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Quotes of the Day:
"You have to look deeper, way below the anger, the hurt, the hate, the jealousy, the self-pity, way down deeper where the dreams lie… Find your dream. It's the pursuit of the dream that heals you."
- Billy Mills, member of the Oglala Lakota and U.S. Olympic gold medalist in track and field
“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
- John Wooden
“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty."[Beauharnais v.Illinois, 342 U.S. 250, 287 (1952) (dissenting)]”
- William O. Douglas
1. Biden, Austin Laud Fallen Service Members in Memorial Day Address
2. Remarks by President Biden at the 155th National Memorial Day Observance
3. Remarks by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at the National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery (As Delivered)
4. China Rebuffs Pentagon Chief, Blunting Push for Rapprochement
5. Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack, blames Ukraine
6. An Unconventional Warfare Mindset: The Philosophy of Special Forces Must be Sustained
7. Crucial days ahead as debt ceiling deal goes for vote and Biden calls lawmakers for support
8. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 29, 2023
9. This drone-on-drone dogfight in Ukraine is a glimpse of the future of war
10. NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
11. China’s three ‘grey rhinos’ – demographic crisis, debt and decoupling – are growing, threatening economic growth
12. How Worried Should the World Be of China’s New COVID Wave?
13. ‘Adversarial AI’ a threat to military systems, Shift5′s Lospinoso says
14. Russian Volunteer Corps says its fighters crossed into Russia again
15. The next Chinese tech threat is already here
16. The Myth of Western Decline
17. DOD sends new cyber strategy to Congress, releases unclassified fact sheet
18. Fact Sheet: 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy
19. Putin’s mini-Nato is falling apart
20. How to Avoid War with China
21. AI Threat Is on Par With Pandemics, Nuclear War, Tech Executives Warn
22. China and the Alliance Allergy of Rising Powers
23. OSS Agents in Repose, After the Guns Fell Silent
1. Biden, Austin Laud Fallen Service Members in Memorial Day Address
Biden, Austin Laud Fallen Service Members in Memorial Day Address
defense.gov · by Joseph Clark
President Joe Biden today called on the nation to honor the sacrifices of fallen service members by keeping the flame of democracy they fought to uphold burning brightly.
The "very soul of America," Biden said, endures today because of the sacrifices of generations of women and men who have fought and sacrificed to uphold the nation's highest values.
Memorial Flags
Soldiers assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard,” place American flags at headstones in Arlington National Cemetery, Va., May 25, 2023. This was the 75th anniversary of the tradition, known as “Flags In,” which is held annually prior to Memorial Day to honor the nation’s fallen veterans.
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Photo By: Elizabeth Fraser, Army
VIRIN: 230525-A-IW468-167
"Together, we're not just the fortunate inheritors of their legacy," the president said during a Memorial Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery. "We must be the keeper of their mission, the bearers of the flame of freedom that [has] kept burning bright for nearly 247 years.
"That's the truest memorial to their lives: our actions every day to ensure that our democracy endures, our constitution endures and the soul of our nation, our decency endures," he said.
Biden was joined by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley in honoring fallen service members during the 155th Memorial Day, wreath-laying ceremony.
The president said on Memorial Day, Americans are compelled to ask what they must do to uphold the values service members died to preserve. "Today, it's on all of us — all of us — to ensure that sacrifice was not in vain," he said.
55:01
Austin echoed Biden's call to honor the legacy of those service members by "writing the next chapters in America's story of service."
Noting the 50th anniversary of the nation's all-volunteer force, Austin said today's fighting force has "blended military power with moral power and combined the force of American arms with the strength of people who freely choose to stand guard over democracy."
"Every time a qualified American stands up and raises their hand and serves with honor from any corner of the country and from any background, color or creed, this exceptional nation becomes even safer and stronger," he said.
He called on the nation to honor those who answer the call to service.
"Let us stand with all who pledge their lives to defend human freedom," he said. "And let us come together as one nation to strengthen our democracy."
Memorial Flags
In observance of Memorial Day, U.S. flags mark the graves at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., May 25, 2023.
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Milley said rows of white headstones at Arlington National Cemetery serve as a reminder that "freedom is a gift to us all, a gift paid for by those who gave, in the words of [former President Abraham] Lincoln, the last full measure of devotion."
"The greatest honor that we can bestow upon those who have fallen, the way to remember them the best," he said, "is to ensure that this idea of freedom, that the Constitution of the United States of America, the idea that is America will continue for our posterity and shall not perish from this earth."
defense.gov · by Joseph Clark
2. Remarks by President Biden at the 155th National Memorial Day Observance
Remarks by President Biden at the 155th National Memorial Day Observance | The White House
whitehouse.gov · by The White House · May 29, 2023
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
11:41 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please.
One hundred and fifty-five years ago, retired Union General James Garfield spoke here at Arlington, marking our nation’s first Memorial Day.
Standing amid rows and rows of marble stones, many of his own fallen soldiers among them, he asked, “What brought these men here? What high motive led them to…welcome death?” And he answered his own question. He said, “Our nation’s life.”
My fellow Americans, Jill, Vice President Harris, Second Gentleman Emhoff, Secretary Austin, Secretary McDonough, Secretary May- — Mayorkas, General Milley, and most importantly, veterans, servicemen and women, and their survivors:
Today, we once again gather in this sacred place, at this solemn hour, to honor fallen heroes, to once again stand amid the rows and rows of marble stones and bear witness to the brave women and men who served and sacrificed for our freedom and for our future; those who died so our nation might live.
Every year, as a nation, we undertake this rite of remembrance, for we must never forget the price that was paid to protect our democracy. We must never forget the lives these flags, flowers, and marble markers represent: a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a sister, a spouse, a friend. An American.
Every year, we remember. And every year, it never gets easier.
To all those here and across the nation who are grieving the loss of a loved one who wore the uniform, our Gold Star families, and to all those with loved ones still missing, unaccounted for, I know how painful it can be, how it can reopen that — rip open that black hole in the center of your chest you feel like you’re just sinking into, bringing you back to that exact moment you heard that knock on the door or the telephone ring — the exact moment you had to tell your children that mom or dad would not be coming home.
The hurt is still real. It’s still raw.
Tomorrow marks eight years since we lost our son, Beau. Our losses are not the same. He didn’t perish in the battlefield. It was cancer that stole him from us a year after being deployed as a major in the United States Army National Guard in Iraq.
As it is for so many of you, the pain of his loss is with us every day, but particularly sharp on Memorial Day. It’s still clear. Tomorrow is his anniversary. But so is the pride Jill and I feel in his service, as if I can still hear him saying, “Dad — it’s my duty, Dad.” “It’s my duty.” Duty.
That was the code my son lived by and all those you lost lived by. It’s the creed that millions of service members have followed — from the fields of Yorktown to the shores of Normandy, to the rice paddies of Pusan, to the valleys of Kandahar, to the mountains of Sinjar, and beyond — many of whom never returned home.
Throughout history, these women and men laid down their lives, not for a place or a person or a President, but for an idea unlike any other idea in all of human history. The idea — the idea of the United States of America.
This sanctuary honors that sacrifice and tells their stories. And in turn, it tells our story — the American story. A story of the patriot who died to deliver a nation where everyone is entitled to certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
The story of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who shed their blood to make these words real.
The story of the brave Americans who fought the forces of fascism and died for preservation of democracy.
As we’re reminded by the hundreds of graves here in Section 60 of Arlington and across our nation — the story of the women and men who sacrificed everything to keep democracy safe and secure during the last two decades — each of them — each of them a link in a chain of honor that stretches back to our Founding Fathers and those days. Unbreaking, unbending, not just in their duty and devotion but something even deeper: in their faith in us — their faith in us — that we will be worthy of their sacrifice.
Our service members have always embodied the highest expectations of our democracy. They’ve always held faith in our country, in all that we could be — a citadel of liberty, a beacon of freedom. For our democracy is our strength, the wellspring of possibilities, and the source of endless, endless renewal.
It’s how we’ve been able to constantly change and adapt through the centuries. It’s why we’ve always emerged from every challenge we face stronger than we entered it. It’s how we come together as one nation, united, and why there’s nothing we can’t do in America when we do it together.
It’s a truth we celebrate this year as we mark — we mark 75 years of a desegregated military, 75 years of women’s full integration, 50 years of an all-volunteer force.
Throughout the annals of history, our troops have fought for our democracy and, if necessary, died for it.
And today, their service and sacrifice, and that of their families, echoes far beyond those silent stones out there.
We see it in the strength of our NATO Alliance, built from the bonds that we forever forged in the fires of two World Wars.
We see it in the troops still standing sentinel on the Korean Peninsula, preserving peace side-by-side with our allies.
We see it at every base, every barrack, every vessel around the globe where our military proudly serves and stands as a force for good in the world.
And just as they have kept the ultimate faith to our country, to our democracy, we must keep the ultimate faith to them.
As a nation — and people have all heard me say this for a long time — as a nation, we have many obligations, but I believe with every fiber of my being we have only one truly sacred obligation: to prepare those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home — and when they don’t.
It’s a sacred obligation, not based on party or politics, but on a promise — a promise to unite all of us. There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American.
But together, over the last two and a half years, we’ve worked to make good on that promise, passing more than 25 bipartisan laws to support our service members, their families, caregivers, and survivors.
That includes the PACT Act, the most significant law in our nation’s history, to help millions of veterans who were exposed to toxic substances and burn pits during their military service. Pits the size of football fields that incinerated the wastes of war such as tires, chemicals, jet fuel, and so much more.
Too many of our nation’s warriors that have selflessly served only to return home and suffer from the permanent effects of this poisonous smoke.
Too many have died — excuse the personal reference — like my son Beau, or like Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson, for whom the Act is named.
Last year, after I signed the PACT Act, I handed the pen to his daughter, Brielle. She and her grandmother are with us today.
After I handed her the pen, this beautiful little girl, who’s sitting over there — thank you for waving, baby — (applause) — who had lost half of her world — her whole world — held the pen in her hand, and looked at me and said, “Thank you for my daddy.” “Thank you for my daddy.” God love you, honey.
But I don’t think she was just thanking me. She was thanking all of us. Everyone who fought so hard and came together to keep our promise to our veterans, to keep faith with our heroes.
On this day, we come together again to reflect, to remember, but above all, to recommit to the future our fallen heroes fought for, that generations of servicemembers who died for a future grounded in freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, opportunity, and, yes, justice.
We use those words all the time, but we’ve seen of late here, and around the world, that they have to continue to be fought for, not just for some but for all.
This is more important than just our system of government. It’s the very soul of America. A soul that was forged by our nation’s first patriots. A soul that triumphed over trials and testing less than a century later. A soul that endured because of the sacrifices of generations and generations of the service members ever since.
Together, we’re not just the fortunate inheritors of their legacy. We must be the keeper of their mission, the bearers of the flame of freedom that kept burning bright for nearly 247 years.
That — that’s the truest memorial to their lives. Our actions every day to ensure that our democracy endures, our Constitution endures, and the soul of our nation and our decency endures.
Ladies and gentlemen, 155 years ago, our ancestors stood here and asked themselves: What brought our heroes to this hallowed ground? What high motive led these brave souls, as General Garfield said, to welcome death?
Today, we must ask ourselves what can we do, what must we do to uphold the vision for which they lived and which they died.
Today, it’s on all of us — all of us — to ensure that sacrifice was not in vain; to keep working toward a more perfect union, one where all women and all men are created equal.
We’re the only nation in the world built on an idea. Every other nation is formed based on things like geography, ethnicity, religion.
We’re the only nation in the world built on an idea that we’re all created equal.
We haven’t always lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it.
And today, standing together to honor those Americans who dared all and gave all for our nation, we can say clearly: We never will.
God bless all those who gave their lives so our nation might live. God bless their families. And may God protect our troops, today and always.
Thank you. (Applause.)
11:56 A.M. EDT
whitehouse.gov · by The White House · May 29, 2023
3. Remarks by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at the National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery (As Delivered)
Remarks by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at the National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery (As Delivered)
defense.gov
Let’s give the band and the chorus another round of applause. That was absolutely outstanding.
Good morning.
President Biden, Dr. Biden, Vice President Harris, Mr. Emhoff, distinguished guests: I am absolutely honored to be here with you this morning.
And thank you, General Milley, for your leadership.
To our Gold Star families and to all who remember a fallen American hero today: I know that each Memorial Day brings new waves of both pride and pain.
On behalf of the Department of Defense, please accept our country’s deepest gratitude for all that you have given—and our deepest sympathies for all that you have lost. We pledge again today to ensure that you and your families have the support that you need and deserve. You will always be a part of our military family. And we hold in our hearts all those who fell to defend the country that they loved.
Each of them has a story. And one of the stories of the graves here at Arlington belongs to Chaplain Charles Watters.
He was a Catholic priest who signed up to serve during the Vietnam War and to support his teammates in body and soul. After a year-long deployment, he volunteered to extend his tour for another six months.
And one November day in 1967, his battalion hit fierce fighting. Chaplain Watters ran unarmed into the battle—exposed to mortar fire, bullets, and automatic weapons. He helped get wounded soldiers to safety. And he gave last rites to the fallen.
At one point, he saw a U.S. paratrooper in shock and in the line of enemy fire. Chaplain Watters hoisted the paratrooper on his shoulders and carried him to safety.
Tragically, later that day, Chaplain Watters was killed. And for his extraordinary heroism, this paratrooper, patriot, and priest who volunteered twice—once to serve, and once to extend his tour—was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
This year, our country celebrates the 50th anniversary of our all-volunteer force.
And the life of Charles Watters offered a preview of the vigor and the valor of the American warriors who have chosen to step up and serve, from 1973 until this day.
Our all-volunteer force has blended military power with moral power and combined the force of American arms with the strength of people who freely choose to stand guard over our democracy.
In 1970, the Gates Commission recommended eliminating conscription. And its formal report predicted that an all-volunteer force “will strengthen our freedoms”—and our armed forces.
And it did.
Every time a qualified American stands up, and raises their hand, and serves with honor—from any corner of the country, from any background, color or creed—this exceptional nation becomes even safer and stronger.
Every fallen hero has a story.
It is our duty to remember those we have lost. It is our honor to stand with their families. And it is our sacred obligation to remember all that you have given.
So let us strive to honor the memory of our fallen by writing the next chapters in America’s story of service.
Let us stand with all who pledge their lives to defend human freedom.
And let us come together as one nation to strengthen our democracy.
Ladies and gentlemen, our Commander-in-Chief has long been a champion of our men and women in uniform and of the military families who serve right alongside them.
And on this day of sorrow and service, it is my absolute honor to introduce the President of the United States.
defense.gov
4. China Rebuffs Pentagon Chief, Blunting Push for Rapprochement
Maybe they really are afraid to meet our senior leaders as a Chinese scholar and party official told us in Korea last month. Maybe we should call them out for their timidness and their fear of saying something wrong to our leadership.
China Rebuffs Pentagon Chief, Blunting Push for Rapprochement
U.S. had proposed a meeting of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Singapore
By Nancy A. YoussefFollow
May 29, 2023 4:05 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-rebuffs-pentagon-chief-blunting-push-for-rapprochement-dd78d9bf
Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu, center, at a summit of defense ministers in India in April. PHOTO: MANISH SWARUP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON—China has rebuffed a U.S. request for a meeting between their defense chiefs on the sidelines of an annual security forum in Singapore this coming weekend, the Pentagon said Monday, showing the limits of a tentative rapprochement between the two rival powers.
The decision by China formally to inform the Pentagon shuts the door for now on a meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Li Shangfu, China’s new defense minister, which the U.S. had proposed on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.
China’s dismissal of the proposal also was termed an unusually blunt message, U.S. defense officials said. In the past, such meetings have come together at the last minute, including last year’s meeting between Austin and his then-counterpart, which was agreed upon hours beforehand.
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“Overnight, the PRC informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore this week,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The Department believes strongly in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.”
China’s decision comes after a weekslong effort by the U.S. to secure a meeting, including a letter from Austin to Li. China’s decline of the meeting could spark concerns among Southeast Asia allies nervous about being caught between the two powers, some U.S. officials warned. They held open the prospect of a Singapore meeting between lower-level officials.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We’ve had a lot of difficulty, in terms of when we have proposed phone calls, proposed meetings, dialogues, whether that’s the secretary” or other top U.S. defense leaders, Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security, said last week at an event at the Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have been fraught since February, after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, warned Beijing against arming Russia in the war in Ukraine and allowed Taiwan’s president to stop off in the U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, visiting Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, Memorial Day. PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Earlier this month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart in Vienna. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the two countries during the Biden administration.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang met with U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Beijing and delivered a stern message over Taiwan, accusing the U.S. of undermining the “hard won positive momentum of U.S.-China relations.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. has sought to improve military relations since the balloon incident, in part to avoid miscommunication, as both nations operate militarily throughout the Asia-Pacific and amid rising tensions between the two countries over Taiwan.
In addition to the rebuffed Austin-Li meeting, the two sides haven’t yet rescheduled a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was postponed because of the balloon incident.
The decision by China to meet with some top U.S. officials, but not Austin and Li, appears to be a strategic choice, said Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
“The Chinese believe they have the most leverage when dealing with officials who handle economic issues. So they are prioritizing those engagements over ones involving national security,” Cooper said.
