorities and vulnerable to foreign military forces. Ports themselves are fixed targets and have little protection from directed strikes. Mining or scuttling even a single vessel in an approach channel could render an entire port inoperable. Further, a host government might suspend port operations or even move to seize or nationalize Chinese facilities if conflict broke out. There are myriad foreseeable and significant drawbacks to projecting combat power from commercial ports, so the PLA will also almost surely continue its efforts to establish more dedicated overseas bases to meet high-end contingencies.

China has demonstrated that the familiar Anglo-American model of power projection through overseas military bases is not the only pathway to establishing a global military presence. Beijing has demonstrated its capability and willingness to project power from overseas commercial ports. Chinese companies now own and operate a vast portfolio of terminals worldwide, and these assets are highly concentrated under the control of a few key players subject to multiple mechanisms of party-state influence. And China’s continuing expansion in the global ports and maritime transportation industry shows that few countries have been willing to block Chinese firms from operating or acquiring these critical infrastructure assets, despite known security risks. As China seeks greater commercial and military advantage across the world’s oceans, its expansive global network of commercial ports both reflects and amplifies its growing power.

ISAAC KARDON is a Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
WENDY LEUTERT is an Assistant Professor at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University.
This essay was awarded a 2022 Emerging Scholars Global Policy Prize by Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global affairs hub.

Foreign Affairs · by Isaac Kardon and Wendy Leutert · May 22, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

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

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website