Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks right in their eyes."

- Goethe

"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

- Hannah Arendt

"I never said, Well, I don't have this and I don't have that. I said, I don't have this yet, but I am going to get it."

- Tina Turner

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 26, 2023

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, May 26, 2023

3. Henry Kissinger’s Warning at Age 100

4. Henry Kissinger Surveys the World as He Turns 100

5. Henry Kissinger's Lessons for the World Today

6. An Agenda for America’s Next Top Officer

7. The Russian weapon that signals the start of a new stage in warfare

8. War is ruthless, but should the U.S. be ruthless when it goes to war?

9. Machiavelli Preferred Democracy to Tyranny

10. Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations

11. US Navy 'Impacted' by Chinese-Backed Cyberattacks, Warns Navy Secretary

12. Franchetti viewed as likely choice to lead Navy, would be first woman on Joint Chiefs

13. US officials believe Chinese hackers may still have access to key US computer networks

14. ‘It’s Time’: Ukraine’s Top Commander Says Counteroffensive Is Imminent

15. 'Murderers' and 'criminals': Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

16. Rapprochement Is Fragile as US, China Put Irritants Aside

17. US mulls new 'cyber army' to counter digital threats from China, Russia

18. Communists Crumbling in the Philippines

19. US to launch multiple construction projects at Philippine military bases

20 . On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

21. The coming Russian revolution will unleash horrifying new demons

22. Why China and Japan are praying the US won't default

23. Brief: Abu Sayyaf Surrenders Indicate Growing Dysfunction

24. Move Forward rejects talk of a US military base in Thailand and upholds its sovereignty

25. U.K. Royal Navy ‘Distressed and Concerned’ by Illegal Chinese Salvage of WWII Wrecks

26. The highly secretive Five Eyes alliance has disrupted a China-backed hacker group – in an unusually public manner

27. On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

28. 'They matter': U.S. Army Special Operations Command remembers its soldiers

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 26, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-26-2023

Key Takeaways

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner forces continue to hand over positions in Bakhmut to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and withdraw from the city.
Ukrainian sources claim that Wagner forces are still present in Bakhmut and that the tempo of Russian offensive operations around the city continues to decrease.
Continued successful limited Ukrainian counterattacks on Bakhmut’s flanks may complicate the Russian relief in place operation in Bakhmut.
Russian forces conducted a large-scale missile and drone strike across Ukraine on May 25 and 26.
The Kremlin is likely reviving its information campaign to coerce the West into forcing Ukraine to accept concessions and negotiate on terms favorable to Russia.
The Wagner Group reportedly exchanged 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) for an unspecified number of Russian POWs on May 25, suggesting that Wagner may have conducted the exchange independently of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk front.
Russian forces continued to target Ukrainian positions in southern Ukraine.
Russian officials are continuing to form new volunteer formations to defend Russian regions that border Ukraine.
Russian occupation officials continuing attempts to erase Ukrainian cultural heritage by looting Ukrainian artifacts.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 26, 2023

May 26, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Mason Clark

May 26, 2023, 6:45pm 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 1:30pm ET on May 26. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 27 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner forces continue to hand over positions in Bakhmut to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and withdraw from the city. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on May 26 that the MoD is fulfilling its agreement by actively deploying regular Russian units to Wagner-held positions in Bakhmut city.[1] Prigozhin claimed that Wagner is conducting an organized withdrawal from Bakhmut and reiterated that the Russian MoD will fully control the city and its surrounding areas by June 1.[2] A Russian milblogger published footage of Prigozhin visiting Russian rear positions where Wagner forces are allegedly withdrawing to.[3] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of regular Russian forces taking up Wagner positions in Bakhmut itself or that Wagner is leaving the city. ISW has recently observed footage purporting to show elements of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 123rd Brigade, likely previously deployed near Siversk, operating in the Bakhmut area, and DNR forces may be replacing Wagner formations.[4]

Ukrainian sources claim that Wagner forces are still present in Bakhmut and that the tempo of Russian offensive operations around the city continues to decrease. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that regular Russian units have replaced Wagner units in Bakhmut’s suburbs, likely referring to areas on the flanks around Bakhmut.[5] Malyar claimed that Ukrainian forces still control positions on the southwestern outskirts of the city and that Wagner forces are still present in Bakhmut city itself.[6] Ukrainian sources continue to report that the tempo of Russian offensive operations around Bakhmut has declined since the claimed Russian capture of the city.[7] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Bakhmut and in the direction of Predtechyne (15km southwest of Bakhmut) on May 26.[8]

Continued successful limited Ukrainian counterattacks on Bakhmut’s flanks may complicate the Russian relief in place operation in Bakhmut. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted successful counterattacks near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) and Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[9] A prominent milblogger claimed that Ukrainian counterattacks near Orikhovo-Vasylivka caused elements of the “Veterany” private military company (PMC) to retreat up to a kilometer from their previously held positions in the area.[10] Milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces captured elevated positions along the E40 (Bakhmut to Slovyansk) highway near Orikhovo-Vasylivka and that fighting is ongoing in the area.[11] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced towards Klishchiivka and crossed the Siverskyi Donets Canal, possibly threatening to encircle the settlement and force Russian forces to retreat towards the east.[12] Geolocated footage published on May 24 and 25 indicates that Russian forces likely regained limited positions west of Klishchiivka, however.[13] ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces may struggle to conduct a relief in place of Wagner forces in Bakhmut, and successful limited and localized Ukrainian counterattacks will likely complicate their ability to do so.[14] The decreased tempo of Russian offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and the reported ongoing relief in place operation are likely further providing Ukrainian forces in the area the initiative to launch a new phase of operations around the city if they so choose.[15]

Russian forces conducted a large-scale missile and drone strike across Ukraine on May 25 and 26. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched ten Kh-101/555 air-based cruise missiles at Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts and launched eight S-300/400 anti-aircraft guided missiles at Dnipro City.[16] Russian forces also reportedly launched 31 Shahed-131/136 drones from the southern and northern directions on the night of May 25 to 26. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed all ten Kh-101/555 missiles and 23 Shahed-131/136 drones.[17] The Kyiv Oblast Military Administration Head Ruslan Kravchenko stated that Russian forces have conducted 13 missile attacks on Kyiv Oblast since beginning of May.[18] Ukrainian sources reported that the Russian forces struck a civilian hospital and residential buildings in Dnipro in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[19]

The Kremlin is likely reviving its information campaign to coerce the West into forcing Ukraine to accept concessions and negotiate on terms favorable to Russia. The Kremlin claimed on May 26 that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed “the openness of the Russian side to dialogue on the political and diplomatic track, which is still blocked by Kyiv and its Western sponsors” in a phone call with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.[20] Putin’s statement does not indicate that Russia is interested in pursuing negotiations with Ukraine, and the Kremlin has not established any serious grounds for negotiations nor abandoned its maximalist goals to force the Ukrainian government to capitulate. The Kremlin is likely attempting to intensify its false claims about its readiness to negotiate with Ukraine amidst the arrival of the Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui in Moscow on May 26 to discuss a negotiated settlement to Russia’s war in Ukraine.[21] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Li previously urged European officials to end the conflict in Ukraine before it escalates during his visit to European states in the past week.[22] The WSJ also reported that a (likely European, but unspecified) diplomat who spoke to Li explained that freezing the conflict was not beneficial to international interests and that Europe would not withdraw its support for Ukraine. The WSJ also reported that another (likely European, but unspecified) diplomat claimed that China’s main interests are ensuring Russian victory and ensuring that Russia does not use nuclear weapons. The claimed interaction likely indicates that China may be attempting to push the West to influence Ukraine into accepting a ceasefire. The Kremlin is likely amplifying its false interests in negotiations ahead of the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive in order to discourage continued Western aid to Ukraine. ISW has previously reported on Russia’s peace negotiation information operations to deter Western support for Ukraine.[23]

The Wagner Group reportedly exchanged 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) for an unspecified number of Russian POWs on May 25, suggesting that Wagner may have conducted the exchange independently of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin published footage on May 25 showing Wagner forces conducting the exchange of Ukrainian POWs and Russian POWs.[24] Separate geolocated footage published on May 25 indicates that the exchange occurred near Bakhmut.[25] Ukrainian sources reported on May 25 that Ukraine received 98 soldiers and eight officers in the exchange.[26] Russian sources did not specify the number of returned Russian personnel but claimed that some were from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet and unspecified Chechen Akhmat formations.[27] ISW previously reported that Wagner has purportedly conducted a prisoner exchange without the Russian MoD’s involvement.[28]

Key Takeaways

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner forces continue to hand over positions in Bakhmut to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and withdraw from the city.
Ukrainian sources claim that Wagner forces are still present in Bakhmut and that the tempo of Russian offensive operations around the city continues to decrease.
Continued successful limited Ukrainian counterattacks on Bakhmut’s flanks may complicate the Russian relief in place operation in Bakhmut.
Russian forces conducted a large-scale missile and drone strike across Ukraine on May 25 and 26.
The Kremlin is likely reviving its information campaign to coerce the West into forcing Ukraine to accept concessions and negotiate on terms favorable to Russia.
The Wagner Group reportedly exchanged 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) for an unspecified number of Russian POWs on May 25, suggesting that Wagner may have conducted the exchange independently of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk front.
Russian forces continued to target Ukrainian positions in southern Ukraine.
Russian officials are continuing to form new volunteer formations to defend Russian regions that border Ukraine.
Russian occupation officials continuing attempts to erase Ukrainian cultural heritage by looting Ukrainian artifacts.

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 along the Svatove-Kreminna line on May 26. Geolocated footage published on May 25 indicates that Russian forces likely made marginal advances north of Novoselivske (16km northwest of Svatove).[29] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Masyutivka, Kharkiv Oblast (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast (12km south of Kreminna) on May 26.[30] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Russian forces are attempting to capture positions in the Kupyansk direction to launch future offensive operations.[31] Malyar also stated that Russian forces conducted a 24-hour tactical pause in the Kreminna area.[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the east bank of the Zherebets River in the Kreminna area and south of Kreminna in the Serebrianska forest area.[33]

Ukrainian Severodonetsk Military Administration Head Oleksandr Stryuk stated that Russian forces still maintain a large military presence in the Severodonetsk area.[34] Stryuk added that Russian forces are not diverting their units in Luhansk Oblast to reinforce the Russian-Ukrainian international border following the pro-Ukrainian Russian raid on Belgorod Oblast.[35]

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

Click here to read ISW’s new retrospective analysis on the Battle for Bakhmut.

See topline text for Bakhmut.

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk front on May 26. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Krasnohorivka (unclear whether the Krasnohorivka north or southwest of Avdiivka) and Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults on the southwestern approaches to Avdiivka and near Novokalynove (12km northwest of Avdiivka).[37] The Ukrainian Border Guards Service reported that Russian forces used chemical weapons in the Avdiivka area but did not specify what kind.[38]

Russian forces destroyed a dam west of Avdiivka on May 25. Geolocated footage published on May 25 shows that a Russian strike destroyed the Karlivskyi Reservoir dam near Karlivka (19km west of Avdiivka), causing flooding downstream.[39] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces struck the dam with a S-300 missile.[40] Ukrainian Donetsk Military Administration Head Pavlo Kyrylenko stated that the destruction of the dam threatens to flood areas near Halytsynivka (22km west of Avdiivka) and Zhelanne (24km northwest of Avdiivka).[41] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces used a road across the reservoir to support logistics towards Pisky (9km southwest of Avdiivka) and that subsequent flooding could impact Kurakhove (38km southwest of Avdiivka) and Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka), further disrupting Ukrainian logistics in the area.[42] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that flooding will not cause critical damage to Ukrainian logistics, however.[43]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on May 26.[44]

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

Russian forces continued to conduct airstrikes on Ukrainian positions in southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces launched three KAB-500 (a FAB-500 variant) at Beryslav Raion in Kherson Oblast.[45] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces targeted Polohivskyi Raion in Zaporizhia Oblast with FAB-250/500 bombs.[46]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Russian-occupied Berdyansk and Melitopol in Zaporizhia Oblast on May 25 and May 26. A geolocated image published on May 25 shows the aftermath of an unspecified strike on Berdyansk.[47] Ukrainian officials reported six explosions on combat kit and fuel warehouses in Berdyansk.[48] Russian sources also claimed that several explosions occurred in Berdyansk and others claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a strike.[49] A Kremlin affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Melitopol on May 26, but did not provide visual proof of this claim.[50]

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

Russian officials are continuing to form new volunteer formations to defend Russian regions that border Ukraine. Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovout announced that Kurst Oblast recruited 2,800 volunteers to staff local armed formations.[51] Starovout echoed milblogger complaints that Russian officials need to supply volunteers with necessary weapons to defend Russia’s borders. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Belgorod people’s militias currently defend border checkpoints alongside Russian Internal Ministry’s (MVD) personnel without weapons.[52] Another Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that the governor can authorize the purchase of supplies for the regional militias, and claimed that Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov stated that he would be imprisoned if he was to spend the region’s budget on supplies for the volunteers.[53] The Kremlin may be hesitant to authorize deliveries of weapons to border volunteer formations out of concern of wasting weapons that Russia could use in combat operations in Ukraine.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that there are currently more than 7,000 Chechen fighters operating in Ukraine as of May 26.[54] ISW previously incorrectly estimated that Kadyrov may have up to 25,000 personnel serving in Ukraine based on his original claim that there are seven Chechen regiments and four battalions fighting in the war (and indicating that either these formations are severely under the typical strength of Russian regiments and battalions, or Chechen forces have formed fewer formations than Kadyrov previously claimed).[55] Kadyrov also previously claimed that the “Sever Akhmat” Special Purpose Regiment had 3,300 personnel.[56] Kadyrov also stated on May 26 that more than 26,000 Chechens served in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, including 12,000 volunteers. Kadyrov added that Chechen officials are actively working with the Russian MoD to form two regiments and have already recruited 2,400 men to staff these units.

The Republic of Bashkortostan reportedly formed another volunteer unit and deployed two volunteer units to an unspecified area for combat coordination.[57] A Russian branch of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that the Republic of Bashkortostan deployed the newly created “Sergei Zorin” tank battalion and “Sharif Suleimanov” anti-aircraft artillery battery for combat coordination.

BBC’s Russian Service established the names of 24,005 Russian servicemen who have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion.[58] BBC estimated that at least 48,000 Russian servicemen may have died in the war and that Russia may have suffered more than 216,000 casualties in total.

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 officials continuing attempts to erase Ukrainian cultural heritage by looting Ukrainian artifacts. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian officials exhibited 120 artifacts stolen from historical and archeological reserve “Kamyana Mohyla” (Stone Tomb) in Zaporizhia Oblast in the Crimean museum-reserve “Khersones Tavriyskyi.”[59] The Ukrainian Resistance Center noted that Russians are stealing valuable paintings from the Berdyansk Art Museum. ISW has previously reported on Russian forces looting the Kherson Art Museum and its branch in Nova Kakhovka.[60]

Russian forces continue to intimidate civilians in Russian-occupied territory. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces in Novopetrykivka in Donetsk Oblast conducted “counter-sabotage measures” including searching private homes, seizing mobile devise, and stealing possessions of residents.[61]

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

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that Belarusian Minister of Defense Viktor Khrenin held the annual meeting on “Military Security and Defense of the State” with heads of Minsk City and Belarusian oblasts.[62] Khrenin claimed that Belarusian Territorial Defense units have transformed from support units into combat formations.[63]

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. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, May 26, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-may-26-2023

Key Takeaways

The People’s Liberation Army debates on the strategic role of hybrid warfare may mean the CCP’s ongoing “unification” campaigns targeting Taiwan do not primarily rely on military force.
The recent appointment of Xie Feng as Chinese Ambassador to the United States is unlikely to initiate a thawing of Sino-American relations by the CCP.
The dominant but contested domestic framing of the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election as a choice between peace and war likely supports CCP efforts to coerce Taiwan into supporting cross-strait engagement. Framing the upcoming election as a choice between war and peace, regardless of the election result, likely supports the CCP’s objective to alter Taiwan’s security policy towards the United States.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, MAY 26, 2023

May 26, 2023 - Press ISW

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, May 26, 2023

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

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

Data Cutoff: May 24, 2023

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

Key Takeaways

The People’s Liberation Army debates on the strategic role of hybrid warfare may mean the CCP’s ongoing “unification” campaigns targeting Taiwan do not primarily rely on military force.
The recent appointment of Xie Feng as Chinese Ambassador to the United States is unlikely to initiate a thawing of Sino-American relations by the CCP.
The dominant but contested domestic framing of the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election as a choice between peace and war likely supports CCP efforts to coerce Taiwan into supporting cross-strait engagement. Framing the upcoming election as a choice between war and peace, regardless of the election result, likely supports the CCP’s objective to alter Taiwan’s security policy towards the United States.

China Developments

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

The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) debates on the strategic role of hybrid warfare may mean the CCP’s ongoing “unification” campaigns targeting Taiwan do not primarily rely on military force. This is a low confidence assessment. The PLA debate on hybrid warfare broadly revolves around theories that emphasize a holistic conception of national strength and state power.[1] More precise theories place political and public opinion as the lead elements of hybrid warfare, which military force undergirds.[2] The concept of “comprehensive national strength” also plays a role in PLA internal debates on hybrid warfare because the party sees it as the way that great powers compete, which includes over Taiwan, to avoid traditional large scale military-to-military confrontation.[3] The PLA Western Theater Commander Wang Haijiang, who has commanded in various capacities in western China such as Xinjiang since the mid-2010s, entered this debate on May 14.[4] He published an article defining hybrid warfare as revolving around a “contest of comprehensive national strength” while avoiding discussions on how to implement this concept.[5] The term “comprehensive national strength” includes ongoing Chinese military modernization and expansion as well as PLA attempts to reduce Taiwanese sovereignty via military actions like air defense identification zone violations. Wang’s views on hybrid warfare are in line with the broad contours of the PLA debate on the topic, which reflects existing Chinese debates among military theorists.

Chinese conceptions of hybrid warfare may also aim to avoid direct military confrontation with the United States. This is a low confidence assessment. Select Chinese theorists draw from Russia’s 2014 annexation in Crimea to emphasize how to successfully employ non-kinetic means in combination with special forces during hybrid warfare.[6] The more precise hybrid warfare theories viewing use of force as an undergirding element of hybrid warfare demonstrates awareness in segments of the PLA of its comparative weakness to United States and allied forces. The party potentially aims to avoid an existential military confrontation over Taiwan that it could lose in favor of coercion campaigns as seen by it drawing from the aforementioned examples where military force is one among many components. Ongoing PLA modernization and expansion present opportunities for this calculus to change.

The recent appointment of Xie Feng as Chinese Ambassador the United States is unlikely to initiate a thawing of Sino-American relations by the CCP. He served in several North America-related posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the 1990s to the early 2010s, including in the United States from 2008-2010.[7] Xie also played a key role in securing the release of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou after she was arrested on charges of bank fraud in 2018.[8] He previously helped implement the crackdown on pro-democracy Hong Kong protestors from 2019-2020.[9] China has not had an ambassador to the United States since promoting the prior ambassador Qing Gang to Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2023. Filling the ambassador post is normal diplomatic practice. Xie’s previous statements on the beneficial nature of Sino-American cooperation is standard rhetoric to attract foreign invest as the Chinese economy emerged from Zero-Covid, not evidence for potential thawing in Sino-American relations.[10] Xi Jinping’s use of anti-espionage laws to raid foreign firms to advance domestic technological and manufacturing self-reliance indicates that any potential thawing in relations will not translate into meaningful CCP action on the ground.[11] The willingness of select CCP leadership like Commerce Minister Wang Wentao to engage in high-level meetings with relevant American officials combined with the potential absence of Chinese aggressive ”wolf-warrior” diplomacy during Xie Feng’s tenure in America does not equate to a thaw in Sino-American relations by the CCP.[12]

Taiwan Developments

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

Elections

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

The dominant but contested domestic framing of the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election as a choice between war and peace likely supports CCP efforts to coerce Taiwan into supporting cross-strait engagement. KMT legislators and party elders like former President Ma Ying-jeou refer to the election as a choice between war and peace by arguing that ruling DPP cross-strait policies will lead Taiwan to war.[13] DPP presidential nominee Lai Ching-te (William Lai) criticized this framing by saying that “the president of Taiwan will be decided by China” if war threats influence voting results.[14] Lai frames the election as a choice between democracy and authoritarianism, which channels current President Tsai Ing-wen‘s 2020 election rhetoric stressing the defense of the status quo and Taiwanese democracy in the face of a rising Chinese authoritarian threat.[15] The “war or peace” framing advantages the KMT by making their calls for cross-strait engagement appear necessary to preserve the status quo.