The Biden administration has said it wants “open lines of communications” with Beijing, but has been unwilling to meet Beijing’s demand that the U.S. lift sanctions placed years ago on Li as a precondition for the Austin meeting.
The Biden administration is required to inform Congress should it decide to lift those sanctions, which the Trump administration imposed in 2018 because Li—then head of the Chinese military’s Equipment Development Department—approved the purchase of Russian jet fighters and missiles. He became defense minister this year.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
5. Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack, blames Ukraine
Significant escalation? False flag?
Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack, blames Ukraine
AP · by SUSIE BLANN and JOANNA KOZLOWSKA · May 30, 2023
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian air defenses stopped eight drones converging on Moscow, officials said Tuesday, in an attack that authorities blamed on Ukraine, while Russia pursued its relentless bombardment of Kyiv with a third assault on the city in 24 hours.
The Russian defense ministry said five drones were shot down and the systems of three others were jammed, causing them to veer off course. It called the incident a “terrorist attack” by the “Kyiv regime.”
The attack caused “insignificant damage” to several buildings, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Two people received medical attention for unspecified injuries but did not need hospitalization, he said in a Telegram post. Residents of two high-rise buildings damaged in the attack were evacuated, Sobyanin said.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the wider Moscow region, said some of the drones were “shot down on the approach to Moscow.”
Ukraine made no immediate comment on the attack, which would be one of its deepest and most daring strikes into Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 15 months ago.
The attacks have raised questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s air defense systems.
A senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian business news site RBC that “we have a very big country and there will always be a loophole where the drone can fly around the areas where air defense systems are located.”
Kartapolov said the purpose of the attacks was to unnerve the Russian people. “It’s an intimidation act aimed at the civilian population,” RBC quoted him as saying. “It’s designed to create a wave of panic.”
Moscow residents reported hearing explosions before dawn. Police were seen working at one site of a crashed drone in southwest Moscow. An area near a residential building was fenced off, and police put the drone debris in a cardboard box before carrying it away.
At another site, apartment windows were shattered and there were scorch marks on the building’s front.
It was the second reported attack on Moscow. Russian authorities said two drones targeted the Kremlin earlier this month in what they portrayed as an attempt on President Vladimir Putin’s life.
Ukrainian drones have reportedly flown deep into Russia several times. In December, Russia claimed it had shot down drones at airfields in the Saratov and Ryazan regions. Three soldiers were reported killed in the attack in Saratov, which targeted an important military airfield.
Earlier, Russia reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone that targeted the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol in Russia-annexed Crimea.
In Ukraine, Russia launched a pre-dawn air raid on Kyiv, killing at least one person and sending the capital’s residents again scrambling into shelters.
At least 20 Shahed explosive drones were destroyed by air defense forces in Kyiv’s airspace in Russia’s third attack on the capital in the past 24 hours, according to early information from the Kyiv Military Administration. Overall, Ukraine shot down 29 of 31 drones fired into the country, most in the Kyiv area, the air force later added.
Before daylight, the buzzing of drones could be heard over the city, followed by loud explosions as they were taken down by air defense systems.
In the overnight attacks on Kyiv, one person died and seven were injured, according to the municipal military administration. A high-rise building in the Holosiiv district caught fire after being hit by debris either from from drones being hit or interceptor missiles.
The building’s upper two floors were destroyed, and there may be people under the rubble, the Kyiv Military Administration said. More than 20 people were evacuated.
Resident Valeriya Oreshko told The Associated Press in the aftermath that even though the immediate threat was over, the attacks had everyone on edge.
“You are happy that you are alive, but think about what will happen next,” the 39-year-old said.
A resident who gave only her first name, Oksana, said the whole building shook when it was hit.
“Go to shelters, because you really do not know where it (the drone) will fly,” she advised others. “We hold on.”
Elsewhere in the capital, falling debris caused a fire in a private house in Darnytskyi district and three cars were set alight in Pechersky district, according to the military administration.
The series of attacks that began Sunday included a rare daylight attack Monday that left puffs of white smoke in the blue skies.
On that day, Russian forces fired 11 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv at about 11:30 a.m., according to Ukraine’s chief of staff, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. All of them were shot down, he said.
Debris from intercepted missiles fell in Kyiv’s central and northern districts during the morning, landing in the middle of traffic on a city road and also starting a fire on the roof of a building, the Kyiv military administration said. At least one civilian was reported hurt.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it launched a series of strikes early Monday targeting Ukrainian air bases with precision long-range air-launched missiles. It claimed the strikes destroyed command posts, radars, aircraft and ammunition stockpiles, but didn’t say anything about hitting cities or other civilian areas.
___
Associated Press writer Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kyiv, Ukraine, and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report. Kozlowska reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
AP · by SUSIE BLANN and JOANNA KOZLOWSKA · May 30, 2023
6. An Unconventional Warfare Mindset: The Philosophy of Special Forces Must be Sustained
Mon, 05/29/2023 - 6:10pm
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/unconventional-warfare-mindset-philosophy-special-forces-must-be-sustained
An Unconventional Warfare Mindset
The Philosophy of Special Forces Must be Sustained
By David Maxwell
(NOTE: The following is an adaptation of remarks presented at the Special Forces Association Convention in Indianapolis on May 24, 2023)
Unconventional Warfare (UW). What is it? For some nuclear weapons are unconventional weapons employed for “unconventional warfare,” because, obviously, it is not conventional warfare., For many others, anything that is not conventional is unconventional: unconventional ideas, doctrine, equipment, tactics, techniques, and procedures, campaigns, policy, and strategy. Or anything executed by indigenous resistance forces is, by definition, unconventional.
The DOD Dictionary of Military Terms defines UW as “activities to enable an insurgency or resistance to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a nation or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary, or a guerrilla force in a denied area.” I can talk in detail about this definition and how it was developed because I was part of the painful working group in 2009 when it was approved by Admiral Olson who was heavily influenced by CSM Tommie Smith, then the USSOCOM SEA.
Again, what is UW? For many others it is a subordinate element of irregular warfare. In fact, irregular warfare has become the new comprehensive term since it was (re-)introduced in 2007. DOD is currently working to revise the definition, but it has traditionally included five missions: Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Counterinsurgency (COIN), Counterterrorism (CT), and Stability Operations (STABOPS) thus making UW subordinate to IW.
However, I am not going to get into a doctrinal discussion. We can talk ourselves into doctrinal and terminology paralysis. What I want to talk about is our Special Forces (SF) philosophy. By philosophy I mean the “the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience” as in "the philosophy of unconventional warfare and Special Forces." Philosophy is the collective assemblage of wisdom. And there is no greater assembly of Special Forces and unconventional warfare wisdom than the Special Forces Association.
Now there are two schools of anti-UW thought – First, UW is an anachronism and obsolete or will rarely ever be conducted and maybe not ever again. UW also has severe antibodies within DOD, at embassies, and in the national security community. Some believe no government official or political leader wants to approve let alone direct a UW campaign plan. The second idea is UW needs to be replaced with modern concepts such as the new triad of SOF, Cyber, and Space. To the second, I would argue that the UW philosophy can and must have a positive influence.
But in my opinion, it is UW thinking that has been the source of nearly every successful Special Forces operation since 1952 even if the operation was not in accordance with the strictest doctrinal definition of UW, e.g., traditionally the overthrow of a government. However, it is the thinking about and training for such an action that sets SF apart and informs the deep intellectual abilities of every SF operator.
What is UW thinking? It is the essence of UW: UW thinking informs everything SF should do.
-
UW is fundamentally problem solving; using unique, non-doctrinal and non-conventional methods, techniques, people, equipment to solve (or assist in solving) complex political-military problems.
- And it is about creating dilemmas for our adversaries.
- UW is essentially about influencing behavior of target audiences (which can include a population, a segment of the population, a political structure, or a military force); therefore, PSYOP and CA are integral to the action arm of SF.
It is the two SF “trinities:”
(1) The Missions of Irregular Warfare, Unconventional Warfare, Support to Political Warfare
(2) The comparative advantage of Special Forces: Influence, Governance, Support to Indigenous Forces and Populations
It is thinking about the human element in the full spectrum of competition and conflict up to and including conventional and even nuclear war. It includes, but is not limited to, all aspects of lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, terrorism, political resistance, non-violent resistance, political violence, urban operations, stability operations, post-conflict operations, cyber operations, and operations in the information environment.
As I survey the history, I see the legacy of modern SF built on the OSS foundation and since 1952 the basis of training SF has been for the UW mission. At its core it has been about supporting indigenous forces and populations to achieve their objectives – either to resist oppression and seek self-determination or to defend against internal or external forces who want to impose authoritarian rule. This is what we all trained to do in some form or another and this is what we all executed during our careers. The UW mindset was applied to the Korean partisans, the tribes in Vietnam, the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program, the Phoenix Program, and Military Assistance Command – Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG). And during Vietnam era the UW mindset was also applied in Africa and Latin America – surely Che Guevara was killed due to the UW mindset employed by some SF advisors working with the Bolivian military. Following Vietnam, the Army and all the services purged COIN doctrine and all things associated with irregular and unconventional warfare. We wanted to get back to preparing for the big fight against the USSR (and the pendulum has now swung in a similar way to China and Russia). I would argue that those of us who came into SF in the 1980s were mentored by our SF Vietnam vets and they kept the UW flame alive even as we had to fight for relevancy in the Army and DOD. There were flashes of recognition of the importance of SF during the Reagan era when we reactivated 1st and 3d Special Forces Groups (SFG). 7th SFG relied on the UW mindset in El Salvador and demonstrated what relationships and a light footprint could accomplish for the nation. Although frustrated with the SCUD hunting and special reconnaissance missions in Desert Storm, the coalition support teams advising the Syrians, Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians were successful because SF soldiers applied a UW mindset to their advisory operations. Certainly 7th SFG showed its UW mindset in Just Cause. And throughout the 1990’s SF showed the UW mindset in the Balkans and Africa and quietly in places such as Colombia to name a few.
During the Cold War we built a number of very diverse organizations based on different conditions and requirements in various theaters around the world. United States SF has long experience establishing permanent detachments uniquely organized and suited for specific missions in specific countries. These include DET-A or the Berlin Detachment, the 46th Company in Thailand, The 8th Special Action Force (SAF) in Panama, the Special Action Force Asia (SAFASIA) in Okinawa, the Special Forces Taiwan Resident Detachment, and Special Forces Detachment Korea (SFD-K now DET 39, which remains operational to this day advising Korean Special Forces Brigades with an SF NCO serving as an advisor to Korean brigadier generals). Each of these unique organizations were tailored for the mission and specific requirements. Some of these detachments were responsible for extensive unilateral operations, others advisory operations, and some of them for supporting the temporary deployment of other SOF to conduct specific missions. Many of you in the Special Forces Association were members of these organizations. Although each one was unique, I think there was one common thread tying them all together: an unconventional warfare mindset. It was the philosophy of SF that influenced leaders to establish these organizations. I would argue that every one of these organizations, and some we have not yet thought of, will have relevance in what we are calling the strategic competition of the gray zone in the 21st century. Future organizations inspired by them are needed to support the full range of special operations up to and including unconventional warfare.
I want to provide one more historical example of why the UW mindset and SF philosophy are so valuable and has led to the continued success of Special Forces.
The nation, the intelligence community, and the military were caught off guard on September 11, 2001. While the government learned much from the 9-11 Commission Report and made many changes, America was flatfooted with no plan on how to respond to the attacks. However, there was one force that was part of the initial response that was trained and ready for just such a response. This was due to one person and his vision in two words: unconventional warfare. The man was the commander of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, the late Brigadier General Frank Toney.
When General Toney took command, he sought to instill two things within the Special Forces Regiment: a total focus on unconventional warfare (UW) and advanced combat skills training with a heavy emphasis on combat marksmanship. He personally mentored every group and battalion commander (including me) and sought to infuse in them the mindset and philosophy of UW as the core foundational mission of Special Forces.
Despite there being no response plan for the September 11th attacks it was the UW focus and the advanced combat skills training that allowed 5th Special Forces Group (SFG) and its horse soldiers to effectively partner with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and exquisite U.S. air power operating in shared battlespace to conduct a punitive expedition in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda. One author says the U.S won the war before losing it.
At the same time, through the early years of the war on terrorism, the other Special Forces Groups were just as effective. 3d SFG operated in Africa and Afghanistan. 7th SFG sustained operations in Colombia and throughout the rest of Latin America and rotated with 3d SFG in Afghanistan. 10th SFG conducted a highly successful UW mission in Northern Iraq with the Kurds as well and a little known mission in the Republic of Georgia. 1st SFG conducted long-duration operations in the Philippines and throughout Asia. All the groups, to include the National Guard 19th and 20th SFGs, rotated Special Forces battalions and companies to Afghanistan and Iraq while continuing their employment in their respective regional theaters.
Although throughout the years the perception developed that special operations forces (SOF) broadly, and Special Forces in particular, emphasized direct action to capture and kill high value targets, the core of the UW mission remained instilled within every Special Forces operator, along with Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs soldiers. This is an innate desire to work “through, with, and by” indigenous forces as retired Colonel Mark Boyatt first described in the 1990’s. This concept greatly influenced BG Toney and the entire Special Forces Regiment and beyond. By 2010 it was adopted as a fundamental operating concept for U.S Forces in Iraq.
The UW mission and General Toney were responsible for the success of Special Forces in the beginning of the war on terrorism. No one was certain what threats would emerge throughout the 21st Century. General Toney understood the best way to prepare for uncertainty was to focus on unconventional warfare.
Some thought leaders are saying that Special Forces must return to its roots (I actually said that in a thesis I wrote in 1995 for my first master’s degree – “a return to the roots for a vision of the future” – I argued that UW must always remain the primary mission of Special Forces and I believe that to this day).
There is a lot of criticism about the two decades of the GWOT and rightly so. Some say that SF became overly focused on direct action. But the criticism of Special Forces is somewhat misplaced. Now there are those who worry that the 18X program is attracting the wrong type of soldier. But I am not sure. I believe that our selection and assessment process is sound. Many join SF with the desire for combat experience and some criticize this. Would we want someone to join SF who does not want combat experience? They want to march to the sound of the guns. They want to live a hard life. They want to work through, with, and by indigenous forces. And yes, as our ballad goes, they want silver wings upon their chest.
When I was the USASOC G3 the thing that kept me sane was going out to Camp Mackall to take Robin Sage brief backs. This was 2007 through 2010 so the 18X program was in full swing. I used to tell the students that whether they knew it or not they were selected because the cadre could read their DNA and their DNA revealed that they had a desire to live and work overseas with indigenous personnel. Despite the perceived focus on direct action and capture/kill missions they were selected for SF because they wanted to develop long term relationships with indigenous personnel and advise and assist, using an indirectly approach, to support US strategic objectives. Again, despite the perception of DA, all our SF troops were developing relationships in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world. Relationships that persist to this day. And there is no better proof of this than how the SF community, along with many others, responded to the tragedy of the Afghanistan withdrawal. I am sure many in this room were involved in trying to evacuate all those who were (and many who still are) at risk of retribution and retaliation by the Taliban. If we were simply a direct action focused force this might not have happened. But because of the philosophy of SF and the UW mindset you did not want to leave behind your indigenous brothers with whom you had fought and bled. This is the power of the UW mindset.
So where does that leave us today? The Army and the DOD are going to reduce the size of USSOCOM and that will likely include not only the Army’s enablers of intelligence, communications, and logistics which will cut away the connective tissue and nerves of the force. We will also be cutting to the bone when SF, Civil Affairs, (CA) and Psychological Operations (PSYOP) operators are reduced as well. In 2006 the ODR directed the growth of the 4th battalions in each active duty group. This was designed to grow the authorization of 270 SFODAs to 360 by 2013. However, we could not recruit and train sufficient SF personnel, so SF had to adjust and that is how the 4th battalion evolved and the Jedburgh teams were developed. Unmanned spaces were turned back to the Army, but USASOC and USSOCOM receive no credit for that. I wonder if we will be able to even man the pre 9-11 authorization of 270 ODAs. We were unable to do so before 9-11.
However, I remain optimistic. USSOCOM is led by a great Command Team. As I read their interviews and the publications coming from USSOCOM I have a sense of where the command is going. A few words from their vision are worth sharing and reflecting upon.
“SOCOM is focused on winning in highly complex and ambiguous environments. For a small investment (2% of the DOD budget) SOCOM solves highly complex, politically sensitive, ambiguous problems – in any environment using highly trained problem solvers.”
Recall my previous words that UW is fundamentally problem solving; using unique, non-doctrinal and non-conventional methods, techniques, people, equipment to solve (or assist in solving) complex political-military problems.
“We live in a volatile, uncertain world with a challenge of keeping peace. SOCOM solves problems that pose significant political, economic and strategic risk when discretion, precision, and speed are essential – and failure is not an option.”
Most importantly is the “SOF way.” If you read between the lines USSOCOM is really saying that the “SOF way” is rooted in the SF philosophy and the UW mindset:
“The ‘SOF Way’ is unconventional, irregular, asymmetric, asynchronous, and done alongside the U.S. Government Interagency Team as well as with allies and partners.”
It does not take a rocket scientist to note the emphasis on UW – unconventional is the first word used in their description because if you recall the history of SF and SOF it goes back to 1952 when 10th SFG was activated. It was born out of the OSS operations in Europe and the Guerrilla Warfare operations in Asia during World War II. Unconventional warfare is the essence of SOF.
