Quotes of the Day:

"People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."

. - Aldous Huxley

"Human behavior is subject to the same laws as any other natural phenomenon. Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture. No one is born with greed, prejudice, bigotry, patriotism and hatred; these are all learned behavior patterns. If the environment is unaltered, similar behavior will reoccur." 

- Jacque Fresco

"Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity." 

- Rabindranath Tagore 

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31, 2023

2. A New Approach to Hostage Diplomacy? Group Looks for Ways to Deter Wrongful Detentions

3. The Future of Conflict: How Super-Empowered Populations Will Change Warfare

4. Biden’s pick to lead the Marine Corps helped design its new vision

5. RADM J. C. WYLIE: CONSIDERATIONS FOR A U.S. INDO-PACIFIC NAVAL STRATEGY

6. Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip cleared for human trials

7. Zelenskiy presses NATO case at Moldova summit close to Ukraine's border

8. Girl and mother among three killed in Russian attack on Kyiv - police

9. Spying for Human Rights

10. To Protect Europe, Let Ukraine Join NATO—Right Now

11. Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Engagements With Japanese Leaders in Tokyo

12. In fantasy of multipolarity, new world order would be dominated by Chinese Communists

13. Ukraine War May Become a Proving Ground for AI

14. U.S. Conducts Show Of Force - Does Low B-1 Bomber Flyover Of Bosnia

15. Emulating Russia, China Is Improving Its Ability to Operate in the Gray Zone

16. Stop Worrying About Chinese Hegemony in Asia

17. The China hawks briefing DeSantis

18. Why the United States Doesn’t Need an “Arsenal for Democracy”

19. A China-Taiwan DMZ? Meet the Kinmen islanders who want a bridge, not a war

20. Beware China’s salami tactics in Taiwan

21. Taiwan receives backlogged Stingers from 2019 weapons sale

22. Misfiring Cannons, Rotted Tires Among US Army Gear Pulled for Ukraine, Watchdog Finds

23. China accuses US of interference with naval exercise before spy plane intercept

24. Prove It Before You Use It: Nuclear Retaliation Under Uncertainty

25. Claudia Rosett, who reported from Tiananmen Square, dies at 67

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-31-2023

Key Takeaways

• The Russian military command has likely ordered Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces to begin offensive operations in Ukraine following the withdrawal of Wagner Group forces from Bakhmut.
• The claimed return of Chechen forces to offensive operations would break Kadyrovites from a nearly yearlong hiatus from participating in high-intensity combat operations.
• The Kremlin may be attempting to reintroduce Kadyrovites as the main offensive force following the culmination of Wagner forces and their withdrawal from the frontlines.
• The Kremlin may also be attempting to sever Kadyrov’s relationship with Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and re-emphasize federal authority over Chechen forces.
• The official Russian responses to recent attacks against Russia remain likely insufficient to satisfy the Russian ultranationalist information space’s desire for escalation in the war.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks northwest of Svatove and south of Kreminna.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian forces continue to concentrate in southern Ukraine.
• The Russian State Duma appears to be considering measures to legalize the military recruitment of current or formerly incarcerated Russian men.
• Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lyubinets announced that Ukraine has a new avenue to repatriate Ukrainian children abducted to Russia.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 31, 2023

May 31, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31, 2023

Grace Mappes, Kateryna Stepanenko, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, and Fredrick W. Kagan

May 31, 2023, 7:30pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1pm ET on May 31. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the June 1 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

The Russian military command has likely ordered Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces to begin offensive operations in Ukraine following the withdrawal of Wagner Group forces from Bakhmut. Kadyrov claimed on May 31 that Chechen forces received a new order and assumed responsibility over the Donetsk Oblast frontline.[1] Kadyrov claimed that Chechen units need to start “active combat activities” and “liberate a series of settlements.” Kadyrov added that Chechen “Akhmat” Special Forces (Spetsnaz) and the “Sever-Akhmat” Special Purpose Regiment transferred to the Marinka direction southwest of Donetsk City. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) also claimed that assault detachments of the 5th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 1st Army Corps and Akhmat Spetsnaz conducted offensive operations in the Marinka direction.[2] Kadyrov noted that the Russian military command ordered Russian, Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard), and Chechen Akhmat forces to begin offensive actions along the frontline in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts as well.[3] Kadyrov claimed that these units have already begun tactical preparations for these offensive actions and claimed that “Akhmat” units’ offensive operations began before Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive. ISW has observed no indications of Chechen offensive operations in Zaporizhia or Kherson as of this writing.

The claimed return of Chechen forces to offensive operations would break Kadyrovites from a nearly yearlong hiatus from participating in high-intensity combat operations. Chechen forces have been largely operating in the rear after participating in the battles for Mariupol, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk - with the exception of some offensive activities around Bilohorivka, Luhansk Oblast.[4] ISW also observed Kadyrov’s forces operating as a police force in the rear in southern Ukraine and performing localized reconnaissance-in-force operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.[5] Kadyrov also claimed that 3,300 personnel of the “Sever-Akhmat” Regiment were in Chechnya as of May 8, and ISW assessed that Kadyrov may have been conserving his forces instead sending them to the frontlines.[6] Chechen units’ limited participation on the frontlines alongside Kadyrov’s heavy emphasis on recruitment may suggest that Kadyrov is hesitant to commit his forces to grinding offensive operations in Ukraine despite his ultranationalist narratives.[7]

The Kremlin may be attempting to reintroduce Kadyrovites as the main offensive force following the culmination of Wagner forces and their withdrawal from the frontlines. ISW had previously assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been attempting to pressure Kadyrov into increasing the role of Chechen fighters in combat operations since at least Putin's public meeting with Kadyrov on March 13.[8] Kadyrov also claimed on May 20 to have met with Putin in Pyatigorsk, Stavropol Krai, around the time of Wagner Group’s claimed victory in Bakhmut.[9] The Kremlin did not publish a readout from this meeting, and Kadyrov claimed that he boasted to Putin that there are seven Chechen regiments and four battalions operating in Ukraine.[10] Kadyrov later clarified on May 26 that there are 7,000 Chechen personnel in Ukraine.[11] The Russian MoD’s mention of “Akhmat” operations in the Marinka direction a day prior to Wagner’s initial claimed withdrawal date on June 1 indicates that Putin may have coerced Kadyrov into assuming an offensive role in the war to compensate for Wagner’s likely culmination.[12] The Kremlin may perceive Chechen units as an untapped assault force that can restore Russia’s ability to sustain simultaneous offensive efforts on multiple axes of advance. If Kadyrov’s claims that he has 7,000 troops in Ukraine are close to accurate his forces will not be able to mount multiple significant offensive operations successfully.

The Kremlin may also be attempting to sever Kadyrov’s relationship with Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and re-emphasize federal authority over Chechen forces. Prigozhin responded on May 31 to reports of Chechen forces transferring to occupied Donetsk Oblast, stating that he is confident that Kadyrov’s forces will be successful in capturing some settlements in the region but emphasized that Kadyrov was not tasked with capturing the entirety of Donetsk Oblast.[13] Prigozhin also noted that he is not aware of Chechen units’ new positions as this information is secret. Kadyrov participated in Prigozhin’s blackmail attempt in early May aimed at coercing the Russian MoD to allocate additional military supplies to Wagner in Bakhmut.[14] Kadyrov claimed that his forces would relieve Wagner forces on May 6 and even directly asked Putin to authorize the transfer of Chechen forces from other directions to Bakhmut.[15] Putin may have perceived Kadyrov’s behavior as a threat to his control given that Kadyrov and Prigozhin had conducted a successful joint information campaign in early October 2022 to facilitate military command changes.[16] Putin or the Russian military command may have ordered Kadyrov to increase the presence of his units on the battlefield in retaliation for Kadyrov’s blackmail attempt.

The official Russian responses to recent attacks against Russia remain likely insufficient to satisfy the Russian ultranationalist information space’s desire for escalation in the war. Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov called on Russian forces on May 29 to capture Kharkiv City and Kharkiv Oblast to create a barrier between Belgorod Oblast and Ukraine.[17] Gladkov later announced on May 31 the evacuation of children from the border areas of Shebekino and Grayvoron raions — including 300 children relocated to Voronezh Oblast — in response to the “deteriorating” border situation.[18] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Gladkov’s statements on May 29, igniting some ire in the Russian information space.[19] Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin criticized Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for their reluctance to address attacks against Russian territory.[20] Russian milbloggers have complained about the lack of Russian military escalation to secure border areas in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts since at least September 2022, often criticizing the Kremlin for underreacting to attacks against Russian territory and failing to fully dedicate itself to the war effort.[21] The evacuations and Peskov’s comments are largely consistent with Putin’s unwillingness and inability to meaningfully escalate the war short of full-scale general and economic mobilization, as ISW has previously assessed.[22]

Key Takeaways

• The Russian military command has likely ordered Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces to begin offensive operations in Ukraine following the withdrawal of Wagner Group forces from Bakhmut.
• The claimed return of Chechen forces to offensive operations would break Kadyrovites from a nearly yearlong hiatus from participating in high-intensity combat operations.
• The Kremlin may be attempting to reintroduce Kadyrovites as the main offensive force following the culmination of Wagner forces and their withdrawal from the frontlines.
• The Kremlin may also be attempting to sever Kadyrov’s relationship with Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and re-emphasize federal authority over Chechen forces.
• The official Russian responses to recent attacks against Russia remain likely insufficient to satisfy the Russian ultranationalist information space’s desire for escalation in the war.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks northwest of Svatove and south of Kreminna.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian forces continue to concentrate in southern Ukraine.
• The Russian State Duma appears to be considering measures to legalize the military recruitment of current or formerly incarcerated Russian men.
• Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lyubinets announced that Ukraine has a new avenue to repatriate Ukrainian children abducted to Russia.

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 ground attacks northwest of Svatove and south of Kreminna on May 30. Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported that Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in 13 clashed in the Kupyansk and Kreminna directions.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks northwest of Svatove near Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk); near Novoselivske and Stelmakhivka (both about 15km northwest of Svatove); and south of Kreminna near Kuzmyne (2km southwest) and Bilohorivka (10km south).[24] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces failed to advance near Krokhmalne (20km northwest of Svatove) but that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances northeast of Bilohorivka.[25] Another Russian milblogger posted footage showing Russian forces firing on Ukrainian positions in the Kupyansk direction with incendiary munitions.[26]

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group attempted to infiltrate Ukrainian lines near Zelene (34km northeast of Kharkiv City), Kharkiv Oblast for the second consecutive day.[27]

Ukrainian forces continue to strike Russian rear areas in Luhansk Oblast. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces targeted Karpaty, Luhansk Oblast (on the eastern outskirts of Alchevsk) with four HIMARS rockets overnight on May 30 to 31.[28] Geolocated imagery published on May 31 shows damage to a building in Karpaty.[29]

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 retrospective analysis on the Battle for Bakhmut.

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut on May 31. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northeast of Bakhmut) and Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[30] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces aim to capture Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) to set conditions for future efforts to advance in the Kramatorsk direction (34km northwest of Bakhmut) and that Russian forces have increased artillery strikes in this direction.[31] The milblogger also claimed that fighting is ongoing between Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut) and Klishchiivka (6km southwest of Bakhmut) and that positional battles continue near Klishchiivka. The milblogger claimed that conventional Russian forces, volunteer formations and Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) security forces are establishing positions in Bakhmut as Wagner forces continue their ongoing relief-in-place. Geolocated footage published on May 31 shows the irregular formation 1st “Wolves” Sabotage and Reconnaissance Brigade, previously active in the Avdiivka area, operating near Zaliznyanske (9km northwest of Bakhmut).[32] This unit’s presence near Zaliznyanske supports ISW’s assessment that Russian forces are likely transferring irregular forces and DNR elements from the Avdiivka area to the Bakhmut area.[33]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline on May 31. Geolocated footage indicates that Russian forces made a limited advance north of Krasnohorivka (8km north of Avdiivka) as of May 30.[34] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka) and that Ukrainian forces repelled all Russian attacks in Marinka.[35] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted ground attacks from Kamianka (5km northeast of Avdiivka) and advanced to new positions northeast of Avdiivka, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[36] Another milblogger claimed that skirmishes continued near Vodyane (7km southwest of Avdiivka).[37]

Russian forces targeted Ukrainian positions in western Donetsk Oblast on May 31. Geolocated footage published on May 31 shows artillery units of the 127th Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army, Western Military District) striking Ukrainian positions near Novopil (45km west of Vuhledar).[38] Russian milbloggers published footage on May 31 purportedly showing the Operational-Combat Tactical Formation “Kaskad” (a DNR element) operating near Vuhledar.[39] Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed or claimed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike on Kalininsky Raion in Donetsk City on May 31.[40] A Ukrainian source published an image on May 31 showing a smoke plume in Mariupol.[41]

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

Russian forces continue to concentrate in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported that Russian forces are replacing old and worn equipment — including T-72 and T-62 tanks and air defenses — in southern Ukraine. Andryushchenko reported that Russian forces are moving the equipment towards Manhush (14km southwest of Mariupol) and Berdyansk out of fear of Ukrainian strikes on Mariupol.[42] Geolocations of Andryuchenko’s imagery confirm that Russian forces are moving the equipment in Mariupol.[43]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on May 31 that Russian forces destroyed the final remaining Ukrainian warship at port in Odesa City on May 29.[44] Ukraine's Southern Operational Command reported on May 29 that Russian drone strikes caused a fire at port infrastructure in Odesa on May 29 but did not mention the warship.[45] ISW is unable to confirm the MoD’s claims.[46]

Ukrainian forces continue to strike areas in southern Ukraine. Russian sources claimed that Russian air defenses activated over Melitopol and Tokmak on May 30.[47] Geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces targeting Russian military trucks west of Vynohradne, Kherson Oblast (34km southwest of Kherson City).[48]

Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to increase physical control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Ukrainian Representative to the UN Serhiy Kyslytsya stated on May 31 that Russian forces continue using the ZNPP for military purposes and have deployed 500 personnel and 50 pieces of military equipment to the plant. Kyslytsya reported that the Russians store military equipment and ammunition in the turbine halls of ZNPP reactors No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4.[49] Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom reported that Russian occupation authorities are torturing Ukrainian ZNPP personnel to coerce the personnel into signing contracts with Russian nuclear energy operator Rosatom, which has its own presence at the ZNPP.[50] International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi called on all parties to agree to five principles for ensuring safety at the ZNPP: no attacks against the ZNPP or critical infrastructure; no storing military equipment or personnel at the ZNPP; guarantee power to the ZNPP; protect all critical infrastructure from attacks; take no actions to undermine these principles.[51] Kyslytsya called on Grossi to include in his principles: the complete withdrawal of Russian military and ZNPP personnel from the ZNPP; insuring that the ZNPP is connected to Ukrainian power grids; and insuring that the passage of management and maintenance personnel to and from the ZNPP is safe.[52]

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

The Russian State Duma appears to be considering measures to legalize the military recruitment of current or formerly incarcerated Russian men. Duma Defense Committee Head Andrey Kartapolov submitted a bill on May 31 that would allow Russia to recruit contract servicemen from prisons during the periods of mobilization, martial law, and war.[53] This bill will also allow Russian military officials to offer contracts to individuals who have been released from prison but whose convictions remain on their criminal records. The draft notes that individuals convicted of political crimes such as terrorism, treason, and extremism will not be granted the opportunity to sign military contracts. The draft law also notes that prisoners and convicts who enlist will be pardoned.

The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian officials are building two massive facilities in Kursk City and Rostov-on-Don to sort and store dead Russian soldiers retrieved from frontlines in Ukraine.[54] The GUR reported that Russian officials are spending nearly 1.4 billion rubles (about $17.1 million) in total to purchase refrigeration equipment and construct these facilities.