Framing the upcoming election as a choice between war and peace, regardless of the election results, likely supports the CCP’s objective to alter Taiwan’s security policy toward the United States. This perspective can effectively frame Taiwanese military and political engagements with the United States, such as arms sales and unofficial political exchanges, as irresponsible acts that risk war in the eyes of Taiwanese voters. This electoral viewpoint could constraint the next Republic of China (Taiwan) president’s policy options regarding US-Taiwan relations. These constraints become CCP leverage points that the party could use to push Taiwan to take part in cross-strait or international engagements on PRC terms.

CCP Leverage Points

Terminology: 1992 Consensus: a disputed cross-strait policy formulation supported in different formations by the CCP and KMT that acts as a precondition to cross-strait dialogue. The DPP does not support the 1992 Consensus.

3. Henry Kissinger’s Warning at Age 100

Conclusion:

His most pungent warning concerns America more than the world. He rightly laments that too many in this country have lost confidence, even belief, in American principles and institutions. This is especially dangerous when the world is experiencing tremendous technological and strategic change. Restoring that belief, and finding the politicians and statesmen who can lead in that project, is an urgent necessity. Happy 100th, Mr. Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger’s Warning at Age 100

The statesman worries about fading American leadership and belief.

By The Editorial BoardFollow

May 26, 2023 6:45 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-turns-100-years-old-america-statesman-secretary-of-state-9a27e6fb?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s

Henry Kissinger and George Shultz were historically significant secretaries of State and fast friends, and both lived to be 100 years old. This is one of those remarkable details of history, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on July 4, 1826. Shultz died in 2021, but Mr. Kissinger celebrates his centennial on Saturday, and may he live many more years.

Henry Alfred Kissinger is one of this country’s greatest statesman, with a life story that could only have happened in America. His family arrived as Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1938 when he was 15. During World War II he was drafted into the Army and fought against the Nazis back in Germany. He studied at Harvard, where he joined the faculty and caught the attention of Nelson Rockefeller, among others, for his strategic thinking on foreign policy and nuclear weapons.

His time in office, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, was a mere eight years. Yet in that time he and Nixon altered the global strategic order, ending the war in Vietnam, managing crises in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, and engineering a strategic opening to China that pulled that country from the Soviet orbit.

We have had policy differences with Mr. Kissinger, not least over detente with the Soviets. But our point today is not to rehearse those differences or his legacy in office. We have come to know him during the more than 46 years since he left office as an American patriot who continues to offer wise counsel on our increasingly dangerous world.

That’s truer today than ever when U.S. leadership and confidence are fading and a new world of great power competition has arrived. This is the kind of world Mr. Kissinger has studied and thought about all his life. We recommend his interview nearby with our Tunku Varadarajan for its insight into our current global predicament.

His most pungent warning concerns America more than the world. He rightly laments that too many in this country have lost confidence, even belief, in American principles and institutions. This is especially dangerous when the world is experiencing tremendous technological and strategic change. Restoring that belief, and finding the politicians and statesmen who can lead in that project, is an urgent necessity. Happy 100th, Mr. Kissinger.

Appeared in the May 27, 2023, print edition as 'Henry Kissinger’s Warning at Age 100'.

4. Henry Kissinger Surveys the World as He Turns 100

Excerpts;

Mr. Kissinger leaves no doubt that he believes in a Pax Americana and in the need “to defend the areas of the world essential for American and democratic survival.” But the ability to “execute it politically,” he says, “has declined sharply, and that is our overriding problem now.” He ascribes this political weakness to a decline in belief in the U.S. in its own historical ambitions and institutions. “There’s no element of pride and direction and purpose left,” he laments, as American leaders grapple with angst generated by events of “300 years ago.”

Alongside that, there isn’t enough common purpose and principle across partisan divides. That weakens democratic resolve and the ability to act in the shared national interest. “Even in my day, it used to be possible to talk to groups of senators and not guarantee acceptance, but guarantee some willingness” to find common ground. A cross-partisan team like Harry S. Truman and Arthur Vandenberg—a Democratic president and a Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, working together to rebuild Europe and win the Cold War—would be all but improbable today.

Mr. Kissinger believes “that’s what’s needed,” and that we have to find a way to re-create the older forms of patriotic collaboration. “There has to be something, some level, in which the society comes together on the needs of its existence.”

Henry Kissinger Surveys the World as He Turns 100

The great strategist sees a globe riven by U.S.-China competition and threatened by fearsome new weapons and explains why he now thinks Ukraine should be in NATO.

By Tunku Varadarajan

May 26, 2023 2:27 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-strategist-henry-kissinger-turns-100-china-ukraine-realpolitik-81b6f3bb?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

New York

Eight years—that’s all the time Henry Kissinger was in public office. From January 1969 to January 1977, Mr. Kissinger was first national security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, holding both titles concurrently for more than two years. He was 53 when he cleared his desk at Foggy Bottom to make way for Cyrus Vance. In the 4½ decades since, he has worked as a consultant on strategic relations to governments around the world and consolidated beyond dispute his reputation—first earned when he co-piloted the U.S. opening to China in 1972—as the pre-eminent philosopher of global order and the most original, erudite and hard-nosed statesman of his era.

Mr. Kissinger turns 100 on Saturday, and his appetite for the world he’s spent a lifetime setting to rights is still zestful. We meet at his office four days before his birthday, and he offers swift proof not just of his charm but of his facility as a diplomat. “You never came to see me in my office,” he scolds, reminding me of an invitation he’d made three years ago over dinner at the home of a common friend, my only previous meeting with Mr. Kissinger. I’d dismissed the invitation at the time as a grand old man’s courtesy to a stranger.

The dinner was with Charles Hill, a onetime speechwriter for Mr. Kissinger and later a senior adviser to another secretary of state, George Shultz. The memory of Hill, who died in 2021, prompts Mr. Kissinger to offer an observation on Shultz, who lived to be 100 and also died in 2021. Shultz’s approach to international affairs was “really not the same as mine,” Mr. Kissinger says. “He looked at the economic motivations. I look at the historical and moral motivations of the people involved.”

What Mr. Kissinger sees when he looks at the world today is “disorder.” Almost all “major countries,” he says, “are asking themselves about their basic orientation. Most of them have no internal orientation, and are in the process of changing or adapting to the new circumstances”—by which he means a world riven by competition between the U.S. and China. Big countries such as India, and also a lot of “subordinate” ones, “do not have a dominant view of what they want to achieve in the world.” They wonder if they should “modify” the actions of the superpowers (a word Mr. Kissinger says he hates), or strive for “a degree of autonomy.”

Some major nations have wrestled with these choices ever since the “debacle of the Suez intervention” in 1956. While Britain chose close cooperation with the U.S. thereafter, France opted for strategic autonomy, but of a kind “that was closely linked to the U.S. on matters that affected the global equilibrium.”

The French desire to determine its own global policy gave rise to awkwardness with President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Beijing. While critics say he pandered to the Chinese, Mr. Kissinger sees an example of French strategic autonomy at work: “In principle, if you have to conduct Western policy, you would like allies that only ask you about what contribution they can make to your direction. But that is not how nations have been formed, and so I’m sympathetic to the Macron approach.”

It doesn’t bother him that Mr. Macron, on his return from Beijing, called on his fellow Europeans to be more than “just America’s followers.” Mr. Kissinger doesn’t “take it literally.” Besides, “I’m not here as a defender of French policy,” and he appears to attribute Mr. Macron’s words to cultural factors. “The French approach to discussion is to convince their adversary or their opposite number of his stupidity.” The British “try to draw you into their intellectual framework and to persuade you. The French try to convince you of the inadequacy of your thinking.”

And what is the American way? “The American view of itself is righteousness,” says the man famed for his realpolitik. “We believe we are unselfish, that we have no purely national objectives, and also that our national objectives are achieved in foreign policy with such difficulty that when we expose them to modification through discussion, we get resentful of opponents.” And so “we expect that our views will carry the day, not because we think we are intellectually superior, but because we think the views in themselves should be dominant. It’s an expression of strong moral feelings coupled with great power. But it’s usually not put forward as a power position.”

Asked whether this American assertion of inherent unselfishness strikes a chord with other countries, Mr. Kissinger is quick to say: “No, of course not.” Does Xi Jinping buy it? “No, absolutely not. That is the inherent difference between us.” Mr. Xi is stronger globally than any previous Chinese leader, and he has “confronted, in the last two U.S. presidents,” men who “want to exact concessions from China and announce them as concessions.” This is quite the wrong approach, in Mr. Kissinger’s view: “I think the art is to present relations with China as a mutual concern in which agreements are made because both parties think it is best for themselves. That’s the technique of diplomacy that I favor.”

In his reckoning, Joe Biden’s China policy is no better than Donald Trump’s: “It’s been very much the same. The policy is to declare China as an adversary, and then to exact from the adversary concessions that we think will prevent it from carrying out its domineering desires.”

Doesn’t Mr. Kissinger see China as an adversary? He chooses his words carefully. “I see China, in the power it represents, as a dangerous potential adversary.” He puts notable stress on the qualifier. “I think it may come to conflict. Here we have two societies with a global historic view, though different culture, confronting each other.”

Mr. Kissinger contrasts his view from that of “others” who “start with a presumption of a permanent hostility, and therefore believe it must be confronted everywhere simultaneously on every issue that arises.” Mr. Kissinger believes that “the two world wars should have taught that the price one pays even with conventional technology is out of proportion to most objectives that are achievable.” But with today’s weapons, and with “the growth within each society through cyber and biology to intrude into the territory of the other, this kind of war will destroy civilization.”

To prevent war with China, then, the U.S. needs to refrain from being heedlessly adversarial and pursue dialogue instead. “The most important conversation that can take place now is between the two leaders, in which they agree that they have the most dangerous capabilities in the world and that they will conduct their policy in such a way that the military conflict with them is reduced.”

It sounds much like détente, the Cold War policy Mr. Kissinger pioneered. “On the American side,” he says, “the danger is that in such discussions the belief will arise that China has changed fundamentally and that we are in permanent peace and can disarm—and therefore become weak.”

The peril of an “opposite course” is that “aberrations lead to total war. I’m supposed to be a realist. This is my realistic belief.” Mr. Kissinger says that Charles Hill, who helped him write “World Order” (2014), would say that the Chinese position is “irremediable. But I say, even if that is true, we are best off getting into the position of conflict from having attempted every conceivable alternative other than appeasement. So this is not an appeasement doctrine.”

Mr. Kissinger demurs when asked what concessions the U.S. might expect from China. “I’m not saying now which of their positions they should alter. I frankly don’t look at it this way.” We have, he concedes, “a problem” in the South China Sea. “I would see whether we can find some way of solving that within the ‘freedom of the seas’ formula. If we can’t, then there will be confrontations.”

He calls Taiwan “an insoluble problem” to which “there is no solution, other than time.” He would therefore “welcome a formula that maintains the present status for a period of years in which, for example, the two sides will not issue threats against each other, or will limit their deployments against each other.” This would have to be “carefully phrased, so that we don’t say we are treating Taiwan as a country. But those are conceivable—I’m not saying achievable—objectives.” Mr. Kissinger thinks Mr. Xi would be open to such discussions—but “not if we come to him and say, ‘You have to show us progress in the following 10 fields, after which we will reward you.’ That will not work.”

Asked to size up China’s ambitions, he deadpans: “I don’t think they desire to spread Chinese culture around the world.” They seek “security,” not world domination, but they do expect to be the dominant power in Asia. Would India and Japan be expected to accept that? “The ideal position,” Mr. Kissinger says, “is a China so visibly strong that that will occur through the logic of events.” He foresees that Japan, in response, “will develop its own weapons of mass destruction.” He offers a time frame of “three, or five, or seven years” for that to happen. “I’m not urging it,” he stresses, “and if you can, you should make that clear in your article. I’m trying to give you an analysis.”

The free world depends on U.S. leadership—as it has since the end of World War II. But Mr. Kissinger is worried. “We have no grand strategic view,” he says of the U.S. “So every strategic decision has to be wrested out of a body politic that does not organically think in these categories.” When the U.S. does adopt a strategy, it has a tendency to “go into it on the basis of overreaching moral principles, which we then apply to every country in the world with equal validity.”

America has its strengths. When challenged, “the mobilization of resources to resist the challenge is comparatively easy.” But threats are “interpreted in terms of physical conflict. So until such conflict approaches, it’s harder to mobilize. And so to act on the basis of assessment and conjecture is harder in America than in comparable countries.”

Mr. Kissinger does believe, however, that the Biden administration has done “many things” right. “I support them on Ukraine,” he says. “From my perspective, the Ukraine war is won, in terms of precluding a Russian attack on allied nations in Europe. It is highly unlikely to occur again.” But there are “other dangers that can rise out of Russia. As we are ending the war, we should keep in mind that Russia was a major influence on the region for hundreds of years, caught in its own ambivalence between admiration and feelings of inferiority or of danger coming from Europe.” That ambivalence, he suggests, was behind this war: “I think the offer to put Ukraine into NATO was a grave mistake and led to this war. But its scale, and its nature, is a Russian peculiarity, and we were absolutely right to resist it.”

He now believes that Ukraine—“now the best-armed country in Europe”— belongs in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “I’m in the ironical position that I was alone when I opposed membership, and I’m nearly alone when I advocate NATO membership.” He would like the terms of the war’s end to include the return to Ukraine of all territory with the controversial exception of Crimea. “For Russia, the loss of Sevastopol, which was always not Ukrainian in history, would be such a comedown that the cohesion of the state would be in danger. And I think that’s not desirable for the world after Ukraine.”

Mr. Kissinger leaves no doubt that he believes in a Pax Americana and in the need “to defend the areas of the world essential for American and democratic survival.” But the ability to “execute it politically,” he says, “has declined sharply, and that is our overriding problem now.” He ascribes this political weakness to a decline in belief in the U.S. in its own historical ambitions and institutions. “There’s no element of pride and direction and purpose left,” he laments, as American leaders grapple with angst generated by events of “300 years ago.”

Alongside that, there isn’t enough common purpose and principle across partisan divides. That weakens democratic resolve and the ability to act in the shared national interest. “Even in my day, it used to be possible to talk to groups of senators and not guarantee acceptance, but guarantee some willingness” to find common ground. A cross-partisan team like Harry S. Truman and Arthur Vandenberg—a Democratic president and a Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, working together to rebuild Europe and win the Cold War—would be all but improbable today.

Mr. Kissinger believes “that’s what’s needed,” and that we have to find a way to re-create the older forms of patriotic collaboration. “There has to be something, some level, in which the society comes together on the needs of its existence.”

Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute.

Appeared in the May 27, 2023, print edition as 'The Great Strategist Turns 100'.

5. Henry Kissinger's Lessons for the World Today

Conclusion:

Scholars and diplomats may debate Kissinger’s legacy for decades to come, but it’s beyond dispute that we need more statesmen who can anticipate and respond to a changing world order in pursuit of a new and more stable equilibrium.

Henry Kissinger's Lessons for the World Today

BY PARAG KHANNA MAY 26, 2023 5:00 AM EDTKhanna is the founder of FutureMap and the internationally bestselling author of seven books including The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization, and The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century.

TIME · by Parag Khanna · May 26, 2023

The first time I met Henry Kissinger, he tried to hijack my car – sort of. As we waited at the entrance of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel after a dinner at the Munich Security Conference in his native Germany, he gingerly descended the stairs and settled into the back seat of one of the sleek black Mercedes sedans forming a caravan to chauffeur us away. But the alphabetically strict concierge insisted that Dr. Khanna be escorted before Dr. Kissinger, and ushered him into the car behind mine. I found myself apologizing to him, for I would certainly have preferred to share the ride.

There was never a dull conversation with the original Dr. K. A couple of years ago in my native India, we chatted just before going on stage in New Delhi. It happened to be November 9, so I asked him if he recalled where he was and what he was doing thirty years earlier – precisely the day the Berlin Wall fell. Even nearing 95 years of age, he didn’t miss a beat.

I first visited Berlin just weeks after the Wall came down, sparking my love affair with the homeland he fled as a teen. At the same age he was when he arrived in New York as a Jewish refugee, I left New York to attend a German gymnasium high school near Hamburg. My parents mailed me care packages full of Doritos and letters from friends, but the cardboard box I most eagerly awaited came in April 1995, containing a hot-off-the-press copy of Kissinger’s instant classic Diplomacy. The 800-page tome immediately became my Berlin Wall of geopolitical literature, my first textbook in classical realism, my constant companion as I Euro-railed for weeks on end. (Together with Paul Kennedy’s even girthier Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, it also left little room in my backpack for anything other than a toothbrush.)

Kissinger’s own former colleagues such as historian Ernest May of Harvard criticized the book as a haphazard collection of maxims, as if to ignore Kissinger’s consistent focus since his days as a doctoral student writing about Metternich and Castlereagh: not historical events in themselves but the statesmen who made history and why, with chapters bearing the names of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Napoleon III and Bismarck, Adenauer and Eisenhower. But Kissinger’s work was much more than an avatar of Thomas Carlyle’s infamous dictum that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” Instead, it taught me the correct answer to the high school debate I had just completed – “does the man make the moment or the moment make the man?” Both.

His own life reflected the constant interplay of contingency and agency. As towering a figure as he remains at his centenary, it’s important to remember that even into his 40s, Kissinger still had almost no firsthand knowledge of the world beyond America’s east coast establishment (from which he still felt somewhat ostracized) and wartime Germany. Though he was respected as a policy theorist who boldly articulated the “flexible response” nuclear doctrine vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, he had backed the wrong presidential contenders, most recently Nelson Rockefeller. The first volume of Niall Ferguson’s magisterial biography recounts the afternoon when Kissinger was almost aimlessly crossing Harvard Square and bumped into his friend Arthur Schlesinger, the liberal historian and counselor to President Kennedy, who offered him a coveted opportunity to advise the Johnson administration. From that point forward, he entered the stream of history, both being made by moments but also making them.

Any mortal would have been in way over his head for the astounding flurry of nearly simultaneous hotspots Kissinger came to juggle over the subsequent decade either as National Security Advisor or Secretary or State (or both at the same time): Vietnam, Chile, Rhodesia, Egypt and Bangladesh, to name just a few. His famous quip was well justified: “There cannot be a crisis next week; my diary is already full.”

His prestige rose even when America’s credibility suffered – sometimes as a result of his own actions such as prolonging the Vietnam War and incinerating Cambodia only to dishonorably evacuate Indochina. He and Nixon also underestimated Arab bargaining power during the Yom Kippur War: Kissinger was lionized for his tireless Mideast “shuttle diplomacy,” but the administration could also have plausibly prevented Egypt’s tilt towards the Soviet Union and the Saudi-led OPEC oil embargo, which unleashed devastating stagflation on Western economies. When one man juggles too many eggs, some will inevitably fall and crack. He certainly didn’t shape every historical moment for the better. More charitably, one could say that the moment made the man much more interesting than he might otherwise have been.

But Kissinger never saw his own statesmanship as a transcendental pursuit. To the contrary, one of the most riveting passages of his seminal 1957 academic study A World Restored clearly differentiates between the statesman and the prophet: the former navigates turbulence and constraints in pursuit of tangible objectives, whereas the prophet is messianic in his universalism. Kissinger, who in his youth aspired to become an accountant, worked tirelessly in the moment as a small “s” statesman in pursuit of geopolitical equilibrium, a stable order despite constant volatility in the shadow of the nuclear arms race. Though it was Mao who sought an opening to the US in light of the late-1960s Sino-Soviet split as much as Nixon who sought to open China, Kissinger’s simultaneous detente with the Soviet Union and delicate rapprochement with China was indeed animated by a mission to manage a dynamic but favorable equilibrium among the major powers. Exactly as he described the relationship between rivals Metternich and Castlereagh in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, the goal was stability, not perfection.