So where does that leave us? The UW mission and General Toney were responsible for the success of Special Forces in the beginning of the war on terrorism. No one was certain what threats would emerge in the 21st Century. General Toney understood the best way to prepare for uncertainty was to focus on unconventional warfare. The definitions of UW have evolved over the years and the term itself is controversial, complicated, and often misunderstood. However, rather than focus on the doctrinal definition, UW should be understood as a mindset and philosophy that drives the thinking of Special Forces. At the root of UW, it is about working through, with, and by indigenous forces to solve or contribute to solving complex political-military problems. It is also about working through, with, and by indigenous forces to create dilemmas for the nation’s adversaries through developing resistance capabilities among populations. The training, and more importantly the education, required for the UW mission is what gives Special Forces not only the capability to outfight the enemy but to outthink him as well. This is especially true as the U.S. and its friends, partners, and allies face myriad threats from strategic competition, gray zone, hybrid warfare and violent extremism. As the former USSOCOM Commander General Schoomaker used to say, “train for certainty, educate for uncertainty.” There is no better way to prepare for the uncertain future than through UW.
In strategic competition, the dominant threat or problem the U.S. faces is one of political warfare supported by hybrid military approaches – and these approaches are today described as irregular warfare. Again, the current doctrine states that IW consists of UW, FID, CT, COIN, STABOPS.
The revisionist powers of China and Russia are employing their own forms of political warfare and hybrid approaches through the “Little Green Men” and “Unrestricted Warfare.” The rogue and revolutionary powers of Iran and North Korea conduct their own unique forms of unconventional and political warfare. Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) and 10th Special Forces Group, along with NATO allies, have supported development of an innovative approach called the Resistance Operating Concept which employs indigenous forces to counter the malign activities of the likes of the Little Green Men and to make sure an adversary knows that the cost of invasion and occupation will be too expensive in blood and treasure.
The Irregular War Annex to the National Defense Strategy in 2020 and the current National Defense Strategy of 2022 provide the guidance for preparing for the wide range of threats as well as the activities necessary to counter them including in the context of strategic competition. The 1st Special Forces Command’s Vision for 2021 and Beyond provides guidance to Special Forces, Psychological Operations, and Civil Affairs units on organizing and preparing for the future, from employing cross functional teams built from across the SOF disciplines to leading with influence and developing, supporting, and when appropriate countering, indigenous resistance. A close reading of the vision reveals that most all concepts are derived from a deep knowledge of the UW mission. BG Toney would find this vision completely in synch with his in 2001.
Although most might not recognize Congress as a place for strategic military thought, in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act it outlined a sound operational concept for employing forces in IW: “Irregular Warfare is conducted in support of predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals participating in competition between state and non-state actors short of traditional armed conflict.” (Sec. 1202). This succinct statement provides the basis for planning and conducting IW operations from the strategic to the tactical level.
The Chinese threat is the dominant one for the foreseeable future. China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions. It is doing this through its One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative which provides the economic and diplomatic capability to coerce and co-opt nations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Like Europe against Russia, there are ways to develop resistance and resilience against Chinese hegemony and malign activities that is built on the foundational mission of UW. Special operations forces, the interagency, and U.S. country teams must consider new approaches to address Chinese malign influence and threats. There are forces in Taiwan helping to create the “porcupine defense” to first deter China and if deterrence fails, they will make a significant contribution to the defense of Taiwan by not allowing its population to be pacified by the invasion and occupation by the People’s Liberation Army who are there to liberate no one and only impose the tyranny of communism.
The current National Defense Strategy calls for the US to conduct strategic competition against the revisionist and rogue powers of China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea while deterring war and when deterrence fails to be able to fight and win. This has led the DOD and all the services to refocus on large scale combat operations (LSCO) and rightly so. We need the strongest possible nuclear and conventional forces to deter war. The strategy also requires that the US conducts campaigns in the gray zone that is the space between peace and war. In this space it must conduct integrated deterrence which is a whole of government effort to deter conflict and sustain the rules based international order. In the space between peace and major war it is irregular warfare that is taking place. This leads to two important concluding thoughts.
First is that the DOD lacks an irregular warfare proficient campaign headquarters. To be proficient in irregular warfare you must be grounded in unconventional warfare and the two SOF trinities I have described. A new headquarters is required to meet this challenge and I would argue that it should come from USSOCOM.
Second, is that we need to further describe integrated deterrence. I think it consists of three types of deterrence: nuclear, conventional, and unconventional. It is because of our superior nuclear and conventional deterrence that the revisionist and rogue powers choose to operate in the gray zone so as not to challenge the US directly. Unconventional deterrence is not a doctrinal concept, but it should be. It was coined by an SF brother, retired Colonel Robert Jones now a strategist at USSOCOM. The concept is basically to create a resistance and resilience capability to counter an adversary’s malign activities that seek to undermine a society through subversion. It seeks to demonstrate a resistance capability that if a hostile power considers invading and occupying a nation that that population will resist at such a cost as to deter such a decision. It also postulates support to resistance elements that may be operating in a hostile power’s territory. While this unconventional deterrence failed to deter Putin’s War, the strength of the resistance that continues today may give pause to other powers thereby strengthening the concept of unconventional deterrence. The force most suited to contribute to unconventional deterrence is of course Special Forces employing its UW philosophy.
One last point. The new Army FM 3-0 Operations says that the Army will train for LSCO and accept risk with Irregular warfare because you can prepare for war and conduct irregular warfare, but you cannot prepare for irregular warfare as the main effort and be effective in conventional war. However, it should be understood that LSCO does not take place in irregular warfare, but IW will take place within LSCO as well as on the margins and adjacent to the combat theater and in other theaters around the world. Perhaps that should lead to the conclusion that the responsibility for conducting campaigns in the gray zone of irregular warfare should be those who have a deep grounding in unconventional warfare and possess a UW mindset who can then incorporate conventional forces in the appropriate manner commensurate with their capabilities and the requirements of the campaign. I have often been told in no uncertain terms that the services will not subordinate conventional forces to a SOF headquarters – they never read the concept of the basic counterinsurgency doctrine of 1963 when the Army doctrine said that each Special Action Force (8th SAF in Panama and SAFSIA in Okinawa) should include an assigned infantry battalion, and an engineer, intelligence, medical, and aviation company. Yes, the Army did prevent the assignment of an infantry battalion back then despite its own doctrine.
To be both blunt and bold this is what Special Forces soldiers need to be able to do – e.g., conduct IW that is informed by a UW mindset – against what the DOD now calls the “pacing threat” to the US – China. We are in strategic competition with China because, and I must repeat this because it is so important: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions. Indigenous populations around the world, and especially those under the influence of China’s One Belt and One Road concept, must resist Chinese domination. This is unrestricted warfare but to us it is a UW fight. And I would argue that the SF philosophy and UW mindset can make important contributions to support the approaches to counter Chinese malign influence.
So, in conclusion I offer that UW comes from the past, is here in our present, and will be around in our future. And with no apology to Trotsky for stealing his idea: I say to the critics and naysayers and UW haters: You may not be interested in UW, but you can be damn sure UW is interested in you.
David Maxwell is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel and has spent more than 30 years in Asia as a practitioner and specializes in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation (where he focuses on a free and unified Korea). He is a member of the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights In North Korea and he is the editor of Small Wars Journal.
7. Crucial days ahead as debt ceiling deal goes for vote and Biden calls lawmakers for support
The litmus test is you either support and defend the Constitution and pay our debts. The irony is that those who claim they are working to reduce the debt but holding the debt ceiling hostage are going to catatetrpchicalllly damage the Untied States when we default on our loans. I fear that both sides of the aisle are only interested in the negative political outcome in order to portray the other side as the loser and bad guy.
Here is how I see the doomsday scenario. The bill does not receive enough votes to pass by both extremist sides of the Republican and Democratic parties. When that happens Biden will be forced to use the 14th Amendment. It will be challenged in the courts and held up. Biden will direct Treasury to pay our bills under his authority citing the absolute constitutional requirement that we must pay our bills. But the damage will be done. Countries around the world will be totally fed up with the US and will move to end the dollar as the reserve currency. Lower courts will issue rulings and it will go to the Supreme Court. The SC will rule against Biden. Biden will continue to cite the Constitution. In the end the US will not have enough money to not only pay debts but also to fund the military and all the other requirements for the US to maintain its power. One the dollar stops being the reserve currency the US economy will collapse and there will be a global depression. The US will devolve into a banana republic and we will only have ourselves to blame for putting these Congressmen into office.
But the fundamental questions reqmina. Do you support and defend the Constitution or not?
The better scenario. Enough members on both sides of the aisle support and defend the Constitution and vote to raise the debt ceiling and we dodge a bullet until 2025.
Crucial days ahead as debt ceiling deal goes for vote and Biden calls lawmakers for support
AP · by LISA MASCARO and AAMER MADHANI · May 30, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says he “feels good” about the debt ceiling and budget deal negotiated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as the White House and congressional leaders work to ensure its passage this week in time to lift the nation’s borrowing limit and prevent a disastrous U.S. default.
Biden spent part of the Memorial Day holiday working the phones, calling lawmakers in both parties, as the president does his part to deliver the votes. A number of hard right conservatives are criticizing the deal as falling short of the deep spending cuts they wanted, while liberals decry policy changes such as new work requirements for older Americans in the food aid program.
A key test will come Tuesday afternoon when the House Rules Committee is scheduled to consider the package and vote on sending it to the full House for a vote expected Wednesday.
“I feel very good about it,” Biden told reporters Monday as he left Washington for his home in Delaware.
“I’ve spoken to a number of the members,” he said, among them Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a past partner in big bipartisan deals who largely sat this one out.
“I spoke to a whole bunch of people, and it feels good,” Biden said.
To those progressive Democrats raising concerns about the package, the president had a simple message: “Talk to me.”
As lawmakers size up the 99-page bill, few are expected to be fully satisfied with the final product. But Biden, a Democrat, and McCarthy, a Republican, are counting on pulling majority support from the political center, a rarity in divided Washington, to join in voting to prevent a catastrophic federal default.
Wall Street will open early Tuesday morning delivering its own assessment, as the U.S. financial markets that had been closed when the deal was struck over the weekend show their reaction to the outcome.
McCarthy acknowledged the hard-fought compromise with Biden will not be “100% of what everybody wants” as he leads a slim House majority powered by hard-right conservatives.
Facing potential blowback from his conservative ranks, the Republican speaker will have to rely on upwards of half the House Democrats and half the House Republicans to push the debt ceiling package to passage.
Overall, the package is a tradeoff that would impose some spending reductions for the next two years along with a suspension of the debt limit into January 2025, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election. Raising the debt limit, now $31 trillion, would allow Treasury to continue borrowing to pay the nation’s already incurred bills.
Additionally, policy issues are raising the most objections from lawmakers.
Liberal lawmakers fought hard but were unable to stop new work requirements for people 50 to 54 who receive government food assistance and are otherwise able-bodied without dependents. The Republicans demanded the bolstered work requirements as part of the deal, but some say the changes to the food stamp program are not enough.
The Republicans were also pushing to beef up work requirements for health care and other aid; Biden refused to go along on those.
Questions are also being raised about an unexpected provision that essentially gives congressional approval to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project important to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that many Democrats and others oppose.
At the same time, conservative Republicans including those from the House Freedom Caucus say the budget slashing does not go nearly far enough to have their support.
“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” tweeted Rep. Bob Good, R-Va.
This “deal” is insanity,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. “Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country.”
All told the package would hold spending essentially flat for the coming year, while allowing increases for military and veterans accounts. It would cap growth at 1% for 2025.
The House Rules Committee has three members from the influential Freedom Caucus who may very well try to block the package from advancing, forcing McCarthy to rely on the Democrats on the panel to ensure the bill can be sent to the House floor.
The House aims to vote Wednesday and send the bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer along with McConnell are working for a quick passage by week’s end.
Senators, who have remained largely on the sidelines during much of the negotiations between the president and the House speaker, began inserting themselves more forcefully into the debate.
Some senators are insisting on amendments to reshape the package from both the left and right flanks. That could require time-consuming debates that delay final approval of the deal.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia is “extremely disappointed” by the provision greenlighting the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, his office said in a statement. He plans to file an amendment to remove the provision from the package.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina complained that the military spending increases are not enough. “I will use all powers available to me in the Senate to have amendment votes to undo this catastrophe for defense,” he tweeted.
But making any changes to the package at this stage seems highly unlikely with so little time to spare. Congress and the White House are racing to meet the Monday deadline now less than a week away. That’s when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. would run short of cash and face an unprecedented debt default without action.
A default would almost certainly crush the U.S. economy and spill over around the globe, as the world’s reliance on the stability of the American dollar and the country’s leadership fall into question.
___
Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
AP · by LISA MASCARO and AAMER MADHANI · May 30, 2023
8. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 29, 2023
Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-29-2023
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces conducted another series of strikes against Ukraine with cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones overnight on May 28 to 29 and during the day on May 29.
- Russia deployed more S-400 air defense systems (probably at least a battery) to Belarus on May 28.
- Former Russian Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev confirmed that he is now operating as deputy commander of the Wagner Group.
- Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin denied former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s May 27 accusation that Prigozhin could stage a military coup against the Kremlin by arguing that Wagner lacks the personnel needed to start a coup.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning denied a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui urged European officials to end the conflict in Ukraine before it escalates.
- Russian authorities continue to forcefully integrate dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast into the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) demonstrating the integral connection of the ROC with the Russian state.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
- The tempo of Russian offensive operations in and around Bakhmut remains notably low.
- Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, particularly focusing on Marinka.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast and are expanding fortifications in Mariupol.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled limited Ukrainian reconnaissance in force operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.
- The Russian military command appears to be introducing doctrinal organization to some of its irregular formations.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on May 29 that will further strengthen the martial law regime in occupied areas of Ukraine.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is likely not hospitalized as of May 29.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 29, 2023
May 29, 2023 - Press ISW
Download the PDF
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 29, 2023
Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, Nicole Wolkov, George Barros, Karolina Hird, and Fredrick W. Kagan
May 29, 2023, 6:15pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1pm ET on May 29. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 30 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.
Russian forces conducted another series of strikes against Ukraine with cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones overnight on May 28 to 29 and during the day on May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 40 Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles and 38 Shahed-131/136 drones on the night of May 28 to 29 and 11 Iskander-M/K missiles during the day on May 29.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed in all 36 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles, 30 Shahed drones, and all 11 Iskander missiles.[2] Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces intercepted all 11 Iskander missiles, and 40 cruise missiles and Shahed drones that targeted Kyiv City and Kyiv Oblast.[3] Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces also intercepted missiles and drones near the cities of Lviv, Mykolaiv, and Odesa and that Russian forces struck port infrastructure in Odesa City and a military infrastructure facility in Khmelnytskyi Oblast.[4] Russian forces launched a relatively higher number of missiles than in recent series of strikes following the largest Russian series of Shahed strikes since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on May 28.[5] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces began a new limited air campaign in recent months to degrade Ukrainian counteroffensive capabilities, but that the Russian prioritization of targeting Kyiv is likely further limiting the campaign’s ability to meaningfully constrain potential Ukrainian counteroffensive actions.[6]
Russia deployed more S-400 air defense systems (probably at least a battery) to Belarus on May 28. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense released a video on May 28 showing a train with S-400 systems deploying to an unspecified area in Belarus.[7] Independent Belarusian monitoring organization The Hajun Project reported that the train with S-400s arrived at the 25th Missile Arsenal near Stoubtsi (about 60 km southwest of Minsk).[8] It is unclear whether these S-400s will enter service near Stoubtsi or deploy further to a different location. These systems will likely enter service with the Belarusian military but under Russian operational control. Russia’s and Belarus’ Joint Regional Air Defense System (established in 2009 and operational in 2016) effectively subordinates Belarus’ air defense assets to the Russian Western Military District.[9] Belarusian officials confirmed that Russian-provided S-400 in Belarus became operational and deployed on combat duty on December 25, 2022.[10] ISW forecasted in 2020 that Russia would deploy S-400s to Belarus.[11]
Former Russian Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev confirmed that he is now operating as deputy commander of the Wagner Group. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger published an interview on May 29 in which Mizintsev confirmed previous claims that he assumed the position.[12] Mizintsev stated that he has maintained good relations with Wagner for the previous 10 years, further substantiating reports that Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin used close connections with Mizintsev to secure resources for Wagner while Mizintsev was in the Russian MoD.[13] Mizintsev claimed to be in Bakhmut overseeing the ongoing relief-in-place operation and claimed that Wagner is conducting an organized withdrawal.[14] Mizintsev praised the Wagner commanders and advocated that Wagner’s structure and management become a model for the total war that Russia needs to be fighting.[15] Mizintsev declined to comment about feuds between the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Wagner but highlighted that the Russian military has struggled with ammunition provisions and conducting a large-scale mobilization of the Russian nation to win in Ukraine.[16] ISW previously assessed that Prigozhin likely appointed Mizintsev as Wagner deputy commander in an effort to retain Wagner’s access to supplies, and Prigozhin has since promoted Mizintsev as his preferred replacement for Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.[17] Mizintsev’s publicized confirmation of his position and adulation of Wagner is likely part of Prigozhin’s wider effort to advocate for more influence following the capture of Bakhmut.[18]
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin denied former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s May 27 accusation that Prigozhin could stage a military coup against the Kremlin by arguing that Wagner lacks the personnel needed to start a coup. Prigozhin stated on May 29 that there are different types of coups across the globe – including a “chaotic military coup” in Sudan – which take too long and result in major conflicts.[19] Prigozhin argued that Wagner does not have a large enough army required to carry out a coup and claimed that Wagner has good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin vaguely implied that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu could stage a coup as he has access to the Russian Special Forces. Prigozhin added that while some individuals in Russia are expecting a revolution Wagner is only advocating for select corrections to the Russian system. Prigozhin’s response to Girkin notably follows his response to a media inquiry in which he hypothesizes about who could have authorized the reported ban on mentions of Wagner on the Russian state media, and even considered Putin.[20] Prigozhin then stated that there is an effort in Russia to avoid recognizing the legitimate heroes of this war and that “the officials-bureaucrats who run the Russian state today must remain the heroes and they are the only ones who can be thanked.” He added that “if they aren’t thanked, then they say, ‘Fine, heck with it, praise the president,’” implying that Putin is receiving unearned praise and thanks because of the unwillingness of Russian bureaucrats to honor those who truly deserve it. Prigozhin has dramatically increased the number of direct references to Putin since May 9 – after he indirectly criticized Putin during the Victory Day holiday.[21]
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning denied a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui urged European officials to end the conflict in Ukraine before it escalates.[22] Mao claimed that European officials acknowledged China’s “positive role in promoting peace talks” and appreciated China’s “calling for sovereignty and territorial integrity.”[23] Mao claimed that the war in Ukraine is “now at a critical juncture” and that China continues to attempt to work with all parties to resolve the “crisis.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that European officials did not confirm reports that Li urged them attempt to end the war or consider recognizing Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as Russian territory.[24] Kuleba also stated that Ukraine will continue to engage with China on the basis of three principles: mutual respect for territorial integrity, no proposals of territorial concessions, and no suggestions of freezing the conflict.