Leningrad Oblast will provide financial compensation to fighters of private military companies (PMC) or their families in case of injury or death during the war.[55] Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko signed a law on May 31 that offers regional compensation of 500,000 rubles to one million rubles (about $6,130 to $12,260) to an injured mercenary and two million rubles (about $24,500) to the family of a dead mercenary.[56] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on May 31 that he is working with Drozdenko to ensure that the Leningrad Oblast government issues payments to Wagner fighters and their families.[57]

Russian military personnel are illegally transporting weapons home to Russia from the front in Ukraine. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s North Caucasus service Kavkaz Realii reported that the number of criminal investigations into cases of theft of weapons among Russian military personnel increased in southern Russia and the North Caucasus.[58] Kavkaz Realii reported that Russian courts have launched at least 42 criminal cases for theft of weapons, ammunition, and explosive devices since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

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)

Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lyubinets announced that Ukraine has a new avenue to repatriate Ukrainian children abducted to Russia.[59] Lyubinets stated that an unspecified intermediary facilitates indirect contact between Ukrainian and Russian officials to return the children. Lyubinets stated that Ukraine is aware of 19,400 deported Ukrainian children and 27,000 adult Ukrainian civilians in Russian detention, and that Russia is deporting Ukrainians through Belarus with help from the Belarusian government. Ukrainian Presidential Children’s Rights Advisor Darya Hersymchuk stated that 200,000–300,000 Ukrainian children remain in Russia and Belarus, and Russia claims that over 700,000 Ukrainian children are in Russia.[60] Hersymchuk noted that Ukraine has returned 371 children from Russia.

Russian officials and occupation authorities continue to use infrastructure projects to integrate occupied territories into Russia. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin signed an order on May 31 creating the federal state unitary enterprise “Railways of Novorossiya" to unite railways in occupied territories. Khusnullin stated that Railways of Novorossiya will connect logistics in occupied territories, update existing fleets of trains, and create a unified transportation process management system.[61] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin stated that he took part in an expanded board meeting with the Russian Ministry of Labor and Trade to discuss reconstructing industrial enterprises in occupied Donetsk Oblast.[62] Pushilin stated that the Regional Industrial Development, which the Russian Ministry of Labor and Trade sponsors, will begin operations in June.[63]

Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine is extraordinarily unlikely).

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that the Russian and Belarusian representatives of the Joint Advisory Group on Arms Control met to discuss arms control and regional security issues in Minsk on May 31.[64] Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin stated on May 31 that signing regulations on maintaining nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory is an effective measure to “cool the aggressive and belligerent rhetoric” of neighboring states.[65]

Geolocated video footage posted on May 30 shows an explosion at the “Three Sisters” monument near Senkivka, Chernihiv Oblast at the intersection of the Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian borders.[66] A Russian milblogger claimed that unspecified actors struck the road to prevent Ukrainian forces from crossing into Russia.[67]

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

2. A New Approach to Hostage Diplomacy? Group Looks for Ways to Deter Wrongful Detentions

A whole of society approach? This is probably one of the most difficult problems the US government faces because it requires dealing with some of the most evil regimes.

A New Approach to Hostage Diplomacy? Group Looks for Ways to Deter Wrongful Detentions

Private bipartisan effort comes partly in response to Russia’s detention of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-approach-to-hostage-diplomacy-group-looks-for-ways-to-deter-wrongful-detentions-d2c63342?mod=hp_lead_pos6

By Vivian SalamaFollow

June 1, 2023 5:30 am ET

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was accused by Russian officials of espionage, an allegation that he, the Journal and the U.S. vehemently deny. PHOTO: SERGEI BOBYLEV/TASS/ZUMA PRESS

WASHINGTON—A new private panel, launched partly in response to Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, aims to help tackle the challenges the U.S. faces over the rising number of Americans unjustly detained abroad.

The panel, led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will explore ways to strengthen current U.S. hostage policy and propose new government strategies to deter further hostage taking and wrongful detentions. CSIS was set to formally announce the panel’s formation on Thursday.

The bipartisan effort by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank comes as nations such as Russia and Iran have increasingly sought to use high-profile American detainees for diplomatic leverage, according to U.S. officials and hostage-advocacy groups.

Here’s a breakdown of the events surrounding the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and what comes next. Illustration: Todd Johnson

Former President Donald Trump’s national-security adviser Robert O’Brien and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), will serve as co-chairs of the panel, which will also include returned hostages, hostage family members, former law-enforcement and national-security officials, diplomats, academics and journalists.

Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter held by Iran for 544 days starting in 2014 on what American officials characterized as bogus espionage charges, will also help direct the effort, along with Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at CSIS.

Alterman said that Gershkovich’s detention in Russia is the most recent example of groups and governments holding Americans in hopes of wresting things from the U.S. government.

READ EVAN GERSHKOVICH’S WORK

On the Ground in Putin's Russia: Coverage of a Country at War

“This is personal for me,” Alterman said. “I know several people who have been held hostage by foreign governments and one who is being currently held. We have to find a way to stop this.”

Russian authorities detained Gershkovich on March 29 and accused him of espionage, an allegation that he, the Journal and the U.S. vehemently deny. The detention sparked condemnation from Western governments and global news organizations over what they say is Russia’s blatant violation of international and humanitarian laws.

A wave of such detentions in recent years has ushered in a new era of hostage diplomacy, with the U.S. turning to new negotiating tactics and devoting more resources toward the matter.

The Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs was established within the State Department in 2015 to address high-profile cases amid a surge of kidnappings by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, including American journalists such as James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, all of whom were killed by their abductors.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen will co-chair the panel along with former national-security adviser Robert O’Brien. PHOTO: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Last year, President Biden signed a new executive order aimed at deterring hostage taking and wrongful detentions around the world and strengthening efforts to bring unlawfully detained Americans home.

The presidential directive expanded efforts to address hostage and detention cases established during the Obama administration. It also drew heavily from an existing law, the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, which details U.S. government criteria for who is considered wrongfully detained, processes to help free detainees, sanctions options and engagement with a detainee’s family.

The law was named in honor of Robert Levinson, an American detained in Iran since 2007 and who is believed to have died there.

CSIS said Democratic and Republican administrations have placed a high priority on freeing detained Americans, but given the rapid rise in incidents, new policy ideas were needed.

“The use of wrongful detentions has increased pretty dramatically over the past couple of years,” O’Brien said. “At one time it had been something that was particular to Iran, but I think Russia and China both realized that they get a lot of mileage out of it.”

A 2016 rally to support Robert Levinson, an American detained in Iran since 2007 who is believed to have died there. PHOTO: BENJAMIN RUSNAK/ZUMA PRESS

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a group that advocates for the freedom of Americans held hostage abroad and promotes the safety of journalists worldwide, counts 59 U.S. citizens or permanent residents who it deems to be held hostage or wrongfully detained in 15 countries. The government doesn’t disclose specific numbers of wrongfully detained Americans.

The number of U.S. nationals wrongfully held increased 580% over the last decade, compared with the previous decade, the foundation said. During the same period, the average length of captivity for U.S. hostages and detainees increased by 60%, to more than four years on average.

In April, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on the leading security services in Russia and Iran for what it said was a pattern of wrongfully detaining Americans.

In Russia, Paul Whelan, an American businessman and former U.S. Marine, has been held since December 2018 on charges similar to those against Gershkovich. Whelan has also been designated as wrongfully detained by the State Department.

In Iran, detained Americans include environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who was detained in 2018, as was businessman Emad Shargi, and Siamak Namazi, who has been detained in Iran since 2015 on charges of cooperating with a hostile government. U.S. officials have pressed for years for the release of the Americans imprisoned in Iran on what U.S. officials say are false charges.

Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com

3. The Future of Conflict: How Super-Empowered Populations Will Change Warfare

We need to respect the human domain even if the military refuses to recognize it .

Excerpts:

Although the conclusion of two decades of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency marks a critical turning point for American military strategy, a pivot from counterinsurgency to conventional warfare does not eliminate the reality that all warfare is now population-centric warfare.

In the future of warfare, large-scale, hierarchical, attrition-minded conventional armies will remain necessary but insufficient for promoting global stability and strengthening balances of power across complex alliance and partner networks. Likewise, success in future warfare will require that both conventional and special operations forces recognize the super-empowered population as the true Clausewitzian center of gravity through meaningful population-centric training and professional military education.

The Future of Conflict: How Super-Empowered Populations Will Change Warfare - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Joseph Long · June 1, 2023

Though it claims to support local populations in warfare, the US military nonetheless tends toward enemy-centric operational behavior. That is, units spend most of their time focused on destroying the enemy and comparatively little on local civilian populations’ needs, behavior, and interests. This can be said of most American conflicts since World War II, including the counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where enemy forces mingled with the indigenous population. As Kalev Sepp has argued in lectures at the Naval Postgraduate School, enemy-centric conventional-minded American forces, when frustrated by the comingling of an enemy force within a population, tend to ignore the irregular aspects of war and double down on large-scale combat operations as the centerpiece of conventional warfare.

The current conflict in Ukraine, however, highlights the reality that populations involved in modern conflict, with increased access to advanced modern technology and internationally supplied weapons, have become super-empowered in their ability to resist occupation and stand against more powerful military forces as a new decisive actor in the outcome of war. This power shift has significant implications for the American strategy of “Integrated Deterrence,” in which American global primacy relies on the combined elements of national power, including allies and partners. Although stronger military forces have historically leveraged better weapons and technology over relatively weaker populations, these advantages are greatly reduced or eliminated in conflicts with super-empowered insurgents. In light of the role that super-empowered populations will play in determining the outcome of future conflicts, US policymakers and analysts should stop thinking of conflict as a combination of conventional and irregular warfare and reframe the future of warfare as population-centric conflict in which the agency and strategic choices of a super-empowered population, rather than the stronger military, determine who wins and who loses.

Understanding the power of the super-empowered population means recognizing that new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and social media are increasingly available to everyone. Access to these technologies increases the potential for insurgencies, rebels (that is, any non-state, substate, insurgent, partisan, or similar actor that serves as a threat to a government’s stability), partisans, and local civilians to deny much of the strength advantage historically enjoyed by the world’s most powerful armies. Not only will future conflicts become more heavily influenced by international military support from competing great powers through continued globalization, but the widespread affordability and applicability of AI and advanced technology for open-source intelligence (OSINT) have also significantly reduced the intelligence asymmetry between populations and advancing military formations. Indigenous super-empowered populations maintain the advantage of the low-tech forms of lethality that American forces dealt with in Afghanistan and Iraq while adding the benefit of effective and decentralized social media OSINT networks. In short, combat operations are becoming more about competing for the population’s will than they are about military strength, as super-empowered populations have proved problematic for great power forces in both irregular and conventional warfare. Success in the future of warfare requires an understanding that even the most conventional of military operations will become population-centric.

Understating the Population’s Role in Warfare

The significance of the super-empowered population follows from an understanding of the populations’ strategic role in classic insurgency theory, as outlined by Mao Tse-Tung, David Galula, David Kilcullen, and others. However, these models remain limited by an internal view of counterinsurgency theory emphasizing the state and the population and thus fail to account for the expeditionary nature of American military involvement in counterinsurgency-based conflict. Understanding the nature of future conflict requires a review of scholarship addressing the full complement of counterinsurgency actors, including the state, the rebel forces, and a third-party expeditionary intervening military.

Gordon McCormick’s “Magic Diamond” model offers an understanding of the distinction between warfare and insurgency conflict, including the degree to which the indigenous population determines who is most likely to win. McCormick notes that insurgency-based conflict features a natural power asymmetry between the sovereign state’s robust security forces and a weaker force of rebels living within their indigenous population. Theoretically, although the stronger state actor wields a size advantage over the weaker rebel force, the rebel force enjoys an information advantage relative to the state. The dilemma of insurgency is that rebels know where to find the state forces, but are too weak to engage them decisively, while the state simultaneously has the strength to destroy the rebels, but cannot distinguish them from the rest of the population. Therefore, the logic of the Diamond model explores the agency of the indigenous population, such that the population can either help the state target the rebels or help the rebels hide from the state.

Further exploration of the dynamics between a state, the rebel force, and the expeditionary force underscores the degree to which indigenous populations wield agency in such conflicts over time. “The Liberator’s Dilemma” explores the tendency for third-party intervening forces to lose support from an indigenous population over time. The logic of the Liberator’s Dilemma assumes that although the “liberating” force may experience strong indigenous popular support at the onset of their invasion, violence from the liberator gradually erodes popular support relative to the incumbent regime, which now acts as the insurgency. At this point, the harder the liberator fights the incumbent state, the more harm comes to the indigenous population, and the faster support declines. Eventually, the population switches from supporting the liberator to supporting remnants of the incumbent regime, resulting in a strategic loss for the liberator.

The Super-Empowered Population: The Future of Conflict

The dynamics of these population-centric models are made more complex by access to globally sourced advanced technology. Although strong state actors previously enjoyed superior technology against insurgent forces, access to technology in future conflicts is becoming more evenly distributed. Low-tech weapons smuggling routes like the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam conflict remain easy for local populations to hide against expeditionary military forces in more recent conflicts. In Afghanistan and Iraq, where insurgents made use of such routes, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) caused “roughly half of all [US and coalition] deaths and injuries.” The capacity for indigenous population networks to introduce low-tech weapons into population-centric conflicts is now augmented by their ability to access and employ high-tech solutions as well.

In the Ukrainian conflict, the super-empowered population has been able to resist the conventional strength of the Russian military thanks to the lethality and availability of low-tech IEDs, combined with the availability of AI-enhanced drones, which enhance situational awareness, enemy targeting, and force protection, and the information provided by sophisticated social media OSINT platforms. Even before the invasion of Ukraine, P.W. Singer and Emerson Brooking recognized the potential for weaponized social media to create conditions in which power is defined “not by physical strength or high-tech hardware, but by the command of attention.” They argue that not only can viral social media attention affect the popularity of presidential candidates and shape election results, but also that it has caused “conflicts of popularity and perception … to merge with conflicts of flesh and blood” as when #AllEyesOnISIS began to “sow terror, disunion, and defection” as the top-trending hashtag on Arabic Twitter. More recently, Singer has used the term “LikeWar” to describe how weaponized social media, a new form of OSINT, provides unprecedented near-intelligence parity between the indigenous Ukrainian population and a conventional invading military.

Not only has the invasion ofUkraine unveiled the power of the super-empowered indigenous population in holding off a once-feared army, it has also provided a wake-up call for all nations with similarly powerful conventional military forces. Adding to pre-9/11 research findings from Andrew Mack in 1975 and Ivan Arreguin-Toft in 2001 about the potential for weaker non-state, sub-state, and trans-state actors to leverage an indirect advantage over strong state actors, the outcomes of post-9/11 conflicts suggest that the technological overmatch does not advantage great powers for very long. The power of super-empowered populations against conventional military forces is on the rise, regardless of the size of a state’s alliance networks or whether the state is authoritarian or democratic. Although the need to consider popular support is recognized as a part of irregular warfare, the rise of the super-empowered population has elevated popular support to the forefront of both irregular and conventional conflicts. Strategic pivots from one form of warfare to the other do not affect the importance of learning how to gain and sustain popular support.

When Military Strength is Strategic Weakness

Although the conclusion of two decades of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency marks a critical turning point for American military strategy, a pivot from counterinsurgency to conventional warfare does not eliminate the reality that all warfare is now population-centric warfare.

In the future of warfare, large-scale, hierarchical, attrition-minded conventional armies will remain necessary but insufficient for promoting global stability and strengthening balances of power across complex alliance and partner networks. Likewise, success in future warfare will require that both conventional and special operations forces recognize the super-empowered population as the true Clausewitzian center of gravity through meaningful population-centric training and professional military education.

Furthermore, senior military leaders must recognize that population-centric warfare requires new ways of thinking about the efficacy of traditional leadership in the future of warfare. Mission command, the exercise of authority and direction by the commander, will require increasingly agile and adaptive leaders who can operate outside the confines of traditional centralized command and control. In population-centric warfare, hierarchical initiatives like the Joint All-Domain Command and Control program will remain necessary for modern planning and campaigning, but simultaneously insufficient for decentralized population-centric warfare. Future military leaders require a new way of thinking about the meaning of leadership in population-centric warfare, which is less about historical cases of command and more about the decentralized empowerment of leaders through multiple complex networks across a culturally diverse human domain. The traditional military education programs that shaped the historical evolution of the modern military will no longer remain sufficient to support the operational needs of future military organizations.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for the US military is learning to lead in increasingly complex networks of partner forces and indigenous populations where traditional military leadership behaviors and command-and-control processes will either fail to resonate or degrade operational effectiveness. As seen in some examples of abrasive partner-force leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rigid nature of military discipline with local partner forces and indigenous populations can inspire resentment and backfire. Overcoming this challenge requires the American military to adopt a new way of thinking about how it leads and can win over civilian populations that stretch across vast cultural and geographic boundaries. Although future armies must demonstrate traditional military strength, strength alone will not prevail in population-centric conflict. The US military must act now in educating itself to lead and thrive within cross-cultural, multinational, and multilevel networks of allied and partner force military formations and paramilitary organizations, all while operating in combat environments dominated by technology-leveraging, super-empowered indigenous populations. Otherwise, the United States’ military strength might become its strategic weakness.