Such pragmatic vision is needed more than ever in today’s truly multipolar world, one in which America consistently underestimates adversaries large and small. That is why, though Kissinger’s intellectual and political obituary has been written a thousand times, he is still sought after for the global experience and cultural sensitivity he has amassed. Such virtues are timeless and unique – and utterly absent amongst America’s current foreign policy class who spend more time Tweeting than traveling, and writing speeches rather than learning languages. They fail to see that negotiation and even settlement – whether with Russia or China – isn’t tantamount to appeasement. Rather, the legitimacy of order itself derives from its inclusion of powers and adjustment to their interests.

Today’s establishment – especially those tripping over themselves to formulate a “Biden doctrine” – would do well to heed Kissinger’s insight from Diplomacy, “A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation.” Those are the words of a man who learned to think about order beyond Realpolitik, perhaps even to embrace the pursuit of a sustainable global division of labor. Kissinger was nakedly ambitious and notoriously manipulative, but even at the age of 100 embodies a genuine intellectual curiosity that Washington’s petty careerists lack.

I can’t separate reading Kissinger as a teen from my decision to major in “Diplomacy & International Security” at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, where Kissinger himself briefly taught in the 1970s, and to minor in philosophy. As I dove into geopolitical theory and loaded up on Kant and Hegel, I spent another year back in Germany at the Free University of Berlin, where I toiled in the library writing a 40-page seminar thesis on the great debate between Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee’s approaches to history. Only years later in Walter Isaacson’s biography did I learn that this was also the subject of Kissinger’s senior thesis at Harvard.

Today we find ourselves at the precarious intersection of Spengler’s decline and Toynbee’s adaptation. More than ever, a deeper understanding of the mechanics of a bewilderingly complex world should be a prerequisite for being handed the keys to manage it. But that is a task for a new generation.

Today’s gerontocracy of politicians and pundits invokes Kissinger’s name either to buttress the credibility they themselves lack or to make out-of-context ad hominem attacks. He’s remained aloof, almost immune, to both. His focus on the personal and political circumstances of leaders and the choices available to them in their time applies to himself as well. Last August, when asked by Laura Secor of the Wall Street Journal if he had any professional regrets, he replied, “I ought to learn a great answer to that question… I do not torture myself with things we might have done differently.”

Today’s youth don’t have that luxury. They recognize today’s revolutionary moment, and in doing so appear to have subconsciously absorbed one of Kissinger’s most moving passages written when he was their age: “Each generation is permitted only one effort of abstraction; it can attempt only one interpretation and a single experiment, for it is its own subject. This is the challenge of history and its tragedy; it is the shape ‘destiny’ assumes on earth. And its solution, even its recognition, is perhaps the most difficult task of statesmanship.”

Scholars and diplomats may debate Kissinger’s legacy for decades to come, but it’s beyond dispute that we need more statesmen who can anticipate and respond to a changing world order in pursuit of a new and more stable equilibrium.

TIME · by Parag Khanna · May 26, 2023

6. An Agenda for America’s Next Top Officer

Excerpts:

In other words, Gen. Brown understands the magnitude of the challenge, and that the U.S. may have a narrow window to change course, especially if China decides to take over Taiwan. But Gen. Brown will have to educate the American public about the problem and fight for the resources to win the next war.

One discouraging sign is Gen. Brown’s 2021 op-ed with Marine Gen. David Berger suggesting the military needs to redefine a “short-term and narrow view of readiness,” which is another way of saying Gen. Brown is tired of Congress beating him up that too few Air Force planes are ready to fly.

But the ratio of the force that is prepared to “fight tonight” matters. Sometimes a conflict arrives sooner than the new equipment the military brass want to focus on buying. The truth is the forces need to be both newer and more ready, and that means budgets will have to increase. General officers do the public a disservice when they build budget proposals around perceived political constraints, not the forces they need to win.

The U.S. military also can’t grow and innovate without the support of the public, and Americans are losing confidence in the institution. Here Gen. Brown can learn from his predecessor—namely, what not to do.

An Agenda for America’s Next Top Officer

Gen. C.Q. Brown needs to rebuild public trust in the U.S. military.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cq-brown-joint-chiefs-of-staff-nominee-president-biden-mark-milley-military-pentagon-a85feb61?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

By The Editorial BoardFollow

May 26, 2023 6:43 pm ET

President Biden announced a new top officer for the U.S. military on Thursday, and mark it down as more than a staffing shuffle. The U.S. armed forces are struggling while threats rise, and the Pentagon is short on the public trust it needs to meet the moment.

Mr. Biden is nominating four-star Air Force General C.Q. Brown to replace Army General Mark Milley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Brown rose through the ranks as an F-16 pilot and has commanded forces in Europe and the Pacific. He has also spent his tenure as Air Force chief of staff prodding the air branch to prepare for the next war.

His 2020 Air Force paper, “Accelerate Change or Lose,” noted that while the U.S. “was focused on countering violent extremist organizations, our competitors focused on defeating us.” Air dominance is “not an American birthright” and today’s service members “must be prepared to fight through combat attrition rates and risks to the Nation” more akin to World War II than recent conflicts in the Middle East, he wrote.

This is even more true today, as Vladimir Putin tries to subjugate Ukraine, and China’s Xi Jinping builds a military to defeat the U.S. Gen. Brown’s Air Force has been working on smart concepts like “agile combat employment”—moving around scattered Pacific airfields, for example, instead of operating out of large air bases that make ripe targets for an enemy.

In other words, Gen. Brown understands the magnitude of the challenge, and that the U.S. may have a narrow window to change course, especially if China decides to take over Taiwan. But Gen. Brown will have to educate the American public about the problem and fight for the resources to win the next war.

One discouraging sign is Gen. Brown’s 2021 op-ed with Marine Gen. David Berger suggesting the military needs to redefine a “short-term and narrow view of readiness,” which is another way of saying Gen. Brown is tired of Congress beating him up that too few Air Force planes are ready to fly.

But the ratio of the force that is prepared to “fight tonight” matters. Sometimes a conflict arrives sooner than the new equipment the military brass want to focus on buying. The truth is the forces need to be both newer and more ready, and that means budgets will have to increase. General officers do the public a disservice when they build budget proposals around perceived political constraints, not the forces they need to win.

The U.S. military also can’t grow and innovate without the support of the public, and Americans are losing confidence in the institution. Here Gen. Brown can learn from his predecessor—namely, what not to do.

When Members of Congress asked in the summer of 2021 why cadets at West Point were studying “white rage,” Gen. Milley responded not by saying he’d look into it, or that one seminar wasn’t representative of the institution, but with a rehearsed defense of studying critical race theory. This was a red flag in front of the Republicans the Pentagon needs for its budget requests.

Gen. Milley also didn’t win friends with his response after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. The decision to abandon Kabul rests with President Biden, and no doubt Gen. Milley advised against it. But Gen. Milley absolved himself that “there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.” He held neither himself nor anyone else with stars on their shoulders responsible.

On Ukraine, Gen. Milley has been less hawkish than the State Department, pushing for Kyiv to strike a deal with an invading Russian dictator who doesn’t want one. On China Gen. Milley told a reporter this spring that the U.S. needs to “lower the rhetoric,” as though folks warning about the risks are a bigger danger than Beijing’s demonstrated behavior and the gaps in U.S. readiness.

The U.S. military needs a top officer who understands his brief is preventing a war by preparing for it, not wading into politics or the culture wars or talking to reporters for Washington gossip books. The good news is Gen. Brown seems to have the right stuff, at least if you take his word in an Air Force ad from a couple years ago.

“When I’m flying,” Gen. Brown says, “I put my helmet on, my visor down, my mask up. You don’t know who I am—whether I’m African American, Asian American, Hispanic, White, male or female. You just know I’m an American Airman, kicking your butt.”

7. The Russian weapon that signals the start of a new stage in warfare

Excerpts:

“No system can provide 100pc protection,” says Bronk. “But America has always favoured protecting one or two targets really well with layered defence. Unfortunately, it’s just too expensive to protect everything that way.”

Russia, which has spent huge sums on improving its own air defence systems, has an excellent understanding of IAMD, which could explain, analysts suggest, why it seemed to be excited about the penetrative capabilities of the Kinzhal.

The problem is that the Patriot has been updated too, with the latest PAC-3 model, Bronk says, “specifically aimed at improving the performance against very difficult ballistic missiles with decoys.” In the hypersonic arms race, “there’s this constant back and forth” with attack and defence claiming advantages in turn.

The Patriot upgrade does not render the Kinzhal a busted flush, however. It remains the first time such a weapon has been fielded and fired in battle. Yet it is also true that five years ago, when video emerged of the Kinzhal test, then US defence secretary James Mattis insisted that “it doesn't change anything.”

The Russian weapon that signals the start of a new stage in warfare

Blindingly fast and manoeuvrable, new hypersonic missiles pose a tough challenge to defend – and they’re only just getting started

The Telegraph · by Harry de Quetteville

It was supposed to be the missile that no one could stop. The hypersonic “dagger” that Vladimir Putin could slip into Ukraine – and Nato’s – chest, like an assassin wielding a blade so fast that the lethal blow is just a blur. Dead before you know it.

But then this week Ukraine claimed to have destroyed half a dozen KH-47M2 Kinzhal “Dagger” missiles using anti-missile systems widely assumed to be Patriot batteries loaned to the country by America. Suddenly the assassin’s blade was apparently being parried, deflected and destroyed.

Russia, naturally, disputes the claim. But earlier this month, on May 6, Ukraine said it had managed to shoot down a single Kinzhal missile, in a first which has since been verified. So if a quiver-full of Kinzhals has now indeed been destroyed, has the mystique of the unstoppable missile that was going to change the face of warfare been shot down with it? Perhaps.

The interception of the Kinzhal represents the solution to a conundrum that, in essence, military commands have been wrestling with for half a century, ever since nuclear warheads were placed aboard inter-continental and medium-range ballistic missiles that arced high into the sky, to the upper reaches of our atmosphere or even beyond it, until falling back down upon their targets.

Weapons Ukraine - Kinzhal

As they did so they too reached hypersonic speeds, anything above Mach 5, or 3,800mph. Suddenly the Warsaw Pact was able to irradiate London in four minutes. “The time to respond was significantly decreased,” says Justin Bronk, an air-warfare specialist at the Royal United Service Institute.

What’s different about the Kinzhal, and others in today’s new breed of hypersonic missiles, is that they are not just blindingly fast but – unlike traditional ballistic missiles – they are manoeuvrable too. “That makes them particularly challenging to defend against,” says Bronk.

Raw speed is just one element of the problem. Because the missile can arrive from any number of different angles, life is made immeasurably harder even for sophisticated defence systems, which often tend to “face” in the direction of an expected attack. Recent upgrades to Patriot systems, specifically designed to grant it 360-degree capability, may be behind Ukraine’s recent success in shooting down the Kinzhal.

Weapons Ukraine - Patriot

Still, the combination of speed and manoeuvrability make even predicting a hypersonic missile’s target hard, let alone knocking it out of the sky.

According to James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there are three varieties of hypersonic missile. The first – guided ballistic missiles – are the most basic, essentially adding fins to traditional missiles allowing an element of direction as they plummet down to earth.

Then there are so-called “boost glide” vehicles which soar high into the sky, only to plummet down soon after launch, using the hypersonic speed acquired on descent to glide, often over huge distances, at relatively low altitude towards their target.

Then there are cruise missiles equipped with a revolutionary “scramjet” engine, capable of propelling its warhead far faster than traditional solid-fuel rockets. The advantage of this third category is that it is potentially able to keep extremely rapid hypersonic missiles at relatively low altitude for the whole journey, which reduces the distance at which radar can pick them up – and hence the time left to react.

Missile trajectories by type

“You are not going to be able to detect them [with radar] over long distances because of the curvature of earth,” says Bronk. “If you had a cruise missile travelling at Mach 5 and 150ft cresting the horizon towards a naval ship – you would be looking at just 7-8 seconds on board that ship from detection to impact. Your whole system has to react so quickly.”

That, however, is not what Russia has been deploying against Ukraine. Instead, the Kinzhal is hoisted up to huge altitude by the enormous power of the Mig-31 interceptor aircraft, which can fly to great altitude, around 67,000ft at up to 2.8 times the speed of sound.

According to Dave Majumdar, a Pentagon analyst until 2021, “the MiG-31 can quickly boost the new weapon into launch position and impart significant launch energy.” The result, says Bronk, is that the missile achieves “much greater range, or velocity. You can choose which.”

Kinzhal Launch

To compound the difficulty for Ukrainian air defence, Russia combines the arrival of hypersonic Kinzhals with other, conventional missiles, or indeed with Iranian-made drones. It is a combination deliberately designed to overwhelm Patriot systems, “to saturate response” in the language of air war.

The Kinzhals themselves have their own complexities, equipped as they are with six “decoys” that fire away from the warhead, in a deliberate effort to confound what’s known as Integrated Air and Missile Defense systems (IAMD) that lie at the heart of the Nato shield. Such systems comprise several layers of anti-missile defence, from the expensive and sophisticated, like Patriots, to the cheap and cheerful, like shoulder-fired “Manpads”.

How missile engines work

“No system can provide 100pc protection,” says Bronk. “But America has always favoured protecting one or two targets really well with layered defence. Unfortunately, it’s just too expensive to protect everything that way.”

Russia, which has spent huge sums on improving its own air defence systems, has an excellent understanding of IAMD, which could explain, analysts suggest, why it seemed to be excited about the penetrative capabilities of the Kinzhal.

The problem is that the Patriot has been updated too, with the latest PAC-3 model, Bronk says, “specifically aimed at improving the performance against very difficult ballistic missiles with decoys.” In the hypersonic arms race, “there’s this constant back and forth” with attack and defence claiming advantages in turn.

A PAC-3 Patriot missile unit is seen deployed in the compound of the Defence Ministry in Tokyo in 2017 Credit: AP/Shizuo Kambayashi

The Patriot upgrade does not render the Kinzhal a busted flush, however. It remains the first time such a weapon has been fielded and fired in battle. Yet it is also true that five years ago, when video emerged of the Kinzhal test, then US defence secretary James Mattis insisted that “it doesn't change anything.”

That may be true. But hypersonics are only just getting started. And the Kinzhal is not the only hypersonic missile Russia claims to have in its armoury. It also claims that the Zircon, a missile using cutting-edge scramjet propulsion that other nations are scrambling to master, is now operational. Meanwhile, China has the DF-17, a boost-glide missile capable of travelling 10 times the speed of sound.

And unlike the Kinzhal, it is this breed of hypersonics that sends chills down the spines of military strategists today. In particular, they are potent anti-ship weapons, threatening the aircraft carriers that have allowed America to project its power around the globe in unmatched fashion over recent decades.

Mikoyan MiG-31K fighter jets with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, pictured in 2018 Credit: Anadolu Agency

“Such hypersonics are certainly a major concern for the US Navy,” says Bronk. There are two likely consequences. First, potential targets will have to sit further from the battlefield, to maximise response time. As this decade – and hypersonic technology – progresses, however, it may become impossible to destroy the missile itself. Instead, defence systems will target communications and targeting systems – the “kill webs” as they are known – guiding the warhead to its target.

Some such systems, however, are likely to be based not on the ground, but in orbit. In the “back and forth” of defence and attack, there will be ways to protect against the most sophisticated hypersonic missiles.

The problem is that doing so is likely to extend the battlefield into space.

Weapons of Ukraine promo

The Telegraph · by Harry de Quetteville

Weapons Ukraine - Kinzhal

Weapons Ukraine - Patriot

Still, the combination of speed and manoeuvrability make even predicting a hypersonic missile’s target hard, let alone knocking it out of the sky.

Missile trajectories by type

Kinzhal Launch

How missile engines work

A PAC-3 Patriot missile unit is seen deployed in the compound of the Defence Ministry in Tokyo in 2017 Credit: AP/Shizuo Kambayashi

Mikoyan MiG-31K fighter jets with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, pictured in 2018 Credit: Anadolu Agency

The problem is that doing so is likely to extend the battlefield into space.

Weapons of Ukraine promo

The Telegraph · by Harry de Quetteville

8. War is ruthless, but should the U.S. be ruthless when it goes to war?

Thought provoking. To answer the final question I say yes we can do so without being equally ruthless. We can fight damn hard and as hard as necessary without crossing the line of violating the laws of war. I think we must always strive to follow and fight within the laws of war. It is to our long term interests to do so and our values should not be sacrificed for short term results. To do otherwise undermines America as we know it and that we have committed to defend.

I also think that we can gain advantage over our adversaries by recognizing, understanding, exposing, and attacking our enemies' strategies and their use of tactics that violate the laws of war, whether they are a state or non-state actor.

Excerpts:

With America’s non-democratic enemies, who do not share Western values, the country fights at an enormous disadvantage. Ask any foot soldier who served in either Afghanistan or Iraq or, for that matter, Vietnam. They know the “ground truth,” where life and death hang on a knife edge. The nation can and should mitigate suffering whenever possible and based on values reflected in International Humanitarian Law.

However, assuming a just war, should the U.S. permit those admirable impulses to overwhelm war-fighting objectives if losing the conflict is the result? It is a pressing question in desperate search of an answer. War’s desired end state can be humanitarian in character, but the means — killing — never will be. Can these two truths come to occupy the same political space?

Uniformed U.S. citizens in Afghanistan fought legally and honorably, at least by way of comparison with their adversaries, who did not choose to follow the well-meaning edicts of the post-World War II Geneva Convention signed in 1949. In other words, America’s sub-state enemy, the Taliban, was utterly ruthless and committed, and the U.S. was not. Although not the whole story, this fact contributed to our defeat. The question that this administration and those to come must answer is, can America successfully prosecute a like war in future without embracing a greater degree of ruthlessness?

War is ruthless, but should the U.S. be ruthless when it goes to war? | Column

War’s desired end state can be humanitarian in character, but the means — killing — never will be. Can these two truths come to occupy the same political

Tampa Bay Times · by Robert Bruce Adolph

Make no mistake, America was ruthless in World War II. The national leadership of that era — Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman — demanded unconditional surrender of the nation’s enemies. To achieve that objective, the U.S. military fire-bombed cities in Germany and Japan that killed many tens of thousands of non-combatants. U.S. and Allied armies obliterated the Third Reich. America then dropped two nuclear devices on Japan that killed more tens of thousands.

The much-maligned atom bomb compelled the unconditional surrender of imperial Japan. The result of American ruthlessness led to the creation of two of the most successful democratic countries in the world. But first, the Japanese had to be defeated, come to recognize the fact and then accept the unyielding truth of it. Victory achieved, lasting peace with both countries followed.

Killing on an industrial scale was the means to achieving positive ends. No, I am not suggesting that the U.S. go nuclear to achieve its goals. Nor am I recommending that we return to the days of attempting to “bomb our enemies back into the stone age.” It is now well known that aerial bombardment can have the opposite effect desired. You need only look to current events in Ukraine to see this phenomenon in action.

However, and although no doubt arguable, the ends achieved in World War II may have justified the terrible means used. Unconditional surrender was achieved over the Japanese militarists. Hitler’s malign regime was annihilated. The ruthlessness adopted by Roosevelt and Truman may have been based in their fear of the possible existential threat posed to the American state.

Is America still willing to be ruthless to win? It does not seem so, at least while lacking an existential threat. War-fighting rules of engagement in Afghanistan became restrictive following initial repetitive battlefield successes, especially during the Obama years. The Trump White House subsequently loosened those rules. However, the Taliban cared nothing for the Western humanitarian values and international law that rules of engagement represented, butchering innocents if it served their aims. They did, however, over time, exhibit an unsurprising far greater strength of will and resolve. They were, after all, fighting on their native soil. If the U.S. is constrained by our values and respect for law, what to do?

Union Civil War Gen. William T. Sherman was right: “War is hell.” Killing is required. Innocents will suffer and die. It is tragic. It is brutal. It is bloody. But war was never kind in character. More to the point, war is the result when adversaries fail to settle disputes via reason and compromise. This remains one of the most positive selling points of genuine democracies: They do not war with one another.