Russian authorities continue to forcefully integrate dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast into the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) demonstrating the integral connection of the ROC with the Russian state. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed that the Russian Bishop of Bronnitsky, Luka, held the first liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Berdyansk Cathedral, which the Russian Orthodox Church had taken control over on May 16.[25] Rogov claimed that Russian Orthodox Church Head Patriarch Kirill appointed Bishop of Bronnitsky Luka as head of the Berdyansk and Prymorsk dioceses of the ROC. The Berdyansk and Prymorsk dioceses were previously part of the Russian-affiliated UOC MP, and their forced integration with the ROC emphasizes the close relationship between the ROC and the Russian state.[26]
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces conducted another series of strikes against Ukraine with cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones overnight on May 28 to 29 and during the day on May 29.
- Russia deployed more S-400 air defense systems (probably at least a battery) to Belarus on May 28.
- Former Russian Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev confirmed that he is now operating as deputy commander of the Wagner Group.
- Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin denied former Russian officer Igor Girkin’s May 27 accusation that Prigozhin could stage a military coup against the Kremlin by arguing that Wagner lacks the personnel needed to start a coup.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning denied a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui urged European officials to end the conflict in Ukraine before it escalates.
- Russian authorities continue to forcefully integrate dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast into the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) demonstrating the integral connection of the ROC with the Russian state.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
- The tempo of Russian offensive operations in and around Bakhmut remains notably low.
- Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, particularly focusing on Marinka.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast and are expanding fortifications in Mariupol.
- Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled limited Ukrainian reconnaissance in force operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.
- The Russian military command appears to be introducing doctrinal organization to some of its irregular formations.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on May 29 that will further strengthen the martial law regime in occupied areas of Ukraine.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is likely not hospitalized as of May 29.
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 conducted limited ground attacks northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line on May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and did not conduct offensive operations in the Kreminna area.[27] Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukrainian forces continue to repel all Russian attempted advances near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove), Torske (14km west of Kreminna), Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna), and Spirne (25km south of Kreminna).[28] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced from Masyutivka, although ISW has still not seen visual confirmation of these advances nor confirmation that Russian forces control Masyutivka.[29] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced toward Bilohorivka from the northeast and are trying to encircle Ukrainian forces in the area.[30] ISW has not seen visual confirmation supporting a Russian advance near Bilohorivka. A pro-Kremlin milblogger claimed that Russian forces are preparing offensive operations to capture Siversk (17km southwest of Kreminna).[31] The Kreminna area is one of the few areas along the front line where Russian forces continue routine offensive operations, and Russian forces may be concentrating offensive capabilities in this area to set conditions for a potential offensive toward Siversk. A Russian milblogger claimed on May 8 that unspecified Russian airborne units and a Don Cossack special unit are operating in the Serebrianske forest area (10km south of Kreminna) and that Chechen Akhmat and 2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps elements are operating near Zolotarivka (16km south of Kreminna).[32]
Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike on Almazna in Luhansk Oblast on May 28.[33] Geolocated footage published on May 28 showed the aftermath of the reported HIMARS strike on Almazna.[34]
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.
The tempo of Russian offensive operations in and around Bakhmut remains notably low as of May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations northeast of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northeast of Bakhmut) and in the direction of Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut).[35] The Ukrainian General Staff reported in its later situational report for May 29 that Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction.[36] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Russian forces are decreasing the tempo of their operations in the Bakhmut area amidst the ongoing Russian relief-in-place operation.[37] Malyar stated that Russian regular formations are continuing to assume control of Wagner’s positions in Bakhmut City itself as well as on the flanks around the city.[38] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed on May 29 that elements of the 106th Guards Airborne Division are operating on the northern flanks of Bakhmut, likely in connection with the ongoing relief-in-place operation.[39] Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces retain positions on the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut City and that Ukrainian forces did not attempt to advance in the Bakhmut area on May 28 and 29 in order to prioritize other unspecified tasks.[40] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces made unspecified gains in the direction of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and that Russian forces attacked near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[41]
Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on May 29, particularly around Marinka. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled 12 Russian assaults near Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka), more than half of the Russian assaults along the entire front reported by the Ukrainian General Staff on May 29.[42] Ukrainian Tavriisk Defense Forces Spokesperson Valerii Shershen stated on May 28 that Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on the Avdiivka and Marinka areas, where Russian forces are reportedly attempting to seize Ukrainian platoon strongholds.[43] A Russian milblogger claimed on May 29 that Russian forces conducted assaults in the direction of Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka) and Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka).[44]
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on May 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Velyka Novosilka (55km southwest of Donetsk City).[45] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed on May 28 that positional battles occurred near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[46]
Russian forces are reportedly expanding fortifications around Mariupol amidst continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas near the city. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko stated on May 29 that Russian forces have recently intensified construction of fortifications around Mariupol and are transporting logs into the city to construct dugouts.[47] Andryushchenko also stated that a Ukrainian strike on a Russian concentration area in the vicinity of Mariupol killed 100 Russian personnel and wounded 40 others on May 28.[48] Russian sources recently reported that Ukrainian forces conducted missile strikes against Mariupol on May 19 and 26.[49]
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Russian forces continued defensive operations in southern Ukraine on May 29. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported that Russian forces continue to construct trenches on the outskirts of Melitopol in Zaporizhia Oblast that are large enough to accommodate “equipment and mass graves.”[50] Fedorov also reported that Russian forces are concealing equipment and manpower in the Bohatyr forest area near Melitopol but also using the trees to build fortifications.[51] ISW has previously reported on Russian forces building fortifications near Melitopol.[52]
Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled limited Ukrainian reconnaissance-in-force operations in southern Ukraine. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed that Russian forces repelled a reconnaissance-in-force operation near Lobkove (37km southeast of Zaporizhzhia City) in Zaporizhia Oblast.[53] Chair of the Kherson Oblast occupation government Andrey Alekseyenko claimed that units of the 34th Mountain Brigade (49th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) are operating in the Dnipro River area.[54] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Administration Advisor Serhiy Khlan reported on May 28 that unspecified Chechen troops operate on the part of the Arabat Spit in Kherson Oblast to guard against desertion.[55]
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
The Russian military command appears to be introducing doctrinal organization to some of its irregular formations. Servicemen of the 3rd Battalion of the 1307 Regiment of the 6th Division who had previously operated in the Soledar area recorded an appeal complaining about lack of adequate leadership and poor treatment of personnel on the battlefield.[56] Russian regular forces have not had a 6th Division after disbanding the 6th Guards Motorized Riffle Division in 1992, and the subordination of the regiment under a division likely indicates that Russian forces are attempting to regularize command and control in the irregular formations.[57]
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin continues to advocate for the creation of regional militias in Russian oblasts that border Ukraine. Prigozhin published a letter which he addressed to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu calling for the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to create local self-defense units in response to recent sabotage activity on the Russian-Ukrainian border.[58] Prigozhin claimed that Russia needs 300 battalions (or 100 regiments) with a total of 198,000 personnel to protect the 540km border between Ukraine and Belgorod Oblast. Prigozhin also noted that Russia will not be able to adequately defend the border without mobilization and called on the Russian MoD to create the Belgorod Oblast mobilization reserve to be overseen by Wagner military advisers. Prigozhin also claimed that the formation of a 198,000-person territorial defense formation should be legal under the Russian constitution as it aims to protect Russia.[59]
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on May 29 to form a Presidium of the Collegium of the Military Industrial Commission, which will have the authority to make operational decisions aimed at ensuring the completion of military-industrial tasks.[60] The decree states that the authorized representatives in federal districts are required to ensure activities of different state officials to solve issues relating to the implementation of investment projects necessary for the production of military supplies. The decree also orders federal representatives to solve issues pertaining to labor shortages and to incentivize employees with social guarantees.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov alongside Chechen National Policy Minister Akhmed Dudayev and Commander of the Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov Special Police Regiment Zamid Chalaev delivered military equipment and met with commanders of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DNR) on May 28.[61] Kadyrov also claimed to have visited Chechen “Akhmat” Special Forces headquarters in occupied Ukraine.[62] Kadyrov is likely attempting to present himself as an involved war-time figure following his meeting with Putin on May 20 during which he claimed that seven Chechen regiments and four Chechen battalion are operating in Ukraine.[63]
Russian occupation officials are continuing to form volunteer battalions in occupied Ukraine. A Ukrainian official stated that Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo announced that recruitment for the “Margelov” volunteer battalion in occupied Kherson Oblast is open for all Russian regions.[64] The Ukrainian military official noted that Saldo’s announcement indicates that Ukrainian locals in occupied Kherson Oblast are uninterested in supporting the Russian war effort.
A draft presidential decree suggests that the Kremlin intends to simplify the process of voluntary resettlement to Russia for compatriots living abroad.[65] The decree, if passed, will allow former Russian or Soviet citizens and those with direct lineage to Russia who lived abroad as of February 24, 2022 to resettle in Russia. The decree will offer exemption from customs duties, waive the language proficiency requirement, and provide compensation. The decree is likely part of an ongoing Russian attempt to counteract a population decline in Russia and to facilitate additional recruitment efforts.
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 President Vladimir Putin signed a law on May 29 that will further strengthen the martial law regime in occupied areas of Ukraine.[66] As ISW previously reported, the Russian State Duma and Federation Council have approved the law, and the law will allow Russian occupation authorities to hold elections in areas under martial law, which was previously forbidden.[67] The law also codifies conditions for the removal and deportation of Ukrainians living in occupied areas to areas that are not under martial law.[68]
Russian occupation authorities continue repressions against Crimean Tatars and Tatar-affiliated groups. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on May that it detained two Crimean residents on the charge of participating in the “Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion named after Noman Chelebidzikhan” (also known as the “Asker” Battalion), which Russia has classified as a “terrorist organization.”[69]
Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine is extraordinarily unlikely).
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is likely not hospitalized as of May 29. Lukashenko met with Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina in Minsk on May 29, dispelling previous unconfirmed reports that Lukashenko may have been hospitalized as of May 27 or 28.[70]
Belarusian and possibly Russian authorities are constructing field fortifications in Belarus. Satellite images taken on May 25 show dragons’ teeth vehicle traps and trenches on the M8 highway in Gomel Oblast, Belarus, about 20 kilometers from the Belarusian-Ukrainian border.[71] Russian authorities may seek to connect field fortifications in Belarus with the line of field fortifications that spans from Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk oblasts up to the Russian-Belarusian international border.
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.
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.
9. This drone-on-drone dogfight in Ukraine is a glimpse of the future of war
Video at the link: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/drone-dogfights-ukraine/?utm
This drone-on-drone dogfight in Ukraine is a glimpse of the future of war
High-tech tactics of war,
BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED MAY 27, 2023 12:33 PM EDT
taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton · May 27, 2023
Early this week the Ukrainian armed forces posted a short video to social media showing its drones in operation, flying over convoys, surveilling battlefields and in one brief bit of footage, taking out a Russian drone by crashing into it at top speed.
The video, set to electronic music, offers a glimpse into the low-tech approach soldiers are taking to dealing with high-tech tools.
The footage of the specific incident is short but shows what is starting to happen more and more in Ukraine. With both Russia and Ukraine making heavy use of uncrewed aerial vehicles, UAV dogfights are starting to pop up as the two warring parties try to keep the skies clear. It’s a risky strategy, given that both drones will likely be taken out, and a pretty rudimentary solution for dealing with 21st century technology. But if it’s dumb and it works, it’s not dumb.
Given the damage drones can do, counter-drone defenses have become a priority as the war has dragged on. Beyond electronic countermeasures, both sides have tried to shoot down enemy UAVs. Given that many are quite small, that can be a challenge, as can trying to ram a similarly small quadcopter into another. However it’s clear that is being tried, and somehow working.
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Often drones end up targeting groups on the ground, not each other. Ukraine recently used its drone arsenal to strike Russian assets in the east and in Crimea. Both sides in the war are using uncrewed surface vessels and aerial vehicles for a variety of purposes — for reconnaissance, as targeting systems for older artillery systems and to launch attacks on ground forces. Every so often the drones themselves are the weapons, smashing into the targets.
This isn’t the first time two drones duked it out over the skies of Ukraine. In October 2022, footage of another instance hit social media, again set to eastern European techno music. That clip showed more of a standoff, with each UAV trying to maneuver around to avoid strikes and land a killing blow.
It’s worth noting that a recent report from the think tank the Royal United Services Institute found that Ukraine is burning through 10,000 drones per month — a staggering number that does not appear to have drained Ukraine’s stockpile. That includes both military-grade and commercial UAVs, often as a result of better countermeasures by Russian forces, including electronic warfare systems and anti-air systems.
Apparently drone versus drone combat is another way they can be destroyed. However don’t expect the UAV version of the Red Baron or Pete “Maverick” Mitchell” any time soon.
The latest on Task & Purpose
taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton · May 27, 2023
10. NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
Reuters · by Fatos Bytyci
- Summary
- Serbs reject new ethnic Albanian mayors after vote boycott
- KFOR says around 25 peacekeeping soldiers injured
- US rebukes Kosovo for imposing mayors in mainly Serb area
LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo, May 29 (Reuters) - Around 25 NATO peacekeeping soldiers defending three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, while Serbia's president put the army on the highest level of combat alert.
KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, condemned the violence.
"While countering the most active fringes of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices," it said in a statement.
Hungary's defense minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that 7 Hungarian soldiers were seriously injured and that they will be taken to Hungary for treatment. He said 20 soldiers were injured. Italian soldiers were also injured in clashes.
"What is happening is absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible," Italy's Giorgia Meloni said in a statement. "It is vital to avoid further unilateral actions on the part of the Kosovar authorities and that all the parties in question immediately take a step back to ease the tensions."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that 52 Serbs were injured, three of them seriously.
Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic of destabilising Kosovo.
"Serb illegal structures turned into criminal gangs have attacked Kosovo police, KFOR (peacekeeping) officers & journalists. Those who carry out Vucic's orders to destabilise the north of Kosovo, must face justice," Osmani tweeted.
Vucic accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of creating tensions. He called on Serbs in Kosovo to avoid clashes with NATO soldiers.
The tense situation developed after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo's Serb majority area after elections the Serbs boycotted - a move that led the U.S. and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday.
In Zvecan, one of the towns, Kosovo police - staffed by ethnic Albanians after Serbs quit the force last year - sprayed pepper gas to repel a crowd of Serbs who broke through a security barricade and tried to force their way into the municipality building, witnesses said.
Serb protesters in Zvecan threw tear gas and stun grenades at NATO soldiers. Serbs also clashed with police in Zvecan and spray-painted NATO vehicles with the letter "Z", referring to a Russian sign used in war in Ukraine.
In Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, U.S. peacekeeping troops in riot gear placed barbed wire around the town hall to protect it from hundreds of angry Serbs.
Later in the day protesters threw eggs at a parked car belonging to the new Leposavic mayor.
Vucic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Serbian armed forces, raised the army's combat readiness to the highest level, Defence Minister Milos Vucevic told reporters.
[1/11] Local Kosovo Serb protesters sit on the ground in front of NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) soldiers in the town of Zvecan, Kosovo, May 29, 2023. REUTERS/Laura Hasani
"This implies that immediately before 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), the Serbian Armed Forces' Chief of the General Staff issued additional instructions for the deployment of the army's units in specific, designated positions," Vucevic said, without elaborating.
NATO peacekeepers also blocked off the town hall in Zubin Potok to protect it from angry local Serbs, witnesses said.
Igor Simic, deputy head of the Serb List, the biggest Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of fuelling tensions in the north.