Dr. Joseph Long is a retired Special Forces officer and a Leadership and Ethics Professor and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University.

Photo Credit: Sgt. Anthony Jones, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team

4. Biden’s pick to lead the Marine Corps helped design its new vision

Biden’s pick to lead the Marine Corps helped design its new vision

marinecorpstimes.com · by Irene Loewenson · May 31, 2023

WASHINGTON — Before Gen. Eric Smith first walked the Pentagon’s E ring as a top Marine Corps leader, the career infantry Marine led forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, South America and the Pacific.

And beginning in summer 2019, as the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, he started working with Commandant Gen. David Berger on a plan to transform the Marine Corps.

In that role, and then as the No. 2 Marine, he helped draft blueprints for a complete overhaul of the service ― known as Force Design 2030 ― with the goal of turning a Corps shaped by two decades of land wars into one able to compete against Chinese forces in particular.

Now, he could carry on the Corps’ transformational trajectory.

The White House nominated Smith to serve as the next commandant of the Marine Corps, ensuring stability for the force modernization vision that Smith himself helped craft.

The Biden administration sent its pick to Congress Tuesday, according to a congressional website.

Then-Lt. Gen. David H. Berger, right, the outgoing deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, transfers command to Lt. Gen. Eric M. Smith at Lejeune Field, Quantico, Virginia, in 2019. (Cpl. Cristian L. Ricardo/Marine Corps)

Several of Smith’s former colleagues described the general as a personable, down-to-earth leader who cares deeply about the Marines under his command.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Watson, the commanding general of 1st Marine Division, said, “Gen. Eric Smith is an extraordinarily positive and engaged leader, with an emotional IQ well above the average.”

“I found him to be one of the most supportive bosses I’ve ever had.”

From Texas to the Pentagon

Smith was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Plano, Texas, according to his official Marine Corps biography. Even now, he often makes reference to his Texas upbringing, and he is a fan of the Texas Rangers and country music.

He attended Texas A&M University — a public school with a strong emphasis on preparing military officers — on a Navy ROTC scholarship, following in the footsteps of his older brother.

In August 1984, in the first days of Smith’s sophomore year, a new member of the university’s Corps of Cadets, Bruce Goodrich, died after three juniors hazed him for an hour in the hot Texas weather. The tragedy stunned the campus.

While there’s no public record of Smith discussing Goodrich’s death, it’s an event that would have shaped his experience at the university and his formative years as a midshipman.

As a senior, Smith served as the commander of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, a precise marching band made up of the university’s Corps of Cadets, according to the university’s yearbook.

He met his wife, Trish, on a blind date at the football stadium, according to a profile on the Texas A&M fundraising foundation’s website.

After receiving his commission in 1987, Smith became an infantry officer — a path that most commandants have taken. He served in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm before returning to his alma mater as an NROTC instructor, Marine Corps Times previously reported.

He has made several other deployments: to Liberia and Venezuela early in his career, to Iraq twice and to Afghanistan for a one-year deployment.

On his first deployment to Iraq, he was shot at least once, in the leg while moving from one base to another, he told NBC News in 2005.

But, as he prepared for a second deployment to Iraq, he told the interviewer he was more concerned about maintaining the Corps’ legacy than about getting shot at again.

Then-Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, III Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general, boards the amphibious assault ship Wasp (LHD 1) while underway off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, in 2018. (Lance Cpl. Hannah Hall/Marine Corps)

“We have a saying that the Marine Corps is like a little glass Christmas ornament, if you will,” he said. “You can drop it, but only once. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“And the people who built the legacy that we live on, this eagle, globe and anchor, from Iwo Jima, they’re gone,” he continued. “You can’t apologize to them for soiling the reputation of the Marine Corps.”

As a general officer, Smith went on to lead Marine Corps Forces Southern Command, in 2015; 1st Marine Division, from 2017–2018; and III Marine Expeditionary Force, from 2018–2019.

He also had stints as the senior military adviser to the defense secretary and as the assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations.

Retired Marine Col. Robert Work, a former deputy secretary of defense who worked closely with Smith when the general served as Work’s senior military adviser nearly a decade ago, said, “Eric Smith is the consummate professional: Intelligent, knowledgeable, empathetic and civil.”

“He was unafraid to tell me when I was about to do something wrong or had done something wrong,” Work said.

Force Design 2030

As the commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force, headquartered in Okinawa, Japan, Smith got a first-hand look at the forces at the heart of the Corps’ Force Design modernization.

The Force Design 2030 overhaul started with a basic premise: China is the United States’ pacing threat and is making great strides in boosting its maritime forces.

If the Marine Corps, itself a maritime force, wanted to play a role in deterring China, the Corps needed to reshape itself.

Smith played an integral part in the plan’s development and early execution while serving as deputy commandant for combat development and integration.

RELATED

Jeopardizing national security: What is happening to our Marine Corps?

One retired 3-star says he is "saddened beyond belief" knowing the Corps won't soon be "the ready combined-arms force that our nation has long depended upon."

By Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper (Retired)

As part of Force Design 2030, the Corps has made changes, such as shedding heavy gear like tanks, upgrading to longer-range weapons, building a web of sensors, empowering small unit leaders, investing in the lift and logistics to support distributed operations, and more.

Though Force Design 2030 generally has found acceptance at the top levels of the Defense Department and in Congress, it sparked an extraordinary — and public — backlash from retired Marine leaders.

Several retired generals penned opinion essays decrying Force Design and urging the Marine Corps and Congress to halt the overhaul, which they said would leave the service less prepared to confront a range of crises.

Despite the criticism, Berger repeatedly has said that classified intelligence supports the direction the force is moving in. The ascension of his No. 2, Smith, to the No. 1 job in the Corps would confirm the service will continue on that path.

Then-Maj. Gen. Eric Smith (third from left) stands with Gen. Robert Neller, then-Lt. Gen. David Berger, and Sgt. Maj. Ronald Green during the 75th anniversary commemoration of the landing of Marines on Guadalcanal. (Cpl. Samantha Braun/Marine Corps)

Despite the inherent complexity of the Force Design effort, Smith often simplifies the message with his signature Texas anecdotes.

In a panel discussion at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference in April, Smith compared the lack of deployed Marine expeditionary units on amphibious ships to the lack of security at his hometown convenience store.

Smith spoke of the Mr. Ed food store that he and his brothers would visit, which had a sign in the window that read, “This establishment is protected by an armed security guard three nights a week. You guess which three.”

“Sounds like Texas bravado,” Smith said. “It sounded like deterrence — I didn’t know what deterrence was then, but the older I got, though, and in my current job, I realize that’s not deterrence, that’s an invitation, because that’s four nights a week” without protection.

Smith has spoken repeatedly about the need to maintain a fleet of at least 31 amphibious ships, and the fight over the future of that ship fleet would certainly follow Smith into the commandant’s seat.

During the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation and National Security May 9, Smith was asked to preview what else was upcoming for Force Design 2030 — items he himself would oversee if confirmed as the next commandant.

Then-Maj. Gen. Eric Smith, the commanding general for 1st Marine Division, speaks with Marines about training and current events in Twentynine Palms, California, in 2017. (Cpl. Justin Huffty/Marine Corps)

He spoke of standing up a second Marine littoral regiment, a new kind of unit that emphasizes Force Design principles, which will be based in Japan. He also mentioned increasing the number of Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System anti-ship missile batteries, and fielding loitering munitions, or suicide drones, to make distributed forces more lethal and survivable.

Asked if he was worried about the success of Force Design 2030 once its chief architect retires, Smith said no.

“It’s fact-based and threat-informed,” he said.

Watson noted Smith was “the quarterback behind the initial implementation of Force Design 2030″ but also “has also been the driver behind the wargaming, experimentation and analysis that has led the Corps to Force Design 2030 refinements over time.”

Smith’s ‘No. 1 priority’

Smith also has made a name for himself in the way he’s cared for Marines, his former senior enlisted advisers said.

Soon after Smith took command of III Marine Expeditionary Force, he tasked Sgt. Maj. Mario Marquez with improving the quality of life for troops and their families.

The changes to long-standing policies that Smith made as part of this effort boosted morale, said Marquez, who is now retired.

The general loosened restrictions on how late Marines could stay out after work, he made it easier for junior enlisted Marines to get authorization to drive, and he drove changes that made it cheaper for families to move to and from Okinawa, Japan.

“Taking care of people is his No. 1 priority and always has been,” Marquez said.

The retired sergeant major said he believed Smith, if confirmed, would bring that attitude and focus to the Corps’ top job.

Even as Smith made some rules more lax as the head of III Marine Expeditionary Force, he still cared deeply about discipline, according to Marquez.

“Customs, courtesies and iron-clad discipline is what keeps you alive on the battlefield,” Smith said on the BruteCast podcast in August 2022.

Smith himself previously has spoken about the importance of looking out for the men and women he leads.

In a November 2018 Marine article, a Marine asked the then-commanding general which superpower he’d want to have.

“I’d probably want to be able to read minds so I know what people are really thinking,” Smith said.

“It’s hard, the older you get and the more senior you are, people don’t want to tell you stuff. I ask them, ‘Hey, Marines, how’s it going? Everything’s fine? You’re getting all the repair parts you need?’ and they say, ‘Sir, everything’s fine. Yeah, we got everything,’ when it’s not good and they don’t.”

As the two-star in charge of 1st Marine Division in 2017, he led a crackdown on hazing that ended with nearly 30 Marines confined to the brig and at least 18 administratively separated. A Marine Corps Times investigation later confirmed the division had a serious hazing problem.

Judges from the United States Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in February 2018 rebuked Smith for showing “personal interest” and bias in going after those accused of hazing.

The judges pointed in particular to Smith’s sharply worded emails to other leaders, including one in which he complained, “I’ve just been flipped the bird by lots of” lance corporals.

Despite the reproach Smith received from the appeals court, he soon pinned on a third star and served as the leader of some of the most prominent commands in the Corps.

Smith earned a reputation for being a skilled, hard-working Marine, in addition to being kind, according to retired Sgt. Maj. Tom Eggerling, who served as the top enlisted Marine for Combat Development Command while Smith was its commanding general.

Well before they met or worked together, Eggerling heard other Marines say of Smith, “He’s going to be the commandant one day.”

Now, that may finally happen. But all Defense Department nominees currently face a hurdle: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, is blocking a list of military nominees that will grow to include service chiefs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and dozens of other flag and general officer positions for commands around the globe.

Tuberville is protesting a Pentagon policy related to abortion and has thus far not shown any signs of backing down and allowing the Senate’s vetting and confirmation process to continue.

Eggerling recalled walking through the barracks at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, with Smith when they came across a young Marine on duty who mentioned that he had just gotten promoted to corporal that day.

Smith asked the corporal, “Can you call your mom?”

Smith and Eggerling spoke with the young Marine’s mother on FaceTime, telling her how proud they were of him, Eggerling recalled.

“Eric Smith is as genuine as they come,” Eggerling said.

About Irene Loewenson and Megan Eckstein

Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

Share:

marinecorpstimes.com · by Irene Loewenson · May 31, 2023

5. RADM J. C. WYLIE: CONSIDERATIONS FOR A U.S. INDO-PACIFIC NAVAL STRATEGY

Excerpts:

Wylie (1911-1993) served more than forty years in the U.S. Navy and was a first-rate strategic thinker. Assigned to the Naval War College staff in 1950, he designed a strategy course that likely inspired his first major work, “Reflections on the War in the Pacific,” in the April 1952 issue of the Naval Institute’s Proceedings. It is an appraisal of the U.S. military victory in the Pacific during World War II viewed through four strategic decisions. Revisiting those decisions provides useful insight for today’s U.S. policymakers contemplating a potential conflict with China.

....

With respect to the third strategic decision, China is better prepared than Imperial Japan to improve the odds of ensuring a war remains limited. Like Imperial Japan, China seems to prefer a geographically limited war with its near seas defense strategy of the first and second island chains; an anti-access, area denial strategy; as well as several other components. However, China, unlike Imperial Japan, is better postured both to withstand unlimited war and, importantly, to reduce its likelihood. First, China has taken steps to reduce its economic vulnerabilities. Its “string of pearls” helps safeguard its sea lines of communication, while its Belt and Road Initiative provides an overland supplement to its sea trade that simultaneously creates additional economic incentives for its Belt-and-Road partners to at least remain neutral in any future conflict. Second, China also has greater military power than Imperial Japan did to encourage its opponents to fight a limited war. It is building a global navy, with particular attention to projecting power into the Indian Ocean. Unlike Imperial Japan, China has a permanent presence there. Furthermore, a global navy provides China with the option of horizontal escalation through the opening up of new theaters of operation beyond the western Pacific to achieve victory. Finally, China has nuclear weapons and has taken recent action to expand its arsenal. This may encourage restraint, but as a recent simulation suggests, the Chinese may have greater confidence that they can manipulate the threat of nuclear weapons to control escalation. Although China has a “no first use” nuclear weapons policy, it may be “willing to brandish nuclear weapons or conduct a limited demonstration of its nuclear capability” under certain circumstances, such as to deter or end U.S. involvement in a conflict over Taiwan. U.S. officials would undoubtedly view a limited demonstration as a major escalation.

Lastly, sequential and cumulative strategies as a solution remain pertinent in U.S. Navy fleet warfare doctrine, and getting the balance right will likely be important. Even with the Belt and Road Initiative, China still has a reliance on imported petroleum and liquid natural gas, much of which must flow through the Strait of Malacca, a strategic checkpoint. This dependence gives the United States the opportunity to use a cumulative strategy in the Indian Ocean against China. Yet this might be catastrophic success for the United States, if doing so imperiled China’s economic survival leading to vertical escalation of the conflict. Nonetheless, the success of a U.S. Navy sequential strategy may hinge on whether the United States decides to make its strategic investments in developing technological superiority or in substantially growing the fleet. The urgency of the latter argument is getting congressional attention to redress the imbalance in force structure but is also prompting reinvigoration of the Air/Sea Battle operational concept. Today’s battlespace is decidedly different than that of World War II. Nevertheless, Wylie and one of his contemporaries, Vice Admiral Richard L. Conolly, argued that military history offers a particular type of knowledge: “how to think more clearly in order to properly analyze the situations and assess and evaluate the various factors that produce success or failure, victory or defeat.” This is knowledge that strategists and warfighters still need to meet the strategic and operational challenges of war. As Toshi Yoshihara, an expert on the Chinese naval strategy, has observed, “the Sino-U.S. rivalry is as much an intellectual contest as it is a material competition.”

RADM J. C. WYLIE: CONSIDERATIONS FOR A U.S. INDO-PACIFIC NAVAL STRATEGY

warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Frank Jones · June 1, 2023

[Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control] had a major impact on U.S. Navy thinking in the 1980s when the service formulated its maritime strategy.

The naval historian John B. Hattendorf observed that “Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie was the first serving officer since Luce and Mahan… to become known for writing about military and naval strategy.” Scholars and practitioners consider Wylie’s 1967 book Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control a classic. It had a major impact on U.S. Navy thinking in the 1980s when the service formulated its maritime strategy. Surprisingly, it is not Wylie’s book but an article published years before that remains most relevant as the United States wrestles with its interests in the Indo-Pacific region and China as a strategic competitor.

Wylie (1911-1993) served more than forty years in the U.S. Navy and was a first-rate strategic thinker. Assigned to the Naval War College staff in 1950, he designed a strategy course that likely inspired his first major work, “Reflections on the War in the Pacific,” in the April 1952 issue of the Naval Institute’s Proceedings. It is an appraisal of the U.S. military victory in the Pacific during World War II viewed through four strategic decisions. Revisiting those decisions provides useful insight for today’s U.S. policymakers contemplating a potential conflict with China.

Wylie stated that the first strategic decision was how the Japanese interpreted the November 26, 1941 diplomatic note that the U.S. Secretary of State gave the Japanese ambassador to the United States. Essentially, the note’s wording forced Japan to either withdraw from China or go to war to protect its interests. The United States, Wylie contended, failed “to appreciate a situation as it may appear to a government other than our own.” More recently, scholar Takeo Iguchi notes that withdrawal from China would have undermined Japan’s control of Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan, which were all vital to its interests. Adding to the probability of misinterpretation was Japan’s own problematic foreign policy of 1940 and 1941, which Iguchi characterizes as “inconsistent, unsteady, and a bit haphazard.”

The attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a result of the next strategic decision: the problem of how to start a war. Wylie noted the Japanese were in a situation not unlike that of England in 1755 as described by Sir Julian Corbett: “The principle of securing or improving your strategical position by a sudden and secret blow before declaration of war is, and was then, well known. Almost every maritime war which [England] had waged had begun this way.” The United States, Wylie contended, failed “to be aware of the normal, routine historical precedents in just such a situation as this one.”

The third strategic decision Wylie discussed was “the decision on how to fight the war,” which he called “the basic strategy of war.” He compared the Japanese and U.S. strategies. Japan realized that beyond China, it “must control southeastern Asia and the Indonesian island groups” for their natural resources. It planned for a war “limited in its scope to the seizure, control, and exploitation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” By early 1942, it had achieved its initial objectives, and, at the height of its military expansion, then had the of controlling and holding its gains. In other words, Japan wanted a war of limited geographic objectives, but it did not have “a control sufficient to limit [the war].”

The United States, using its sea power, turned the conflict “into something approaching an unlimited war.” This asymmetry in how the war was fought was a major factor in its outcome. Japan attempted to fight a limited war encompassing its geographic interests, while the United States fought not only to recapture the conquered areas but also to eliminate Japanese power in Asia by securing an unconditional surrender. Wylie contended that limited war was a “treacherous experiment to embark upon as it requires the participants to have, in reserve, the relative strength to fight an unlimited war.” Japan lacked the strength to keep the war within “pre-selected bounds” and ultimately, it led to defeat.

Wylie also maintained that Japan’s failure to think in global terms was a strategic mistake. If it had been able to control the Indian Ocean in the spring of 1942 rather than limiting itself to a single raid, it would have been disastrous for the Allies; Japanese control might have been decisive since most of the supplies going to the British in North Africa to fight Rommel and to the Soviet Union came around the Cape of Good Hope up through the Red Sea or to the Persian Gulf. The United States would have had to pull more of its resources from the Pacific to fight the war in the Atlantic and in Europe, thereby allowing the Japanese to consolidate their strategic perimeter. In that instance, the “effect of sea power would make itself felt in a chain reaction around the world,” all to Japan’s advantage.

Despite changing contexts and technology, Wylie’s article provides enduring cautionary insight for thinking about U.S. naval strategy in the Indo-Pacific.

Finally, Wylie examined the fourth strategic decision: the two ways the United States employed force to achieve its policy objective regarding Japan. His analysis on this point provided what might be Wylie’s most famous contribution to strategic theory, the idea of sequential and cumulative strategies. The first element was the two great advances across the Pacific to Asia’s coast and the shores of Japan: the island-hopping campaigns of General Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific campaign and Admiral Chester Nimitz’s Central Pacific advance. In Wylie’s words, these were “sequential strategies, a series of discrete steps or actions, with each one of the series of actions growing naturally out of, and dependent upon, the one which preceded it.” The second way the United States defeated Japan was through its cumulative strategy of submarine warfare against Japanese merchant shipping. This “collection of lesser actions” was not sequentially interdependent but eventually sunk 55% of the Japanese tonnage, resulting in Japan’s near “economic strangulation.” The two strategies occurred simultaneously but independently. The result was that Japan had “to give in” or “approach national suicide.” Wylie concludes that U.S. “strategic success in the future may be measured by the skill” in balancing sequential and cumulative approaches to the “most effective and least costly attainment of our goals.”

Despite changing contexts and technology, Wylie’s article provides enduring cautionary insight for thinking about U.S. naval strategy in the Indo-Pacific. The first strategic decision speaks to the issue of perception and misperception, that is a state’s political leaders can misunderstand how their signals to another state will be interpreted, or miscalculate the costs of certain actions, or misjudge military capability. While renowned political scientist Joseph Nye remains optimistic about U.S.-China relations, he warns that both sides should be wary of the possibility of miscalculation. “After all, more often than not, the greatest risk we face is our own capacity for error.” Nye underscores that miscalculation could occur not only because of U.S. and Chinese nationalistic fervor, but also given “the clumsiness of China’s diplomacy and the longer history of standoffs and incidents over Taiwan, the prospects for an inadvertent escalation should worry us all.” Detailed understanding of another country’s diplomatic practices and its ambassadors as its agents is crucial as is strategic empathy so as not to result in unintended and unwanted consequences.

As to the second strategic decision, a great power war in the Indo-Pacific initiated by a surprise attack is plausible as a senior Japanese defense official verbalized two years ago. Moreover, a surprise attack is linked to miscalculation. Lesley Kucharski, an analyst at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has pointed out that the United States in 1941 based its calculation of Japanese intentions on “mirror imaging deterrence and threat perceptions,” factors that remain pertinent in today’s security environment. She urges the United States to “prepare for surprise contingencies, even if it views them as escalatory and mutually undesirable.” This is a prudent step as China has a “doctrinal preference for surprise and first attack,” similar to Imperial Japan.

With respect to the third strategic decision, China is better prepared than Imperial Japan to improve the odds of ensuring a war remains limited. Like Imperial Japan, China seems to prefer a geographically limited war with its near seas defense strategy of the first and second island chains; an anti-access, area denial strategy; as well as several other components. However, China, unlike Imperial Japan, is better postured both to withstand unlimited war and, importantly, to reduce its likelihood. First, China has taken steps to reduce its economic vulnerabilities. Its “string of pearls” helps safeguard its sea lines of communication, while its Belt and Road Initiative provides an overland supplement to its sea trade that simultaneously creates additional economic incentives for its Belt-and-Road partners to at least remain neutral in any future conflict. Second, China also has greater military power than Imperial Japan did to encourage its opponents to fight a limited war. It is building a global navy, with particular attention to projecting power into the Indian Ocean. Unlike Imperial Japan, China has a permanent presence there. Furthermore, a global navy provides China with the option of horizontal escalation through the opening up of new theaters of operation beyond the western Pacific to achieve victory. Finally, China has nuclear weapons and has taken recent action to expand its arsenal. This may encourage restraint, but as a recent simulation suggests, the Chinese may have greater confidence that they can manipulate the threat of nuclear weapons to control escalation. Although China has a “no first use” nuclear weapons policy, it may be “willing to brandish nuclear weapons or conduct a limited demonstration of its nuclear capability” under certain circumstances, such as to deter or end U.S. involvement in a conflict over Taiwan. U.S. officials would undoubtedly view a limited demonstration as a major escalation.

Lastly, sequential and cumulative strategies as a solution remain pertinent in U.S. Navy fleet warfare doctrine, and getting the balance right will likely be important. Even with the Belt and Road Initiative, China still has a reliance on imported petroleum and liquid natural gas, much of which must flow through the Strait of Malacca, a strategic checkpoint. This dependence gives the United States the opportunity to use a cumulative strategy in the Indian Ocean against China. Yet this might be catastrophic success for the United States, if doing so imperiled China’s economic survival leading to vertical escalation of the conflict. Nonetheless, the success of a U.S. Navy sequential strategy may hinge on whether the United States decides to make its strategic investments in developing technological superiority or in substantially growing the fleet. The urgency of the latter argument is getting congressional attention to redress the imbalance in force structure but is also prompting reinvigoration of the Air/Sea Battle operational concept. Today’s battlespace is decidedly different than that of World War II. Nevertheless, Wylie and one of his contemporaries, Vice Admiral Richard L. Conolly, argued that military history offers a particular type of knowledge: “how to think more clearly in order to properly analyze the situations and assess and evaluate the various factors that produce success or failure, victory or defeat.” This is knowledge that strategists and warfighters still need to meet the strategic and operational challenges of war. As Toshi Yoshihara, an expert on the Chinese naval strategy, has observed, “the Sino-U.S. rivalry is as much an intellectual contest as it is a material competition.”

Frank Jones is a Distinguished Fellow of the U.S. Army War College where he taught in the Department of National Security and Strategy. Previously, he had retired from the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a senior executive. He is the author or editor of three books and numerous articles on U.S. national security.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.

Photo Description: Rear Admiral Joseph Caldwell Wylie, Jr., American strategic theorist and author.

Photo Credit: Photographer unknown, Courtesy U.S. Naval Institute

warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Frank Jones · June 1, 2023

6. Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip cleared for human trials

I am not sure I want Elon Musk rattling around in my brain.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip cleared for human trials

US FDA approves clinical testing of technology Musk claims will augment human intelligence via links with AI systems

asiatimes.com · by David Tuffley · May 30, 2023

Since its founding in 2016, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company Neuralink has had the ambitious mission to build a next-generation brain implant with at least 100 times more brain connections than devices currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The company has now reached a significant milestone, having received FDA approval to begin human trials. So what were the issues keeping the technology in the pre-clinical trial phase for as long as it was? And have these concerns been addressed?

What is Neuralink?

Neuralink is making a Class III medical device known as a brain-computer interface (BCI). The device connects the brain to an external computer via a Bluetooth signal, enabling continuous communication back and forth.

The device itself is a coin-sized unit called a Link. It’s implanted within a small disk-shaped cutout in the skull using a precision surgical robot. The robot splices a thousand tiny threads from the Link to certain neurons in the brain. Each thread is about a quarter the diameter of a human hair.

Potential benefits

If Neuralink’s BCI can be made to work safely on humans, I believe the potential benefits would make the effort worthwhile.

The company says the device could enable precise control of prosthetic limbs, giving amputees natural motor skills. It could revolutionise treatment for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and spinal cord injuries. It also shows some promise for potential treatment of obesity, autism, depression, schizophrenia and tinnitus.

Several other neurotechnology companies and researchers have already developed BCI technologies that have helped people with limited mobility regain movement and complete daily tasks.

BCIs have also been used to help older people train their motor and cognitive abilities to moderate the worst effects of ageing.

The long road to FDA approval for human trials

In February 2021, Musk said Neuralink was working with the FDA to secure permission to start initial human trials later that year. But human trials didn’t commence in 2021.

Then, in March 2022, Neuralink made a further application to the FDA to establish its readiness to begin humans trials.

Elon Musk has a brain chip dream. Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski

One year and three months later, on May 25 2023, Neuralink finally received FDA approval for its first human clinical trial. Given how hard Neuralink has pushed for permission to begin, we can assume it will begin very soon.

The approval has come less than six months after the US Office of the Inspector General launched an investigation into Neuralink over potential animal welfare violations.

What were the FDA’s concerns?

The FDA had quite a list of issues that needed to be resolved before human trials could commence, as was reported in a Reuters investigation, which claimed to have spoken to several Neuralink sources.

Most of these concerns called for Neuralink to perform thorough and repeated testing and data collection over an extended period. This was likely a deciding factor in why the approval process to begin human testing took as long as it did.

It can’t be said with certainty that all of the issues have been fully resolved. But considering the rigour of the FDA’s approval process, we might conclude they have at least been resolved to a point of satisfaction for the FDA.

Safe surgery

A precision robot known as Implant/r1 performs the surgical procedure to implant the Neuralink BCI. This robot surgeon had to be put through its paces to gather evidence that it could reliably and safely implant and remove the Neuralink BCI without damaging surrounding brain tissue, or creating the risk of infection, bleeding, inflammation or scarring.

Harmful side effects

Once implanted, the Neuralink BCI must function as intended. It must not unintentionally influence other brain functions, or cause any unwanted side effects such as seizures, headaches, mood changes, or cognitive impairment.

Safe power supply

In particular, overheating lithium-ion batteries can pose great risk to BCI users. When defective, such batteries have historically been known to overheat. They can even explode if the insulation between the cathode and anode (the metal electrode components) breaks down, resulting in a short circuit.

The longevity of the battery was also taken into account, as well as how easy it would be to safely replace from its position under the skin behind the ear. Since the FDA’s previous rejection, extensive tests have been conducted on the specially designed Neuralink battery to evaluate its performance, durability and bio-compatibility.

Wire migration

Then there is the risk of wire migration. The Link consists of a disk-shaped chip with very thin wire electrodes that connect to neurons in the brain.

Connecting these wires by means of a surgical robot is a major challenge in itself. But there is also the possibility the electrodes could move elsewhere in the brain over time due to natural movement, inflammation, or scar tissue formation. This would likely affect the proper functioning of the device, and could cause infection or damage to the brain tissue.

Neuralink had to conduct extensive animal studies and provide evidence its wires did not migrate significantly over time, or cause any adverse effects on the brain. The company also had to show it had a method for tracking and adjusting the position of the wires if this became necessary.

Implant removal

Another challenge Neuralink faced was that of safe implant removal. The FDA wanted to know how easy or difficult it would be to remove the device from the brain if this became necessary.

Data privacy and security

Strong safeguards are required to prevent data collected by the Link from being hacked, manipulated or otherwise misused. Neuralink would have had to assure the FDA it could avoid nightmare scenarios of hackers rendering its Link users vulnerable to interference, as well as guaranteeing the privacy of brain-wave data generated by the device.

The way ahead

Critics acknowledge the potential benefits of Neuralink, but caution the company to hasten slowly. Adequately addressing these issues will take time – and corners must not be cut when arriving at a solution.

Beyond the Link’s potential medical uses, Musk has made many radical claims regarding his future vision for the technology.

Musk says Neuralink will augment human intelligence. Image: Twitter

He has claimed Neuralink could augment human intelligence by creating an on-demand connection with artificial intelligence systems – allowing, for example, improved cognition through enhanced memory, and improved learning and problem-solving skills.

He has even gone as far as to say the Link could allow high-bandwidth telepathic communication between two or more people connected via a mediating computer. Common sense would suggest these claims be put in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category.

The situation with Neuralink has clear parallels with current advancements in AI (and the growing need to regulate it). As exciting as these technologies are, they must not be released to the public until proven to be safe. This can only be achieved by exhaustive testing.

David Tuffley is Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

asiatimes.com · by David Tuffley · May 30, 2023

7. Zelenskiy presses NATO case at Moldova summit close to Ukraine's border

Putin will have completely failed to achieve his strategic objective of keeping NATO from its borders. First, Finland and now the very real possibility that Ukraine will join NATO. Putin has made one of the worst strategic decisions of the 21st century (so far).

Zelenskiy presses NATO case at Moldova summit close to Ukraine's border

Reuters · by John Irish

• Summary
• Zelenskiy demands 'clear' decision on NATO entry
• Summit shows support for Ukraine against Russian invasion
• NATO deploys spy planes to meet security challenge
• Tensions in Kosovo also on agenda

BULBOACA, Moldova, June 1 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pressed his case for Ukraine to be part of the NATO military alliance as he joined European leaders on Thursday in Moldova close to his nation's border ahead of an expected counter-offensive against Russia's invasion.

Addressing leaders at the start of the gathering, Zelenskiy asked NATO members to take a clear decision on whether to admit Ukraine and also reiterated calls for Western fighter jets to protect Ukrainian skies after another deadly strike on Kyiv.

He spoke as divisions between NATO members spilled out into the open over the speed of Ukraine's accession, with some fearing that a hasty move could bring the alliance closer to direct confrontation with Russia.

The summit of the EU's 27 member states and 20 other European states was being held at a castle deep in Moldovan wine country just 20 km (12 miles) from Ukrainian territory and near the Russian-backed, breakaway Transdniestria region of Moldova.

Leaders were using the occasion as a symbolic show of support for Ukraine and Moldova while also tackling other issues, including a spike in ethnic tensions in Kosovo and efforts towards lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Taking place under the watchful eye of NATO surveillance planes, the summit was a security and organisational challenge for Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic of 2.5 million people that is seeking a path to EU accession while being wary of Russia. Moldova shut its airspace except for official delegation planes.

"This year is for decisions," Zelenskiy said, speaking in English. "In summer in Vilnius at the NATO summit, a clear invitation from members of Ukraine is needed, and security guarantees on the way to NATO membership are needed."

Moldovan President Maia Sandu, a pro-Western leader whose relations with Moscow became severely strained after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, was using the summit to push for talks to make Moldova's EU entry as fast as possible.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine's NATO hopes rested on "unity throughout the alliance, and we work on it".

He also said Ukraine was working towards holding a summit to discuss parameters for ending the war but had not set a date yet, as Kyiv wanted to bring more countries to the table.

'BARBARIC INVASION'

NATO Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) surveillance aircraft watched the skies over the Moldova summit venue. Missile debris from the war in Ukraine has been found in Moldova several times since Russia invaded 15 months ago.

The head of Russia's FSB security service accused the West of pushing Moldova to participate in the Ukraine conflict.

With Kyiv promising a counter-offensive using recently acquired Western weapons to try to drive out Russian occupiers, much of the summit's focus will be on Ukraine.

