“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

-Isaac Asimov

"Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way."

- Ernest Hemingway

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”

- Henry David Thoreau

• Russian forces are likely amassing in Belgorod to reinforce Russian efforts in northern Kharkiv to prevent the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive from pushing closer to the Ukraine-Russia border.
• Russian forces near Izyum focused on regrouping, replenishing, and reconnoitering Ukrainian positions in order to continue advances to the southwest and southeast of Izyum.
• Russian forces continued their ground attacks to drive to the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts but did not make any territorial gains
• Russian troops continued to assault the Azovstal Steel Plant and advanced efforts to economically integrate occupied Mariupol into the wider Russian economy.
• Russian troops may be preparing for a renewed offensive on the Southern Axis but are unlikely to be successful in this endeavor.

• Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and four supporting efforts);
• Subordinate main effort- Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
• Supporting effort 1—Mariupol;
• Supporting effort 2—Kharkiv City;
• Supporting effort 3—Southern axis;
• Supporting effort 4—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.

• Russian forces will likely continue to merge offensive efforts southward of Izyum with westward advances from Donetsk in order to encircle Ukrainian troops in southern Kharkiv Oblast and Western Donetsk.
• Russia may change the status of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, possibly by merging them into a single “Donbas Republic” and/or by annexing them directly to Russia.
• Russian forces have apparently decided to seize the Azovstal plant through ground assault and will likely continue operations accordingly.
• Ukrainian counteroffensives around Kharkiv City are pushing back Russian positions northeast of the city and will likely continue to force the Russians to reinforce those positions at the cost of reinforcing Russian offensive operations elsewhere.
• Russian forces may be preparing to conduct renewed offensive operations to capture the entirety of Kherson Oblast in the coming days.

• It's the culmination of a behind-the-scenes effort led by Blinken to have U.S. diplomats return to Kyiv at the earliest possible date after their evacuation in the weeks before Russia's invasion on Feb. 24.
• "The secretary relayed to his senior team and to [Ukrainian] Foreign Minister [Dmytro] Kuleba that our return to Kyiv is a testament to Ukraine's success, Moscow's failure and our effective and enduring partnership with the government and people of a sovereign, democratic and free Ukraine," said the senior official.

• It's the culmination of a behind-the-scenes effort led by Blinken to have U.S. diplomats return to Kyiv at the earliest possible date after their evacuation in the weeks before Russia's invasion on Feb. 24.
• "The secretary relayed to his senior team and to [Ukrainian] Foreign Minister [Dmytro] Kuleba that our return to Kyiv is a testament to Ukraine's success, Moscow's failure and our effective and enduring partnership with the government and people of a sovereign, democratic and free Ukraine," said the senior official.

• A humiliating defeat is not an option for him. Senior Biden officials want to avoid a situation in which Putin feels like his own survival, or the survival of his regime, is threatened.
• In that "existential" scenario, Putin may resort to the most extreme measures, including the use of nuclear weapons, according to sources familiar with the sensitive discussions inside the administration.

• President Biden was reportedly "livid" about recent stories reporting that U.S. targeting intelligence has helped Ukraine kill Russian generals, according to the New York Times' Thomas Friedman.
• And after an NBC News report in which anonymous U.S. officials took credit for helping sink the Moskva, Russia's flagship warship, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby slammed the leaks as "manifestly unhelpful."

• When Blinken met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month in Kyiv, he promised his team would return to the capital city promptly.
• Blinken "instructed his team — including undersecretary for management John Bass and our diplomatic security team — to work closely with [Kvien] to make it happen, consistent with the safety and security imperatives," the senior official told Axios.
• Blinken privately discussed the plan with Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The logistical conversations have intensified during the past two weeks.

• Western governments announced new sanctions on Sunday and were engaged in a flurry of activity as part of an effort to counter Russia's propaganda surrounding its Victory Day celebration on Monday.
• In addition to U.S. diplomats visiting Kyiv on Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and first lady Jill Biden made surprise visits themselves.
• Biden traveled to Uzhhorod, Ukraine, where she met with Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska. Trudeau visited Irpin, Ukraine.

• Instead, he turned his ire and propaganda on the U.S., NATO and the "Nazis" they support in Kyiv — claiming that a clash was "inevitable" and that Russia moved preemptively against Ukraine to defend itself.

• Putin also accused the West of "preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea," which his forces annexed from Ukraine in 2014, per Sky News.

• The letter has become a symbol of support for the invasion, which AFP notes has taken longer and proven to be costlier than the Kremlin had planned.

• "Russia has forgotten everything that was important to the victors of World War II," Zelensky added, according to a transcript posted to the presidential website.

• Instead, Russian forces have "subjected Ukraine’s towns and cities to intense and indiscriminate bombardments with little or no regard for civilian casualties," the defense ministry said.
• As the conflict "continues beyond Russian pre-war expectations, Russia's stockpile of precision-guided munitions has likely been heavily depleted," according to the report.

"This has forced the use of readily available but ageing munitions that are less reliable, less accurate and more easily intercepted. Russia will likely struggle to replace the precision weaponry it has already expended."

Escalatory risk has had a profound effect in shaping their current strategies. While both China and Russia have been strengthening their nuclear arsenals—and delivery platforms—in recent years, they have also magnified their strategies with complimentary “Liminal Warfare.”

What follows draws heavily upon the brilliant work of Professor David Kilcullen, an Australian combat veteran with long experience in the Middle East and in government here with the State Department and with U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East.

...

To counter this aggressive “forward-basing platform” strategy, the United States and its allies must counter this with an “Allied Nuclear Partners” response that drives private investment in partnership with host nations—rather than the “State Enterprise Dominance” model practiced by Rosatom and CGN. Russia and China use nuclear power plant projects to directly subvert host nation sovereignty in their overt campaign of predatory mercantilism as an arm of Liminal Warfare. Going forward, “Energy Sovereignty will be the Westphalian Principle of the 21st Century” as averred by Admiral Mike Hewitt of IP3 and Professor David Gattie of the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.

We can prevail in this widening conflict, in multiple dimensions. We must reach out to our allies from Canada to Europe, Japan, and Australia and together plan for how to understand the Sino- Russian imperial strategy and organize ourselves to again compete and reverse their aggression.

In September 2011, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, stated that “[T]he nation that is purely reactive in foreign policy is in decline.” This has surely been the case for Western nuclear powers. The Allied Nuclear Partners approach is the counter-thrust in great power rivalry, and one that provides alternatives to NATO members and Gulf Cooperation Council partners for preserving sovereignty in the face of the challenge by the China-Russia tandem.

Together, we can recover and become competitive again, but it isn’t going to happen overnight, and will require private investment, not just government spending.

Ask not what your country can do for you; rather, ask what you can do for your country. Or ask what will happen to your country if we fail to act.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2022

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2022

Finally, as a specific step to strengthen cultural empathy, the China-watching community should conduct more tracing of how, not just what, the People’s Liberation Army learns from Western concepts and doctrine when possible. Such an academic effort would help to bring Chinese military writings into perspective so that poorly defined concepts such as “gray zone strategy” will have little room to proliferate and exacerbate misconstrued Western views about how China evaluates and implements its military strategy.

Facing an existential fight for their independence, Ukrainians are highly motivated. Morale is a force multiplier.

AI is at the center of nearly all advances in defense technology today.

Leading military powers often forgo innovation and resist change.

Military power is more about people and organizations than widgets or tools.

In short, the whole joint force should seriously consider how it can continue to keep up the fight if it finds itself in an extended and costly war with a major power, or, worse, multiple adversaries. Winning the first battle will be important, but not as much as winning the last one.