"We are interested in peace. Albanians who live here are interested in peace, and only he (Kurti) wants to make chaos," Simic told reporters in Zvecan.
TEAR GAS
Serbs, who comprise a majority in Kosovo's north, have never accepted its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of an EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and ethnic Albanian candidates won the mayoralties in four Serb-majority municipalities - including North Mitrovica, where no incidents were reported on Monday - with a 3.5% turnout.
Serbs demand that the Kosovo government remove ethnic Albanian mayors from town halls and allow local administrations financed by Belgrade resume their work.
On Friday, three out of the four ethnic Albanian mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannon to disperse the protesters.
The United States and its allies, which have strongly backed Kosovo's independence, rebuked Pristina on Friday, saying imposing mayors in Serb-majority areas without popular support undercut efforts to normalise relations.
Kurti defended Pristina's position, tweeting after a weekend phone call with the European Union's foreign policy chief: "Emphasized that elected mayors will provide services to all citizens."
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS it was "not possible to have mayors who have not been elected by Serbs in Serb-majority municipalities".
After meeting Kurti, U.S. ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenier told reporters: "We are concerned about reports today about violence against official property."
"We've seen pictures of graffiti against KFOR cars and police cars, we've heard about attacks on journalists, we condemn that, that is not appropriate response."
Reporting by Fatos Bytici; Additional reporting by Miodrag Draskic and Angelo Amante in Rome; Writing by Ivana Sekularac and Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Giles Elgood and Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Fatos Bytyci
11. China’s three ‘grey rhinos’ – demographic crisis, debt and decoupling – are growing, threatening economic growth
Excerpts:
The three grey rhinos have been fed by long-held views that the Chinese population remains large, its high growth will keep on for decades, and its market and factories are too important to do without. All these arguments have valid points, but they cannot be taken for granted as eternal truth.
To be sure, China has already taken measures to prepare for these threats, but more needs to be done. For example, the country’s meagre child birth subsidies should be replaced by a new national fertility campaign that includes comprehensive tax, housing and education policies.
Ultimately, China has to rely on economic liberalisation and opening-up to make its people more confident about the future. When the public is optimistic, the three grey rhinos will be much easier to manage.
China’s three ‘grey rhinos’ – demographic crisis, debt and decoupling – are growing, threatening economic growth
- The nation’s birth rate is plunging, its debt bubble is threatening to burst, and its allure as the world’s factory is losing its shine
- Chinese authorities have already taken measures to prepare for these highly probable, high-impact threats, but more needs to be done
Zhou Xin
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Published: 7:00am, 30 May, 2023
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3222161/chinas-three-grey-rhinos-demographic-crisis-debt-and-decoupling-are-growing-threatening-economic
China’s three biggest “grey rhinos” are growing. The term, coined by American author Michele Wucker to describe highly probable and high-impact threats, aptly describes the country’s demographic crisis, its mountain of debt and its decoupling with other major economies.
With China’s birth rate already falling off a cliff, the first grey rhino turns out to be far more menacing than previously expected. The country has already lost its title as the world’s most populous nation to India. The latest rumour is that China’s number of births could drop below 8 million this year, in another deep fall from 9.56 million in 2022, according to pregnancy records compiled by hospitals up till May.
If true, that would mark the lowest numbers since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949. It would also add fresh evidence that the country is plunging into the low-fertility trap that it created through decades of birth restrictions.00:17 / 00:35
The ageing Chinese town where the one-child policy worked too well
Some Chinese researchers have argued that the country, with improved education and a massive labour force, would continue to benefit from new “demographic dividends” – favourable conditions for economic growth owing to the sheer size of the population.
But the argument is false because a rapidly ageing population is not a dividend. In fact, the demographic shift has already started to erode China’s growth momentum, and the problem will only get worse in the foreseeable future.
The second grey rhino – China’s debts, in particular local government debts – has been in view for years, and authorities have been trying to de-leverage for a long time. Although China has successfully avoided a debt crisis so far, room to muddle through this issue is shrinking fast.
It is a poorly-kept secret that it will be impossible for many local-government financing arms to repay their debts. Kunming, the capital of southwest Yunnan province, had to publicly deny a widely circulated memo stating that local financing vehicles were in trouble.
A monorail sky train runs over a street in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province. Photo: Xinhua
In the past, China relied on its rapid economic growth to fix its debt issues. But as the economy loses its momentum, the country no longer has that luxury. With government, corporate and household debts at above 300 per cent of national gross domestic product, China may finally have to face the consequences of overborrowing.
It is also worth noting that China’s household balance sheet, which has been regarded as safe for a long time, may start to turn bad. Chinese families that borrowed heavily to buy property in the past years would suffer from debt if their incomes were reduced after lay-offs from high-paying jobs in technology and finance.
The third grey rhino, the decoupling between China and advanced economies such as the US and Japan, is a complicated process and will not happen overnight. But while China’s export power remains formidable, it also is sailing against political winds.
Call it de-risking or decoupling, but the days are over when economic integration and trade trumped value differences. China, the largest benefactor of globalisation in the earlier part of this century, has to prepare for a less accommodating international environment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden shake hands before their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in November 2022. Photo: AP Photo
The nation’s economic upgrading and technology catch-up may slow, and it may lose manufacturing advantages as multinational companies start to marginalise or exclude it from supply chains.
The three grey rhinos have been fed by long-held views that the Chinese population remains large, its high growth will keep on for decades, and its market and factories are too important to do without. All these arguments have valid points, but they cannot be taken for granted as eternal truth.
To be sure, China has already taken measures to prepare for these threats, but more needs to be done. For example, the country’s meagre child birth subsidies should be replaced by a new national fertility campaign that includes comprehensive tax, housing and education policies.
Ultimately, China has to rely on economic liberalisation and opening-up to make its people more confident about the future. When the public is optimistic, the three grey rhinos will be much easier to manage.
Zhou Xin
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Zhou Xin is Tech Editor of the Post, following stints as Political Economy Editor and Deputy China Editor. He has previously worked for Reuters and Bloomberg in Beijing.
12. How Worried Should the World Be of China’s New COVID Wave?
Oh, COVID? Is that still around? (note sarcasm).
Excerpts:
With the virus continuing to circulate in China coupled with a waning public immunity, the possibility of a new, more dangerous sub-variant emerging still exists, Bennett adds, although the likelihood is much smaller now. The latest mutations in the genetic makeup of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have not been significantly different from the last major variant, Omicron, and the symptoms of infections are relatively milder. “It’s somewhat reassuring, thus, now a year and a half into Omicron, that we haven’t seen a major shift that’s either undermined our immunity, our testing capability, and importantly, antivirals,” Bennett adds.
But another factor that affects the prognosis for China is its willingness to share information. Independent experts have been skeptical of China’s official COVID-19 figures, forcing many to record their own statistics. A delayed release in China’s marriage and funeral data for the October-December 2022 period has also raised speculation that the country has yet to determine the true extent of the infection spread of its first wave.
Vincent Pang, an assistant professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, says data on the spread and impact of COVID-19 will only be of use if shared with others on a global, well-regulated platform, so that these countries can perform their own risk assessment. “Infectious disease does not respect geographical boundaries,” he tells TIME. “No one is safe until everyone is ready and safe.”
How Worried Should the World Be of China’s New COVID Wave?
TIME · by Chad de Guzman · May 29, 2023
Last week when a Chinese senior health adviser projected 65 million COVID-19 cases per week in China by June, some health experts sounded the alarm.
China has been facing a new COVID-19 wave fueled by the XBB variant since April. Data from Zhong Nanshan—a respiratory disease doctor who was among the first to confirm COVID-19’s easy transmissibility—provided a rare insight into how the disease could possibly be spreading in China almost six months after Beijing abruptly ended its draconian zero-COVID strategy.
Since pivoting to “living with the virus” policy from early December, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention stopped updating weekly infections. But the sudden relaxation of anti-epidemic protocols also led to an estimated 37 million new infections a day weeks later. By January, experts said they believed almost 80% of China’s 1.4 billion population had already been infected in this first wave.
For the second wave since April, Zhong’s modeling revealed that the XBB variant is expected to cause 40 million infections weekly by May, going up to 65 million in June. This goes against the grain of Chinese health officials’ estimate that the wave had peaked in April. In Beijing, the number of new infections recorded between May 15 and 21 grew four times in four weeks.
While Zhong said vaccines targeting this specific variant will be rolled out soon, the projection of new COVID-19 infections nonetheless frazzled markets. China’s collective immunity has always been in question: a refusal to use foreign-sourced mRNA vaccines meant the public got inoculated against COVID-19 with a jab that proved less effective in preventing infection during early clinical trials, say researchers, and the stringent virus containment protocols restricted the possibility of developing natural immunity.
Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells TIME that although only mass testing can detect the true extent of the COVID-19 surge, the population has obtained some immunity from the preceding wave.
“We shouldn’t worry if China doesn’t worry,” Huang says. “Public health officials try to downplay the severity of this second wave. The Chinese people seem to have learned to co-exist with the virus. There’s that social adaptability.”
Women wearing face masks use exercise equipment at a public park in Beijing in May 2023.
Mark Schiefelbein—AP Photo
Compared to countries like the U.S. and Australia, China has just begun transitioning COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic disease. Catherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at Deakin University in Australia, says the new wave “tests the effectiveness of their vaccines and their boosters,” adding that Beijing must ensure everyone’s vaccines are up to date—especially the elderly and the vulnerable population.
Chinese data a concern
With the virus continuing to circulate in China coupled with a waning public immunity, the possibility of a new, more dangerous sub-variant emerging still exists, Bennett adds, although the likelihood is much smaller now. The latest mutations in the genetic makeup of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have not been significantly different from the last major variant, Omicron, and the symptoms of infections are relatively milder. “It’s somewhat reassuring, thus, now a year and a half into Omicron, that we haven’t seen a major shift that’s either undermined our immunity, our testing capability, and importantly, antivirals,” Bennett adds.
But another factor that affects the prognosis for China is its willingness to share information. Independent experts have been skeptical of China’s official COVID-19 figures, forcing many to record their own statistics. A delayed release in China’s marriage and funeral data for the October-December 2022 period has also raised speculation that the country has yet to determine the true extent of the infection spread of its first wave.
Vincent Pang, an assistant professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, says data on the spread and impact of COVID-19 will only be of use if shared with others on a global, well-regulated platform, so that these countries can perform their own risk assessment. “Infectious disease does not respect geographical boundaries,” he tells TIME. “No one is safe until everyone is ready and safe.”
More Must-Reads From TIME
Contact us at letters@time.com.
TIME · by Chad de Guzman · May 29, 2023
13. ‘Adversarial AI’ a threat to military systems, Shift5′s Lospinoso says
Excerpts:
Q: Let’s talk about military software systems. An alarming 2018 Government Accountability Office report said nearly all newly developed weapons systems had mission critical vulnerabilities. And the Pentagon is thinking about putting AI into such systems?
A: There are two issues here. First, we need to adequately secure existing weapons systems. This is a technical debt we have that is going to take a very long time to pay. Then there is a new frontier of securing AI algorithms – novel things that we would install. The GAO report didn’t really talk about AI. So forget AI for a second. If these systems just stayed the way that they are, they’re still profoundly vulnerable.
We are discussing pushing the envelope and adding AI-enabled capabilities for things like improved maintenance and operational intelligence. All great. But we’re building on top of a house of cards. Many systems are decades old, retrofitted with digital technologies. Aircraft, ground vehicles, space assets, submarines. They’re now interconnected. We’re swapping data in and out. The systems are porous, hard to upgrade, and could be attacked. Once an attacker gains access, it’s game over.
Sometimes it’s easier to build a new platform than to redesign existing systems’ digital components. But there is a role for AI in securing these systems. AI can be used to defend if someone tries to compromise them.
‘Adversarial AI’ a threat to military systems, Shift5′s Lospinoso says
Frank Bajak, The Associated Press
reader.defensenews.com · May 29, 2023
Josh Lospinoso’s first cybersecurity startup was acquired in 2017 by Raytheon/Forcepoint. His second, Shift5, works with the U.S. military, rail operators and airlines including JetBlue. A 2009 West Point grad and Rhodes Scholar, the 36-year-old former Army captain spent more than a decade authoring hacking tools for the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.
Lospinoso recently told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee how artificial intelligence can help protect military operations. The CEO/programmer discussed the subject with The Associated Press as well how software vulnerabilities in weapons systems are a major threat to the U.S. military. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: In your testimony, you described two principal threats to AI-enabled technologies: One is theft. That’s self-explanatory. The other is data poisoning. Can you explain that?
A: One way to think about data poisoning is as digital disinformation. If adversaries are able to craft the data that AI-enabled technologies see, they can profoundly impact how that technology operates.
Q: Is data poisoning happening?
A: We are not seeing it broadly. But it has occurred. One of the best-known cases happened in 2016. Microsoft released a Twitter chatbot it named Tay that learned from conversations it had online. Malicious users conspired to tweet abusive, offensive language at it. Tay began to generate inflammatory content. Microsoft took it offline.
Q: AI isn’t just chatbots. It has long been integral to cybersecurity, right?
A: AI is used in email filters to try to flag and segregate junk mail and phishing lures. Another example is endpoints, like the antivirus program on your laptop – or malware detection software that runs on networks. Of course, offensive hackers also use AI to try defeat those classification systems. That’s called adversarial AI.
Q: Let’s talk about military software systems. An alarming 2018 Government Accountability Office report said nearly all newly developed weapons systems had mission critical vulnerabilities. And the Pentagon is thinking about putting AI into such systems?
A: There are two issues here. First, we need to adequately secure existing weapons systems. This is a technical debt we have that is going to take a very long time to pay. Then there is a new frontier of securing AI algorithms – novel things that we would install. The GAO report didn’t really talk about AI. So forget AI for a second. If these systems just stayed the way that they are, they’re still profoundly vulnerable.
We are discussing pushing the envelope and adding AI-enabled capabilities for things like improved maintenance and operational intelligence. All great. But we’re building on top of a house of cards. Many systems are decades old, retrofitted with digital technologies. Aircraft, ground vehicles, space assets, submarines. They’re now interconnected. We’re swapping data in and out. The systems are porous, hard to upgrade, and could be attacked. Once an attacker gains access, it’s game over.
Sometimes it’s easier to build a new platform than to redesign existing systems’ digital components. But there is a role for AI in securing these systems. AI can be used to defend if someone tries to compromise them.
Q: You testified that pausing AI research, as some have urged, would be a bad idea because it would favor China and other competitors. But you also have concerns about the headlong rush to AI products. Why?
A: I hate to sound fatalistic, but the so-called “burning-use” case seems to apply. A product rushed to market often catches fire (gets hacked, fails, does unintended damage). And we say, ‘Boy, we should have built in security.’ I expect the pace of AI development to accelerate, and we might not pause enough to do this in a secure and responsible way. At least the White House and Congress are discussing these issues.
Q: It seems like a bunch of companies – including in the defense sector — are rushing to announce half-baked AI products.
A: Every tech company and many non-tech companies have made almost a jarring pivot toward AI. Economic dislocations are coming. Business models are fundamentally going to change. Dislocations are already happening or are on the horizon — and business leaders are trying to not get caught flat-footed.
Q: What about the use of AI in military decision-making such as targeting?
A: I do not, categorically do not, think that artificial intelligence algorithms — the data that we’re collecting — are ready for prime time for a lethal weapon system to be making decisions. We are just so far from that.
reader.defensenews.com · May 29, 2023
14. Russian Volunteer Corps says its fighters crossed into Russia again
Russian Volunteer Corps says its fighters crossed into Russia again
ukrinform.net
That's according to the Telegram channel of the Russian Volunteer Corps, Ukrinform reports.
"Yesterday, Russian border guards celebrated their professional holiday. RVC fighters congratulated them on another successful crossing of the 'holey' state border! The purpose of our transition will become known in the near future. Stay tuned for updates," the message reads.
On May 22, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion reported on social media that they had liberated some settlements and introduced their forces into the town of Graivoron in Russia's Belgorod region.
The same day, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps had launched an operation to liberate Russia from Putin's regime in order to create a security zone to protect the Ukrainian civilian population, but exclusively with the participation of Russian citizens.
On May 24, RVC said they had advanced 42 km deep into the Belgorod region. Volunteer formations controlled some settlements for 24 hours.
On May 25, it was announced that RVC had again crossed into Russia.
Photos: RVC
ukrinform.net
15. The next Chinese tech threat is already here
Recognize the strategy, understand it, expose it, and attack it.
Excerpts:
Everyone has heard of Huawei and Hikvision, but few know about Quectel, Fibocom or other Chinese producers of cellular IoT modules, even though they represent a far greater threat to free and open countries.
With cellular modules, China is using the same strategy as with 5G telecommunications and Huawei/ZTE. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hopes to establish a monopoly of these vital components through these little-known companies, using subsidy, access to cheap finance, shared technology and other state support. They are making progress. Chinese companies hold 64 per cent of the global market by sales, and 75 per cent by connectivity. For North America and Europe the shares are 30 per cent, 35 per cent, and for India a whopping 86 per cent.
The aim is to drive other nations’ suppliers out of business by offering impossibly low prices, and then establish a systemic dependency upon Chinese suppliers and equipment. No doubt Quectel and others will claim, like Huawei, that they are private companies. But it does not matter: China’s security law says that they must hand over data to the organs of state security. Moreover, all bosses know that when the CCP says ‘Jump’, the only response is ‘How high?’