"The presence of these leaders in our country is a clear message that Moldova is not alone and neither is our neighbour Ukraine, which for a year and three months has been standing against the barbaric invasion of Russia," Sandu said earlier.

The EU also aims to use the summit to tackle tensions in northern Kosovo between the ruling ethnic Albanian majority and minority Serbs, which have flared into violence in recent days, prompting NATO to deploy 700 more peacekeepers there.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused Serbia of deliberating trying to destabilise his country, while Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the ball was in Kosovo's court to defuse the crisis.

The summit was also expected to touch on a range of strategic issues including energy, cybersecurity and migration.

It provided an opportunity to address other frictions as well, including between Azerbaijan and Armenia, whose leaders will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and EU officials.

European Council President Charles Michel said this was a chance for Azerbaijan and Armenia to show "a common political will to normalise the relation between both countries".

Moldova, like Ukraine, applied to join the EU last year shortly after the Russian invasion, and Chisinau was planning to use the summit to showcase economic and rule-of-law reforms and convince leaders to open accession talks.

Moldova has taken in more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other country just as food and energy prices soared as a result of the conflict.

The government has accused Russia of trying to destabilise the mainly Romanian-speaking country through its influence over the separatist movement in mainly Russian-speaking Transdniestria.

Reporting by John Irish, Andrew Gray, Olena Harmash, Benoit Van Overstraeten and Alexander Tanas; writing by John Irish and Matthias Williams; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Mark Heinrich

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Andrew Gray

Thomson Reuters

Andrew is a senior correspondent for European security and diplomacy, based in Brussels. He covers NATO and the foreign policy of the European Union. A journalist for almost 30 years, he has previously been based in the UK, Germany, Geneva, the Balkans, West Africa and Washington, where he reported on the Pentagon. He covered the Iraq war in 2003 and contributed a chapter to a Reuters book on the conflict. He has also worked at Politico Europe as a senior editor and podcast host, served as the main editor for a fellowship programme for journalists from the Balkans, and contributed to the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent radio show.

Reuters · by John Irish

8. Girl and mother among three killed in Russian attack on Kyiv - police

Girl and mother among three killed in Russian attack on Kyiv - police

Reuters · by Valentyn Ogirenko

KYIV, June 1 (Reuters) - A girl, her mother and another woman were killed during a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday after the air raid shelter they rushed to failed to open, witnesses said.

Ukraine's air force said air defences shot down all 10 ballistic and Iskander cruise missiles fired by Russia in the 18th attack on the capital since the start of May.

But Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said three school buildings, a kindergarten, six residential buildings and a police station were damaged. He did not say what the main targets of the attack were but the energy ministry said no energy facilities were hit.

Police said three people were killed including a nine-year-old girl and her mother, and opened a criminal investigation into events near a medical clinic in the Desnyanskyi district. City officials had earlier said the girl was 11.

"Three people, one of them a child, died near the clinic last night," Klitschko said. "A rocket fragment fell near the entrance to the clinic four minutes after the air alert was announced. And people headed for the shelter."

Local residents said people were unable to enter the shelter because it was closed.

"The air alert sounded. My wife took our daughter and they ran to the entrance here," local resident Yaroslav Ryabchuk told Reuters in the Desnyanskyi district. "The entrance was closed, there were already maybe five to 10 women with children. No one opened up for them. They knocked loudly enough."

"They tried to enter the shelter, no one opened up for them. My wife died," he said.

Russia has denied targeting civilians or committing war crimes but its forces have caused devastation in Ukrainian cities and repeatedly hit residential areas since its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital as Kyiv prepares to launch a counteroffensive. Russia says Ukrainian shelling of border areas has increased in recent weeks as Kyiv prepares its counterattack.

Additional reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Ros Russell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Valentyn Ogirenko

9. Spying for Human Rights

Human rights are not just a moral imperative, they are a national security issue.

Excerpts:

Biden should include a directive to gather such intelligence in the next National Intelligence Priorities Framework. Doing so would allow the director of national intelligence to create the infrastructure necessary to train personnel and direct them to collect intelligence on human rights. This could take the form of a dedicated team under the director that thinks through where and how intelligence agencies could improve their ability to collect human rights intelligence. Or it could take the form of a single official who coordinates with designated analysts across all agencies, similar to the current point person for election intelligence.

Analysts would also need to be routinely trained on how to detect human rights abuses and flag them up the chain. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have sophisticated methodologies for identifying and analyzing such abuses that are well documented. Of course, there is a final imperative step: policymakers must actually use this intelligence on human rights to make better decisions. That is hard to force, but it definitely won’t happen if the intelligence is never delivered in the first place.

Spying for Human Rights

Why Documenting Abuses Should Be Part of the Intelligence Community’s Job

By Sarah Yager

May 31, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Sarah Yager · May 31, 2023

The U.S. intelligence community appears to be doing more to document Russian atrocities in the war in Ukraine than it has to document human rights abuses in any conflict in history. American spy agencies have gathered evidence that Russian commanders intentionally targeted civilian areas and planned to kidnap thousands of Ukrainian children, according to The New York Times. The Biden administration has also made clear that its intelligence assets are watching Russian President Vladimir Putin’s every move. And the U.S. State Department has set up a new Conflict Observatory for Ukraine that is gathering loads of open-source evidence of Russian misconduct.

But Ukraine is the exception, not the norm. Policymakers almost never have this breadth or depth of intelligence on human rights abuses at their disposal. The reason for that is simple, intelligence analysts say: their job is not to hoover up intelligence on human rights abuses around the world but to help their bosses understand threats and opportunities in foreign policy. Human rights is not a routine or prioritized issue for intelligence collection. As a result, classified briefings on countries or issues don’t regularly include information on human rights violations such as crackdowns on political dissent, proposed laws discriminating against minorities, or misuse of security forces—even though such information is essential for policymaking.

True, policymakers have access to open-source information on rights abuses, including what can be found on Twitter, in news outlets, and even on the Dark Web. Human Rights Watch, where I work, documents human rights abuses in over 100 countries—everything from wartime atrocities to forced labor to discrimination against women. Our research is regularly used by the U.S. government and often cited in the State Department’s annual human rights report. But there is a limit to how much Human Rights Watch and similar organizations can document by comparison with the U.S. intelligence community. U.S. President Joe Biden and his national security adviser should make human rights an intelligence priority and invest in training an intelligence community that understands why and how human rights are essential for policymaking.

THE WHOLE PICTURE

U.S. officials rely on classified materials from intelligence analysts because those materials are considered rigorous and objective. Unless open-source information is complemented with routine, all-source classified analysis on human rights from the intelligence community, policymakers are left with a picture of the world that is potentially distorted or full of holes.

Rights violations committed by governments speak volumes about how they see the world and how they are likely to behave. Collecting and analyzing information on such violations should be an essential part of any intelligence officer’s job. Policymakers working on a trade deal with a particular country, for instance, may find it valuable to know that its government has a discriminatory labor law in the works. Policymakers planning a climate conference overseas may want to consider the restrictions on civil society in a given country before settling on a location. Seemingly small human rights abuses can also be canaries in the coal mine, warnings of bigger crises that will have to be dealt with down the road.

The lack of emphasis on human rights in intelligence collection has not been helped by the U.S. government’s broader neglect of the issue in recent years. U.S. President Donald Trump deliberately undermined human rights in his foreign policy—for instance, by sanctioning International Criminal Court officials and taking reproductive health out of international resolutions. Trump’s legacy is still evident in the policymaking process today, with staff shortages and a lack of institutional knowledge across agencies dealing with human rights.

Rights violations committed by governments speak volumes about how they see the world.

Biden came into the White House pledging to put human rights back at the center of U.S. foreign policy, but he hasn’t invested enough in reversing the damage of the Trump years. Last year, his administration eliminated a senior post it had created on the National Security Council dedicated to democracy and human rights, and the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has been without a confirmed assistant secretary since the beginning of Biden’s term. (The president has not put forward a nominee since the longtime democracy and rights champion Sarah Margon withdrew in January because Senator James Risch, Republican of Idaho, refused to move her nomination to a vote.) Without leaders whose job it is to ask for specific intelligence on human rights, policymakers are unlikely to receive real-time analysis of issues that could shape their view of the world and inform their decisions.

Tasking the intelligence community with regularly collecting information on human rights won’t fix a deficient bureaucracy or a lack of political will to make human rights a bigger policy priority. But doing so will give policymakers a clearer picture of countries, their people, and how the United States could engage with them—which is, of course, the job of the intelligence community.

FLYING BLIND

Eighteen different agencies comprise the U.S. intelligence community, and all are responsible for collecting intelligence based on the top priorities of the president, the national security adviser, the director of national intelligence, and the rest of the cabinet. The National Intelligence Priorities Framework, a document that communicates the president’s priorities, tells the intelligence community where to focus its budgets and personnel—its money, eyes, and ears. Senior experts are assigned to each topic to advise the director of national intelligence on processes for collecting intelligence on that topic.

Right now, human rights considerations only make their way into the briefing books that reach top policymakers in an ad hoc fashion. Senior officials can specifically ask for human rights intelligence—for instance, about protests that turned violent or populations fleeing conflict. But proactive inquiry requires an understanding of how human rights figure into a policy puzzle. It also requires knowing what one doesn’t know. Senior officials are unlikely to request intelligence on human rights issues related to events or situations that they are unaware of.

Another way human rights considerations make their way into the policy debate is through diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies around the world. In addition to informing the State Department’s annual human rights report, these cables give policymakers a window into what is happening in any given country. But they are often written by officers based in capital cities, which means that they sometimes miss important human rights developments elsewhere in those countries. And such cables are not necessarily passed to officials outside the State Department, especially if they contain only ordinary updates on human rights.

The State Department’s internal analysis shop, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, has analysts who cover human rights issues and pass relevant information on to policymakers—for instance, flagging if a U.S. military partner is abusing civilians. But the bureau doesn’t collect its own intelligence. Instead, it relies on information that comes in from other sources, none of which routinely collect intelligence on human rights.

THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Those opposed to tasking the intelligence community with collecting information on human rights argue that the explosion of open-source information gives policymakers more than enough material to make informed decisions. And yes, open-source data should be incorporated into briefings for policymakers. But it is foolish to think that Department of Defense staffers or Foreign Service officers will spend hours scouring the Internet for videos of child labor in Europe or the displacement of people from pesticide use in Colombia, especially if they don’t know those things are happening. The sheer amount of information out there makes spotting a human rights problem solely through open-source intelligence a Sisyphean task.

Policymakers need access to classified information on human rights violations, as well. There is a reason why the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have intelligence committees and members of Congress have security clearances. They can’t get all the information they need from Twitter and Facebook. Pinpointing the perpetrator of an extrajudicial killing, for example, is something intelligence analysts can do that researchers looking at Facebook cannot, and their analysis carries a weight with policymakers that social media does not.

Where and when the U.S. officials have put muscle behind intelligence collection on human rights, the results have been impressive. In 2011, President Barack Obama established the Atrocities Prevention Board, an interagency committee responsible for briefing top officials on risks of mass violence around world. The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were members of that board, and they brought senior officials regular information on atrocity risks. That effort proved valuable, helping policymakers prepare for crises that were coming down the pike. In 2014 in Burundi, for instance, the intelligence community highlighted the possibility of mass violence before the 2015 elections. As a result, the U.S. government was able to adjust its diplomacy and put resources into preventing bloodshed.

The Obama administration made a similar effort to gather intelligence on the state of democracy around the world in preparation for a strategy to counter authoritarianism. It could have copied and pasted the analysis of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that ranks democracies and publishes an annual report on which countries are trending toward authoritarianism. But policymakers saw value in an internal assessment from U.S. intelligence analysts, who could combine open-source information with classified intelligence to give a fuller picture of the global condition of democracy.

Where U.S. officials have put muscle behind intelligence collection on human rights, the results have been impressive.

Finally, the Biden administration’s Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, a newly revised framework for evaluating potential arms transfers, references using all available information on the human rights records of U.S. security partners, including what is collected by intelligence agencies. U.S. arms sales and security assistance totaled over $47 billion globally over the last three years, and that number is likely to rise as the United States competes with China for partners. Arming the world is inherently risky; doing so without deep insight into the human rights situation in the countries receiving arms is reckless. The new policy is a step in the right direction, but arms sales are far from the only policy area that would benefit from human rights intelligence.

Biden should include a directive to gather such intelligence in the next National Intelligence Priorities Framework. Doing so would allow the director of national intelligence to create the infrastructure necessary to train personnel and direct them to collect intelligence on human rights. This could take the form of a dedicated team under the director that thinks through where and how intelligence agencies could improve their ability to collect human rights intelligence. Or it could take the form of a single official who coordinates with designated analysts across all agencies, similar to the current point person for election intelligence.

Analysts would also need to be routinely trained on how to detect human rights abuses and flag them up the chain. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have sophisticated methodologies for identifying and analyzing such abuses that are well documented. Of course, there is a final imperative step: policymakers must actually use this intelligence on human rights to make better decisions. That is hard to force, but it definitely won’t happen if the intelligence is never delivered in the first place.

• SARAH YAGER is Washington Director at Human Rights Watch. She previously served as the first Senior Adviser on Human Rights to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense.
• MORE BY SARAH YAGER

Foreign Affairs · by Sarah Yager · May 31, 2023

10. To Protect Europe, Let Ukraine Join NATO—Right Now

Putin has failed. But what can he do (and what will he do) to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO?

Excerpts:

Ukraine should join NATO right away. But unfortunately, it will almost certainly have to wait. It takes a unanimous vote to add a country to the alliance, and there are still far too many governments that remain opposed to the country’s ascension.

But in Vilnius, NATO should at least move beyond vague promises about Ukraine’s future and get down to the specifics of helping Kyiv join the organization. It is time for Western states to stand firm against bullies and stop giving Russia (or any other outside state) a voice in the security architecture of an organization that considers it an adversary. Instead, now is the time for NATO to start strengthening itself, and bringing in Ukraine is essential to accomplishing this task. No state, after all, knows more about how to fight back against the Kremlin. In fact, no country has more current experience fighting large-scale wars anywhere. Ukraine’s only peer is Russia itself.

And fundamentally, the West needs to accept that the threat from Russia is not going away. Russia’s imperial ambitions extend beyond just Ukraine. They go deeper than just Putin. Russia’s entire top leadership is steeped in hatred toward the West and oriented around recreating an empire. It will menace eastern Europe even if Kyiv attains a complete victory, and even if Putin is kicked out of office.

To hold off Russia, the democratic world needs an integrated military to stop and deter the Kremlin’s aggression. NATO can be that force. But in order to do so, it needs to stop seeing Ukraine as a harassed neighbor that is trying to enter its safe house. It needs to instead recognize Ukraine for what it is: the world’s best enforcer and a state that can do much to ensure Europe’s safety. NATO, then, needs to admit Ukraine.

To Protect Europe, Let Ukraine Join NATO—Right Now

No Country Is Better at Stopping Russia

By Andriy Zagorodnyuk

June 1, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Andriy Zagorodnyuk · June 1, 2023

In July, the heads of NATO’s 31 countries will convene in Vilnius, Lithuania, for a summit—their fourth one since Russia invaded Ukraine. Like each of the last three, the proceedings will be dominated by how to address the conflict. The countries’ leaders will consider what Kyiv needs to keep fighting and what their states can offer. They will welcome Finland, which joined in April, prompted by the invasion. They will discuss Sweden’s pending application. They have invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, so they will discuss Ukraine’s bid as well. If past is prologue, they will affirm that Kyiv is on track to join the organization.

“All NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in April. “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.”

Ukrainians, however, have heard that many times before. For the better part of the last two decades, Kyiv has sought NATO membership. And for the better part of the last two decades, NATO has left it twisting in the wind. In 2008, the alliance promised to eventually let Ukraine in, but it has never seriously considered Kyiv’s application. Instead, it first concluded that admitting the country was not worth the damage to Western-Russian relations. Then, after the Kremlin annexed Crimea in 2014, NATO decided that Ukraine’s membership would demand too much of the alliance, and for too little in return.

But that was before Russia launched its full-scale invasion. In the 15 months since, everything has changed. The West’s ties with Russia have rapidly unraveled. NATO states began pumping Ukraine full of military aid. Kyiv has used this assistance to halt Russia’s attacks and push the country back. It has forced the Kremlin to burn through ammunition and gear at an astounding rate, degrading Russia’s overall strength. In doing so, Ukraine proved that it is not a drain on NATO but, in fact, an incredible asset. NATO exists to help protect Europe, and since Moscow’s invasion began, no other state has done more to keep Europe safe.