With America’s non-democratic enemies, who do not share Western values, the country fights at an enormous disadvantage. Ask any foot soldier who served in either Afghanistan or Iraq or, for that matter, Vietnam. They know the “ground truth,” where life and death hang on a knife edge. The nation can and should mitigate suffering whenever possible and based on values reflected in International Humanitarian Law.

However, assuming a just war, should the U.S. permit those admirable impulses to overwhelm war-fighting objectives if losing the conflict is the result? It is a pressing question in desperate search of an answer. War’s desired end state can be humanitarian in character, but the means — killing — never will be. Can these two truths come to occupy the same political space?

Uniformed U.S. citizens in Afghanistan fought legally and honorably, at least by way of comparison with their adversaries, who did not choose to follow the well-meaning edicts of the post-World War II Geneva Convention signed in 1949. In other words, America’s sub-state enemy, the Taliban, was utterly ruthless and committed, and the U.S. was not. Although not the whole story, this fact contributed to our defeat. The question that this administration and those to come must answer is, can America successfully prosecute a like war in future without embracing a greater degree of ruthlessness?

Robert Bruce Adolph is a former senior Army Special Forces soldier and United Nations security chief. In May 2022, he served as mission leader for a multinational team in support of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Ukraine. To learn more, visit his website at robertbruceadolph.com.

Tampa Bay Times · by Robert Bruce Adolph

9. Machiavelli Preferred Democracy to Tyranny

Speaking of ends justifying means here is an interesting essay about the political philosopher who is supposedly noted for being one who argues just that.

Excerpts:

Indeed, in what might seem like a 180-degree reversal from The Prince, Machiavelli goes so far in his later work as to advise a prince to use his fleeting power to establish a republic. He writes, “Though to their everlasting honor they are able to found a republic … they turn to tyranny, not seeing how much fame, glory, honor, security, tranquility, and peace of mind they are rejecting, and how much infamy, vituperation, blame, danger, and insecurity they are bringing upon themselves.”

Discourses is certainly Machiavellian in its ethic. Republics are not praised for their intrinsic merits. He does not argue that democracy is beneficial because it protects human rights and dignity. Rather, he defends democracy because it is useful to a particular end that Machiavelli held in the highest possible regard: helping a state (and his beloved Italy) achieve international power and glory.

While the White House may not be cognizant of the Biden doctrine’s theoretical roots, Machiavelli has presaged a new generation of strategists who look to strong domestic political institutions as a fundamental source of the United States’ international power and influence.

The United States faces major challenges in its intensifying rivalry with China, to be sure, but it can rest assured that its fundamentals are better suited for the coming competition.

Even the author of history’s most famous handbook for dictators agrees.

Machiavelli Preferred Democracy to Tyranny

The theorist’s magnum opus wasn’t a blueprint for dictators—it was an ode to institutional constraints on leaders.

Kroenig-Matthew-foreign-policy-columnist12Matthew Kroenig

By Matthew Kroenig, a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. FP subscribers can now receive alerts when new stories written by this author are published. Subscribe now | Sign in

Foreign Policy · by Matthew Kroenig · May 27, 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden has said the world is at an “inflection point” in a “battle between democracy and autocracy.” Biden maintains that the United States’ free-market, democratic system can continue to deliver, but others suspect that China’s autocratic, state-led capitalist model may be superior.

Which side is correct?

To find an answer, we can ask one of history’s most influential political philosophers: Niccolò Machiavelli. For readers familiar with Machiavelli only through The Prince, his response might come as a surprise.

The Prince is a guidebook for dictators, but his arguably greater work, Discourses on Livy, is a full-throated defense of democracy. Machiavelli’s introduction to The Prince suggests that he had started Discourses before The Prince was hastily written in 1513 and then returned to spend four more years composing his magnum opus, finally completing it around 1517. Many believe, therefore, that Discourses represents his most authentic and comprehensive political worldview, as I discuss in a chapter of the book The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age.

Discourses is so named because it is Machiavelli’s commentary on Titus Livius’s monumental History of Rome. Machiavelli uses the Discourses and Rome’s ancient history to derive enduring lessons for the practice of politics. The book is consistent with the Renaissance method in that it looks to the ancient world to recover lost wisdom and inspire new truths.

Machiavelli’s motivation for writing the book is clear. He wanted to understand how Rome rose from a small city-state on the Tiber River to dominate the entire Mediterranean basin. The Italian city-states of his time were weak and preyed upon by larger powers. There was a time, however, when an Italian state was great. What was the secret to its success?

Machiavelli’s answer is straightforward. Rome achieved glory due to its republican form of government. His review of history leads him to conclude that democracies are better able than autocracies to harness the energy of a broad cross-section of society toward national greatness. He explains (in a 2007 edition of his writings translated by Peter Constantine): “We have seen from experience that states have grown in land and wealth only if they are free: the greatness that Athens achieved within a century of liberating itself from the tyranny of Pisistratus is astonishing and even more astonishing the greatness that Rome achieved after it freed itself from its kings.”

Machiavelli was not making an argument about the morality or wisdom of democratic or autocratic leaders—but of institutional constraints.

For Machiavelli, it comes down to the “pursuit of the public interest, not private interest. … The opposite occurs when there is a prince because more often than not what he does in his own interest will harm the city and what he does for the city will harm his interests.”

Machiavelli was not making an argument about the morality or wisdom of democratic or autocratic leaders—he knew better than anyone that humans are not angels—but of institutional constraints. Democratic leaders often want to exploit their position, but they will be constrained by laws, institutions, and other branches of government. Dictators may want to be magnanimous, but since there is little standing in their way, they will always be tempted to maximize their own well-being at the expense of the nation.

Despite Machiavelli’s claims, and democracies’ stellar performances over the ages, some still argue that China’s model is superior. They argue that the Chinese Communist Party has an advantage because it can pursue steady, long-term strategies, whereas the United States cannot look past the next election and zigzags with each new administration.

Machiavelli would disagree, again pointing to institutional differences. He argues that the checks and balances in a democracy keep a country on a stable course, whereas unconstrained dictators take countries in an extreme direction and, when they change their minds, back again. He writes, “I therefore disagree with the common opinion that a populace in power is unstable and changeable.” On the contrary, he argued, “The prince … unchecked by laws will be more unstable and imprudent than a populace.”

Three steps for exerting maximum economic pressure on Putin.

Indeed, China had a sound strategy for years, but President Xi Jinping is throwing it out the window, cracking down on dissent, reasserting state control over China’s private sector, and antagonizing the free world with an aggressive foreign policy. The United States has been a model of stability in comparison, pursuing a successful strategy of building and defending a rules-based international system for three-quarters of a century.

China’s admirers point to its ability to take decisive measures, like pushing through major investments in infrastructure and green energy, while the U.S. Congress remains gridlocked. But Machiavelli argues that autocracy’s tendency for big, bold actions often results in big, bold mistakes. A republican system balances competing points of view and tempers ill-considered policies. As Machiavelli wrote, “One will see fewer mistakes in the populace than in the prince, and these will be less serious and easier to resolve.”

To be sure, the United States has made mistakes, in Iraq and elsewhere, but it was able to self-correct and remain the world’s premier economic, diplomatic, and military power. In contrast, major Chinese errors, like decades of pushing the disastrous one-child policy, have sunk China’s growth potential for the coming years. China will get old before it gets rich, and leading economists increasingly assess that we have already witnessed “peak China.”

Machiavelli goes so far in his later work as to advise a prince to use his fleeting power to establish a republic.

What about the argument that American democracy is too fractious and polarized, whereas China’s dictator can enforce societal stability? Machiavelli welcomed societal clashes as events that contribute both to greater liberty at home and enhanced influence abroad.

In looking at the Conflict of the Orders between the patricians and the plebeians in the Roman Republic, Machiavelli writes, “If one examines the outcome of these clashes, one will find that they did not result in exile or violence … but in laws and institutions that benefited civil liberty.”

He writes that Rome could have put in place a more tranquil domestic political system, like in Sparta or Venice, but: “Had the state of Rome become more peaceful it would have become weaker, as this would have blocked the path to the greatness it achieved.” Machiavelli recommends that if one founds a republic with the aim “to expand his dominion and power, like Rome,” then “he has to follow the model of Rome and allow the tumult and popular discord to the extent he can.”

Today, Americans worry about partisan bickering, such as that currently taking place over raising the debt ceiling, but Machiavelli would argue that this institutionalized haggling and compromise is what makes the U.S. system great. It is certainly much better than a model like China’s, where a dictator can ram through controversial policies over the opposition of much of the country.

Indeed, in what might seem like a 180-degree reversal from The Prince, Machiavelli goes so far in his later work as to advise a prince to use his fleeting power to establish a republic. He writes, “Though to their everlasting honor they are able to found a republic … they turn to tyranny, not seeing how much fame, glory, honor, security, tranquility, and peace of mind they are rejecting, and how much infamy, vituperation, blame, danger, and insecurity they are bringing upon themselves.”

Discourses is certainly Machiavellian in its ethic. Republics are not praised for their intrinsic merits. He does not argue that democracy is beneficial because it protects human rights and dignity. Rather, he defends democracy because it is useful to a particular end that Machiavelli held in the highest possible regard: helping a state (and his beloved Italy) achieve international power and glory.

While the White House may not be cognizant of the Biden doctrine’s theoretical roots, Machiavelli has presaged a new generation of strategists who look to strong domestic political institutions as a fundamental source of the United States’ international power and influence.

The United States faces major challenges in its intensifying rivalry with China, to be sure, but it can rest assured that its fundamentals are better suited for the coming competition.

Even the author of history’s most famous handbook for dictators agrees.

Foreign Policy · by Matthew Kroenig · May 27, 2023

10. Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations

Excerpts:

In Soviet times, there was a chilling word for ratting on fellow citizens: stuchat, meaning to knock, evoking thoughts of a sly citizen knocking on a police officer’s door to make a report. The shorthand gesture to convey “Be careful, the walls have ears,” was a silent knocking motion.

In contemporary Russia, most reports appear to be made by “patriots” who see themselves as guardians of their motherland, according to Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist who is compiling a study of the subject — after being denounced herself last year, for comments she made on the Netherlands-based independent Russian television channel Dozhd.

Arkhipova and research colleagues have identified more than 5,500 cases of denunciations.

...

“This is not a political denunciation, but an old economic conflict in which people are trying to seize the moment as they see it, so far without much success,” Schulmann said.

There are dozens of reports in schools — teachers reporting children, children reporting teachers, directors reporting children or teachers — undermining the educational work and sowing divisions, fear and mistrust in school staff rooms, said Daniil Ken, head of the Alliance of Teachers, a small independent teachers’ association, who left Russia because of the war.

“It’s very hard to coexist because, like members of any group, everyone in a school knows what the others think,” Ken said.

The state’s use of snitches and the many random arrests serve as powerful tools of social control, Arkhipova said.

“You can be arrested any moment, but you never know if you’re going to be arrested or not. They target several teachers in several places, just to let every teacher know, ‘Be quiet,’ she said. “And the point is to make everybody feel fear.”

Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations

May 27, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Robyn Dixon · May 27, 2023

MOSCOW — Parishioners have denounced Russian priests who advocated peace instead of victory in the war on Ukraine. Teachers lost their jobs after children tattled that they opposed the war. Neighbors who bore some trivial grudge for years have snitched on longtime foes. Workers rat on one another to their bosses or directly to the police or the Federal Security Service.

This is the hostile, paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with one another. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime cracks down on critics of the war and other political dissenters, citizens are policing one another in an echo of the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s repression, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals from work.

Private conversations in restaurants and rail cars are fair game for eavesdroppers, who call police to arrest “traitors” and “enemies.” Social media posts, and messages — even in private chat groups — become incriminating evidence that can lead to a knock on the door by agents of the Federal Security Service of FSB.

The effect is chilling, with denunciations strongly encouraged by the state and news of arrests and prosecutions amplified by propagandist commentators on federal television stations and Telegram channels. In March last year, Putin called on the nation to purge itself by spitting out traitors “like gnats.” He has since issued repeated dark warnings about internal enemies, claiming that Russia is fighting for its survival.

Since the invasion began, at least 19,718 people have been arrested for their opposition to the war, according to legal rights group OVD-Info, with criminal cases launched against 584 people, and administrative cases mounted against 6,839. Many others faced intimidation or harassment from the authorities, lost jobs, or had relatives targeted, the organization said. According to rights group Memorial, there are 558 political prisoners now being held in Russia.

“This wave of denunciations is one of the signs of totalitarianism, when people understand what is good — from the point of view of the president — and what is bad, so ‘Who is against us must be prosecuted,’” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who, like many Russians, has been designated a “foreign agent” by the authorities.

Kolesnikov describes Putin’s regime as increasingly authoritarian “but with elements of totalitarianism,” and predicts difficult years ahead. “I’m sure that he will not return to normality,” he said, referring to Putin. “He’s not crazy in a medical sense but he’s crazy in a political sense, just like any dictator.”

The flood of denunciations has made public spaces dangerous. Classrooms are among the riskiest, particularly during the state-sanctioned Monday morning class, “Conversations about important things,” when teachers lecture students about the war on Ukraine, Russia’s militaristic view of history, and other topics set by the state.

When I lunched with friends in a Moscow restaurant this month, one friend warily asked a waiter if the restaurant had cameras. It did.

In an office, with no one else in the room, another friend almost inaudibly whispered his antiwar opinions, eyes darting nervously.

When a former class of language students gathered with their retired teacher for an annual reunion recently, all were tense, delicately probing one another’s views, before gradually realizing that everyone hated the war, so they could speak freely, said a Muscovite related to the teacher.

The police in Moscow’s sprawling subway system have been busy chasing reports, assisted by the system’s powerful facial recognition system.

Kamilla Murashova, a nurse at a children’s hospice, was arrested in the subway on May 14 after someone took a photograph of a badge depicting the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag on her backpack and reported her. Murashova was charged with discrediting the military.

A 40-year-old sales manager, Yuri Samoilov, was riding the subway on March 17 when a fellow passenger spotted his phone’s screen background, a symbol of the Ukrainian military unit Azov, and reported him. Samoilov was convicted of displaying extremist material “to an unlimited circle of people,” according to court documents.

In Soviet times, there was a chilling word for ratting on fellow citizens: stuchat, meaning to knock, evoking thoughts of a sly citizen knocking on a police officer’s door to make a report. The shorthand gesture to convey “Be careful, the walls have ears,” was a silent knocking motion.

In contemporary Russia, most reports appear to be made by “patriots” who see themselves as guardians of their motherland, according to Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist who is compiling a study of the subject — after being denounced herself last year, for comments she made on the Netherlands-based independent Russian television channel Dozhd.

Arkhipova and research colleagues have identified more than 5,500 cases of denunciations.

A St. Petersburg mother, for example, identified in police documents as E. P Kalacheva, thought she was protecting her child from “moral damage” when she reported posters near a play area depicting Ukrainian apartments destroyed by Russian forces with the words, “And children?” As a result, a third-year university student was charged with discrediting the military.

Arkhipova said she and several university colleagues were all reported by an email address identified as belonging to Anna Vasilyevna Korobkova — so she emailed the address. The person identifying herself as Korobkova claimed to be the granddaughter of a Soviet-era KGB informant, who spent most of his time writing denunciations. She said she was following in his footsteps.

Korobkova offered no proof of identity when contacted at the email address by The Washington Post, making it impossible to verify her story.

The email writer claimed to be a single woman, aged 37, living in a large Russian city, who started writing mass denunciations of Russian opposition figures last year. She claimed to have sent 1,046 reports to the FSB about opposition figures who made comments on independent media blocked in Russia since the start of the war to May 23 — about two denunciations a day.

“In each interview I look for signs of criminal offenses — voluntary surrender and distribution of false information about the activities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” she said. “If a POW says, for example, that he surrendered voluntarily, then I write two denunciations on him — to the FSB and to the military prosecutor’s office. She boasted that her denunciation led to the liquidation of Russia’s oldest human rights group, the Moscow Helsinki Group, in January.

“In general, the targets of my denunciations were scientists, teachers, doctors, human rights activists, lawyers, journalists and ordinary people,” the email writer said. “I feel enormous moral satisfaction when a person is persecuted because of my denunciation: dismissed from work, subjected to an administrative fine, etc.”

Getting someone jailed “would make me very happy,” she wrote, adding: “I also consider it a success when a person leaves Russia after my denunciation.”

Arkhipova said Korobkova spent a lot of effort writing multiple responses to her questions, and saw her goal as deterring analysts from speaking to independent media about the war. “You can find this type of person anywhere,” Arkhipova said. ” They feel as if they are in charge of moral boundaries. They feel as if they are doing the right thing. They’re helping Putin, they’re helping their government.”

A teacher in Moscow region, Tatyana Chervenko, who has two children, was also denounced last summer by Korobkova after she opposed the war in an interview with the German news outlet Deutsche Welle.

“The denunciation said I was involved in propaganda in the classroom. She made up facts. She doesn’t know me. She made the whole report up,” Chervenko said.

Initially, the school administration dismissed the report. But Korobkova wrote a second report to Putin’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, along with Putin, for the abduction of Ukrainian children.

After that, the school leadership sent teachers and administrators to watch over her classes, especially the “Conversations about important things.” They called police to the school. Parents close to the school administration wrote complaints calling for her dismissal. By the time she was fired in December, Chervenko said, she felt only relief. She did not even try to find another job.

She did not contact Korobkova. “I don’t want to feed those demons. I can tell she was so proud that I was fired. That was her goal,” she said. “But the thing that got me was the response of the authorities. After all, who is she? Nobody knows who she is. And yet she filed a report denouncing me and they responded by firing me.”

As in Soviet times, some denunciations appear to mask a grudge or material motive. Prominent Russian political scientist, Ekaterina Schulmann, with more than a million YouTube followers, who is now based in Berlin, was savagely denounced by neighbors in a report to the Moscow mayor after she left the country in April last year and was declared a “foreign agent.”

They called Schulmann and her family longtime “subversive” elements, “acting in the interests of their Western handlers, whose goal is to split our society.” But the heart of the complaint was really a 15-year-old property dispute.

“This is not a political denunciation, but an old economic conflict in which people are trying to seize the moment as they see it, so far without much success,” Schulmann said.

There are dozens of reports in schools — teachers reporting children, children reporting teachers, directors reporting children or teachers — undermining the educational work and sowing divisions, fear and mistrust in school staff rooms, said Daniil Ken, head of the Alliance of Teachers, a small independent teachers’ association, who left Russia because of the war.

“It’s very hard to coexist because, like members of any group, everyone in a school knows what the others think,” Ken said.

The state’s use of snitches and the many random arrests serve as powerful tools of social control, Arkhipova said.

“You can be arrested any moment, but you never know if you’re going to be arrested or not. They target several teachers in several places, just to let every teacher know, ‘Be quiet,’ she said. “And the point is to make everybody feel fear.”

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report

The Washington Post · by Robyn Dixon · May 27, 2023

11. US Navy 'Impacted' by Chinese-Backed Cyberattacks, Warns Navy Secretary

The Chinese doth protest too much.

US Navy 'Impacted' by Chinese-Backed Cyberattacks, Warns Navy Secretary

China slams claims as a "collective disinformation campaign."

Published 8 hr ago|Updated 2 hr ago

Mark Moore

themessenger.com

The U.S. Navy has been "impacted" by state-sponsored Chinese hackers that have targeted critical infrastructure and is intended to disrupt communications if a crisis situation develops in the Pacific, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro warned Thursday.

Del Toro told CNBC that it's “no surprise that China has been behaving in this manner, not just for the last couple years, but for decades.”

He declined to go into detail.

The sophisticated operation, carried out under the code name "Volt Typhoon," was revealed this week by Western intelligence agencies and Microsoft.

The espionage, which has been active since mid-2021, reportedly affected a wide variety of sectors — including manufacturing, utilities, transportation, information technology, maritime, construction and education.

It also targeted the Pacific island of Guam, a U.S. territory that is home to a number of American military bases.

(Photo by Lt. Steve Smith/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

"Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises," Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.

The tech giant warned that "mitigating this attack could be challenging."

Guam would be strategically important in the event China invaded Taiwan, which it has been threatening for a number of years.

Along with Microsoft, the U.S. National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and cybersecurity agencies from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom issued warnings.