...
Governments should be doing more to acquaint themselves with the risks and to publicise them. Because cellular modules are already deeply embedded in our systems, wholesale ‘Rip and Replace’ is not a realistic option, except in a limited number of sensitive defence and security fields. But we need speedy action to prevent greater penetration and thereby risk. A start would be ensuring that Quectel and other Chinese companies cannot be treated as trusted suppliers in government procurement or critical infrastructure contracts.
Fortunately, there are European, American, Japanese and other companies whose products we can trust. A decent diet can help with dyspepsia.
The next Chinese tech threat is already here
The Spectator · by Charles Parton · May 29, 2023
- Coffee House
Charles Parton
In recent years we’ve had fierce debates about the safety and security of Huawei, 5G, TikTok, semiconductors, ChatGPT and artificial intelligence. All of which may have given you technological indigestion. Let me add something even more threatening to the mix of the threat from China: the security of cellular (internet of things) modules.
Unlike the mythical urban rat, you really are never more than a few feet away from a cellular module. If semiconductors are the bricks with which the new industrial and lifestyle revolutions are being built, cellular modules are the doors and windows. They are small components embedded within equipment or devices which process software, have geolocation capability, e-sims to connect to the internet (in the manner of mobile phones) and much more. They transmit, receive and process vast amounts of data about their environments.
This is the stuff of nightmares. It may sound like fantasy or a sci-fi novel, but sadly it is not. We need to wake up
Cellular modules used in a vast array of industrial applications including energy, logistics, manufacturing, transport, health, security, and payment processing. At home, they are in cars, smart meters, computers, electric vehicle chargers and white goods. They monitor and control complex systems remotely. To ensure that these systems run efficiently, they collect huge amounts of data and metadata for analysis. Then through software updates, improvements are sent back to whatever they control. Like fungi, they form a mesh, independent of human action. They reach where WiFi cannot, and unlike WiFi, they don’t lose the signal at crucial moments.
If you are of a Panglossian persuasion, you will rejoice at the technological benefits cellular modules bring. And so we should. But humans being humans, there is a dark side.
In January the security services took apart a UK government car because data was being transferred via a ‘Chinese e-sim’ (they meant a cellular module) inside. The government has been tight-lipped about who used the car – or if it ever transported the Prime Minister. But we know from a separate Tesla scandal that it would be perfectly possible for a Chinese engineer to record a private conversation in a car like this with a cellular module.
Everyone has heard of Huawei and Hikvision, but few know about Quectel, Fibocom or other Chinese producers of cellular IoT modules, even though they represent a far greater threat to free and open countries.
With cellular modules, China is using the same strategy as with 5G telecommunications and Huawei/ZTE. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hopes to establish a monopoly of these vital components through these little-known companies, using subsidy, access to cheap finance, shared technology and other state support. They are making progress. Chinese companies hold 64 per cent of the global market by sales, and 75 per cent by connectivity. For North America and Europe the shares are 30 per cent, 35 per cent, and for India a whopping 86 per cent.
The aim is to drive other nations’ suppliers out of business by offering impossibly low prices, and then establish a systemic dependency upon Chinese suppliers and equipment. No doubt Quectel and others will claim, like Huawei, that they are private companies. But it does not matter: China’s security law says that they must hand over data to the organs of state security. Moreover, all bosses know that when the CCP says ‘Jump’, the only response is ‘How high?’
Using cellular modules it is possible to build up an intimate picture of someone who is being targeted. You could follow them from their front door camera, using street cameras, their car and their payments. You could even follow their conversations in cafes or clubs via lip reading technology combined with Hikvision cameras (one Chinese company, which is owned by the Central Propaganda Department, boasts the ability to translate lip reading in 65 languages).
Many people may not mind if their fridge or doorbell is spying on them for China. But you would mind if your fridge ceased to work. By sending software updates to cellular modules, China could cut off electricity supplies remotely. If the CCP succeeds in gaining a monopoly of the supply of cellular modules, it could bring down a country’s grid by targeting smart meters (which contain these modules) at a time of high electricity usage. It would take months to repair.
Or it could make traffic in London, Washington, and New York grind to a halt by disabling traffic control systems. When aircraft land or ships dock, they download their repair and maintenance schedules. Covert software instructions could ensure that they are not fit for take-off. The United States is currently developing a new satellite/cellular communication system using Quectel modules, which would allow the CCP to switch it off.
The fun and games don’t end there. At a time of tension, the CCP might decide that it is in its interests to damage the governance or economies of its western rivals. Through cellular modules, it could make our government even less efficient by messing up entry systems to buildings, interfering with alarms, or by changing air conditioning levels to make work impossible. It could also attack the NHS, or even interfere with the administering of drugs for a particular patient having an operation – a novel way of assassinating a government minister, if one fell ill.
This is the stuff of nightmares. It may sound like fantasy or a sci-fi novel, but sadly it is not. We need to wake up.
Most government ministers and officials have not heard of cellular modules. And companies need to consider the potential consequences of continuing to rely on Chinese cellular modules beyond near-term cost advantage (some western companies are proceeding with contracts despite having been made aware of the security risks: cheapness trumps long term security).
Governments should be doing more to acquaint themselves with the risks and to publicise them. Because cellular modules are already deeply embedded in our systems, wholesale ‘Rip and Replace’ is not a realistic option, except in a limited number of sensitive defence and security fields. But we need speedy action to prevent greater penetration and thereby risk. A start would be ensuring that Quectel and other Chinese companies cannot be treated as trusted suppliers in government procurement or critical infrastructure contracts.
Fortunately, there are European, American, Japanese and other companies whose products we can trust. A decent diet can help with dyspepsia.
Written by
Charles Parton
Charles Parton is a former UK diplomat who spent 22 years working in China. He is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the Council on Geostrategy.
16. The Myth of Western Decline
Excerpts:
Admittedly, the US faces daunting political and economic challenges. The excessive influence of big money has compromised the integrity of its political system, contributing to the erosion of constitutional checks and balances. And deepening polarization, stoked by social media and out-of-control culture wars, has compounded the country’s political dysfunction and contributed to the politicization of its judiciary.
While these are serious problems, they are manageable and solvable thanks to the openness of American society, which encourages free and vigorous debate. Moreover, the US maintains its status as the world’s leading military power and a bastion of liberal democracy, as evidenced by its support for Ukraine. It boasts the world’s most successful corporate sector, and its universities, celebrated for their exceptional research output, are a global talent magnet. And, contrary to its depiction by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his followers as the decadent leader of a declining West, the US exerts vast cultural influence and remains a preferred destination for migrants around the world.
Over the past few years, G7 countries have been vocal in criticizing China for its violations of international norms. At the same time, they have sought to address the country’s often dishonest practices without containing its economic growth and have encouraged China to play a leading role in tackling global challenges. Some analysts have interpreted these actions as a form of support for US efforts to exert control over a rival power.
In his 2018 book Destined For War, political scientist Graham Allison observes that the US and China are headed toward what he called the “Thucydides’ Trap,” a reference to the ancient Greek historian’s account of Sparta’s efforts to suppress the rise of Athens, which ultimately culminated in the Peloponnesian War. A better analogy, however, is the message sent by the Athenians to the inhabitants of the besieged island of Melos before executing the men and enslaving the women and children: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
Allowing China and other authoritarian countries to shape the rules would result in a world order based solely on this “realist” principle. It is a nightmare scenario that the G7 countries and other liberal democracies must strive to prevent.
The Myth of Western Decline
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/chinese-claim-of-western-decline-betrays-fear-of-liberal-democracy-by-chris-patten-2023-05
May 29, 2023
CHRIS PATTEN
In recent years, China has capitalized on the G7’s diminishing share of global GDP to proclaim the superiority of its one-party system over what it perceives as “decadent” liberal democracies. But China’s own actions show that the West still commands significant influence in shaping world affairs.
LONDON – The recent G7 summit in Hiroshima culminated in an impressive show of unity over the war in Ukraine and China’s expansionism. But are analysts and commentators right to cite the group’s declining share of global GDP as evidence of its dwindling power and influence?
- Economics
China, in particular, has capitalized on this trend in recent years to proclaim the superiority of its one-party system over the “decadence” of wealthy liberal democracies. Meanwhile, the G20 – which, along with the G7 countries, includes China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and eight other countries – has carved out a prominent role on the global stage.
But the evidence for the G7’s decline is hardly overwhelming. While the G20 countries comprise roughly two-thirds of the world’s population and account for 85% of global GDP, the G7 countries alone account for 44% of the world economy despite containing only about 10% of its population.
To be sure, the G20’s economic performance has improved dramatically over the past few years, as billions of individuals in developing countries have increasingly participated in a global economy whose rulebook was primarily authored by the West. As Western democracies became more open to trade following the end of the Cold War, developing countries gained access to huge markets for their often lower-priced goods. For example, Chinese exports to the United States increased from $3.86 billion in 1985 to $537 billion in 2022.
Even so, given that the prosperity of affluent democracies has been a driving force behind developing countries’ success, it would be misguided to interpret this trend as a sign of the West’s decline. Similarly, while it has become increasingly common to predict the end of America’s economic dominance, history suggests that the US will overcome its current problems, as it has consistently done in the past.
Admittedly, the US faces daunting political and economic challenges. The excessive influence of big money has compromised the integrity of its political system, contributing to the erosion of constitutional checks and balances. And deepening polarization, stoked by social media and out-of-control culture wars, has compounded the country’s political dysfunction and contributed to the politicization of its judiciary.
While these are serious problems, they are manageable and solvable thanks to the openness of American society, which encourages free and vigorous debate. Moreover, the US maintains its status as the world’s leading military power and a bastion of liberal democracy, as evidenced by its support for Ukraine. It boasts the world’s most successful corporate sector, and its universities, celebrated for their exceptional research output, are a global talent magnet. And, contrary to its depiction by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his followers as the decadent leader of a declining West, the US exerts vast cultural influence and remains a preferred destination for migrants around the world.
Over the past few years, G7 countries have been vocal in criticizing China for its violations of international norms. At the same time, they have sought to address the country’s often dishonest practices without containing its economic growth and have encouraged China to play a leading role in tackling global challenges. Some analysts have interpreted these actions as a form of support for US efforts to exert control over a rival power.
In his 2018 book Destined For War, political scientist Graham Allison observes that the US and China are headed toward what he called the “Thucydides’ Trap,” a reference to the ancient Greek historian’s account of Sparta’s efforts to suppress the rise of Athens, which ultimately culminated in the Peloponnesian War. A better analogy, however, is the message sent by the Athenians to the inhabitants of the besieged island of Melos before executing the men and enslaving the women and children: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
Allowing China and other authoritarian countries to shape the rules would result in a world order based solely on this “realist” principle. It is a nightmare scenario that the G7 countries and other liberal democracies must strive to prevent.
China’s assertions about the decline of the West reveal an underlying anxiety. After all, if liberal democracy is failing, why do Chinese officials consistently express their fear of it? The fact that leaders of the Communist Party of China have instructed rank-and-file members to engage in an “intense struggle” against liberal-democratic values indicates that they view open societies as an existential threat.
CPC leaders are known for their suspicion of intellectual inquiry, particularly when it comes to Chinese history. Their efforts to stifle the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of protesting students and workers by the Peoples’ Liberation Army are a case in point. Two recent examples provide further evidence of the regime’s opposition to free speech, its brutal hostility to criticism, and its deep-seated fear of its own people.
First, in Hong Kong, Chief Executive John Lee, the ex-policeman who is overseeing the city’s transformation into a police state, recently ordered public libraries to remove books that might challenge CPC orthodoxy. While depriving people of access to books is not the same as burning them, history teaches us that the latter often follows the former.
Second, a new book by the acclaimed Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun, whose earlier writings have been banned and who now lives in exile in Australia, sheds light on the events that unfolded in Wuhan during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Deadly Quiet City, Murong focuses on firsthand accounts of Wuhan residents, including citizen journalists like Zhang Zhan, who faced arrest, torture, and imprisonment when he tried to find out the truth about the situation in the city.
These revelations do not inspire much confidence in China’s willingness to cooperate with Western countries in addressing global challenges. Given its reliance on deceit and obfuscation, and its fear of free and open debate, perhaps China should reflect on its own actions before calling other countries decadent.
Writing for PS since 2000
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Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the author of The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022).
17. DOD sends new cyber strategy to Congress, releases unclassified fact sheet
DOD sends new cyber strategy to Congress, releases unclassified fact sheet
The highly anticipated strategy is the first since 2018 and follows the release of the National Cybersecurity Strategy in March.
BY
MARK POMERLEAU
MAY 26, 2023
defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · May 26, 2023
The Department of Defense sent its new classified cyber strategy to Congress this week, the Pentagon said Friday.
The highly anticipated strategy is the first since 2018 and follows the release of the National Cybersecurity Strategy in March.
The DOD also publicly released an unclassified “fact sheet” on Friday, and said an unclassified “summary” will be provided in the “coming months.”
Of note, the fact sheet explains that the updated strategy is based upon real-world operations. Prior to 2018, the Pentagon had only conducted a limited number of cyber ops due to a variety of factors such as stringent authorities and a high-risk calculous.
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The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act combined with changes to executive policy streamlined authorities and made it easier for the DOD to approve and conduct operations.
As a result, the 2018 strategy first articulated the concept of “defend forward,” which involves operating on networks outside the United States in order to confront threats before they ever reach domestic networks. This concept sought to take advantage of these new streamlined authorities and get ahead of the barrage of activity facing the nation.
“Since 2018, the Department has conducted a number of significant cyberspace operations through its policy of defending forward, actively disrupting malicious cyber activity before it can affect the U.S. Homeland. This strategy is further informed by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which has demonstrated how cyber capabilities may be used in large-scale conventional conflict,” the fact sheet states.
Officials have previously discussed how the Russia-Ukraine conflict has taught the department to think differently about cyber.
The fact sheet notes four complementary lines of effort the strategy seeks to employ.
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First, defending the nation by campaigning in cyberspace to generate insights about malicious activity as well as continuing to defend forward to disrupt adversaries’ capabilities.
Second, investing in cyber capabilities to fight and win in conflict by ensuring the Department of Defense Information Network is robust, and support cyber resilience among the joint force. The Pentagon also notes it will use cyber ops to gain asymmetric advantages for the joint force.
Next, the strategy seeks to protect the cyber domain with allies and partners by building their capacity. This involves “hunt forward operations,” the fact sheet says, which involve physically sending defensively oriented cyber protection teams from U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) to foreign countries to hunt for threats on their networks at the invitation of host nations. Officials say they are mutually beneficial because they help bolster the security of partner nations and provide Cybercom — and by extension, the United States — advance notice of adversary tactics, allowing the U.S. to harden systems at home against these observed threats.
Last, the fact sheet explains that DOD will build enduring advantages by optimizing the organizing, training and equipping of cyber forces. The department is currently facing issues of readiness shortfalls among its cyber mission force, while building an acquisition capability for Cybercom thanks to enhanced authorities from Congress — all while there are outside voices pushing more loudly for an independent cyber service.
defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · May 26, 2023
18. Fact Sheet: 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy
For citation, the fact sheet is at this link: https://media.defense.gov/2023/May/26/2003231006/-1/-1/1/2023-DOD-CYBER-STRATEGY-FACT-SHEET.PDF
Fact Sheet: 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy
This week, the Department of Defense (DoD) transmitted to Congress the classified 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy. The 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy establishes how the Department will operate in and through cyberspace to protect the American people and advance the defense priorities of the United States.
This strategy is subordinate to the 2022 National Security Strategy and the 2022 National Defense Strategy. It complements the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy and builds upon and supersedes the 2018 DoD Cyber Strategy. An unclassified summary is forthcoming.
The 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy is grounded in real-world experience. Since 2018, the Department has conducted a number of significant cyberspace operations through its policy of defending forward, actively disrupting malicious cyber activity before it can affect the U.S. Homeland. This strategy is further informed by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which has demonstrated how cyber capabilities may be used in large-scale conventional conflict.
These experiences have shaped the Department’s approach to the cyber domain:
• The Department will maximize its cyber capabilities in support of integrated deterrence,
employing cyberspace operations in concert with other instruments of national power.
• The Department will campaign in and through cyberspace below the level of armed conflict to reinforce deterrence and frustrate adversaries.
• Finally, the Department recognizes that the United States’ global network of Allies and partners represents a foundational advantage in the cyber domain that must be protected and reinforced.
The Department confronts an increasingly contested cyberspace:
• The People’s Republic of China (PRC) represents the Department’s pacing challenge in the cyber domain. The PRC has made significant investments in military cyber capabilities and empowered a number of proxy organizations to pursue malicious cyber activities against the United States.
• Russia poses an acute threat in cyberspace, evidenced by its malign influence efforts against the United States and repeated cyber attacks against Ukrainian civilian critical infrastructure.
• North Korea, Iran, and Violent Extremist Organizations remain persistent cyber threats.
• Transnational Criminal Organizations represent a unique threat in cyberspace due to their technical aptitude and often close alignment with the foreign policy objectives of their host governments.
In order to address current and future cyber threats, the Department will pursue four complementary lines of effort:
• Defend the Nation. The Department will campaign in and through cyberspace to generate insights about malicious cyber actors, as well as defend forward to disrupt and degrade these actors’ capabilities and supporting ecosystems. Additionally, DoD will work with its interagency partners to leverage all available authorities to enable the cyber resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure and to counter threats to military readiness.