And yet there is still no real movement toward letting the country join the organization. European governments may have stopped worrying about maintaining good relations with Moscow, but they are worried about widening the war into their countries, and they view NATO admission as a surefire way to escalate. The organization’s treaty, after all, declares that an attack on one member must be treated as an attack on all. And Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that the organization is his archnemesis. They fear that he might widen the war if Ukraine is brought in.

These fears, however, are completely misguided. Contrary to a popular misconception, NATO’s treaty does not require that members send troops to defend a NATO state that has been attacked. And the idea that Putin would meaningfully escalate because Ukraine joined the alliance reflects a misunderstanding of recent history. European states spent years ignoring Ukraine’s NATO application precisely to avoid antagonizing Moscow—and to precisely zero effect.

It is time, then, to let Ukraine join—not sooner or later, but now. By entering the alliance, the country will secure its future as part of the West, and it can be sure the United States and Europe will continue to help it fight against Moscow. Europe, too, will reap security benefits by allowing Ukraine to join the alliance. It is now apparent that the continent is not ready to defend itself and that its politicians have largely overestimated its security. Indeed, Europe will never be secure from Russia until it can militarily stop Moscow’s attacks. And no state is more qualified to do so than Ukraine.

With its massive support for Ukraine during the past 15 months, the alliance has in essence already paid all the costs of admitting Ukraine. By allowing the country to join now, NATO could begin reaping the benefits. Ukraine is the continent’s best hope for reestablishing peace and the rule of law across NATO’s eastern flanks. It should be welcomed and embraced.

FROM UNTHINKABLE TO INDISPENSIBLE

Ukraine did not always want to be part of NATO. When the country gained independence in 1991, it actively eschewed military alliances. The state’s constitution formally declared that it would be neutral, and the Ukrainian government then did not aim to build a large standing army. The Ukrainian government even disbanded its nuclear arsenal, inherited from the Soviet Union. In exchange, Kyiv signed a one-page agreement with London, Moscow, and Washington in which the signatories all promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.

It was quickly clear that Moscow’s promise was meaningless. Russia began conducting covert and hybrid operations in Ukraine in the years just following the turn of the millennium. It escalated its activities, which included bribery and spreading misinformation, over the course of the aughts. As a result, the country approached NATO in 2008 and asked if it could join. In the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, the alliance gave a tentative yes. But the pathway it offered was deliberately vague. There was no timetable or deadline for Ukrainian ascension, just a promise that it would happen someday.

This hesitance came courtesy of Putin, who attended the Bucharest conference and lobbied NATO to reject Kyiv’s bid. It was a time when the West and Russia were forging deep economic ties and the former was trying to woo the latter. By integrating with Russia, many European states believed that—in addition to growing their own economies—they could temper Moscow’s worst behavior. Even in 2010, NATO categorized Russia as a close partner and hoped it could collaborate with the Kremlin. These hopes continued even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and started a war in Ukraine’s east. So did Ukraine’s long wait. Russia’s actions made it apparent that Ukrainian neutrality would not maintain peace in Europe—Ukraine was nonaligned at the time Moscow attacked—but the annexation still only made Washington and western European countries less likely to admit Kyiv. Now, they feared, accepting Ukraine would not only upset Moscow, but would also pull NATO into a conflict.

Ukraine has demonstrated that its military is no charity case.

The West’s calculations shifted, however, the moment Russian forces began marching toward Kyiv in February 2022. The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion made it abundantly clear that Russia was not a status quo power with which Europe could trade, and that economic relationships would not stop Moscow from violating international law. NATO, once hesitant to give Ukraine weapons that it could use for self-defense, began offering it sophisticated offensive systems. Today, NATO states have armed Kyiv with top-line tanks, short-range rockets, and long-range missiles. Ukraine even seems poised to receive Western-made fighter jets.

In exchange, Ukraine has demonstrated that its military is no charity case. In the process of routing Russian forces, it has created hundreds of thousands of highly trained soldiers. The military also has given its commanders and civilian staffers deep knowledge of how to defeat Russian forces. The country has a massive industrial base that, despite Moscow’s best efforts, remains intact. It is no exaggeration to say that, given their experience and land warfare capabilities, the Ukrainian armed forces might be the best in all of Europe.

For NATO, then, Ukraine should be an extremely attractive member for a whole host of reasons—especially given that the organization’s security architecture has so many recognized and unrecognized flaws. Consider, for example, its defense industry. Despite years of mounting Russian aggression, European states allowed their military supplies and manufacturers to atrophy after the Cold War. As a result, when the war in Ukraine broke out, most of them discovered that their weapons and ammunition stockpiles had fallen to dangerously low levels. Some states, including Germany and the United Kingdom, said that they only have a few days’ worth of supplies. Their military contractors are also reluctant to hire personnel, and so they struggle to ramp up production. As a result, these states may need Ukrainian manufacturers to help replenish their stocks.

NATO clearly needs a bigger and better-equipped force.

They could also need Ukrainian forces. Most European militaries are designed around having small numbers of highly trained troops that use high-tech, precision-guided equipment to defeat their enemies. But the war in Ukraine has shown that this system is not effective against an adversary like Russia, which fights by throwing men and munitions at its targets (and which is proficient at destroying high-tech systems). Russia’s Wagner paramilitary company has also pioneered a style of fighting that involves sending hordes of infantry troopers at targets, which limits the effectiveness of large firepower equipment, including aviation and artillery. Ukraine has had to deploy large numbers of troops to hold off this onslaught, and the rate at which both Russia and Ukraine have burned through ammunition and weapons has far surpassed initial estimates. NATO clearly needs a bigger and better-equipped force if it wants to make sure it won’t be the victim of future Russian aggression. Ukraine’s large and talented military must be a part of it.

Ukraine has another advantage that, to NATO, is invaluable: it is physically close to Russia. Under the organization’s current strategy, frontline states would have to hold out against a Russian attack until western Europe and the United States could arrive and flood the east with their soldiers. It is a risky gambit. As Moscow’s invasion has shown, even Russia’s poorly trained forces can sometimes take large amounts of land in just a few days. If Moscow tried to seize control of territory in Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, American troops might not arrive until it is too late. Ukrainian units, by contrast, are nearby. They could make it to the battlefield fast and then do what they’ve done with great success for the last 15 months—stave off Russia.

Talk of Kyiv helping other countries fight against Moscow might seem wildly premature, given that Ukraine is currently tied up fighting Russia at home. It is true that, right now, Kyiv does not have many troops to spare. But neither does Moscow. If Russia attacks elsewhere in Europe, it will likely come once the war in Ukraine has reached a lull, when both states have soldiers on standby.

NO GOOD REASON

Western leaders are aware that the Ukrainian military is very powerful. “Ukraine forces have formidable capability and courage, as we have seen throughout,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters in April. Stoltenberg told journalists that he “absolutely” believed Kyiv could defeat Moscow, citing “the courage, the skills, and the determination of Ukrainian armed forces.” Even Yevgeny Prigozhin, the murderous leader of Wagner, said that Ukraine is “one of the strongest armies” in the world. Ukrainians, he declared, are “like the Greeks or the Romans at their peaks.”

And yet Western policymakers are still not taking Ukraine’s NATO application seriously. In May, for example, Stoltenberg cautioned that although Ukraine would eventually join, becoming a member “in the midst of a war is not the agenda.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that although the door for Ukraine has opened, it was just “a crack.” Now, he continued, “is not the time to decide.”

Neither Stoltenberg or Pistorius has said exactly why they are opposed to expediting Ukraine’s application, as the bloc did with Finland. But their reasoning is easy enough to infer. NATO may no longer harbor any delusions about the nature of Russia, and it is no longer underestimating the power of Ukrainians. But NATO members do not want to go to war with Russia. And in their minds, admitting Ukraine to NATO in the midst of this conflict could do exactly that.

Ukraine may as well already be a NATO state.

This fear stems, in part, from NATO’s Article 5 provision, which declares that an armed attack against one of the organization’s members “shall be considered an attack against them all.” Most casual observers believe that means that NATO states are obliged to send troops to defend a member state that’s been attacked. But it does not. What Article 5 stipulates is that each member must take “action as it deems necessary” to help an attacked party—language that gives NATO members a great deal of flexibility. When the United States invoked Article 5 after September 11, for instance, many NATO states did not send troops to fight the Taliban in response.

By this standard, Ukraine may as well already be a NATO state. It receives tens of billions of dollars in help from partner nations in the form of sophisticated armaments. It has been the beneficiary of extensive Western military training. It receives detailed U.S. intelligence. And it has never asked for NATO to deploy troops on the ground. It has no reason to: unlike smaller NATO states, Ukraine has a vast military force that can handle the Russians all by itself.

Some Western analysts still fear that admitting Ukraine to NATO would result in escalation. Putin has repeatedly declared that Russia will never allow Ukraine to join NATO, and so some policymakers fear that admitting Kyiv might provoke Putin to widen the conflict. But this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Putin’s motivations. The Kremlin’s ultimate concern has never been that Ukraine will join NATO, despite what Putin may say in public. It is, instead, that Ukraine is resisting Putin’s colonial aspirations. And Russia already escalated in response to that fear—by invading Ukraine. The West’s repeated assurances that Ukraine would not join NATO did nothing to stop him.

ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

Ukraine should join NATO right away. But unfortunately, it will almost certainly have to wait. It takes a unanimous vote to add a country to the alliance, and there are still far too many governments that remain opposed to the country’s ascension.

But in Vilnius, NATO should at least move beyond vague promises about Ukraine’s future and get down to the specifics of helping Kyiv join the organization. It is time for Western states to stand firm against bullies and stop giving Russia (or any other outside state) a voice in the security architecture of an organization that considers it an adversary. Instead, now is the time for NATO to start strengthening itself, and bringing in Ukraine is essential to accomplishing this task. No state, after all, knows more about how to fight back against the Kremlin. In fact, no country has more current experience fighting large-scale wars anywhere. Ukraine’s only peer is Russia itself.

And fundamentally, the West needs to accept that the threat from Russia is not going away. Russia’s imperial ambitions extend beyond just Ukraine. They go deeper than just Putin. Russia’s entire top leadership is steeped in hatred toward the West and oriented around recreating an empire. It will menace eastern Europe even if Kyiv attains a complete victory, and even if Putin is kicked out of office.

To hold off Russia, the democratic world needs an integrated military to stop and deter the Kremlin’s aggression. NATO can be that force. But in order to do so, it needs to stop seeing Ukraine as a harassed neighbor that is trying to enter its safe house. It needs to instead recognize Ukraine for what it is: the world’s best enforcer and a state that can do much to ensure Europe’s safety. NATO, then, needs to admit Ukraine.

• ANDRIY ZAGORODNYUK is Chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies. From 2019 to 2020, he was Minister of Defense of Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs · by Andriy Zagorodnyuk · June 1, 2023

11. Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Engagements With Japanese Leaders in Tokyo

Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Engagements With Japanese Leaders in Tokyo

defense.gov

Release

Immediate Release

June 1, 2023 |×

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout:

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with his Japanese counterpart, Minister of Defense Hamada Yasukazu, and held separate discussions with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hayashi Yoshimasa, and National Security Advisor Akiba Takeo, June 1 in Tokyo.

The purpose of his visit to Tokyo was to build on Alliance momentum in implementing outcomes of the January 2023 Security Consultative Committee (2+2) and the President's May 2023 visit to Japan.

Secretary Austin underscored with Minister Hamada progress on modernizing alliance roles and missions, updating force posture, and networking with likeminded partners since the 2+2 Ministerial Meeting. Noting the alignment between U.S. and Japanese assessments of the regional threat landscape and a shared commitment to deepening multilateral cooperation, Secretary Austin applauded Japan's resolve to bolster its defense through investments in advanced capabilities and cooperation with partners. In particular, the Secretary commended Minister Hamada on his stewardship of Japan's decision to acquire counterstrike capabilities. The leaders discussed concerns about the regional security environment and the importance of increasing bilateral exercises and training in areas, including Japan's Southwest Islands as discussed at the 2+2 meeting. They underscored the importance of bilateral work on U.S. force realignment efforts, and they committed to bolstering cooperation on advanced technologies, including hypersonic defense and autonomous systems.

The Secretary paid a courtesy call to Prime Minister Kishida and Japan National Security Advisor Akiba, underscoring the U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan. Secretary Austin conveyed his congratulations on a highly successful Group of Seven meeting in Hiroshima, noting Japan's continued critical role regionally and globally. Secretary Austin also expressed his appreciation for Japan's leadership in opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, such as its commitments to providing defensive aid to Ukraine.

The Secretary reemphasized with Minister Hayashi the unwavering U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, including U.S. extended deterrence backed by the full range of conventional and nuclear capabilities. Furthermore, the leaders discussed opportunities to expand trilateral cooperation with the Republic of Korea on a range of issues, including by expanding information sharing. The Secretary also celebrated Japan's progress towards entry into force of Reciprocal Access Agreements with Australia and the UK and highlighted the value of the Alliance working together with a range of other partners from the Indo-Pacific and Europe.

Secretary Austin reaffirmed the historic progress that the leaders from both countries have made in strengthening the Alliance and enhancing peace, prosperity, and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

Austin Defense Secretary Indo-Pacific Japan partnerships

The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security.

defense.gov

12. In fantasy of multipolarity, new world order would be dominated by Chinese Communists

Excerpts:

In this brave new world order, Beijing’s junior partners — Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang and Havana — will do what they please; their weaker neighbors will suffer what they must.

“A growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest,” the G7 communique plaintively declares. That must bring a smile to the face of a rock-ribbed Marxist/Leninist/Maoist like Mr. Xi.

If the leaders of the G7 recognized this reality, their top priority would be to increase their military and economic strength. No other policy can maintain deterrence and preserve freedom for the next generation. But they don’t recognize this reality. They lack the imagination to think as Mr. Xi thinks and see the future as Mr. Xi sees it.

In fantasy of multipolarity, new world order would be dominated by Chinese Communists

washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

By - - Tuesday, May 30, 2023

OPINION:

At the conclusion of its summit in Hiroshima, Japan, earlier this month, the Group of Seven issued a communique calling attention to China‘s “malign practices.” That prompted spokesmen for the Chinese Communist Party to complain about the G7‘s “Cold War mentality.”

You’ve got to admire the audacity.

Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong, is building his military capabilities at breakneck speed. He formed a “no limits” alliance with Vladimir Putin days before Russian tanks invaded Ukraine.

He stripped Hong Kong of its freedoms in violation of Beijing’s treaty obligations. He persecutes Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minorities. He threatens Taiwan.

He steals billions of dollars in American intellectual property, inserts malware into the computer systems of critical U.S. infrastructure, flies spy balloons over American military bases, and helps traffic fentanyl into the U.S., resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands.

But he would have the world believe that it is the G7 — the U.S., Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Canada — that is bellicose.

President Biden last week wishfully predicted there will be a “thaw very shortly” in Sino-American relations. A spokeswoman for Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said that’s not happening so long as the U.S. is “resorting to any means to suppress and contain China.”

But how is China being suppressed and contained? The G7 communique stated: “Our policy approaches are not designed to harm China nor do we seek to thwart China’s economic progress and development.”

Nor has there been any serious effort to curtail Beijing’s growing influence in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, the South Pacific and the Middle East.

Instead, the U.S. is becoming dependent on China for key components of a Washington-mandated-and-subsidized “fundamental transformation” of America’s energy sources. Why? To “address” — not impact — the “climate crisis.” (Was nothing learned from Germany’s disastrous decision to depend on Russian energy?)

The show of unity at the G7 notwithstanding, Mr. Xi hopes to divide the nations of Europe and Asia from the U.S. One useful wedge: “multipolarity,” a fantasy assiduously promoted by Beijing.

A little historical context: In World War II, the U.S. fought expansionist empires. After winning, the U.S. decided not to plant its flag in the soil of other nations, not to become a global ruler, but to attempt to become a global leader instead.

To that end, Americans organized what was hopefully called the United Nations. The Soviet Union, America’s hostile rival, was given a permanent seat and veto on the organization’s Security Council.

Americans promulgated an expanding list of “international laws” that the “international community” was to embrace, along with a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Not just global, but universal!)

What followed was an era of bipolarity. The Soviet Union wasn’t as strong as it appeared, but appearances count. And it was nuclear-armed.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union ran an arms race, and competed ideologically, economically and culturally. Because neither wanted the Cold War to turn hot, they fought with proxies.