The Chinese on Thursday dismissed the hacking claims as a "collective disinformation campaign" coordinated by the U.S. and the four other countries that make up the "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing alliance.

themessenger.com

12. Franchetti viewed as likely choice to lead Navy, would be first woman on Joint Chiefs

I am sure there will be naysayers who will criticise this saying this is a woke military choice. But I would ask what makes her less qualified than others - command of the 6th Fleet and Vice CNO would seem to make her eminently qualified. I think the best new days ahead are better than the good old days that we can never go back to. I stand by for incoming.

Franchetti viewed as likely choice to lead Navy, would be first woman on Joint Chiefs - Breaking Defense

A career surface warfare officer, Franchetti is currently Vice Chief of Naval Operations and previously commanded the Naples, Italy-based US 6th Fleet.

breakingdefense.com · by Justin Katz · May 26, 2023

Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti, currently the vice chief of naval operations, is a career surface warfare officer. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Cody Purcell)

WASHINGTON — Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti is widely seen as the most likely candidate to lead the Navy as the next chief of naval operations, an appointment that would make her both the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman to serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

There is always a chance things could change up until the White House makes the public announcement, but in recent weeks Navy observers and defense analysts talking with Breaking Defense have broadly coalesced around the notion Franchetti will receive the green light.

If selected and confirmed, she will follow Adm. Michael Gilday, the former 10th Fleet Commander whose own nomination to become the Navy’s senior admiral four years ago was relatively abrupt and unexpected, preceded by a scandal that forced the White House’s first pick to withdraw from the process.

Franchetti, a native of Rochester, NY, is a career surface warfare officer and just one of just a handful of female four-star officers in the US military. She’s previously served as the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Staff and commanded US 6th Fleet.

Having taken the helm as VCNO in September 2022, Franchetti is only the second woman to hold the office, behind now retired Adm. Michelle Howard. She has been much less visible publicly than her boss, Gilday, mostly seen during congressional hearings, as well as a keynote speech during the annual Sea Air Space exposition earlier this year and a March interview on CBS News featuring the Pentagon’s most senior female officers.

During the CBS News interview, Franchetti recalled how during her first deployment, the commanding officer of her ship bluntly told her he didn’t want women aboard and was intent on seeing her fail.

That clearly didn’t happen, as Franchetti rose through the ranks and between 2018 and 2020, commanded US 6th Fleet, based in Naples, Italy.

As chief, she was responsible for forces in and around the Black Sea, and notably, in proximity to the Russian navy. During a 2019 interview with Defense News, she described her own experiences interacting with the Russians at the time as largely “professional,” save for one “aircraft interaction” that she deemed “unprofessional.”

“We operate in international waters,” she said at the time. “The Russians are operating in international waters. My expectation of my forces and the Russian forces is that they are going to be safe and professional. All the navies have a right and responsibility to act professionally at sea.”

The experience operating in the Mediterranean and near the Russian fleet will be more relevant now than ever as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. Just this week, a variety of reports made their way through Twitter asserting the Ukrainians had used unmanned naval vessels to attack the Russian navy’s fleet.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of US Pacific Fleet and a graduate of the service’s famous TOPGUN school, has been widely viewed as the other top contender to become CNO.

One question to watch is how Franchetti builds relationships with industry, as Gilday had several public clashes with the defense sector. The admiral has admonished defense lobbyists for seeking planes the Navy “doesn’t need” and publicly called out certain shipbuilders for failing to bring the service’s vessels out of maintenance quickly enough.

Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard, became the first woman to lead a branch of the military in June 2022. However, the Coast Guard is not part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and operates under the Department of Homeland Security.

The CNO spot is just one of a series of changes coming for the Joint Chiefs. The White House on Thursday officially nominated Air Force Gen. CQ Brown to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, beating out the other top contender, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger; Berger himself will be retiring soon, leaving another new face on the Joint Chiefs meetings. And in late April, Biden tapped Army vice chief of staff Gen. Randy George to take over as leader of that service.

13. US officials believe Chinese hackers may still have access to key US computer networks

Again, "Unrestricted Warfare."

I provided the following after the OPM hack in 2015. Remember that "Unrestricted Warfare" was written by two PLA Colonels (one of whom has risen to at least 3 stars) and published in 1999.

You can access an original translation of Unrestricted Warfare here: https://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf

As you read about the Chinese hack of OPM and over 4 million government employees I think it is worth reflecting on these excerpts from the 1999 book by Chinese PLA Colonels, Unrestricted Warfare. This is from the first FBIS translation of the book that I have saved over all these years. Of course you can also buy a commercial copy of the book from Amazon. I wonder how many people have read these prescient words. Please pay attention to the highlighted words. I know many have criticized this book and those who read it and in 2004 when I was a student at the National War College I asked the visiting Chinese Defense Minister if this book was being used to inform Chinese doctrine and strategic thinking he replied that the book had been discredited in China and for me not to believe everything I read. . So while we applaud Snowden (and he applauds himself) for defending our privacy from the NSA, who is protecting not only our privacy but our national security from the Chinese?

[FBIS Editor's Note: The following selections are taken from "Unrestricted Warfare," a book published in China in February 1999 which proposes tactics for developing countries, in particular China, to compensate for their military inferiority vis-à-vis the United States during a high-tech war. The selections include the table of contents, preface, afterword, and biographical information about the authors printed on the cover. The book was written by two PLA senior colonels from the younger generation of Chinese military officers and was published by the PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House in Beijing, suggesting that its release was endorsed by at least some elements of the PLA leadership. This impression was reinforced by an interview with Qiao and laudatory review of the book carried by the party youth league's official daily Zhongguo Qingnian Bao on 28 June. Published prior to the bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, the book has recently drawn the attention of both the Chinese and Western press for its advocacy of a multitude of means, both military and particularly non-military, to strike at the United States during times of conflict. Hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, using the media, and conducting urban warfare are among the methods proposed. In the Zhongguo Qingnian Bao interview, Qiao was quoted as stating that "the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden." Elaborating on this idea, he asserted that strong countries would not use the same approach against weak countries because "strong countries make the rules while rising ones break them and exploit loopholes . . .The United States breaks [UN rules] and makes new ones when these rules don't suit [its purposes], but it has to observe its own rules or the whole world will not trust it." (see FBIS translation of the interview, OW2807114599) [End FBIS Editor's Note]

Everyone who has lived through the last decade of the 20th century will have a profound sense of the changes in the world. We don't believe that there is anyone who would claim that there has been any decade in history in which the changes have been greater than those of this decade. Naturally, the causes behind the enormous changes are too numerous to mention, but there are only a few reasons that people bring up repeatedly. One of those is the Gulf War. One war changed the world. Linking such a conclusion to a war which occurred one time in a limited area and which only lasted 42 days seems like something of an exaggeration. However, that is indeed what the facts are, and there is no need to enumerate one by one all the new words that began to appear after 17 January 1991. It is only necessary to cite the former Soviet Union, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, cloning, Microsoft, hackers, the Internet, the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the euro, as well as the world's final and only superpower -- the United States. These are sufficient. They pretty much constitute the main subjects on this planet for the past decade

War in the age of technological integration and globalization has eliminated the right of weapons to label war and, with regard to the new starting point, has realigned the relationship of weapons to war, while the appearance of weapons of new concepts, and particularly new concepts of weapons, has gradually blurred the face of war. Does a single "hacker" attack count as a hostile act or not? Can using financial instruments to destroy a country's economy be seen as a battle? Did CNN's broadcast of an exposed corpse of a U.S. soldier in the streets of Mogadishu shake the determination of the Americans to act as the world's policeman, thereby altering the world's strategic situation? And should an assessment of wartime actions look at the means or the results? Obviously, proceeding with the traditional definition of war in mind, there is no longer any way to answer the above questions. When we suddenly realize that all these non-war actions may be the new factors constituting future warfare, we have to come up with a new name for this new form of war: Warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits, in short: unrestricted warfare.

Mao Zedong's theory concerning "every citizen a soldier" has certainly not been in any way responsible for this tendency. The current trend does not demand extensive mobilization of the people. Quite the contrary, it merely indicates that a technological elite among the citizenry have broken down the door and barged in uninvited, making it impossible for professional soldiers with their concepts of professionalized warfare to ignore challenges that are somewhat embarrassing. Who is most likely to become the leading protagonist on the terra incognita of the next war? The first challenger to have appeared, and the most famous, is the computer "hacker." This chap, who generally has not received any military training or been engaged in any military profession, can easily impair the security of an army or a nation in a major way by simply relying on his personal technical expertise. A classic example is given in the U.S. FM100-6 Information Operations regulations. In 1994, a computer hacker in England attacked the U.S. military's Rome Air Development Center in New York State, compromising the security of 30 systems. He also hacked into more than 100 other 46 systems. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and NASA suffered damage, among others. What astounded people was not only the scale of those affected by the attack and the magnitude of the damage, but also the fact that the hacker was actually a teenager who was merely 16 years old. Naturally, an intrusion by a teenager playing a game cannot be regarded as an act of war. The problem is, how does one know for certain which damage is the result of games and which damage is the result of warfare? Which acts are individual acts by citizens and which acts represent hostile actions by non-professional warriors, or perhaps even organized hacker warfare launched by a state? In 1994, there were 230,000 security-related intrusions into U.S. DOD networks. How many of these were organized destructive acts by non-professional warriors? Perhaps there will never be any way of knowing [see Endnote 7].

More murderous than hackers--and more of a threat in the real world--are the non-state organizations, whose very mention causes the Western world to shake in its boots. These organizations, which all have a certain military flavor to a greater or lesser degree, are generally driven by some extreme creed or cause, such as: the Islamic organizations pursuing a holy war; the Caucasian militias in the U.S.; the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult; and, most recently, terrorist groups like Osama bin Ladin's, which blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The various and sundry monstrous and virtually insane destructive acts by these kinds of groups are undoubtedly more likely to be the new breeding ground for contemporary wars than is the behavior of the lone ranger hacker. Moreover, when a nation state or national armed force, (which adheres to certain rules and will only use limited force to obtain a limited goal), faces off with one of these types of organizations, (which never observe any rules and which are not afraid to fight an unlimited war using unlimited means), it will often prove very difficult for the nation state or national armed force to gain the upper hand.

During the 1990's, and concurrent with the series of military actions launched by nonprofessional warriors and non-state organizations, we began to get an inkling of a non-military type of war which is prosecuted by yet another type of non-professional warrior. This person is not a hacker in the general sense of the term, and also is not a member of a quasi-military organization. Perhaps he or she is a systems analyst or a software engineer, or a financier with a 48 large amount of mobile capital or a stock speculator. He or she might even perhaps be a media mogul who controls a wide variety of media, a famous columnist or the host of a TV program. His or her philosophy of life is different from that of certain blind and inhuman terrorists. Frequently, he or she has a firmly held philosophy of life and his or her faith is by no means inferior to Osama bin Ladin's in terms of its fanaticism. Moreover, he or she does not lack the motivation or courage to enter a fight as necessary. Judging by this kind of standard, who can say that George Soros is not a financial terrorist? Precisely in the same way that modern technology is changing weapons and the battlefield, it is also at the same time blurring the concept of who the war participants are. From now on, soldiers no longer have a monopoly on war. Global terrorist activity is one of the by-products of the globalization trend that has been ushered in by technological integration. Non-professional warriors and non-state organizations are posing a greater and greater threat to sovereign nations, making these warriors and organizations more and more serious adversaries for every professional army. Compared to these adversaries, professional armies are like gigantic dinosaurs which lack strength commensurate to their size in this new age. Their adversaries, then, are rodents with great powers of survival, which can use their sharp teeth to torment the better part of the world.

US officials believe Chinese hackers may still have access to key US computer networks | CNN Politics

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · May 26, 2023

Getty Images

CNN —

US officials believe Chinese hackers could still have access to sensitive US computer networks they’ve targeted in recent months as a top American cyber official told CNN he is concerned about the “scope and scale” of the activity.

The newly revealed Chinese government-backed hacking campaign, which targeted key US sectors like maritime and transportation networks, is “unacceptable” because the hackers sought access to networks that might allow them to disrupt critical services in the future, National Security Agency Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce said in an interview on Thursday.

US officials are still trying to verify that Chinese hackers have been kicked out of networks they’ve broken into during the monthslong campaign, Joyce said, adding that the NSA has been investigating the Chinese hacking effort since last year.

The Chinese hackers targeted an unnamed organization on the US Pacific territory of Guam as part of a likely effort to develop capabilities that could disrupt “critical communications infrastructure” between the US and Asia in the event of a crisis, Microsoft said in revealing the activity on Wednesday.

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese hackers seeking to disrupt communications between US and Asia in event of crisis, Microsoft says

The alleged targeting of critical infrastructure in Guam adds to ongoing US concerns that China could be using its cyber capabilities in anticipation of a future conflict with the US in the Pacific.

The hackers have tried to burrow into many organizations with no apparent intelligence value and to “preposition” themselves in US computer networks for potential future operations, Joyce told CNN.

The US and its allies immediately amplified Microsoft’s findings on Wednesday and urged infrastructure operators to check their networks for compromise. The Chinese government denied the allegations and in turn accused the US of conducting hacking operations in China.

It’s a new front in tensions in cyberspace that have permeated the US-China relationship for years. It follows uproar in the US over the Chinese spy balloon that the Pentagon shot down in February.

Russia, too, has long sought footholds in US critical infrastructure, according to US officials and private experts. But Joyce – who has spent more than two decades at the NSA and has worked on offensive cyber operations – said the newly revealed Chinese activity stood out to him.

“I think the difference here is how brazen it is in scope and scale,” Joyce told CNN. “So, we need to empower everybody to be able to defend against it.”

Concerns over Taiwan

The NSA – a vast US electronic spying agency with a foreign mission – used its intelligence capabilities to study the Chinese hackers’ tools and to verify the sensitive US infrastructure they targeted, Joyce said. In addition to maritime and transportation organizations, the hackers went after US government agencies and manufacturing and construction firms, among other targets, according to Microsoft.

“We assess this is prepositioning against critical infrastructure – more broadly than just [potentially] interrupting communications,” Joyce told CNN, adding: “We do agree with the Microsoft assessment.”

The targeting of Guam is of particular concern because it plays a key part in US military efforts to counter and deter China’s territorial ambitions in the Pacific. The US Marine Corps in January chose Guam as the place to open its first new base in 70 years, a facility that officials expect to host 5,000 Marines.

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin told CNN on Thursday that “US military mobility for the Indo-Pacific is absolutely vital to our security” while expressing concern about the new alleged Chinese hacking operation.

US officials are concerned that Chinese hackers have created footholds in Taiwan’s critical infrastructure that Beijing may use to disrupt key services like electricity in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a senior US defense official told reporters in March.

Xie Feng, China's new ambassador to the US, addresses the media as he arrives at JFK airport in New York City on May 23.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

New Chinese ambassador warns of 'serious difficulties' in US-China relations upon arrival in US

“There is virtually no question that, if the US were to get directly involved in a conflict with China over Taiwan, China would seek use its cyber capabilities to ensure that US forces are less effective in combat,” said Jamil N. Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s law school.

“Given this, the access to critical infrastructure that China is developing in Guam and elsewhere represents an important and growing risk to the ability of the US to effectively respond in the case of a conflict with China,” Jaffer told CNN.

Taiwanese cybersecurity experts saw a familiar foe in the Microsoft report and immediately began checking their systems for signs of compromise.

“We saw similar techniques and attacks in Taiwan,” said Sung-ting Tsai, CEO of Taiwanese cybersecurity firm TeamT5. Tsai said his analysts are still investigating but haven’t matched the hackers mentioned by Microsoft to a known Chinese hacking group.

The longer game some Chinese hackers are playing in Taiwan is to “penetrate into the target networks [and] environments, try everything to make themselves invisible, stay in the critical systems, then make disruptions when they need,” Tsai told CNN.

CNN · by Sean Lyngaas · May 26, 2023

14. ‘It’s Time’: Ukraine’s Top Commander Says Counteroffensive Is Imminent

‘It’s Time’: Ukraine’s Top Commander Says Counteroffensive Is Imminent

A blunt statement, accompanied by a slickly produced video of Ukrainian troops preparing for battle, appeared designed to rally the nation and to spread anxiety among Russian forces.

By Marc Santora and Eric Schmitt

Marc Santora reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Eric Schmitt from Washington

May 27, 2023

Updated 9:22 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Eric Schmitt · May 27, 2023

Defense Department officials had previously said that about 31 tanks would be sent to Germany to be used in a training program that is expected to take 10 to 12 weeks.

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Ukraine’s top military commander signaled on Saturday morning that the nation’s forces were ready to launch their long-anticipated counteroffensive following months of preparations, including recently stepped-up attacks on logistical targets as well as feints and disinformation intended to keep Russian forces on edge.

“It’s time to get back what’s ours,” Ukraine’s supreme military commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, wrote in a statement.

The blunt statement, accompanied by a slickly produced video of Ukrainian troops preparing for battle and released on social media, appeared intended to rally a nation weary from 15 months of war and to deepen anxiety within the Russian ranks. But General Zaluzhnyi offered no indication of where and when Ukrainian forces might try to break Russia’s hold on occupied territory.

Other senior Ukrainian officials also suggested that the counteroffensive was imminent.

Oleksiy Danilov, the head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, told the BBC in an interview released on Saturday that Kyiv’s forces were “ready” and that a large-scale assault could come “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week.”

Ukraine has spent months amassing a powerful arsenal of Western-supplied weapons and training tens of thousands of soldiers in sophisticated offensive maneuvers for the campaign, which military analysts have suggested will most likely focus on Russian-occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine.

There were no public indications of large-scale troop movements along the vast front line on Saturday morning. Both Ukraine and Russia have engaged in robust informational campaigns using videos and social media throughout the war.

But the statements from General Zaluzhnyi and Mr. Danilov come as a growing number of senior Ukrainian officials — including the head of military intelligence — have said in recent days that Ukraine now has what it needs to go on the attack.

In many ways, military analysts have noted, the counteroffensive may already have begun.

Image

Defensive trenches were built and fortified on Wednesday on the outskirts of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

For weeks, Ukraine has apparently been seeking to set the stage for the campaign and “shape” the battlefield through a series of coordinated strikes deep behind enemy lines aimed at undermining critical Russian logistical operations, degrading Russia’s combat abilities and compromising Moscow’s capacity to move its forces around the battlefield.

In recent days, the tempo and range of attacks deep inside Russian-held territory have increased. While Ukraine’s military has not explicitly claimed responsibility, local Russian proxy officials in occupied areas have reported strikes.

The State of the War

Wagner Group: Days after the capture of Bakhmut, the private military company said that it was turning the Ukrainian city over to the Russian Army, which must now try to hold on to it without the mercenary force’s help.
Old Bombs: Ukrainian and American officials say Russian warplanes are dropping Soviet-era bombs, which are harder to shoot down, over Ukraine.
Kremlin Drone Attack: U.S. officials said the drone attack on the Kremlin this month was most likely orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units.
Attacks in Russia: Anti-Kremlin fighters aligned with Ukraine led a rare cross-border assault into southern Russia. The raid appeared partly intended to force Moscow to divert its soldiers from the battlefield.

Adding to speculation that the start of a counteroffensive was near, internet and telecommunications went down in some Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine late Friday.

NetBlocks, which tracks internet outages around the world, said internet service was disrupted on the Crimean Peninsula and in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine — including in the town of Enerhodar, where Russian forces are occupying Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Internet service also went down in Berdiansk and Melitopol, two strategically important cities that Russia has turned into military strongholds, according to Netblocks.

“The reason for the internet outage is interruptions in the work of the Russian internet provider Miranda Media, which operates in Crimea,” the organization reported.

The outage came as Russia and Ukraine accused each other of preparing a provocation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is not far from the front line. On Saturday, the morning after Ukrainian military intelligence warned that Russia was preparing to “simulate an accident” at the plant, Ukrainian officials said the night had passed without incident.

Image

A member of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade driving past destroyed vehicles on a road outside Bakhmut, Ukraine, this month. Ukrainian commanders believe the vicious, monthslong battle has degraded the Russian forces ahead of their planned counteroffensive.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Ukrainian officials have been deliberately vague in outlining their military plans, most likely in hopes of maintaining an element of surprise in what has become a widely telegraphed campaign. They have said that the counteroffensive would not be marked by a single event and would probably feature feints and deceptions at the outset.