• Prepare to Fight and Win the Nation’s Wars. The Department will ensure the cybersecurity of the DoD Information Network and will further invest in the Joint Force’s cyber resilience. Additionally, the Department will use cyberspace operations to generate asymmetric advantages in support of the Joint Force’s plans and operations.
• Protect the Cyber Domain with Allies and Partners. The Department will assist U.S. Allies and partners in building their cyber capacity and capability, as well as expand avenues of potential cyber cooperation. DoD will continue to conduct hunt forward operations to build cyber resiliency and will reinforce responsible state behavior by encouraging adherence to international law and internationally recognized cyberspace norms.
• Build Enduring Advantages in Cyberspace. The Department will optimize the organizing, training, and equipping of the Cyber Operations Forces and Service-retained cyber forces. Furthermore, DoD will invest in the enablers of cyberspace operations, including intelligence, science and technology, cybersecurity, and culture.
With a robust and integrated cyber capability, the Department will work to deter conflict where it can and prevail where it must.
19. Putin’s mini-Nato is falling apart
May 26, 2023 | The Telegraph
Putin’s mini-Nato is falling apart
As Moscow's allies turn their backs, now is time for NATO states to expose CSTO as nothing more than an empty shell
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/05/26/putins-mini-nato-is-falling-apart/
Ivana Stradner
Research Fellow
Russia has moved ahead with its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus: the first time Russia will store part of its nuclear arsenal in another country since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
On the face of it, it signals strength. The truth is the opposite. The day of the original announcement back in March was Belarus Freedom Day – an unofficial holiday celebrated by the oppressed Belarusian opposition. The decision was deliberately timed to try and sure-up an unstable country in case it echoes Ukraine in tipping Westwards in the years ahead.
Elsewhere in Europe, the picture is equally gloomy. In Georgia and Moldova, mass protests have been seen against Kremlin activities, and even in Serbia – a traditional ally of the Kremlin – the Foreign Minister accepted several weeks ago it may end up sanctioning Russia.
Meanwhile, it is Moscow’s imitation version of NATO – the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), established in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union – where it is most seriously struggling to maintain legitimacy among its members. The CSTO was formed with the objective of enhancing regional stability and comprises six member states: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Article 4 of the CSTO treaty – comparable to NATO’s Article 5 – includes a supposedly ironclad commitment to defend other member states from aggression, yet Russia has consistently failed to provide the expected support. For over 30 years, the CSTO had refrained from deploying troops to conflict zones to protect its member states, despite repeated appeals from Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Similarly, CSTO member states have displayed wavering support for Russia in light of Putin’s calamitous war in Ukraine. Last year, Kyrgyzstan cancelled its joint military exercises with Russia, and among all CSTO countries, only Belarus has explicitly endorsed Russia’s war. Significantly, Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, announced that his country, a longstanding Russian ally, is currently contemplating withdrawal from the CSTO.
Pashinyan’s announcement follows Russia’s failure to fulfil its CSTO responsibilities towards Armenia. Last year, Yerevan sought CSTO assistance during its violent dispute with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Pashinyan highlighted that due to Russia’s absence, Armenia and Azerbaijan had to turn to Western institutions like the EU to facilitate a peace agreement, as the regional security system under the CSTO was ineffective.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitriy Peskov responded to Pashinyan’s statements by emphasising, “certainly, we will continue our dialogue with our Armenian friends.” However, it remains uncertain whether Pashinyan will be receptive. Following Russia’s failure to support Armenia during its conflict with Azerbaijan, hundreds of protesters gathered in the capital, urging the government to withdraw from the CSTO.
Pashinyan stated that, in addition to the CSTO’s failure to provide the promised military support, Armenia’s association with the CSTO has hindered its ability to defend itself, since it has prevented Armenia from procuring weapons from Western sources.
Russia’s failure to assist Armenia comes as no surprise. Putin perceives the CSTO as a unilateral means to assert control over the post-Soviet region and promote the interests of the Kremlin, rather than an institution based on reciprocity. Consequently, countries that were once under Putin’s sphere of influence have begun seeking cooperation elsewhere.
As a result, negotiations by Western actors have afforded Armenia and Azerbaijan significant advancements towards a potential resolution. Armenia has expressed its willingness to recognise the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave as part of Azerbaijan, provided that Baku protects the rights of ethnic Armenians. On May 25, during the meeting with Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev emphasised that “there is a possibility of coming to a peace agreement.”
NATO should seize the current opportunity to demonstrate the CSTO, particularly under Russia’s leadership, is merely a symbolic entity lacking substance.
The growing anti-CSTO sentiments provide an opportunity for NATO to expose Russia’s disloyalty. NATO member states should utilise information operations to reach out to Russia’s proxies in countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and the Balkans and convey the truth – that Russia refused to assist its treaty-bound ally, Armenia, when they needed it the most, and it is only a matter of time before Moscow does the same to them.
Russia continues to portray NATO as a malevolent actor in the Global South and as responsible for the conflict in Ukraine. Now, NATO member states should engage with Latin American countries and put a spotlight on Armenia’s contemplation to leave the CSTO. With Putin preparing for the Africa-Russia summit in July, it is also crucial for African nations to learn the truth about Putin’s treatment of his Armenian ally and its new inclination to align with the West.
Putin’s plan to undermine NATO has been halted. Now it is time for NATO member states to turn the tables and expose the CSTO as nothing more than an empty shell.
Ivana Stradner is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. You can hear her interview on Russian propaganda on the Telegraph’s daily podcast ‘Ukraine: The Latest’ here. Follow her on Twitter @ivanastradner. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
20. How to Avoid War with China
Revisionist history and wishful thinking?
Why is it Taiwan's responsibility to seek peaceful coexistence? It is the one threatened by the PRC? I do not think Taiwan is seeking to establish a West Taiwan on the mainland. It is the PRC that has hostile intent toward Taiwan.
Excerpts:
In trying to convey toughness to Beijing, the United States has increased its defiant engagement on an official level with the government in Taipei. We have increased our military presence by expanding bases in Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Palau. The U.S. Navy seeks billions in additional funding for strengthening military capacity in the Indo-Pacific, and the U.S. Congress is now seeking to arm Taiwan “to the teeth.” All of these actions are claimed to be in the express service of deterring China from invading Taiwan.
It is almost certain to produce the opposite effect.
Xi Jinping is equally aggressive in building military capacity to retake the island and has expressly designed his military to defeat the U.S. Navy and Air Force should they intervene in a Taiwan scenario. Just as Putin built capacity to prevent NATO’s efforts to strengthen Ukraine so it could join the alliance, Xi has been building military capacity to wage war with the U.S. Armed Forces if we choose to fight over Taiwan.
Had NATO taken a more diplomatic approach prior to February 2022, there would very likely never have been a war and tens of thousands of Ukrainians would still be alive today. Similarly, if the U.S. would spend at least as much effort diplomatically as it is militarily in its dealings with Beijing and Taipei, there war would be very unlikely there as well.
...
In a perfect world, Taiwan would be free and independent, charting its own course in global affairs, free from threat of invasion from its larger neighbor. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a violent and deeply flawed world. Our objectives, therefore, should be to take the most prudent measures possible to both deter China from launching a war and encourage Taipei to find a way to coexist with Beijing. There is no suggestion that Taiwan becomes subservient to China. Only that they choose to peacefully coexist in an imperfect world.
How to Avoid War with China
Some say the key to deterring China from attacking Taiwan is to be more aggressive towards Beijing and provide Taipei with heavy weapons. That is wrong.
19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · May 29, 2023
Many pundits claim that the collective West failed to deter Putin from invading Ukraine as a result of lack of resolve and an unwillingness to provide Kyiv with sufficient arms prior to the outbreak of war. Such advocates believe that the key to deterring China from attacking Taiwan is to be more aggressive towards Beijing and rapidly provide Taipei with heavy weapons.
The reality is almost exactly the opposite, and if such thinking is converted to official U.S. policy, the chances of war will be higher, not lower, for Taiwan.
One of the fundamental problems the United States currently has in effectively dissuading opponents from given actions is in defining the term “deterrence” in the first place. Merriam Webster defines the root word “deter” as meaning “to turn aside, discourage, or prevent from acting.” We have ignored the first segment of that definition almost entirely, choosing instead to zealously adhere to the last phrase. To turn an adversary aside could be accomplished by a wide range of diplomatic and economic tools; “prevent from acting” has come to mean almost exclusive military means.
Many believe that if only the United States had been more forthcoming in providing large scale offensive weapons to Ukraine that doing so would have deterred Putin from invading in February 2022. These same pundits believe that the best way to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is to “correct” the error of Ukraine and now arm Taiwan “to the teeth” as rapidly as possible.
Their contention is clear: provide enough support and arms to Taiwan and Beijing will be dissuaded from trying to seize the island because Xi will calculate the military cost would be too great. The problem with this viewpoint is that the very basis of the argument is wrong: Putin would not have been deterred even if we’d have sent more weapons to Ukraine earlier.
To the contrary, doing so would likely have compelled him to act earlier.
Events of 2014 in which the legally elected government in Ukraine was forced from power – a move supported by the United States – and was replaced by a Western-friendly leader, alarmed the Kremlin. When the Ukrainian military resorted to violence to suppress the eastern Ukrainian citizens who rebelled against the newly installed Ukrainian leader, battle lines were drawn between eastern and western Ukraine, and a civil war broke out. Russian military personnel and equipment provided support to the Russian-speaking population in its battle with the Kyiv regime.
NATO, meanwhile, continued to ignore the warnings Putin had been giving since 2008 about the dangers of allowing Ukraine to join the Western military alliance. In June 2021, the official NATO communique declared “(w)e reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance.”
When Russian forces starting building up on Ukraine’s borders towards the end of that year, Putin said he was looking to make “concrete agreements” with NATO that Ukraine would not be invited to the alliance. “This is more than serious for us,” Putin warned, adding that if no agreements were made, Russia would take “adequate military-technical measures” in response. Days later NATO leaders authoritatively responded to Putin’s words.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg openly stated to Zelensky at a press conference that regardless of any warnings from Russia, NATO was already “training and advising your armed forces, participating in joint exercises, and providing equipment” – unambiguously communicating to Putin that the Nato-ization of Ukraine was already well underway. To remove any doubt as to the objective of such support, Stoltenberg defiantly added, “I was actually present at the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008, when all Allies agreed that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. And we stand by that decision.”
It appears that Putin believed Stoltenberg, as two months later Russia invaded Ukraine with the avowed purpose of keeping NATO out of Ukraine and off Russia’s border. All the tough talk by NATO and the United States, all the training, supplies of weapons, and promises to extend alliance membership to Kyiv did not deter Putin from invading. In large measure, the fear of seemingly inevitable NATO entrance into Ukraine fueled the invasion. There is every reason to believe the same negative dynamic would play out between China and Taiwan if the West pushes for more and larger military support to Taipei.
In trying to convey toughness to Beijing, the United States has increased its defiant engagement on an official level with the government in Taipei. We have increased our military presence by expanding bases in Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and Palau. The U.S. Navy seeks billions in additional funding for strengthening military capacity in the Indo-Pacific, and the U.S. Congress is now seeking to arm Taiwan “to the teeth.” All of these actions are claimed to be in the express service of deterring China from invading Taiwan.
It is almost certain to produce the opposite effect.
Xi Jinping is equally aggressive in building military capacity to retake the island and has expressly designed his military to defeat the U.S. Navy and Air Force should they intervene in a Taiwan scenario. Just as Putin built capacity to prevent NATO’s efforts to strengthen Ukraine so it could join the alliance, Xi has been building military capacity to wage war with the U.S. Armed Forces if we choose to fight over Taiwan.
Had NATO taken a more diplomatic approach prior to February 2022, there would very likely never have been a war and tens of thousands of Ukrainians would still be alive today. Similarly, if the U.S. would spend at least as much effort diplomatically as it is militarily in its dealings with Beijing and Taipei, there war would be very unlikely there as well.
China sees first-hand how devastating war has been for Russia and is in no rush to likewise suffer. But Xi may well calculate his fear of a de facto alliance between Taiwan and the U.S. is worse than the damage China would suffer in a fight to keep America away from its shores. It is vital that Washington have more in its international kit bag besides threats or use of military power. China is no longer a developing nation that can be cowed by threats from the powerful U.S. Military.
The policy of “strategic ambiguity” has helped keep the peace in the Taiwan Straits for many decades. The U.S. has maintained robust economic engagement with Taipei and even had lo-level diplomatic engagement, which did not unduly arouse Chinese fears. The objective today should be to prevent war, not to push for real or de facto independence for Taipei. It is increasingly clear that the more we build military capacity within striking distance of China, the greater we push official government relations with Taipei, and the more aggressively we push arms to Taiwan, the more likely war becomes. Far from deterring China, this will almost certainly provoke them to war.
In a perfect world, Taiwan would be free and independent, charting its own course in global affairs, free from threat of invasion from its larger neighbor. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a violent and deeply flawed world. Our objectives, therefore, should be to take the most prudent measures possible to both deter China from launching a war and encourage Taipei to find a way to coexist with Beijing. There is no suggestion that Taiwan becomes subservient to China. Only that they choose to peacefully coexist in an imperfect world.
FROM 19FortyFive: The War in Ukraine Is About to Explode
FROM 19FortyFive: Does Putin Have Cancer?
A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis
19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Davis · May 29, 2023
21. AI Threat Is on Par With Pandemics, Nuclear War, Tech Executives Warn
AI Threat Is on Par With Pandemics, Nuclear War, Tech Executives Warn
More than 350 people signed a statement saying ‘mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority’
By Alyssa LukpatFollow
May 30, 2023 8:02 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-threat-is-on-par-with-pandemics-nuclear-war-tech-executives-warn-39105eeb?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1
Tech executives and artificial-intelligence scientists are sounding the alarm about AI, saying in a joint statement Tuesday that the technology poses an extinction risk as great as pandemics and nuclear war.
More than 350 people signed a statement released by the Center for AI Safety, an organization that said it works to reduce AI risks.
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the organization said.
The signatories said they wanted to open up discussion about the most severe risks of AI. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, and Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, are among those who signed the statement.
Other signatories included Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer; Google AI executives Lila Ibrahim and Marian Rogers; and Angela Kane, the former United Nations high representative for disarmament affairs. Leaders from Skype and Quora also signed the statement.
The statement follows a March letter signed by AI experts and tech executives including Elon Musk that called for AI developers to pause their work on the technology. They said a moratorium of at least six months would give the industry time to set safety standards for AI design and to curb potential harms of the riskiest AI technologies.
The signatories on Tuesday said that while the public has been acknowledging AI risks, there are more challenges to be discussed. They also wanted to “create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously.”
The online statement has an option for AI scientists, professors, executives and leaders to also sign it.
Artificial intelligence essentially refers to a computer’s ability to learn from large amounts of data and subsequently mimic human responses.
The tech industry has been developing AI for years, but the technology became more widespread last year when OpenAI released ChatGPT. The free chatbot can quickly answer almost any question, allowing users to generate answers to problems at work and school. ChatGPT’s answers are sometimes wrong. Proponents say the technology has the potential to transform industries and reshape parts of the labor force.
ChatGPT’s release launched a race among tech companies like Google and Microsoft to come out with similar technologies.
Leaders and tech executives have warned about dangers from AI, but Tuesday’s signatories said they hadn’t discussed the most urgent risks.
The Biden administration in recent months has said AI poses threats to public safety, privacy and democracy, but the government has limited authority to regulate it. Bill Gates has said he believes AI should be properly regulated but has expressed excitement about the technology.
Cybersecurity chiefs have said there are clear benefits from AI, but the promises and risks of early generative AI are overblown.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com
22. China and the Alliance Allergy of Rising Powers
Conclusion:
As Germany, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union show, many rising great powers display an alliance allergy. These historical cases also suggest that China’s alliance allergy is likely to be enduring and unhelpful. It is likely to be enduring because all four rising great powers of the last century remained averse to alliances with powerful states even as they faced much stronger international systemic pressures embrace them than China faces today. It is also likely to be unhelpful as the same behavior contributed to the failure of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union to achieve their hegemonic ambitions.
Importantly, even if China reverses course by allying with Russia (as some analysts expect), historical precedent suggests that their partnership might prove fragile and ineffectual. A future Sino-Russian alliance would likely be as rickety as the Sino-Soviet alliance during the Cold War, albeit with the roles of rising power and powerful but undervalued ally reversed. And it would likewise remain vulnerable to U.S. diplomatic and economic “wedge strategies” aimed at its dissolution.
This does not mean that China alone can’t pose a challenge to Washington, just as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union did. Still, the good news for U.S. policymakers is that the American alliance network collectively holds an enduring power advantage over a virtually isolated People’s Republic of China. Recognizing this can help inoculate U.S. policy against threat inflation and avoid the much-discussed Thucydides trap.