Then one sunny day, the Soviet Union collapsed. Many otherwise smart people jumped to the conclusion that liberal values and freer markets would now be embraced globally (if not universally).

Toward this end, in 1998, during what was known as America’s “unipolar moment,” Russia was made a member of what became the G8. It remained in the club even after it sliced two swaths from neighboring Georgia in 2008. Only after Mr. Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded Ukraine last year was it expelled.

China was welcomed into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Slowly but surely, China has been taking over international organizations that American taxpayers largely fund. The World Health Organization is only the most visible example.

By now it should be apparent that when Mr. Xi talks of multipolarity, what he really envisions is a return to bipolarity — a competition that he is confident the CCP will win.

This is what he had in mind when he told Mr. Putin that the world is undergoing “changes that haven’t happened in 100 years.” It’s what he means when he talks of “the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Not all Americans oppose this eventuality. There are those on the left who insist America lacks the moral authority to lead. There are those on the right who believe maintaining American leadership in the world isn’t worth the trouble.

There are also those who believe that a multipolar world order would be preferable — fairer and more just. Couldn’t Europe be a pole? (No, because without the U.S., Europe is weak.) Couldn’t the global south be a pole? (No, because Latin American and African nations are not capable of organizing themselves effectively in the near future.)

What would happen instead, as Mr. Xi foresees, is that the loosey-goosey Pax Americana would be replaced by a strict and disciplined Pax Sinica. With the techno-totalitarian PRC as global hegemon, human rights and liberties would diminish everywhere — the United States emphatically included.

In this brave new world order, Beijing’s junior partners — Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang and Havana — will do what they please; their weaker neighbors will suffer what they must.

“A growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest,” the G7 communique plaintively declares. That must bring a smile to the face of a rock-ribbed Marxist/Leninist/Maoist like Mr. Xi.

If the leaders of the G7 recognized this reality, their top priority would be to increase their military and economic strength. No other policy can maintain deterrence and preserve freedom for the next generation. But they don’t recognize this reality. They lack the imagination to think as Mr. Xi thinks and see the future as Mr. Xi sees it.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.

Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Click to Read More and View Comments

Click to Hide

washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

13. Ukraine War May Become a Proving Ground for AI

One anecdote in this excerpt:

How will artificial intelligence completely change warfare? 

First and foremost, AI will be a powerful tool for decision makers on the battlefield at every level. I vividly remember when the Vincennes, a US Navy Aegis cruiser, mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988. The tactical action officer in the combat information center incorrectly assessed a hostile Iranian military jet. Nearly 300 civilians paid with their lives.

Had an artificial intelligence advisor been available, capable of synthesizing millions of data points and comparing the radar picture to an infinite number of similar scenarios, it almost certainly would have identified a civilian aircraft. AI could dramatically reduce “collateral damage” killings.

Ukraine War May Become a Proving Ground for AI

AI and quantum computing could revolutionize offensive operations and, perhaps more important, logistics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-05-31/ukraine-war-latest-us-can-bring-ai-quantum-computing-to-battle?=true&sref=hhjZtX76

ByJames Stavridis

May 31, 2023 at 7:30 AM EDT

Artificial intelligence is, suddenly, everywhere. We are awash in ideas about how we can use AI productively — from agriculture to climate change to engineering to software construction. And, equally, there are plenty of cautionary notes being struck about using AI to control societies, manipulate economies, defeat commercial opponents, and generally fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of machines dominating man in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Thus far, however, relatively little has been written about the implications of AI on warfare and geopolitics. For better and worse, those arenas also lend themselves to a variety of ways in which new technologies can suddenly break apart paradigms. Think of Agincourt in 1415, a medieval battle in which the flower of the French nobility — sporting the key technology of that age, plate armor — were slaughtered at long range through an emerging technology, English longbowmen led by King Henry V. Military technology — submarines, radar, sonar, nuclear weapons — can change the global balance in an instant.

Are we at such a moment with AI? Perhaps. A good point of comparison might be the advent of nuclear weapons, when the most experienced warrior of his age, General Douglas MacArthur, saw the atomic bombs used on Japan and said simply that “warfare is changed forever.” Yet the hand-to-hand combat in Ukraine, the dug-in Russian forces in their extensive trenches awaiting the promised Ukrainian summer offensive, and the endless artillery duels between the two sides all seem oh-so-19th century, frankly.

How will artificial intelligence completely change warfare? 

First and foremost, AI will be a powerful tool for decision makers on the battlefield at every level. I vividly remember when the Vincennes, a US Navy Aegis cruiser, mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988. The tactical action officer in the combat information center incorrectly assessed a hostile Iranian military jet. Nearly 300 civilians paid with their lives.

Had an artificial intelligence advisor been available, capable of synthesizing millions of data points and comparing the radar picture to an infinite number of similar scenarios, it almost certainly would have identified a civilian aircraft. AI could dramatically reduce “collateral damage” killings.

AI could also instantly provide highly detailed strategic targeting information, giving a decision maker a road map to use precision weapons at the most vulnerable points of an enemy’s logistics chain. In the Libyan campaign of 2011, which I commanded, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization struggled with both avoiding collateral damage and less-than-optimal target selection — capabilities AI could easily have provided.

Another crucial capability of AI is the ability to control massive swarms of drones in synchronized attack formations, much as birds flock together to scare away predators. This kind of mechanical murmuration can be directed with deadly results by low-cost, disposable drones that swamp air defenses. Using AI to direct drones in Ukraine, for example, could allow the Kyiv government to further deplete Russia’s dwindling supply of armor, and also cause its forces to waste critical air-defense missiles.

AI could also be a powerful tool in psychological and information warfare. Creating deepfakes ­— for example, videos purporting to show certain combat effects — could cause mistaken reactions by enemy forces. Consider the image of the Pentagon in flames that spooked markets last week as it went viral around the globe. Ukraine could further the Russians’ sense of a failing war through a flood of AI-generated fake images, false stories and shadow operations.

AI will be very helpful in defensive and back office activities in war. Logistics, as we have seen in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, can be an Achilles heel of militaries. With AI analyzing maintenance patterns, suggesting preventative maintenance, detangling combat supply chains, and providing minute-to-minute logistical advice, commanders will have a deep advantage over opponents who have fallen behind in the race to develop and deploy these tools.

Finally, the ability to use AI to conduct cyberattacks may be its most dangerous attribute. As militaries continue to run combat operations, logistics, targeting, intelligence and all other aspects of modern warfare with the internet as the backbone, the ability to crack into an opponent’s cyber networks will be crucial. Particularly with advances in quantum computing, superior AI systems will allow overall mastery of the cyber battlefield.

Even as we consider the immense benefits of AI to our societies, we need to have a clear-eyed understanding of just how deep the impact will be on the conduct of war. All the more reason for the Pentagon to continue to refine its understanding and implementation of AI in the Ukrainian campaign, which will have benefits for decades to come.

More From James Stavridis at Bloomberg Opinion:

• Ukraine Is Running Out of Ammo. So Is the US.
• Providing F-16 Fighters to Ukraine Is Worth the Risk 
• The Xi-Macron Summit’s Unexpected Payoff

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe to  our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:

James Stavridis at jstavridis@bloomberg.net

One anecdote in this excerpt:

How will artificial intelligence completely change warfare? 

First and foremost, AI will be a powerful tool for decision makers on the battlefield at every level. I vividly remember when the Vincennes, a US Navy Aegis cruiser, mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988. The tactical action officer in the combat information center incorrectly assessed a hostile Iranian military jet. Nearly 300 civilians paid with their lives.

Had an artificial intelligence advisor been available, capable of synthesizing millions of data points and comparing the radar picture to an infinite number of similar scenarios, it almost certainly would have identified a civilian aircraft. AI could dramatically reduce “collateral damage” killings.

Ukraine War May Become a Proving Ground for AI

AI and quantum computing could revolutionize offensive operations and, perhaps more important, logistics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-05-31/ukraine-war-latest-us-can-bring-ai-quantum-computing-to-battle?=true&sref=hhjZtX76

ByJames Stavridis

May 31, 2023 at 7:30 AM EDT

Artificial intelligence is, suddenly, everywhere. We are awash in ideas about how we can use AI productively — from agriculture to climate change to engineering to software construction. And, equally, there are plenty of cautionary notes being struck about using AI to control societies, manipulate economies, defeat commercial opponents, and generally fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s visions of machines dominating man in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Thus far, however, relatively little has been written about the implications of AI on warfare and geopolitics. For better and worse, those arenas also lend themselves to a variety of ways in which new technologies can suddenly break apart paradigms. Think of Agincourt in 1415, a medieval battle in which the flower of the French nobility — sporting the key technology of that age, plate armor — were slaughtered at long range through an emerging technology, English longbowmen led by King Henry V. Military technology — submarines, radar, sonar, nuclear weapons — can change the global balance in an instant.

Are we at such a moment with AI? Perhaps. A good point of comparison might be the advent of nuclear weapons, when the most experienced warrior of his age, General Douglas MacArthur, saw the atomic bombs used on Japan and said simply that “warfare is changed forever.” Yet the hand-to-hand combat in Ukraine, the dug-in Russian forces in their extensive trenches awaiting the promised Ukrainian summer offensive, and the endless artillery duels between the two sides all seem oh-so-19th century, frankly.

How will artificial intelligence completely change warfare? 

First and foremost, AI will be a powerful tool for decision makers on the battlefield at every level. I vividly remember when the Vincennes, a US Navy Aegis cruiser, mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988. The tactical action officer in the combat information center incorrectly assessed a hostile Iranian military jet. Nearly 300 civilians paid with their lives.

Had an artificial intelligence advisor been available, capable of synthesizing millions of data points and comparing the radar picture to an infinite number of similar scenarios, it almost certainly would have identified a civilian aircraft. AI could dramatically reduce “collateral damage” killings.

AI could also instantly provide highly detailed strategic targeting information, giving a decision maker a road map to use precision weapons at the most vulnerable points of an enemy’s logistics chain. In the Libyan campaign of 2011, which I commanded, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization struggled with both avoiding collateral damage and less-than-optimal target selection — capabilities AI could easily have provided.

Another crucial capability of AI is the ability to control massive swarms of drones in synchronized attack formations, much as birds flock together to scare away predators. This kind of mechanical murmuration can be directed with deadly results by low-cost, disposable drones that swamp air defenses. Using AI to direct drones in Ukraine, for example, could allow the Kyiv government to further deplete Russia’s dwindling supply of armor, and also cause its forces to waste critical air-defense missiles.

AI could also be a powerful tool in psychological and information warfare. Creating deepfakes ­— for example, videos purporting to show certain combat effects — could cause mistaken reactions by enemy forces. Consider the image of the Pentagon in flames that spooked markets last week as it went viral around the globe. Ukraine could further the Russians’ sense of a failing war through a flood of AI-generated fake images, false stories and shadow operations.

AI will be very helpful in defensive and back office activities in war. Logistics, as we have seen in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, can be an Achilles heel of militaries. With AI analyzing maintenance patterns, suggesting preventative maintenance, detangling combat supply chains, and providing minute-to-minute logistical advice, commanders will have a deep advantage over opponents who have fallen behind in the race to develop and deploy these tools.

Finally, the ability to use AI to conduct cyberattacks may be its most dangerous attribute. As militaries continue to run combat operations, logistics, targeting, intelligence and all other aspects of modern warfare with the internet as the backbone, the ability to crack into an opponent’s cyber networks will be crucial. Particularly with advances in quantum computing, superior AI systems will allow overall mastery of the cyber battlefield.

Even as we consider the immense benefits of AI to our societies, we need to have a clear-eyed understanding of just how deep the impact will be on the conduct of war. All the more reason for the Pentagon to continue to refine its understanding and implementation of AI in the Ukrainian campaign, which will have benefits for decades to come.

More From James Stavridis at Bloomberg Opinion:

• Ukraine Is Running Out of Ammo. So Is the US.
• Providing F-16 Fighters to Ukraine Is Worth the Risk 
• The Xi-Macron Summit’s Unexpected Payoff

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe to  our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:

James Stavridis at jstavridis@bloomberg.net

14. U.S. Conducts Show Of Force - Does Low B-1 Bomber Flyover Of Bosnia

Excerpts:

"To de-escalate, decisive steps are needed, and not half-measures like an idea proposed by the U.S. to temporarily 'move' the newly-minted 'mayors' from municipal buildings to other facilities," she concluded.

Leading up to the renewed conflicts there have been calls for Kosovo to create Serbian municipalities for Serbian-dominated areas in Kosovo. Pristina authorities though view the creation of such establishments as a precursor for a breakaway statelet to be formed. According to ZeroHedge, as tensions continue to rise, several dozen of NATO KFOR troops have been injured in the ongoing protests.

On Tuesday, NATO released a statement saying, "NATO strongly condemns the unprovoked attacks against KFOR troops in northern Kosovo, which have led to a number of them being injured. Such attacks are totally unacceptable. Violence must stop immediately. We call on all sides to refrain from actions that further inflame tensions, and to engage in dialogue." While calling for more peaceful protests, NATO does plan to send additional troops to the region.

U.S. Conducts Show Of Force - Does Low B-1 Bomber Flyover Of Bosnia

armedforces.press · by Jen Snow · May 31, 2023

B-1B Lancer Bomber

Please follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GabTV, Truth Social, Gettr, Twitter

After tensions continued to rise in the Balkans over the weekend as protests between the Serbian minority of northern Kosovo and ethnic Albanians led to the injury of dozens of NATO peacekeeping forces, the U.S. decided that a show of force was necessary.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Air Force conducted a low flyover of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that had been announced earlier in the week. According to a statement by the Sarajevo Times, the flyover was described as "a sign of the strong partnership between the United States and the Armed Forces of BiH." A USAF statement said that the flyover would serve as an indication of the "permanent dedication of the U.S. to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and multi-ethnic nature of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Despite the U.S. having berated authorities in Kosovo for making unilateral moves that have exacerbated ethnic tensions with Serbs, and caused Belgrade to send Serbian national forces to the border with Kosovo, the U.S. decided to send a strong reminder to Serbia that Washington still has a military presence in the area.

Meanwhile, on the same day, Russia, which has a history of supporting Serbian interests, demanded that the U.S. stop its "false propaganda" about ethnic Serbian problems and their issues with Kosovo.

The recent unrest in the region began when Albanian mayors were placed in charge of predominantly Serb areas in Kosovo. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed NATO for the violence saying, "Not only have they shown their incompetence...[they] themselves became a source of unnecessary violence, an escalation factor."

Zakharova went on to say that NATO peacekeepers "supported Pristina's xenophobic aspirations, basically turning into terror accomplices" by defending local authorities instead of acknowledging that the peacekeepers were trying to protect Serbs from a crackdown by Kosovo authorities.

"While looking for the guilty, mediators from the U.S. and the EU should muster up some courage and look in the mirror," Zakharova added.

"To de-escalate, decisive steps are needed, and not half-measures like an idea proposed by the U.S. to temporarily 'move' the newly-minted 'mayors' from municipal buildings to other facilities," she concluded.

Leading up to the renewed conflicts there have been calls for Kosovo to create Serbian municipalities for Serbian-dominated areas in Kosovo. Pristina authorities though view the creation of such establishments as a precursor for a breakaway statelet to be formed. According to ZeroHedge, as tensions continue to rise, several dozen of NATO KFOR troops have been injured in the ongoing protests.

On Tuesday, NATO released a statement saying, "NATO strongly condemns the unprovoked attacks against KFOR troops in northern Kosovo, which have led to a number of them being injured. Such attacks are totally unacceptable. Violence must stop immediately. We call on all sides to refrain from actions that further inflame tensions, and to engage in dialogue." While calling for more peaceful protests, NATO does plan to send additional troops to the region.

• Dodik Calls For Abolishing The Office Of High Representative For Bosnia And Herzegovina
• Is NATO Trying To Provoke Unrest And Instability in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

armedforces.press · by Jen Snow · May 31, 2023

15. Emulating Russia, China Is Improving Its Ability to Operate in the Gray Zone

In my opinion, this is the how and why China is operating in the "gray zone:"

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.

​Excerpts:

​The West has largely been caught flat-footed in responding to China’s increased disinformation and cyber activities, stuck in the binary mindset of a nation at peace or a nation at war. Despite pivoting from 20 years of fighting the Global War on Terrorism to great power competition, the U.S. and many of its Western allies are just in the nascent stages of realizing exactly how the contours of warfare have evolved. Even more complicated is how to think about deterring adversaries in the gray zone, which requires identifying perpetrators of particular attacks and signaling to them the consequences of such actions, as well as how these actions will be answered in the future.