At the same time, Ukrainian officials also have sought to temper expectations, warning of a long and bloody fight in the months to come.

Russia still controls more than 40,000 square miles of land across southern and eastern Ukraine, which amounts to about 17 percent of the country, and have had months to fortify their defensive positions.

While Kyiv continues to seek more advanced weapons for its forces, senior Ukrainian and Western officials have said in recent days that Ukrainian forces have what they need to launch the counteroffensive.

And the arsenal will continue to grow. A week after President Biden told U.S. allies that he would allow Ukrainian pilots to be trained on American-made F-16 fighter jets, a step toward eventually letting other countries give the planes to Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers started training in Germany on how to operate and maintain American M1 Abrams tanks, according to the Pentagon.

Image

Ukrainian soldiers have begun training for M1 Abrams tanks like these taking part in a military exercise in Latvia in 2021. But the tanks won’t reach the battlefield until the fall, Defense Department officials have said. Credit...Valda Kalnina/EPA, via Shutterstock

About 200 of the troops — roughly one armored battalion — on Friday began conducting what the military calls combined arms instruction at training ranges in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels, Germany, Lt. Col. Garron Garn, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

That instruction includes basic soldiering tasks like marksmanship and medical skills, along with training at platoon and company levels, and eventually larger exercises involving battalion-size units facing off against one another.

The other 200 Ukrainian soldiers began training on how to fuel and maintain the tanks, Colonel Garn said.

Defense Department officials had previously said that about 31 tanks would be sent to Germany to be used in a training program for Ukrainian troops that is expected to take 10 to 12 weeks. Combat-ready tanks could reach the battlefields in Ukraine by the fall, the officials have said.

Initially, American defense officials had said that the M1 Abrams tanks would not arrive in Ukraine until next year. But since January, when the Biden administration reversed its longstanding resistance and announced that it would send the tanks, senior defense officials have said that they wanted to speed up the timeline.

As with the fighter jets, the delivery of the M1 Abrams tanks and trained crews would be months away, perhaps too late to have any impact on a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian forces have received dozens of advanced Leopard II tanks as well as scores of Bradley fighting vehicles and other armor.

While the timing of the counteroffensive remained unclear, the statement from General Zaluzhnyi was the most direct indication that the hour was drawing near.

The video that accompanied his statement was broadcast on national television and quickly spread across social media platforms.

Entitled “Prayer for the Liberation of Ukraine” — a nod to a nationalist poem from the 1920s — it featured Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle and vowing to “destroy” their enemies.

“Bless our decisive offensive!” the soldiers chant.

Marc Santora is the international news editor based in London, focusing on breaking news events. He was previously the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. @MarcSantoraNYT

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared four Pulitzer Prizes. @EricSchmittNYT

15. 'Murderers' and 'criminals': Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

At first I wanted to laugh and then I thought about how this reflects our current culture and society. We have an epidemic of "conspiracy theorism." Climate change debates notwithstanding, I want to dismiss the conspiracy theorists as crazies but we surely cannot have this many crazy people in society. What is going on?

'Murderers' and 'criminals': Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists | CNN

CNN · by Laura Paddison · May 27, 2023

CNN —

“Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.”

These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of its buildings.

Abuse and harassment “have always happened” against the agency’s scientists, Estrella Gutiérrez-Marco, spokesperson for AEMET, told CNN.

But there has been a rapid rise recently, coinciding with extreme weather in Spain. A severe drought has shrunk water levels to alarming lows, exacerbated by record-breaking April temperatures.

The abuse got so bad that in April, AEMET posted a video on Twitter calling for an end to the harassment, and asking for respect. Even the government intervened. Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition, posted on Twitter in support of the agency: “Lying, giving wings to conspiracy and fear, insulting … It is time to say enough.”

The harassment of meteorologists by conspiracy theorists and climate deniers is not a phenomenon confined to Spain.

National weather services, meteorologists and climate communicators in countries from the US to Australia say they’re experiencing an increase in threats and abuse, often around accusations they are overstating, lying about or even controlling the weather.

Usually submerged ruins of the former village of Aceredo, appearing from the Lindoso hydroelectric plant reservoir due to the low water level, near Lobios, northwestern Spain, on February 15, 2022.

Cermelo Alen/AFP/Getty Images

In Spain’s case, much of the trolling revolves around the rehashing of an old conspiracy theory: so-called “chemtrails.”

Under many of the agency’s Twitter posts, especially those that refer to more extreme weather, users have posted images of blue skies, crisscrossed with wispy, white trails. They falsely claim the trails contain a cocktail of chemicals to artificially manipulate the weather – keeping rain away and causing climate change.

It’s a theory roundly rejected by scientists.

Airplanes do release vapor trails called contrails, short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines.

But scientists have been clear: There is no evidence “chemtrails” exist.

‘One of the hardest experiences’

In April, meteorologist Isabel Moreno wrote a tweet saying “rain skips Spain,” with an image of a band of rain stretching across Europe but missing Spain almost entirely. She was completely unprepared for the response.

“It was one of the hardest experiences in social media in my life,” said Moreno, who appears on the Spanish TV channel RTVE. “I received HUNDREDS of responses to an (apparently) inoffensive tweet,” she told CNN in an email.

Many accused her of covering up weather manipulation.

“Do not take us for idiots,” said one. “They dry us up, and you are the spokesperson for those who do it,” said another. And on, and on.

While there were plenty of supportive messages, too, it was scary, Moreno said. “I have never seen either that amount of responses nor that level of aggression.” It took days for her to be able to go onto Twitter again without feeling anxious or stressed.

Fred Pleitgen/CNN

Disappearing lakes, dead crops and trucked-in water: Drought-stricken Spain is running dry

This phenomenon may be particularly pronounced in Spain, but it spreads much wider.

In France, meteorologists have been accused of exaggerating the country’s drought and heat.

Météo France, the French national meteorological service, said the agency’s communications are “the object of more and more repeated attacks,” a Météo France spokesman told CNN.

Climate misinformation on social media is particularly widespread, he said. It “seems to be on the rise, both in terms of the number of attacks directed against scientific publications but also the increasingly aggressive tone of the insults.”

In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology has been bombarded with criticism of its reporting of temperature records, with claims they have been inflated to make climate change seem worse. A spokeswoman for BOM called these claims inaccurate. “The Bureau transparently reports on and provides access to its very large climate data records,” she said.

And in the UK, meteorologists reported unprecedented levels of online harassment during last year’s record-breaking heat wave, which led to the first-ever “red warning” for heat.

“As scientists communicated this information, they were accused of instigating a nanny state hysteria,” Liz Bentley, the chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, told CNN.

The Met Office was even accused of changing the color palette of its maps to make them look more dramatic. “We hadn’t, it was just really hot,” Oliver Claydon, a communications officer at the Met Office, told CNN.

Firefighters contain a wildfire on July 20, 2022, in Sheffield, England. Multiple fires broke out across the UK during a record-breaking heatwave.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

US meteorologists and climate communicators have not escaped the barrage of abuse and conspiracies.

“Whenever I posted about global topics, like the yearly temperature report, the comments section would be filled with political jabs and conspiracy theories,” said Elisa Raffa, a broadcast meteorologist with Queen City News, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As a woman in the media, she more often receives comments about her appearance than the science she’s communicating, she told CNN.

Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, said she’s seen a ramp up of abuse lately.

“I receive almost daily verbal declarations of my ignorance and climate alarmism,” she told CNN.

An erosion of trust

Some disinformation experts draw a straight line from the conspiracies that flourished during the Covid pandemic – when experts faced a slew of abuse – to the uptick in climate conspiracies.

People need “trending” topics on which to hang these theories, said Alexandre López-Borrull, a lecturer in the Information and Communication Sciences Department at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain.

As Covid-19 fades from the headlines, climate change has become a strong rallying point. There’s been a big increase in “insults directed at all organizations related to the weather,” he told CNN.

“It’s a logical evolution of the broader trend around pushback on institutions, and the erosion of trust,” said Jennie King, the head of Climate Research and Policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focused on disinformation and extremism.

These kinds of conspiracies are usually grounded in the idea that a set of institutions is “using the pretext of climate change, or the pretext of solving public policy issues, to enact some insidious agenda,” she told CNN.

And the weather is an easy way in. Many aspects of climate science can feel very technical or abstract, but the weather is something people interact with frequently, said King.

“It’s a much more immediate way to bring a wider audience into that skepticism … planting seeds of doubt against the climate agenda writ large,” she said.

The Hoover Dam on September 16, 2022, in Boulder City, Nevada. Climate change fueled drought has pushed Lake Mead's water levels to historic lows.

David McNew/Getty Images

The role meteorologists have in explaining how climate change affects the weather, especially extreme weather, is a particular flashpoint.

Extreme weather can be alarming, especially when there are consequences and sacrifices, such as Spain’s water restrictions.

Conspiracy theories feed on this fear by offering a simple, enticing explanation, said López-Borrull. It’s easier to believe climate change is fake, or a manipulation by powerful people, than get your head around the complex problem and what it means for society.

“Change is hard and scary,” Francis said

‘I’m just trying to do my job’

It’s difficult to combat conspiracy theories when they bubble up. Some experts say they offer simple charts and rebuttals when they can, but try to ignore those who come in bad faith.

Doug McNeall, a climate scientist and statistician at the Met Office Hadley Centre, a UK research center, said that, as a scientist, he welcomes being challenged. “If people come with better evidence, and you change your mind, that’s good,” he told CNN.

But that’s not been his recent experience. “These people were not coming with better evidence,” he said. “They were coming to stop us talking about climate science.” He now relies much more on the block button.

Moreno echoed this. “I find it very difficult to change the minds of people that really have strong beliefs in these conspiracies,” she said. It’s easier to prevent the ideas from taking hold in people in the first place by tackling the myths and explaining how the atmosphere works, she added.

This kind of communication can really help, said King. Some of the best initiatives are “when media outlets or scientific institutions really try to demystify the process of how they produce public interest data,” she said.

A man rides a bicycle in a pedestrian area as part of an expansion of the "superilla" (superblock) plan promoting cycling and car-free zones in Barcelona on November 14, 2020. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP) (Photo by JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)

Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

How '15-minute cities' turned into an international conspiracy theory

King worries about the impact of these conspiracies on climate politics. “If we want to implement any policies, ambitious or not, around the environmental agenda, and the acute crisis of climate change, it does now seem that this is going to rear its head,” she said.

López-Borrull hopes meteorologists and climate communicators will persevere and not be pushed away from online spaces.

“The answer is not disappearing or closing social media profiles … they have to remain on social media because they are really useful,” López-Borrull said.

But as the climate crisis causes more extreme weather, harassment could increase even further.

And it takes a toll, said Raffa.

“I think it’s easy for people to forget I’m human, some of those comments can be hurtful. I’m just trying to do my job.”

CNN · by Laura Paddison · May 27, 2023

16. Rapprochement Is Fragile as US, China Put Irritants Aside

Rapprochement Is Fragile as US, China Put Irritants Aside

May 26, 2023 8:31 PM

Patsy Widakuswara

voanews.com

white house —

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, Thursday, the first Cabinet-level engagement in months between the world’s two largest economies.

The pair raised export policies, trade and investment issues that have been straining bilateral ties, in an exchange Raimondo’s office described as “candid and substantive.”

Wang also met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum trade ministers meeting Friday in Detroit, Michigan.

The meetings took place days after President Joe Biden signaled a thaw in relations that have taken a downturn since a U.S. fighter jet shot a suspected Chinese espionage balloon over American territory in February. That incident caused bipartisan uproar in the U.S. and led to the cancellation of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s scheduled visit to Beijing.

However, in a May 10-11 meeting between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Communist Party diplomat Wang Yi, both sides appeared to put the matter behind them.

FILE - Sailors prepare material recovered off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C., from the shooting down of a Chinese high-altitude balloon, for transport to the FBI, at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach, Va., Feb. 10, 2023.

Taking down the balloon was “a clear message that we will not tolerate violations of U.S. airspace,” Sullivan told VOA during a May 17 press briefing. “We have made our point.”

Why now?

Beyond the desire to show that it can manage great-power competition with China and to seek cooperation on various issues from fighting climate change to stopping fentanyl trafficking, Washington is looking for Beijing to be a constructive force in the war on Ukraine, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center.

Meanwhile, China is seeking to leverage a transactional relationship on issues it cares about. In the high-tech industry, for example, she told VOA that although it's inevitable that the U.S. will reduce or end its dependence on China, Beijing sees room to negotiate on specific industries, companies or products.

A mutual driving factor is the APEC leaders meeting that the U.S. is set to host in San Francisco in November, said Dennis Wilder, former National Security Council director for China, who is now a senior fellow for the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University.

President Xi Jinping believes that China is one of APEC’s founding members, Wilder told VOA, so “it's important to him from a national prestige point of view to be there.” Meanwhile, Biden wants “as many world leaders there as possible, except for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

Should Xi attend the APEC summit, there’s opportunity for a separate summit with Biden, their second face-to-face engagement as presidents since the pair met at the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Bali last November. However, with less than six months, observers say time is running out to lay the groundwork for a meeting.

Irritants remain

"With this more conciliatory language, the Biden administration is making a sensible attempt to achieve detente in what is, essentially, a cold war relationship,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

However, since neither Washington nor Beijing has reconsidered its goals or its assessments of itself or its rival, warming ties will not change the fundamental direction of U.S.-China relations, Daly told VOA.

Many irritants that could threaten the fragile rapprochement remain, including a planned executive order establishing an outbound investment screening mechanism that would restrict American companies seeking to invest in China’s semiconductor and other critical technology sectors.

There is speculation in Washington that the executive order has been temporarily put on hold to smooth out relations, but the Chinese expect it to happen at some point, said Yun.

“That does not necessarily help to build up their willingness to cooperate,” she said.

Beijing is also anxious about the results of the FBI-led investigation of the remnants of the Chinese balloon. The FBI, the State Department and the White House did not provide answers to VOA’s queries on when the administration would release the findings.

If the administration does not proceed with the executive order, Congress will likely push for legislation to do so, Wilder said.

"I can't explain why there isn't more pressure on the balloon report from Congress,” he told VOA. “That one is a little perplexing to me.”

Beijing has also hit back on the action plan to counter “economic coercion” targeting China, which the Group of Seven leading democracies released following their recent summit. The day after the G-7 announcement, Beijing banned products from U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. in computer systems that handle sensitive information, saying they posed security risks without providing details.

FILE - A sign marks the entrance of a Micron Technology chip manufacturing plant on Feb. 11, 2022, in Manassas, Va.

“How do they respond to criticism over economic coercion? With economic coercion,” said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, in a Wednesday briefing to reporters.

However, Kirby underscored that the Micron deal would not torpedo broader goals of reopening communication lines, noting that the relationship is complicated, and turbulence is expected.

"That doesn't mean that the work shouldn't go on to try to get things back into a better position,” he said.

What to watch for

A key indicator of further warming ties is whether Beijing will agree to Washington’s request for a meeting between U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on defense in Singapore next week.

China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said Washington should first lift sanctions against Li, to “create [a] favorable atmosphere and conditions for dialogue and communication.”

Li, who became defense minister in March, was placed under sanctions in 2018 by the Trump administration for his role in China’s purchase of Russian combat aircraft and equipment.

Biden said last week that the matter was “under negotiation.” However, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller later told VOA the administration was not considering lifting those sanctions.

Other indicators to watch are more high-level visits to Beijing by American officials, including climate envoy John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Raimondo.

Jeff Seldin and Nike Ching contributed to this report.

voanews.com

17. US mulls new 'cyber army' to counter digital threats from China, Russia

US mulls new 'cyber army' to counter digital threats from China, Russia

firstpost.com · by Ajeyo Basu · May 26, 2023

World

Strategy makers in the United States (US), including lawmakers, have been mulling over the issue with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea showing both intent and ability in launching cyberattacks against US interests

May 26, 2023 14:18:08 IST

Operators with the US Cyber Command have reported that they were forced to carry out an online defensive operation in Albania in order to ward off cyberattacks against the local government last year Image Courtesy Reuters

The United States (US) is reportedly considering the possibility of creating a new military unit to fight cyberattacks by rival nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Strategy makers in the United States (US), including lawmakers, have been mulling over the issue with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea showing both intent and ability in launching cyberattacks against US interests.

A couple of recent cyberattacks have added more urgency to calls for a new US cyber force. Operators with the US Cyber Command have reported that they were forced to carry out an online defensive operation in Albania in order to ward off cyberattacks against the local government last year.

That cyberattack had shut down Albania’s online public services and websites. There have been allegations that Iran had carried out the cyberattack against the NATO member nation. Albania’s refusal to prosecute the Mojahedin-e-Khalq – a group opposed to the Iranian government – which has a presence in Albania was reportedly the reason for the Iranian cyberattack.

The second incident took place in February this year when a ransomware attack took place against the US Marshals Service. This cyberattack compromised data on law enforcement operations, high-security people, and fugitives.

These cyberattacks have forced the US Congress to call for an assessment of the costs, benefits, and values of establishing a uniform service to safeguard American interests in cyberspace.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,

India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Updated Date: May 26, 2023 14:18:08 IST

firstpost.com · by Ajeyo Basu · May 26, 2023

18. Communists Crumbling in the Philippines

Eastern Mindanao. When Duterte was Mayor of Davao City he pledged to rid the area of Communists and he employed very hard line tactics. I guess he was not successful.

DEFENSE/SECURITY

Communists Crumbling in the Philippines

Philippines’ Maoist rebels in decline but remain a threat in Eastern Mindanao and the Visayas

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/communists-crumbling-philippines?r=7i07&utm_source=pocket_saves

MAY 26, 2023

By: Michael Hart

“The greatest stumbling block to peace for the Philippines is gone.” That was the reaction of the Philippine government in December after the death of New People’s Army (NPA) leader Jose Maria Sison, aged 83, in exile in the Netherlands. Sison had led the Maoist rebel movement—which has waged war against Manila’s forces across the archipelagic nation since 1969—since its beginnings, having founded the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) a year earlier. The NPA, as the CPP’s armed wing, has battled since then to replace the government with a socialist one-party state.

At its peak during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the 1980s, the NPA could count on 25,000 fighters and regularly ambushed government troops and police officers on patrol in the countryside. For decades, the NPA has exerted control over rural communities through intimidation, threats of violent retribution for opponents, and the collection of so-called “revolutionary taxes.”

Yet according to the Philippine military, the NPA’s days are numbered. Just before Sison’s passing, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported that only 24 of 89 guerilla fronts remained active nationwide, with the group’s strength having reduced from 4,000 rebels in recent years to 2,112. It is estimated that just 1,800 firearms remain in its arsenal. And now, with no figurehead having emerged to replace Sison, the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has the NPA in its sights, four decades after his father’s failed quest to end the insurgency under martial law.

Leadership vacuum

The leadership void at the top of the NPA is stark. Sison’s most obvious successors—Benito and Wilma Tiamzon—were recently confirmed by the CPP to have died last year in a disputed clash with the military in Catbalogan on the island of Samar, 750 km south of Manila. Benito, 71, had served as chair of the CPP’s executive committee while his wife Wilma, 70, was secretary-general. Both had been allies of Sison since their days as youth activists in the 1960s. His only other potential successor, Luis Jalandoni, is 87 and has lived in exile for years. It appears there is no one with the stature of Sison to inspire the next generation.

The military has been keen to draw attention to the NPA’s struggles. The Armed Forces chief in the Visayas, covering the Philippines’ central belt of provinces, Maj.-Gen. Benedict Arevalo, has said the NPA is “drastically degraded” in the region. In the eastern Visayas, the NPA is leaderless after losing four key commanders over the past year, and the AFP claims “no one is giving [the rebels] instructions.” According to the AFP, only two NPA fronts remain in the region, with around 200 fighters each. Most are thought to be hiding out in the mountains of Samar and largely refrain from attacking soldiers for fear it will expose their positions. Earlier this month, Arevalo said the remaining rebels in the eastern Visayas were “tired due to constant movement [between camps] and have no safe place to hide.”