China and the Alliance Allergy of Rising Powers - War on the Rocks
EVAN N. RESNICK AND HANNAH ELYSE SWORN
warontherocks.com · by Evan N. Resnick · May 30, 2023
The outcomes of two recent high-profile summit meetings exposed the yawning gap in U.S. and Chinese leaders’ attitudes toward military alliances. On March 13, U.S. President Joe Biden met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in San Diego to formalize the trilateral AUKUS partnership. AUKUS considerably deepens America’s existing alliances with Britain and Australia by committing the United States and Britain to help Australia develop and deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Then, on March 20, Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Although Xi loftily proclaimed that his visit heralded “a new era” of Sino-Russian cooperation, the meeting’s accompanying statement only committed the two states to such meager cooperative activities as the “joint production of television programs.” Not only did Xi continue to refrain from concluding a formal alliance with Russia, the world’s other leading revisionist power, he even continued to deny the Kremlin military assistance to support its faltering war effort in Ukraine.
Become a Member
Considering the ability of allies to tilt the balance of power between a hegemonic state and a rising challenger, it seems puzzling that the People’s Republic of China has refused to abandon its longstanding policy of eschewing alliances. Yet history shows that China’s behavior is not anomalous, as all four rising great powers of the last century — Germany, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union — also exhibited what could be termed an “alliance allergy.” Rising powers are uniquely inclined to devalue alliances, particularly with other powerful states. They are exceedingly confident in their ability to singlehandedly achieve their expansive international goals and reluctant to compromise on them. A clearer understanding of this phenomenon can ease the concerns of U.S. policymakers about the scale of the threat posed by China, enabling them to craft a more prudent strategy for managing simmering tensions in East Asia.
China’s Non-Alliance Policy
Beijing has only concluded two standing alliances in its history — with the Soviet Union in 1950 and with North Korea in 1961. In 1982, the Chinese Communist Party officially adopted an “independent and self-reliant foreign policy of peace” at its 12th Party Congress. At the 14th Party Congress convened a decade later, then-President Jiang Zemin pointedly reiterated that China “will not enter into alliance with any country or group of countries and will not join any military bloc.” Party officials and Chinese scholars echoing the party line have offered several rationales for this policy. First, alliances can entrap their signatories in unnecessary wars. Second, China has few viable allies because most nearby states are militarily weak. Third, Chinese alliance-building would perversely increase regional tensions and lead neighboring states to oppose China. And finally, alliances are incapable of addressing non-traditional security threats.
Although these admonitions are hardly absurd, China’s continued adherence to a non-alliance policy undermines its ability to contest U.S. hegemony even though its economy is about as large as that of the United States and enjoys a higher annual rate of economic growth. According to political scientist Glenn Snyder, formal military alliances represent the most reliable and effective form of multilateral security cooperation because they include “elements of specificity, legal and moral obligation, and reciprocity that are usually lacking in informal alignments.” Whereas the United States is allied with 50 countries that collectively account for over one-third of global economic output, China’s sole remaining alliance partner is the perennially failing state of North Korea. America’s six East Asian allies alone — Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand — collectively spent $149.7 billion on defense in 2021, amounting to half of China’s estimated $293.3 billion defense budget. By contrast, North Korea spent a mere $4 billion on defense in 2019 (the last year for which official estimates are available), amounting to 0.5 percent of the $732 billion U.S. defense budget for that year.
Great Powers Go It Alone
A survey of the behavior of each of the rising great powers of the last century demonstrates that China’s aversion to formal military alliances is not idiosyncratic. Germany, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union all exhibited an “alliance allergy”: They were lax in recruiting powerful states as allies and they alienated those powerful states that they managed to enlist as allies by behaving dismissively and domineeringly toward them. In each instance, the allergy became increasingly acute as the rising power’s wealth and military capabilities expanded.
Rising great powers are uniquely susceptible to the alliance allergy for two reasons. First, since rising powers are by definition extremely large and populous states experiencing rapid economic growth, they will be extremely confident that they can unilaterally generate the military capabilities required to topple a hegemon in relative decline. Second, a rising power will also strive to avoid making painful ex ante compromises with allies on the blueprint for the international order it seeks to impose upon attaining regional or global hegemony. According to the political scientist Robert Gilpin, an international order consists of “the rules governing the international system, the division of spheres of influence, and … the international distribution of territory.” The rising challenger will seek to monopolize these arrangements from the outset because they both reflect and promote the dominant state’s interests and values over the long term. This explains why a rising power will be even more reluctant to partner with a powerful state than a weak one — the former may be more valuable than the latter in the effort to supplant the prevailing hegemon, but it will demand a more prominent role in the composition of the subsequent international order.
Germany and the United States During World War I
By the time World War I dealt the first body blow to the Pax Britannica, both Germany and the United States had already eclipsed the British hegemon in industrial might and evinced a strong disregard for allies. In the two decades that preceded the war, Germany’s expansionist policy of Weltpolitik had already resulted in its estrangement from the two most powerful states with which it could have allied against neighboring arch-adversary France. First, in 1890 Kaiser Wilhelm II and his coterie permitted Germany’s defensive Reinsurance Treaty with Russia to lapse. Then, later that decade, they rebuffed the British hegemon’s entreaties for an Anglo-German alliance, instead initiating a naval arms race against London. Russia proceeded to strike an alliance with France, while Britain settled its colonial disputes with France and Russia. These developments laid the groundwork for the Triple Entente that would confront and defeat Germany in the coming war.
Germany also estranged itself from its sole great power ally, Austria-Hungry, with which it had initially partnered in the 1879 Dual Alliance Treaty. In the years that preceded the outbreak of World War I, German officials concealed from their Austro-Hungarian counterparts a fundamental reorientation of the German war plan, which envisioned an opening offensive primarily directed at France rather than Russia. After the war began, German military leaders treated their Austro-Hungarian counterparts with unrelenting derision, imposing German command on Austro-Hungarian forces and attempting to lure Italy and Romania into neutrality by offering them slices of Austro-Hungarian territory. The fractious alliance reached its nadir in early 1917 when Berlin rejected Vienna’s demand to publish a joint set of peace terms, which prompted Hapsburg Emperor Karl I to secretly pursue a separate peace with the Entente.
Germany’s contemptuous behavior towards its most important ally was driven both by arrogance and by reluctance to share the anticipated postwar spoils. German arrogance was reflected in the private comments of Gen. Erich Ludendorff comparing Austria-Hungary to a “corpse” and complaining about the empire’s military “worthlessness.” Germany’s reluctance to share the spoils was reflected in its 1916 decision to bully Austria-Hungary into renouncing its key war aim of annexing Poland, which conflicted with Germany’s goal of seizing Poland’s industrial regions for itself. It was additionally evident in Berlin’s plan to construct a Central European customs union (Mitteleuropa), which Vienna feared would result in the Dual Monarchy’s economic and political disintegration.
Meanwhile, although the United States eventually fought in the war alongside the British hegemon, it did so in a manner aimed at maximizing Washington’s independence. Upon entering the war in April 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the United States was only relinquishing its previous neutrality to join the Entente as an “associate” rather than an “allied” power. Wilson proceeded to reject desperate British and French pleas to rapidly integrate U.S. troops into their armies and instead insisted on keeping U.S. divisions intact and under American command. This highly inefficient deployment plan recklessly elevated the risk that the Germans would overrun the tenuous Allied positions on the Western Front before U.S. troops could enter the fray in sufficient numbers to turn the tide.
Wilson’s actions stemmed from his conviction that U.S. forces could independently determine the war’s outcome and his utopian liberal vision for a postwar international order based on democracy, free trade, self-determination, and collective security. The discrepancy in war aims between the United States and its co-belligerents was most glaringly evident in Wilson’s public assurance to Germany that “we do not wish to injure her or block in any way her legitimate influence or power.” This pledge contravened secret Entente agreements to annex German territory, parcel out its colonies, and exact onerous reparations payments from Berlin. Such frictions would later play out disastrously at the postwar peace negotiations in Paris, resulting in a treaty that was too harsh for the unconquered Germans to accept but insufficiently harsh to prevent them from seeking revenge.
Germany, Japan, and the United States During World War II
During the interwar decades, the leading contenders to replace an exhausted Britain as hegemon were once again Germany and the United States, the only two states that exceeded Britain’s share of world manufacturing on the eve of World War II. Although Imperial Japan was not in the same economic league as those three states, it had emerged as the leading military and industrial power in Asia. Although Germany and Japan were nominally allies bound by their 1940 Tripartite Pact with Italy, they conducted no joint operations, undertook no joint planning, shared minimal intelligence, engaged in virtually no trade or mutual military assistance, and kept secret from one another their most fateful strategic decisions of the war. Nazi Germany also forfeited a monumental opportunity to win the war in late 1940 by rejecting a Soviet request to join the Tripartite Pact, even though the addition of the Soviet Union to the Axis would have been devastating to Britain and the still-neutral United States. After the Wehrmacht’s subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union bogged down in 1942, German dictator Adolf Hitler ignored Japanese and Italian appeals to make peace with the Soviets and concentrate German forces against the United States and Britain. For its part, Japan refused repeated German requests to abandon Japan’s 1941 neutrality pact with the Soviets due to its preoccupation with expanding its maritime empire in Southeast Asia.
The Axis’ two most powerful members hardly cooperated with one another due to their leaders’ blinding self-confidence and exclusionary visions for a postwar international order. In Hitler’s 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf, the future German Führer laid out a four-stage plan, which consisted of the sequential conquest of Central Europe, Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States. By late 1941 Germany had almost singlehandedly surmounted the first two stages and was on the cusp of surmounting the third. For Hitler, Japan not only posed a long-term geopolitical danger by standing in the way of German global supremacy, but also comprised a racially inferior population that would inevitably have to be enslaved or exterminated by the Aryan master race. Japan’s early wartime victories in Asia produced an equally exaggerated perception on the part of its militarist leaders that they could unilaterally achieve their sweeping territorial ambitions, which encompassed India, the South Pacific, Alaska, Western Canada, Central and South America, and even the Northwestern United States. The ideological doctrine of kodo that held sway among Japanese elites also militated against close ties with Germany, as it stipulated that Japan’s mission entailed overcoming historical subjugation to the Western colonial powers and realizing Japan’s destiny as a superior people and culture.
Following its late entry into the war in December 1941, America’s behavior towards its Grand Alliance partners, Britain and the Soviet Union, became ever less cooperative as its initial dependence on those states’ more numerous fighting forces diminished. In the two years that followed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt acquiesced to a “Europe first” strategy prioritizing the defeat of Germany, authorized the creation of an Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff system to direct wartime strategy, permitted Anglo-American operational unity of command arrangements in most combat theaters, and furnished both allies with billions of dollars of Lend-Lease military assistance. Beginning in early 1944, however, U.S. policy became much less accommodating. Roosevelt dismissed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s pleas to delay a massive Anglo-American amphibious invasion of northeast France and strong-armed Churchill into accepting a follow-on invasion of southern France. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry S. Truman, sharply restricted Lend-Lease aid to Britain and the Soviet Union immediately following Germany’s May 1945 surrender and then brought both states to the brink of economic collapse by abruptly terminating the program following Japan’s surrender three months later.
America’s increasingly high-handed behavior was fueled by its leaders’ growing confidence in the country’s preponderant power and their unwillingness to compromise on their all-embracing vision of postwar order. The former was evident in an intelligence analysis that made its way to Roosevelt in January 1943, which baldly proclaimed that the time had come to “start exercising the dominant influence which power properly entitles us.” The latter was evident in Roosevelt and Truman’s strident insistence on fulfilling Wilson’s earlier vision of a liberal international order. This generated frictions with Britain, which desperately sought to retain its still-extensive empire, as well as with the Soviet Union, which had no interest in democratization or capitalist multilateral agreements.
The Soviet Union During the Cold War
Although the United States and the Soviet Union were the only great powers to emerge from the rubble of World War II, the latter’s economy was devastated by the conflict, and it would not match the former’s military spending until the early 1960s. In October 1949, though, a still weakened Soviet Union received an enormous geopolitical boon when Mao Zedong’s communist insurgents emerged victorious in the Chinese civil war. This prompted Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to conclude a formal military alliance with the fledgling People’s Republic of China four months later. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, his successor Nikita Khrushchev dramatically increased Soviet military and economic assistance to China and even agreed to provide Mao’s regime with a prototype nuclear bomb.
By the end of the decade, however, as Soviet military power surged, Khrushchev increasingly viewed China as a needy “junior partner” whose leadership stubbornly refused to accept his reformist (i.e., anti-Stalinist) interpretation of Marxist doctrine. Even though China’s annual defense budget had grown to exceed that of any U.S. ally, Khrushchev took a series of steps that increasingly embittered Mao and ultimately fractured the alliance. Specifically, he hectored Mao to accept a “two China” solution to Beijing’s conflict with Taiwan, proposed that the Soviet Union operate a radio station and base its attack submarines on Chinese soil, reneged on his pledge to furnish China with nuclear weaponry, withdrew thousands of Soviet military and civilian advisors from China, and refused to support China in its low-level war against India. Bilateral relations continued to deteriorate precariously following Khrushchev’s replacement by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964, culminating in border skirmishes between the two communist states and China’s subsequent gravitation towards the United States.
Conclusion
As Germany, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union show, many rising great powers display an alliance allergy. These historical cases also suggest that China’s alliance allergy is likely to be enduring and unhelpful. It is likely to be enduring because all four rising great powers of the last century remained averse to alliances with powerful states even as they faced much stronger international systemic pressures embrace them than China faces today. It is also likely to be unhelpful as the same behavior contributed to the failure of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union to achieve their hegemonic ambitions.
Importantly, even if China reverses course by allying with Russia (as some analysts expect), historical precedent suggests that their partnership might prove fragile and ineffectual. A future Sino-Russian alliance would likely be as rickety as the Sino-Soviet alliance during the Cold War, albeit with the roles of rising power and powerful but undervalued ally reversed. And it would likewise remain vulnerable to U.S. diplomatic and economic “wedge strategies” aimed at its dissolution.
This does not mean that China alone can’t pose a challenge to Washington, just as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union did. Still, the good news for U.S. policymakers is that the American alliance network collectively holds an enduring power advantage over a virtually isolated People’s Republic of China. Recognizing this can help inoculate U.S. policy against threat inflation and avoid the much-discussed Thucydides trap.
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Evan N. Resnick is a senior associate fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His book Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in U.S. Foreign Policy was published by Columbia University Press in 2019. He has also published articles in International Security, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, and European Journal of International Relations, among other outlets.
Hannah Elyse Sworn is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University. Her research interests include the politics of global economic regulation, intellectual property rights, the relationship between regulation and political legitimacy in authoritarian states, and how small states maneuver the regulatory preferences of great powers. She has also published an article on U.S.-Taiwan relations in International Affairs.
Image: The Kremlin
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Evan N. Resnick · May 30, 2023
23. OSS Agents in Repose, After the Guns Fell Silent
OSS Agents in Repose, After the Guns Fell Silent
https://www.spytalk.co/p/oss-agents-in-repose-after-the-guns?utm
A French collector has amassed a treasure trove of snap shots the agents took of themselves and local comrades in the summer of 1945
JEFF STEIN
MAY 29, 2023
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It’s hard to believe now, but at the outset of World War Two America had no organization in charge of synchronizing intelligence gathered by the military services and State Department, much an outfit less to wage unconventional warfare against Germany and Japan. It wasn’t until June 13, 1942, a little over six months after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the creation of the Office of Strategic Services, which by the end of the war three years later employed 13,000 people engaged in dirty tricks ranging from espionage to sabotage, codebreaking and psychological warfare.
Much of the OSS’s work was dedicated to helping local underground partisans attack German Nazi outposts and infrastructure and eliminate officials and collaborators across northern Europe, but especially occupied France. When peace finally came in May 1945, the secret agents emerged from hiding to relax and celebrate with their allies and friends.
Luckily, we have photographs to memorialize them in repose.
Caroline Vagneron, who grew up in the Loire Valley, has long been fascinated by what went on in France and Germany during World War Two, as well as a love for collecting what she calls “vernacular photographs (photographs taken by amateur photographers for personal or family use).” Along the way, she acquired a treasure trove of personal snapshots that the OSS agents took of themselves and their local comrades at play in the summer of 1945, after the guns stopped firing.
Caroline Vagneron has spent countless hours scouring the Internet and the National Archives and Records Administration for WW2 material. (Family photo.)
“The pictures were taken sometime around 1945 and in France, which made them all the more attractive to me, as I was eager to understand what these American soldiers were doing, what their role was at that moment in time,” Vagneron told SpyTalk. “I had read a lot already about their role, seen movies too, but suddenly having access to these more personal stories made me curious. Who were these American soldiers? What were they doing here?”—especially, she wondered, “in the Loire Valley [and with] the people they were meeting in Bordeaux.”
OSS women played important roles against the Nazis in Occupied France. Most are not identified in Vagneron’s cache. This caption says only, “Marseilles.”
Among those in the photos, she says, are OSS agents Philip Chadbourn, Vivian Suchard, Ben Welles, Gordon Merrick, June Nygaard, Sidney Lenington, Arnold Fawcus, Henry Finger and others unknown. Some went on to illustrious careers in the CIA, formed in 1947.
She doesn’t know who took these snapshots. The photographer doesn’t say beyond, “myself with…” But the scribblings on their backs was intriguing—”short, funny and rather unusual sentences, mysterious too…” she says, in some cases. “It immediately sounded like something I would like to investigate!”
OSS agents loved their cocktails. On the back of this photo is scribbled, “June Nygaard, Herb Armstrong, Ben Welles and myself in a bar at Monte Carlo”
We’re grateful she shared them with SpyTalk on this Memorial Day, 78 years later.
You can find her full OSS portfolio on her Liberty Square website.
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De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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