In the western Visayas, the AFP claims NPA rebels are increasingly demoralized and have “no clear operational direction” after their commander Rogelio Posadas—responsible for operations in Bohol, Cebu, Siquijor, and Negros Island—was killed in an encounter with government soldiers. Troops have taken control of many remote villages previously under NPA influence, stymying rebel recruitment.

NPA nearing defeat?

In the NPA stronghold of eastern Mindanao, the trajectory is similar. Its most senior commander in the region, Menandro Villanueva, was killed by troops in Davao de Oro last year. The AFP says there are now just four active rebel fronts left in the region, down from 32 in 2017, when the AFP stepped up its campaign after peace talks with the CPP faltered under former president Rodrigo Duterte. The NPA’s losses have led his successor Marcos to declare that “half-a-century’s fight with insurgents is coming to an end.” The National Security Council (NSC) declared “strategic victory” over the NPA in April, and said it foresees the AFP securing “total victory” against the rebels within two years.

The government credits the degrading of the NPA not only to AFP offensives, but also to the creation of a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in 2018. This body has engaged NPA commanders at the local level, and encouraged insurgents to lay down their arms in return for livelihood support under the Enhanced-Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP). It has also directed development funds to rebel-influenced villages to blunt its rural support base.

The NTF-ELCAC was established by Duterte after he ended national-level negotiations with the CPP leadership. Marcos has rejected resuming talks and persisted with Duterte’s strategy. Arguably, after Sison’s death and the demise of the Tiamzons, there is now nobody left to negotiate with. Manila hopes the symbolic blow of Sison’s death, and the resulting hit to morale, will lead more NPA rebels to surrender. There is controversy over exactly how many have surrendered to date—with the task force accused of listing NPA supporters and the family members of ex-rebels as former combatants.

Isolated strongholds

The CPP has acknowledged suffering setbacks but denies the extent of losses from its ranks. It also rejects claims by the AFP that few rebel fronts remain active. Is the NPA really on the brink of defeat after Sison’s death, as the AFP claims? Looking at rebel activity in 2023 indicates that it is struggling.

From January 1 to May 23, the NPA has been active in 29 provinces, with at least 70 armed clashes and violent incidents involving the group. This indicates a rebel presence across wide swaths of the NPA’s historical areas of operation, from northern Luzon to Mindanao. The NPA is, however, firmly on the retreat, with proactive roadside ambushes and bombings an increasingly rare occurrence. This is borne out by the casualty figures from clashes so far this year, with 68 NPA rebels killed compared to just six AFP troops.* Most clashes were initiated by government soldiers, either while encountering rebels on routine patrol or during targeted intelligence-based operations.

NPA activity has remained prevalent in Eastern Mindanao, Samar, Masbate, and Negros Island, indicating that the group is still holding out in some of its traditional strongholds. Yet even in these areas, the rebels’ influence over residents has significantly reduced as the NPA lacks the capacity it once had to coerce entire rural communities into compliance. Arson attacks on firms that refuse to bow to extortion demands, and raids on businesses to steal weapons from private security guards, are becoming much less frequent, limiting the rebels’ ability to sustain and finance their campaign.

Rebel amnesty?

With the NPA in decline, the government may yet bolster AFP offensives and the efforts of the NTF-ELCAC with an amnesty law, aiming to persuade remaining rebels to surrender without the threat of facing court over already-filed criminal charges. The NTF-ELCAC has recommended the amnesty to President Marcos, while AFP chief Gen. Andres Centino has said the military would support it. If such a law is enacted, as was the case for a smaller, now-defunct Maoist rebel group, the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), the NPA will struggle to hold on to its fighters.

The CPP maintains that rank-and-file NPA members will not defect, retorting that any amnesty offer would be “rejected by revolutionaries who are whole-heartedly committed to serving the oppressed and exploited masses.” If that is true, the CPP must hope this ideology, which has sustained its five-decade insurgency in the Philippine countryside, does not perish with its founder Jose Maria Sison.

*Data on areas of NPA activity, violent events, and casualties in 2023 is from this author’s monitoring of incident reports.

Michael Hart has researched for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), and is publications consultant at the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. He blogs at Asia Conflict Watch.

19. US to launch multiple construction projects at Philippine military bases

I think the mutual defense of the Philippines will allow the US to stockpile supplies and ammunition for the the possible operations to defensd the Philippines.

Excerpts:

The construction will happen after Manila agreed under the EDCA to permit Washington to have access to more Philippine bases amid tensions between China and the U.S. over Taiwan and between China, Taiwan and countries that have contending territorial claims in the South China Sea.

While Aguilar did not say how much would be spent for the projects, the foreign affairs department previously said that Washington had informed Manila about plans to spend at least U.S. $100 million for upgrades at a total of nine military bases, which U.S. troops can access under the agreement.

The EDCA is a supplemental agreement to the Visiting Forces Agreement, a pact that specifically grants legal cover to large-scale joint maneuvers by the two longtime allies. In addition, the two nations are bound by the 1951 Mutual Defense Agreement to aid each other if one comes under attack.

Earlier this month, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told a security forum in Washington that Philippine bases would not be used to stage attacks against a third country.

Instead, he played down widespread public fears here that the Philippines would be embroiled in conflict should China attack Taiwan, a U.S. ally considered a renegade province by China.

US to launch multiple construction projects at Philippine military bases

Manila agreed to permit access amid tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan.

BenarNews staff

2023.05.25

Manila

rfa.org

The U.S. military plans to construct more than a dozen projects at four Philippine sites, including bases it will use under a newly expanded defense deal, a Filipino armed forces spokesman said Thursday.

The United States will fund and build 14 projects at locations, including the Lal-lo Airport in the northern province of Cagayan, which directly faces Taiwan, and on Balabac, an island in Palawan province that faces the South China Sea. The projects will include improvements at Naval Base Camilo Osias in Cagayan and at an army camp in Isabela, another province on the main northern Philippines island of Luzon, the military said.

Philippine military spokesman Col. Medel Aguilar said the projects consist of the construction of a pier, rehabilitation of a runway, establishment of a command-and-control fusion system and construction of a mess hall and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response hangars.

“On the new sites, we have identified the projects in those areas,” Aguilar told reporters as he emphasized that the projects were aligned with military goals.

The projects “will strengthen our capabilities because these EDCA sites will facilitate the conduct of training,” Aguilar said, referring to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, a bilateral pact that was broadened earlier this year.

Not for staging attacks

The construction will happen after Manila agreed under the EDCA to permit Washington to have access to more Philippine bases amid tensions between China and the U.S. over Taiwan and between China, Taiwan and countries that have contending territorial claims in the South China Sea.

While Aguilar did not say how much would be spent for the projects, the foreign affairs department previously said that Washington had informed Manila about plans to spend at least U.S. $100 million for upgrades at a total of nine military bases, which U.S. troops can access under the agreement.

The EDCA is a supplemental agreement to the Visiting Forces Agreement, a pact that specifically grants legal cover to large-scale joint maneuvers by the two longtime allies. In addition, the two nations are bound by the 1951 Mutual Defense Agreement to aid each other if one comes under attack.

Earlier this month, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told a security forum in Washington that Philippine bases would not be used to stage attacks against a third country.

Instead, he played down widespread public fears here that the Philippines would be embroiled in conflict should China attack Taiwan, a U.S. ally considered a renegade province by China.

In the Philippines, U.S. troops may position assets at EDCA sites to respond to emergency situations, including natural disasters.

“If we will be attacked, of course we can use that. Only if we are attacked, which is remote from happening,” Aguilar said.

'Common dangers'

The defense treaty says each party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific region on either party “would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”

The treaty notes that such an attack “is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the Island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific Ocean, its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.”

Aguilar said projects to be implemented at the new EDCA sites were “discussed at the higher level and as I have said, it’s aligned with the modernization program, the capability upgrade.

“Therefore, it is also us who identified [the sites] and it was agreed on both sides,” he said.

In April when the four bases were revealed, the U.S. Department of Defense said the locations would allow Washington “to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Jojo Riñoza in Manila contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

rfa.org

20. On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

dailysignal.com · by Dakota Wood · May 26, 2023

The war in Ukraine, brutally slogging along some 5,000 miles from the U.S., involves another people but it serves as a reminder to Americans of what it takes to keep one’s country safe, free, and prosperous. It also reminds us that there are dangers in this world that can only be stopped by people willing to put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us.

People are the heart of a nation’s strength, especially those comparatively few who step forward to serve their community and their country in military service. Wars are rather rare, but the nation’s future can hang in the balance when war comes and the loss of life that results in defeating an enemy can number in the thousands, sometimes the tens of thousands.

Our history is punctuated with such crises and sacrifices. Citizen-patriots rose to the challenge of securing America’s birth nearly 250 years ago, with some 8,000 new Americans giving their all to defend our fledgling republic.

The Civil War, two world wars, operations against terrorists who have attacked America at home and Americans abroad, and wars to protect U.S. interests not just in our hemisphere but also in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, have resulted in the loss of nearly 700,000 Americans.

These men and women did not seek death; it came to them through their service. Their motivations included protecting the lives of those they loved; defending their homeland that has provided opportunity and freedom previously unknown in history; and facing dangers loyally alongside their brothers and sisters with whom they trained, deployed, and surged into combat as they answered their nation’s call.

These warriors were someone’s son or daughter; they might have been a husband or wife, father or mother, sister or brother. They were surely friends. They meant something to someone, and their loss struck deep to those whose lives they touched. These realities are why we have memorials to the fallen; cemeteries dedicated to their internment; poems, books, songs, and speeches written in their honor; and specific occasions, like Memorial Day, set aside on which to reflect on all of this.

This Memorial Day, take a moment to think about what our country would be like without the sacrifice made by those who ensured our birth as a nation, who maintained our union, and who have defended our homeland and way of life across two and a half centuries.

Many people serve in a vast number of ways. But some have served to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice. Remembering them is the point of Memorial Day.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

dailysignal.com · by Dakota Wood · May 26, 2023

21. The coming Russian revolution will unleash horrifying new demons

The coming Russian revolution will unleash horrifying new demons

By Ben Riley-Smith, David Millward, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Nick Allen, Sam Hall, Richard Kemp, Karl Williams The Telegraph3 min

May 25, 2023

View Original

Bakhmut stands as an allegory of the entire Russian war so far – inflicting huge damage at great cost and to no advantage. If it continues in this vein, Prigozhin’s vision of revolution is not impossible. He spoke of 1917, when soldiers and their families stood up against the Russian government. But you don’t need to go back that far to draw even closer parallels to what is happening today. The war in Afghanistan played a major role in the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Originally conceived as a short-term intervention, like Ukraine, the campaign in fact went on for 10 years and cost more than 15,000 Soviet lives. Defeat at the hands of US-armed mujahideen fighters humiliated and discredited the Soviet army, vitiating the glue that was so essential in holding the country together. Loss of perception of military invincibility emboldened dissidents including disaffected war veterans and their families, especially in the non-Russian republics which provided a disproportionate quantity of the fighting troops – and the casualties.

Afghanistan also undermined the confidence of Soviet leaders to rely on the army to quell rebellion. Anti-war feeling grew among the population as the conflict ground on and casualties built up, causing a fundamental shift in the hitherto compliant media, which began to publish non-approved news stories about what was going on in the war and at home.

All of these effects are more acute today, with vastly greater casualties in a much shorter time, inflicted on a significantly smaller population. And in an era where the internet and social media throws military ineptitude under a much more intense spotlight than was ever imaginable back in the days of Afghanistan.

The impact of a catastrophically failing war could perhaps be weathered better in a country with greater structural resilience. But the Russian Federation is hyper-fragile, with its energy dependent economy ruptured by sanctions, rampant corruption increasingly resented by a population with limited prospects of prosperity further diminished by war, growing ethnic resentments among non-Russian populations who have paid the highest price in the fighting, and a political system totally dependent on Putin’s cult of personality that has now been harshly exposed as damaged goods.

If this war does lead to fundamental change in the Russian Federation it is likely to follow a much rockier road than the break-up of the Soviet Union. One thing we should not expect to see is an emergent regime that wants to end the war, usher in a new democracy and establish cordial relations with the West.

Don’t expect another Mikhail Gorbachev. Instead, we could well be looking at a protracted scenario of chaos, violence, rebellion and repression, with fighting between the Russian army, national guard, security services, the plethora of private armies and perhaps Prighozin’s vision of mobs on the streets with pitchforks. Even if it doesn't collapse into ethnic fiefdoms, it will be fought over by competing hardliners incensed by the betrayal of their forces by a corrupt elite.

None of this might happen of course, but we should remember that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was unexpected both in scale and speed; it was too big to fail. If, however, something like it does come to pass, the fall of the Russian Federation might diminish the present threat it presents to European and global security.

But this time, let’s not hear any talk of “peace dividends”, because we can be certain of one thing – Russia will rebuild itself and once again come out fighting.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army officer. He was an infantry battalion commander and saw active duty in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan

22. Why China and Japan are praying the US won't default

I am praying right along with them.

Why China and Japan are praying the US won't default | CNN Business

CNN · by Laura He · May 25, 2023

The US is now 9 days away from potentially defaulting on its debt

05:09 - Source: CNN

Hong Kong CNN —

As the clock ticks down toward an unprecedented US debt default, the world’s second- and third-biggest economies are watching in fear.

China and Japan are the largest foreign investors in American government debt. Together they own $2 trillion — more than a quarter — of the $7.6 trillion in US Treasury securities held by foreign countries.

Beijing started to ramp up buying of US Treasuries in 2000, when the United States effectively endorsed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, triggering an export boom. That generated vast amounts of dollars for China and it needed a safe place to stash them.

US Treasury bonds are widely regarded as one of the safest investments on Earth, and China’s holdings of US government debt ballooned from $101 billion to peak at $1.3 trillion in 2013.

China was the largest foreign creditor to the United States for more than a decade. But an escalation of tensions with the Trump administration in 2019 saw Beijing pare back its holdings, and Japan surpassed China as the top creditor that year.

Tokyo now holds $1.1 trillion, to China’s $870 billion, and that heavy exposure means both countries are vulnerable to a potential crash in the value of US Treasuries if the doomsday scenario for Washington were to unfold.

The US Treasury building in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 13, 2023.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

America's borrowing is its superpower. A default would tarnish that

“Japan and China’s large Treasury holdings could hurt them if the value of Treasuries plummets,” said Josh Lipsky and Phillip Meng, analysts from the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

The falling value of Treasuries would lead to a drop in Japan and China’s foreign reserves. That means they would have less money available to pay for essential imports, service their own foreign debts, or prop up their national currencies.

Nevertheless, the “real risk” comes from the global economic fallout and likely US recession that could follow from a default, they said.

“That is a serious concern for all countries but poses a particular risk to China’s fragile economic recovery,” Lipsky and Meng said.

After an initial burst in activity following the abrupt lifting of pandemic restrictions late last year, China’s economy is now sputtering as consumption, investments, and industrial output all show signs of slowing. Deflationary pressure has worsened as consumer prices barely moved during the past few months. Another major concern is the soaring unemployment rate for young people, which hit a record level of 20.4% in April.

Japan’s economy, meanwhile, is just showing signs of emerging from stagnation and deflation, which have haunted the country for decades.

Devastating impact

Even if the US government runs out of money and extraordinary measures to pay all its bills — a scenario that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said could happen as early as June 1 — the likelihood of a US default may still be low.

Some US lawmakers have proposed prioritizing the payment of interest on bonds to the biggest bondholders.

This would be done at the expense of other obligations, such as payment of government pensions and salaries to government employees, but would stave off major debt defaults to the likes of Japan and China, said Alex Capri, senior lecturer at NUS Business School.

A shop owner shows grilled meat during a barbecue festival on April 29, 2023 in Zibo, Shandong Province of China. The city Zibo became a tourism hot spot after videos of its barbecue went viral online.

VCG/Getty Images

A barbecue frenzy is gripping China. Can street food revive the economy?

And without a clear alternative, in response to rising market volatility investors could swap shorter term bonds for longer term debt. That could benefit China and Japan, because their holdings are concentrated in longer-term US Treasuries, according to Lipsky and Meng from the Atlantic Council.

That said, broader financial contagion and economic recession are a much bigger threat.

“A debt default in the US would mean a fall in US Treasury prices, a rise in interest rates, a fall in the value of the dollar, and increased volatility,” said Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“It would also likely be accompanied by a fall in the US stock market, increased stress on the US banking sector, and increased stress on the real estate sector.”

That could lead the interconnected global economy and financial markets to stumble, too.

China and Japan are dependent on the world’s biggest economy to support companies and jobs at home. The export sector is especially crucial to China, as other pillars of the economy — such as real estate — have faltered. Exports generate a fifth of China’s GDP and provide jobs for around 180 million people.

Despite rising geopolitical tension, the United States remains China’s single largest trading partner. It’s also the second largest for Japan. In 2022, US-China trade hit a record high of $691 billion. Japan’s exports to America increased by 10% in 2022.

“As the US economy slowed, the impact would be transmitted through trade, depressing Chinese exports to the US, for example, and contributing to a global slowdown,” said Noland.

Deep concerns

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda expressed concerns last Friday, warning that a US debt default would cause turmoil in various markets and have serious consequences for the global economy.

“The Bank of Japan will strive to maintain market stability based on its pledge to respond flexibly with an eye on economic, price and financial developments,” he told parliament, according to Reuters.

People pass an electronic board showing the closing numbers on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in Tokyo on May 22, 2023.

Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

Japan's long-suffering stock market is back. This boom may have 'staying power'

Beijing, so far, has been relatively quiet on the matter. The foreign ministry commented Tuesday that it hopes the United States will “adopt responsible fiscal and monetary policies” and “refrain from passing on risks” to the world.

Chinese state news agency Xinhua published a column earlier this month, highlighting the “symbiotic relationship” the countries have in the US bond market.

“If the United States defaults on its debt, it will not only discredit the United States, but also bring real financial losses to China,” it said.

There’s nothing much Tokyo or Beijing can do, other than wait and hope for the best.

Hastily dumping US debt would be “self-defeating,” Capri said, as it would significantly drive up the value of the Japanese yen or the Chinese yuan against the dollar, causing the cost of their exports to “go through the roof.”

Longer-term benefits?

In the longer term, some analysts say a potential US default could push China to accelerate its drive to create a global financial system that is less dependent on the dollar.

The Chinese government has already struck a series of deals with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and France to increase the use of yuan in international trade and investment. A Russian lawmaker said last year the BRICS countries, namely China, Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa, are exploring the creation of a common currency for cross-border trade.

“This will certainly serve as a catalyst for China to continue to push the internationalization of the yuan, and for Beijing to double down on its efforts to bring its trading partners into the newly announced ‘BRICs Currency’ initiative,” Capri said.

However, China faces some serious obstacles, such as controls it applies to how much money can flow in and out of its economy. Analysts say Beijing has shown little willingness to fully integrate with global financial markets.

“A serious push for de-dollarization would see … much more volatile yuan trading,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Recent data from international payments system SWIFT showed that the yuan’s share of global trade financing was 4.5% in March, while the dollar accounted for 83.7%.

“There is still a long way to go before a credible alternative to the US dollar can emerge,” Lipsky and Meng said.

CNN · by Laura He · May 25, 2023

23. Brief: Abu Sayyaf Surrenders Indicate Growing Dysfunction

It has taken a long time. But over time the Armed Forces of the Philippines are becoming more and more effective and successful in dealing with the scourge of the ASG,

Brief: Abu Sayyaf Surrenders Indicate Growing Dysfunction

jamestown.org · by Jacob Zenn · May 26, 2023

On May 23, eight former Abu Sayyaf members surrendered to the Philippine government by handing over their guns and pledging loyalty to the state (manilatimes.net, May 26). This continues the broader depletion of the group’s ranks due to defections, which have put the group on the brink of extinction. Earlier this year, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson, Col. Medel Aguilar, went so far as to announce that Abu Sayyaf’s “reign of terror” had ended when 20 fighters under Abu Sayyaf commander Radullah Sahiron surrendered (inquirer.net, May 24).

Sahiron himself may be deceased, according to the AFP (gmanetwork.com, May 23). Since March, the AFP has been hearing rumors that the commander, who had participated in kidnappings of foreigners as early as 1993, is no longer active. Prior to his reported death, Sahiron’s most recent major operation was leading a battle in 2020 that led to the deaths of eight AFP soldiers (aljazeera.com, April 18, 2020).

Although many Abu Sayyaf commanders had pledged loyalty to Islamic State (IS), Sahiron was among the few, at least initially, to remain more “local,” displaying less eagerness to consider the group a part of IS (asiasentinel.com, June 19, 2018). While a majority of the most ardent IS-loyal commanders have been killed already, Sahiron’s departure from the scene would mean Abu Sayyaf’s local-oriented networks are also fraying. Besides leadership deaths, the group’s logistical web has been dismantled by the arrests of its key couriers (see Militant Leadership Monitor, May 5).

The latest Abu Sayyaf defections, however, are attributable to successful non-military efforts of the AFP and Philippine government. For example, the Abu Sayyaf members who surrendered on May 23 had first seen their funds cut off by the Anti-Money Laundering Council and then their recruitment disrupted by the local army brigade in Sulu, Mindanao. Ultimately, with little hope of any battle victories ahead, the Abu Sayyaf members surrendered. These militants were then inducted into the Balik Loob program, offering them education, livelihood, and social welfare benefits in exchange for their surrender (rappler.com, January 9).

Al-Qaeda and IS are both struggling with a high rate of leadership turnover (and few ideal, suitable replacements) as well as intense pressure on their entities in the Middle East. These Jihadist groups, then, are searching for a region from which they could source recruitment, funding, or win battles to use for propaganda purposes. Southeast Asia is proving to be increasingly hostile to such efforts; the region’s counter-insurgency forces, especially in the Philippines and Indonesia, have significantly reduced the threats that the Jihadist groups pose locally. Nonetheless, al-Qaeda and IS have found another region—Africa—where they can continue to conquer territory and showcase battlefield successes.

jamestown.org · by Jacob Zenn · May 26, 2023

24. Move Forward rejects talk of a US military base in Thailand and upholds its sovereignty

Move Forward rejects talk of a US military base in Thailand and upholds its sovereignty - Thai Examiner

thaiexaminer.com · by Carla Boonkong & Pranee O' Connor · May 26, 2023

Rangsiman Rome tells reporters that efforts by conservative elements or perhaps misinformation operations should stop as he clarifies the Move Forward foreign policy position. He told reporters that while the reports were ‘fake news’ he was opposed to the prosecution of anyone for sharing information like this but simply wished that people behind such efforts would cease in the interests of national unity.

The Move Forward firebrand and key leader of the party, Rangsiman Rome, has firmly denied that the party supports allowing the United States to establish a military base in Thailand. On Wednesday, he pointed to the balanced commitment concerning Thailand’s relationship with key world powers given in its Memorandum of Understanding or programme for government and stated that Move Forward would object to any such move as it is committed to protecting the country’s sovereignty. The controversy comes amid rising tensions between the United States and China with indications that Thailand’s neighbour Cambodia is forging stronger links with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) including, according to US officials, the construction of a Chinese naval base in the Gulf of Thailand.

Move Forward Party key figure and MP elect Rangsiman Rome ( centre right) this week as he strongly emphasised that the party objected to any plans to install a foreign military base on Thai soil and pointed to the Memorandum of Understanding signed this week with seven other parties which gave a commitment to upholding the country’s policy of balancing its relationship with key competing powers in Asia. It comes with reports that Cambodia is developing stronger ties with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and US reports that suggest a Chinese naval facility is under construction at Ream naval base on the Gulf of Thailand (inset left).

Top Move Forward Party MP-elect Rangsiman Rome has come out to forcefully deny what he suspects are malicious rumours suggesting that the Move Forward Party has an agenda to let the United States establish a military base in Thailand.

Mr Rome, who is tipped as a future minister, was speaking on Wednesday and was at pains to suggest that while people can find themselves duped or a victim of ‘fake news’ disseminated online which may be designed to damage his party, it would never consider prosecuting people for sharing information against it even where the allegations were false and misleading.

Rome believes reports are a clandestine operation sowing public unease about his party’s shock General Election win and efforts to form a government

Speaking with reporters, he suggested that the rumour which is being taken up by conservative elements in society may be some form of clandestine internal security operation such as have, in the past, targeted the Move Forward Party.

His comments come as conservative protests have taken place this week outside the American Embassy in Bangkok with activists suggesting that the United States played a role in the May 14th General Election which is seen as an earthquake for Thai politics with an outcome which has left the Move Forward Party in a position to establish a coalition representing 62% of MPs in parliament.

On Thursday, the Election Commission, as it moved to finalise the result of the poll by a July 13th deadline, confirmed that the Move Forward Party had lost one of its constituency MPs to the Bhumjaithai Party meaning it returned 151 MPs instead of 152 projected initially while the Bhumjaithai Party was elevated to 71 seats in the House of Representatives.

Reports of a US base in Thailand an old chestnut trotted out by activists in Thailand on the right and left. Election sees young aligned with US policy

On Wednesday, Mr Rangsiman told reporters that the story of a US base was an old chestnut raised by conservative and left-wing elements over the last twenty years to create unease.

The curious outcome of Thai politics over this period has been the alignment of middle-aged conservative voters with China and the Communist Party-led regime there while younger pro-democracy supporters have become more aligned with the United States and its liberal culture.

Mr Rangsiman said his party only engages with foreign groups or representatives to discuss education opportunities, trade and the promotion of Thailand’s economy.

Move Forward’s ‘Government of Hope’ coalition delivers a programme promising a new charter

He underlined that the Move Forward Party would oppose any such proposed US military base on Thai soil and that the party was committed in the Memorandum of Understanding between the eight-party coalition to support a neutral foreign policy while always upholding Thailand’s sovereignty.

Public should insist on facts and evidence

He said no country would be allowed to establish such a base in the kingdom under any new government led by his party.

He asked the public to question such information online and to insist on facts and hard evidence to support what is being said.

He also appealed to the suspected parties behind the dissemination of such rumours to desist as it was a useless exercise which only confuses the people.

He told reporters that the Move Forward Party aimed to lead a government for all the Thai people including those who politically oppose it and its policies as well as its supporters and base.

He said that the party wanted to see unity and peaceful understanding in the country.

Increased US naval presence and operations as China expands its footprint near Thailand including a naval base being constructed in the Gulf of Thailand

The move comes as the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has reversed decades of policy by allowing the United States military to establish bases in the country in what is seen as escalating military tensions between China and America over the South China Sea.

Ironclad partnership heralded as Marcos visits Washington amid raised South China Sea tensions

It also comes after a recent visit by the US Navy Nimitz carrier group to Thailand at the end of April with rising concern about the presence of Chinese military influence in Cambodia including reports, denied by both the Cambodian government and Beijing, that China has already begun construction of a naval base for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the Gulf of Thailand in the northern section of Ream Naval Base according to senior US officials in Washington DC.

Some analysts however have countered that what appear to be repairs and docking facilities being constructed at Ream Naval base with Chinese assistance, is a small development and only involves training being provided to the relatively small Cambodian navy of patrol boats by Chinese instructors without any confirmation that the facility will be used in the future by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.

Adding to US concerns, however, are reports that China has access to flight bases in Cambodia including at a new airport recently constructed in Siem Reap province while its armed forces are openly forging closer ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with such cooperation openly heralded and welcomed by Cambodian Prime Minister and strongman Hun Sen.

25. U.K. Royal Navy ‘Distressed and Concerned’ by Illegal Chinese Salvage of WWII Wrecks

If I were advising AUKUS I would fund large scale private efforts to recover our ships through the INDOPACIFIC. It could be a lucrative business for some former naval special operators to form companies to conduct research and salvage operations throughout the INDOPACIFIC to recover our lost sailors and ships. This kind of strategic competition would provide placement in strategic areas and the ability to provide situational awareness and understanding (and potential staging bases) by conducting operations based on our values that include leaving no one behind and unrecovered.

U.K. Royal Navy ‘Distressed and Concerned’ by Illegal Chinese Salvage of WWII Wrecks

https://news.usni.org/2023/05/25/u-k-royal-navy-distressed-and-concerned-by-illegal-chinese-salvage-of-wwii-wrecks

By: John Grady

May 25, 2023 1:18 PM

Illegal salvage earlier this year over the suspected site. Photo via New Straits Times

An illegal Chinese salvage operation is raiding two United Kingdom World War II warship wrecks off the coast of Malaysia for scrap steel, aluminum and brass fittings, prompting a statement of concern from the Royal Navy, USNI News has learned.

Chuan Hong 68 used a large dredging crane to pluck scrap from the wrecks of battleship HMS Prince of Wales (52) and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, according to local press reports. Both were sunk on on Dec. 10, 1941, days after Pearl Harbor, by Japanese bombers, resulting in the loss of 840 sailors.

Professional diver Hazz Zain flagged the illicit commercial operation local authorities after local fisherman spotted the dredger over the wreck sites, reported the New Straits Times this week.

The illegal salvage has thrown a sharp spotlight on how vulnerable historic heritage sites are to thieves intent on plundering war graves, the director general of the Museum of the Royal Navy said in a Tuesday statement.

“What we need is a management strategy for the underwater naval heritage so that we can better protect or commemorate these ships. That may include targeted retrieval of objects,” Dominic Tweddle said.

“If resourced correctly, the existing Royal Navy loss list can be enhanced to be a vital tool to begin to understand, research and manage over 5,000 wrecks before they are lost forever.”

A retouched Japanese photograph of HMS PRINCE OF WALES (upper) and REPULSE (lower) after being hit by Japanese torpedoes on Dec. 10, 1941.

The wreckage site is in the extended economic zone of Malaysia. Authorities there told news organizations they are investigating the reported looting of the two ships and the discovery of material in a beachside scrap yard that could have been from them.

The battleship is resting upside down in 223 feet of water near Kuantan in the South China Sea. The wreckage of the battlecruiser is several miles away.

News reports from the U.K. and Australia say salvage vessel Chuan Hong 68 was dredging with a deep-reach crane for the “high-quality steel” used to build the two warships. The steel could be smelted for other uses. The value comes from the steel’s production before the use of nuclear weapons and testing and is important for use in manufacturing some scientific and medical equipment.

The salvage vessel has been operating in the region since early this year, new agencies reported.

British news organization have often reported about previous illegal dredging of this site and others for steel, copper and specially manufactured propellers. For example, The Guardian reported six years ago that at least 40 vessels have been destroyed in these operations.

In addition to the British warships, the same waters off Indonesia and Singapore contain wreckage sites of 40 Australian, Dutch and Japanese warships and merchantmen that have already been destroyed.

Sailors of HMS Prince of Wales abandoning ship to the destroyer HMS Express. Imperial War Museum Photo

New Straits Times reported that Chuan Hong 68 “is also wanted by Indonesian authorities for plundering the remains of sunken Dutch warships HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java and HNLMS Kortenaer in the Java Sea.”

The U.S. Navy has also expressed concern over its own wrecks in the Western Pacific. To the south, cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) and Australian warship HMAS Perth sank a few months after Prince of Wales and Repulse during the Battle of Sunda Strait on March 1, 1942. More than 650 U.S. sailors and Marines died when Houston sank, and more than 350 died when Perth sank.

The U.S. and Australia have worked with Indonesia to preserve the sites as war graves, USNI News has reported.

Five years ago, the U.K. Ministry of Defense was so concerned over the illegal dredging of wreckage sites, scavenging and looting that it dispatched a task force of survey vessels to the region to investigate the wrecks’ status. The ministry said then it would also monitor the water by satellite to keep track of activity near the sites.

“We are upset at the loss of naval heritage and the impact this has on the understanding of our Royal Navy history,” Twiddle said.

26. The highly secretive Five Eyes alliance has disrupted a China-backed hacker group – in an unusually public manner

Recognize, understand, EXPOSE, and attack the enemy's strategy.

The highly secretive Five Eyes alliance has disrupted a China-backed hacker group – in an unusually public manner

theconversation.com · by Dennis B. Desmond

This week the Five Eyes alliance – an intelligence alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – announced its investigation into a China-backed threat targeting US infrastructure.

Using stealth techniques, the attacker – referred to as “Volt Typhoon” – exploited existing resources in compromised networks in a technique called “living off the land”.

Microsoft made a concurrent announcement, stating the attackers’ targeting of Guam was telling of China’s plans to potentially disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the US and Asia region in the future.

This comes hot on the heels of news in April of a North Korean supply chain attack on Asia-Pacific telecommunications provider 3CX. In this case, hackers gained access to an employee’s computer using a compromised desktop app for Windows and a compromised signed software installation package.

The Volt Typhoon announcement has led to a rare admission by the US National Security Agency that Australia and other Five Eyes partners are engaged in a targeted search and detection scheme to uncover China’s clandestine cyber operations.

Such public admissions from the Five Eyes alliance are few and far between. Behind the curtain, however, this network is persistently engaged in trying to take down foreign adversaries. And it’s no easy feat.

Let’s take a look at the events leading up to Volt Typhoon – and more broadly at how this secretive transnational alliance operates.

Uncovering Volt Typhoon

Volt Typhoon is an “advanced persistent threat group” that has been active since at least mid-2021. It’s believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government and is targeting critical infrastructure organisations in the US.

The group has focused much of its efforts on Guam. Located in the Western Pacific, this US island territory is home to a significant and growing US military presence, including the air force, a contingent of the marines, and the US navy’s nuclear-capable submarines.

It’s likely the Volt Typhoon attackers intended to gain access to networks connected to US critical infrastructure to disrupt communications, command and control systems, and maintain a persistent presence on the networks. The latter tactic would allow China to influence operations during a potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Australia wasn’t directly impacted by Volt Typhoon, according to official statements. Nevertheless, it would be a primary target for similar operations in the event of conflict.

As for how Volt Typhoon was caught, this hasn’t been disclosed. But Microsoft documents highlight previous observations of the threat actor attempting to dump credentials and stolen data from the victim organisation. It’s likely this led to the discovery of compromised networks and devices.

Living-off-the-land

The hackers initially gained access to networks through internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, such as routers. Once inside, they employed a technique called “living-off-the-land”.

This is when attackers rely on using the resources already contained within the exploited system, rather than bringing in external tools. For example, they will typically use applications such as PowerShell (a Microsoft management program) and Windows Management Instrumentation to access data and network functions.

By using internal resources, attackers can bypass safeguards that alert organisations to unauthorised access to their networks. Since no malicious software is used, they appear as a legitimate user. As such, living-off-the-land allows for lateral movement within the network, and provides opportunity for a persistent, long-term attack.

The simultaneous announcements from the Five Eyes partners points to the seriousness of the Volt Typhoon compromise. It will likely serve as a warning to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Who are the Five Eyes?

Formed in 1955, the Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing partnership comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

The alliance was formed after World War II to counter the potential influence of the Soviet Union. It has a specific focus on signals intelligence. This involves intercepting and analysing signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications.

The members share information and access to their respective signals intelligence agencies, and collaborate to collect and analyse vast amounts of global communications data. A Five Eyes operation might also include intelligence provided by non-member nations and the private sector.

Recently, the member countries expressed concern about China’s de facto military control over the South China Sea, its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and threatening moves towards Taiwan. The latest public announcement of China’s cyber operations no doubt serves as a warning that Western nations are paying strict attention to their critical infrastructure – and can respond to China’s digital aggression.

In 2019, Australia was targeted by Chinese state-backed threat actors gaining unauthorised access to Parliament House’s computer network. Indeed, there is evidence that China is engaged in a concerted effort to target Australia’s public and private networks.

The Five Eyes alliance may well be one of the only deterrents we have against long-term, persistent attacks against our critical infrastructure.

theconversation.com · by Dennis B. Desmond

27. On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

On Memorial Day: In Praise of Americans Who Have Given Their All

dailysignal.com · by Dakota Wood · May 26, 2023

Many people serve in a vast number of ways. But some have served to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice. Remembering them is the point of Memorial Day.

dailysignal.com · by Dakota Wood · May 26, 2023

28. 'They matter': U.S. Army Special Operations Command remembers its soldiers

Never forget.

'They matter': U.S. Army Special Operations Command remembers its soldiers

fayobserver.com · by Rachael Riley

The Fayetteville Observer

There are 1,242 names etched onto the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s memorial wall of special operation forces soldiers killed while serving their country.

The fallen soldiers were remembered and their Gold Star families were honored during the command’s memorial ceremony held Thursday at Fort Bragg.

The families are part of the Army special operations forces family, said Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

Braga told the Gold Star families that their loved ones’ lives mattered to partner forces “fighting terrorists in places like the Philippines, Syria and Iraq.”

“Their bravery and courage kept our enemies at bay and our homeland safe,” he said. “They led the way. They freed the oppressed. They never quit. They matter to our nation.”

Braga said while the names of the fallen soldiers are on memorial walls, they are also remembered by their teammates.

“We see their pictures,” he said. “We read their stories on a memorial wall or building entrance. We hold meetings with them in conference rooms bearing their name.”

Braga challenged current soldiers to talk to the Gold Star families to hear the stories about their loved ones.

“Those of us who personally knew the fallen soldiers on this wall will not live forever,” he said. “It is our responsibility to ensure their memory is carried on through the future generations. Let the living breathe the message of the fallen.”

Capt. Kyle Aaron Comfort

Ellen Comfort attended Thursday’s ceremony to honor her son, 27-year-old Capt. Kyle Aaron Comfort, of Jacksonville, Alabama.

Capt. Comfort was killed May 8, 2010, when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device while he was on a mission in Afghanistan serving with the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.

Kyle’s grandfather was a World War II veteran, Ellen Comfort said after Thursday’s ceremony.

“Kyle, from the time he was a little boy, all he ever wanted to be was an Army Ranger,” his mother said. “He wanted to be an officer, and he achieved that. He achieved all the goals that he had set out for himself. Unfortunately, it was quite short. So, a sadness for me is, I don’t know what could have been.”

Ellen Comfort said her son was a selfless extrovert who “trained hard and loved hard.”

Shortly after her son’s death, Comfort said, she didn’t know how she’d “get through the initial shock.”

The Army gave her pamphlets, one of which said families can participate in the things their loved ones did.

“So, what I did was become an adventurer,” Comfort said. “The Army gave me the opportunity to jump out of an airplane.”

With other Gold Star families honoring their loved ones, she’s climbed the highest peak in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, rode horseback for several days on a cattle drive and climbed Gold Star Peak in Alaska

“By living my life as fully as I possibly can, I believe that I’m giving them the honor they deserve if I continue to live a good life,” Comfort said.

Spc. John Pelham

Spc. John Pelham, 22, of Portland, Oregon, died Feb. 12, 2014, when his unit came under enemy fire in Afghanistan.

Also killed was Sgt. 1st Class Roberto Skelt, 31, of York, Florida.

Pelham and Skelt served with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group.

Pelham was a 6-foot-2-inch tall athlete who was “a goofball” in high school, his father, Wendall Pelham, said after Thursday’s ceremony.

Service was instilled in Capt. Pelham from a young age. His grandfather was a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the Army for decades, and his uncle served with the Rangers, Wendall Pelham said.

“At the end of his junior year, we had a conference with his counselor, and he was not going to graduate from high school on time,” the elder Pelham said.

Faced with not graduating on time, the younger Pelham attended a military school operated by the National Guard’s Youth Challenge Program.

Pelham said his son recouped his credits to graduate on time and attended a small college on a baseball scholarship.

But halfway through the season, Pelham returned home and told his father he gave the scholarship back so another student could benefit from it and that he was “wasting his time” and would be joining the Army.

Wendell Pelham said his son told him he “aced” the military aptitude test and wanted to be a signals intelligence analyst.

“John’s passion, his innate spirit, was to always protect the underdog. In high school, if bullies were picking on people, John would be the one to tell them, ‘That’s enough,’” Pelham said.

Pelham said shortly after his son’s death, three of his son's high school friends designed a bracelet.

“One of them said, ‘I need to be more intentional in living my life, like John,’” Pelham said.

The bracelet has Pelham’s date of birth and date of death on one side and “Live like John” written on the other.

The elder Pelham said he encourages everyone to be intentional and to serve, whether it’s in the military, with a church, in the Peace Corps or serving the local community.

Pelaham said his intention is to wake up each day to make his son proud.

“It’s not a burden — the death of our son — because we know his memory and his legacy is more important than anything we have to deal with,” Pelham said.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-2528.

fayobserver.com · by Rachael Riley

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

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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."

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