For China, the ultimate goal in building a gray zone strategy is Taiwan. China has already employed similar tactics against Vietnam, Japan, India, the Philippines, and other countries in the region, in addition to, as outlined above, geopolitical rivals like the United States. The CCP is adept at observing lessons learned, and adroitly monitoring how its adversaries fight and react in specific situations.

While many geopolitical observers are looking at the current conflict between Kyiv and Moscow to draw lessons about the Russian military’s behavior, one of the under-reported story lines is how Beijing is learning from Moscow’s gray zone approach and improving upon it. Cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns will grow more sophisticated as the barriers to mastering emerging technologies are lowered.

Emulating Russia, China Is Improving Its Ability to Operate in the Gray Zone

Chinese disinformation efforts have advanced far beyond mere troll farms and online bot armies recycling conspiracy theories on social media. 

thediplomat.com · by Colin P. Clarke · June 1, 2023

Advertisement

While the United States and its allies struggle with operating in the gray zone – competition between peacetime and war – the West’s adversaries, including China and Russia, have no such issue. Russia has long been comfortable exploiting non-kinetic actions to advance its interests vis-à-vis its rivals and now Beijing is emulating Moscow, leveraging asymmetric means that include offensive cyber operations and disinformation campaigns designed to press the advantage without evoking a counterattack from its rivals.

Last week, Microsoft announced that it had uncovered a malicious cyberattack emanating from China dubbed Volt Typhoon, which was launched with the objective of disrupting critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia in the midst of a potential future crisis. Western intelligence agencies have determined with significant confidence that the hacking campaign is state-backed and operated by elite hacking units within China’s military.

In order to advance its national interests, China relies on a range of gray zone tactics, non-military activities that span geopolitical, economic, and actions in and through the information environment. These tactics can be executed at multiple levels, including international, bilateral, or as part of grassroots campaigns in target countries through direct action or via proxies and clients. Cyberattacks are becoming a weapon of choice for many countries, favored for their anonymity or difficulty with ascertaining attribution or responsibility, hallmark characteristics of gray zone operations, the digital equivalent of “little green men.” Chinese cyberattacks are the non-kinetic equivalent of a weapons test, an initial probe to see how its targets respond. The target’s response is then used to calibrate future action plans.

And while cyberattacks are nothing new, analyzing China’s pattern of behavior over the past several years shows a clear indication that China is attempting to replicate Russia’s playbook against the West, operating outside of the margins of formal conflict and obfuscating its true intentions in an effort to frustrate a Western response. Beijing went a step further in the recent incident, not just denying responsibility for the hacking campaign but gaslighting the United States, with China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning commenting, “Apparently, this has been a collective disinformation campaign launched by the U.S. through the Five Eyes to serve its geopolitical agenda. It’s widely known that the Five Eyes is the world’s biggest intelligence association, and the NSA the world’s biggest hacking group.” The denial was unsurprising, as China typically answers accusations of espionage with deflections, as occurred after high-profile economic espionage cases, incidents of hacking efforts against U.S. vaccine production during the pandemic, and most recently following the spy balloon scandal that brought tensions between China and the U.S. to the forefront.

In mid-March, just one day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping was in Moscow to sign a new agreement with his counterpart that pledged to deepen the “strategic partnership” between Moscow and Beijing. And while Western fears of China arming Russia with significant quantities of weapons and ammunition have not been realized, at least so far, China has picked a side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, boosting the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns and promoting false Russian narratives about the war. With recent changes at Twitter, Chinese and Russian disinformation has proliferated, as state-backed propaganda and blatant falsehoods pushed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Kremlin, respectively, earning significantly more views with lax controls and fewer guardrails in place. The Chinese embassy in Paris, on multiple occasions, even retweeted the Russian embassy in Paris regarding its denial of war crimes in Bucha.

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

By amplifying Russian disinformation, China is attempting to help sway public opinion in favor of Moscow and against Kyiv. One of the most damning false narratives pushed by the Kremlin is the presence of so-called U.S. biolabs on Ukrainian soil. The assertion is an effort to convince large swaths of the international community that Washington is surreptitiously maintaining a biological weapons program in Europe. China has also regularly seeded disinformation narratives related to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the efficacy of Western vaccines, and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. China has spent billions of dollars around the world parroting and promoting Russian disinformation efforts specifically regarding Ukraine, according to a U.S. special envoy.

But Chinese disinformation efforts have advanced far beyond mere troll farms and online bot armies recycling conspiracy theories on social media. Beijing has used official government spokespersons to spread these lies. Former Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed last year that “This Russian military operation has uncovered the secret of the U.S. labs in Ukraine, and this is not something that can be dealt with in a perfunctory manner.” Lijian’s statement is more than just “wolf warrior” diplomacy, it’s a blatant lie with no supporting evidence deliberately peddled to deflect blame away from Russia.

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Chinese-affiliated media outlets, including the state-backed English-language Global Times, spread anti-U.S. propaganda framing Washington as a warmonger and the European Union as stooges and “puppets” of the United States. To complement its disinformation campaign, Beijing also heavily censored anti-Russian voices within China, while elevating pro-Russian conversations online. While China attempts to portray itself as a responsible international actor – touting its position on climate change and highlighting diplomatic successes in the Middle East – its blatant backing of Russian disinformation proves otherwise.

The West has largely been caught flat-footed in responding to China’s increased disinformation and cyber activities, stuck in the binary mindset of a nation at peace or a nation at war. Despite pivoting from 20 years of fighting the Global War on Terrorism to great power competition, the U.S. and many of its Western allies are just in the nascent stages of realizing exactly how the contours of warfare have evolved. Even more complicated is how to think about deterring adversaries in the gray zone, which requires identifying perpetrators of particular attacks and signaling to them the consequences of such actions, as well as how these actions will be answered in the future.

For China, the ultimate goal in building a gray zone strategy is Taiwan. China has already employed similar tactics against Vietnam, Japan, India, the Philippines, and other countries in the region, in addition to, as outlined above, geopolitical rivals like the United States. The CCP is adept at observing lessons learned, and adroitly monitoring how its adversaries fight and react in specific situations.

While many geopolitical observers are looking at the current conflict between Kyiv and Moscow to draw lessons about the Russian military’s behavior, one of the under-reported story lines is how Beijing is learning from Moscow’s gray zone approach and improving upon it. Cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns will grow more sophisticated as the barriers to mastering emerging technologies are lowered.

Colin P. Clarke

Colin P. Clarke is the director of research at The Soufan Group and a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center. He tweets at @ColinPClarke

thediplomat.com · by Colin P. Clarke · June 1, 2023

16.  Stop Worrying About Chinese Hegemony in Asia

Irrational? Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you. I would be cautious about wishing away CHinese intentions, especially based on their words and actions.

I think China would very much appreciate Professor Walt's views here.

Excerpts:

The implications for the United States and its Asian partners are clear. On the one hand, they should work to mitigate the various factors that can impede effective balancing and could lead Beijing to erroneously conclude that a bid for hegemony might succeed. At the same time, however, the United States and its allies need to make it crystal clear that they not trying to threaten China’s independence or territorial integrity, undermine the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, or crash the Chinese economy. Reassurance is needed so that China’s leaders do not conclude that they have no choice but to pursue hegemony even if the odds of success are small.

Consistent messaging will be essential. Although recent speeches by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen were clearly intended to reassure Beijing about the scope and purpose of U.S. export controls and other economic measures, efforts to give NATO a strategic role in Asia and the more confrontational closing statement issued after the G-7 summit meeting earlier this month send a different signal, one that cannot help but heighten tensions

On several occasions over the past three centuries, a great power concluded that its security required it to establish a dominant position over its neighbors. All but one of these attempts failed catastrophically. China would be unwise to make the attempt, but the United States and its allies would be equally unwise if their own actions unwittingly convinced Beijing that a risky bid for hegemony was still its best option.

Stop Worrying About Chinese Hegemony in Asia

U.S. fears are not only irrational—they’re a potential self-fulfilling prophecy.

Walt-Steve-foreign-policy-columnist20

Stephen M. Walt

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. FP subscribers can now receive alerts when new stories written by this author are published. Subscribe now | Sign in

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · May 31, 2023

The United States and its Asian partners want to maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, ostensibly to prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon there. They worry that Beijing will gradually persuade its neighbors to distance themselves from the United States, accept Chinese primacy, and defer to Beijing’s wishes on key foreign-policy issues. In 2018, for example, then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis warned that China is “harboring long-term designs to rewrite the existing global order. … The Ming Dynasty appears to be their model, albeit in a more muscular manner, demanding other nations become tribute states, kowtowing to Beijing.” Former U.S. officials such as Rush Doshi and Elbridge Colby and prominent realists writing on U.S. grand strategy—myself included—have made similar arguments, and China’s stated desire to be a “leading global power” and its efforts to alter the status quo in the South China Sea and elsewhere appear to justify these concerns.

The United States and its Asian partners want to maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, ostensibly to prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon there. They worry that Beijing will gradually persuade its neighbors to distance themselves from the United States, accept Chinese primacy, and defer to Beijing’s wishes on key foreign-policy issues. In 2018, for example, then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis warned that China is “harboring long-term designs to rewrite the existing global order. … The Ming Dynasty appears to be their model, albeit in a more muscular manner, demanding other nations become tribute states, kowtowing to Beijing.” Former U.S. officials such as Rush Doshi and Elbridge Colby and prominent realists writing on U.S. grand strategy—myself included—have made similar arguments, and China’s stated desire to be a “leading global power” and its efforts to alter the status quo in the South China Sea and elsewhere appear to justify these concerns.

The implications of this view are troubling. If China is actively seeking to become a regional hegemon in Asia and the United States is dead set on preventing it, a direct clash between the world’s two most powerful countries will be difficult to avoid.

But are these fears justified? Although China might be better off if it could expel the United States from Asia and become a true regional hegemon, that goal is probably beyond its grasp. A Chinese bid for regional hegemony is likely to fail and do enormous harm to China (and others) in the process. The United States can take a relatively sanguine view of this prospect, therefore, even if it cannot dismiss it completely. Even as they strive to preserve a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, therefore, the United States and its allies must ensure that their efforts do not convince China’s leaders that they must try for hegemony despite the obvious risks.

Why Regional Hegemony Is Desirable

It is easy to understand why a powerful state might like to be a regional hegemon (i.e., the only great power within its geographic area). If there are no other major powers nearby, a regional hegemon has little reason to fear direct attacks on its home territory. A great power that dominates its surroundings in this way will also be less vulnerable to blockades or other forms of pressure, and it can expect deference from the weaker states in its sphere of influence even if it does not rule them directly. The absence of local dangers also makes it easier for a regional hegemon to project power into other areas of the world if doing so seems necessary or desirable.

The history of the United States illustrates these benefits nicely. The United States is separated from the other great powers by two enormous oceans and insulated from many of their quarrels. This “free security” gave U.S. leaders enormous latitude: They could remain neutral when conflicts erupted elsewhere or fight “wars of choice” far from home if that seemed advisable. When these distant interventions failed—as they did in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan—the United States could eventually withdraw without putting its security at serious risk.

China’s leaders undoubtedly think their country would be more secure if it achieved a hegemonic position in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing would have less to fear if the United States were not closely aligned with many of its neighbors and did not have powerful military forces stationed throughout the region. China would be less vulnerable to blockades in the event of war, a significant concern given the constricted maritime geography of East and Southeast Asia and Beijing’s substantial reliance on foreign trade. With fewer local dangers to worry about, it would also be easier for Beijing to project power elsewhere if it so desired.

These same factors also explain why the United States wants to prevent this situation from arising. Since it became a great power at the dawn of the 20th century, the United States has sought to preserve a rough balance of power in Europe and East Asia and prevent any single power from dominating either region. U.S. leaders were concerned that a European or Asian hegemon might eventually amass equal or greater economic and military power than the United States. No longer concerned with local threats, it could choose to intervene in other areas, as the United States has been able to do. A rival of this sort might even ally with states in the Western Hemisphere and force Washington to focus its attention closer to home. The enduring desire to prevent a regional hegemon in Europe or Asia is why the United States eventually entered the two world wars and why it kept substantial military forces in both regions during the long Cold War.

If regional hegemony were readily achievable, therefore, it might make good strategic sense for China’s leaders to want it and for U.S. leaders to go all out to prevent it. But what if this seemingly attractive goal is, in fact, a mirage: difficult and maybe impossible to achieve? If so, Beijing would be foolish to pursue this objective, and Washington can take a more measured approach to discouraging it.

Why Regional Hegemony Is (Nearly) Impossible to Achieve

Regional hegemony may be desirable in theory, but history suggests that it is an elusive goal. As Jonathan Kirshner points out, several different great powers have launched bids for regional dominance in the modern era and all but one of these attempts ended in disaster. France failed under Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte, Germany was beaten decisively in both world wars, and Japan’s attempt to establish a hegemonic order in Asia ended in total defeat as well. Only the United States managed to pull off becoming the sole great power in its region. In the modern world, in short, the success rate is less than 20 percent.

Furthermore, the failures were not just minor setbacks: They were unmitigated disasters for the countries that made the attempt. Perhaps a million Frenchmen lost their lives in the Napoleonic Wars, and Bonaparte died in exile on a remote island in the South Atlantic. Germany suffered mightily in both world wars and ended up divided into separate states for more than 40 years. Japan was firebombed in World War II, had two cities destroyed by atomic bombs, and its political order was remade by a foreign occupier. Being a regional hegemon might be desirable, but trying to become one almost always makes a state less, rather than more, secure.

Bids for hegemony fail for two main reasons. First, as defensive realists have long emphasized, there is a powerful tendency for major powers to balance against threats. When a powerful state is nearby, when its military forces seem tailored to project power against others, and when it seems to have revisionist ambitions, nearby powers typically band together to deter or defeat them. If a would-be hegemon reveals its aims by starting a war, balancing behavior becomes even more pronounced and effective.

The second barrier to regional hegemony is nationalism. As Napoleon discovered when he invaded Spain, as the Soviet Union and United States both learned in Afghanistan, and as Moscow is now being reminded in Ukraine, local populations will make enormous sacrifices to repel invaders. Even nations that have been temporarily vanquished often remain restive and eager to throw off an aspiring hegemon’s yoke. The dissolution of the European colonial empires during the 20th century further illustrates how the spread of nationalist doctrines has strengthened resistance to foreign dominance.

The United States is the one exception to this recurring tendency: It is the only regional hegemon in the modern era. Other would-be hegemons faced coordinated opposition from formidable and well-organized nation-states, but the United States was an ocean away from the other great powers and able to expand across North America without having to fight another major power or overcome a balancing coalition. The Indigenous population tried to resist, but it was weakened by its susceptibility to European diseases and divided into many loosely organized tribes and nations. Although Indigenous opposition to American expansion persisted until the late 19th century, the native tribes faced insurmountable collective-action problems and a dwindling population and were eventually swamped by an irresistible demographic tide. To put it plainly, the United States got lucky.

Could China Become a Regional Hegemon Today?

The conditions that allowed the United States to dominate the Western Hemisphere and exclude other major powers do not exist in Asia today. China may be stronger than any of its neighbors, but several of them are major industrial powers with considerable potential to check Chinese power, and the world’s other major power—the United States—remains committed to helping defend them. India’s population is now larger and significantly younger than China’s and its economy is growing more rapidly. Many of China’s neighbors are already balancing more energetically: Defense budgets are rising sharply, and Australia, India, and Japan are coordinating with each other and with the United States. The greater their fear of Chinese hegemony, the more vigorous such responses will be.

In addition, India already has a nuclear arsenal and Japan or South Korea could acquire a nuclear deterrent if the need arose. Officials in Tokyo and Seoul have previously made it clear that they see this as a viable option should circumstances require, and possessing their own deterrent would further limit China’s ability to intimidate them. If China does not want more of its neighbors to acquire nuclear weapons, therefore, it should limit its ambitions and make such a step unnecessary.

Nor are Asian powers likely to be swayed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s suggestion that “it is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the security of Asia.” Such statements are obviously intended to make the U.S. role in Asia seem less legitimate, but the belief that a shared “Asian” identity will override each individual state’s self-interest ignores the power of modern nationalism, which did not exist when the pre-modern, Sino-centric tributary system was in place. Nationalism is a powerful force in China, of course, but also in India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and Vietnam. It is hard to imagine any of these states preferring subordination to Beijing to national autonomy.

Lastly, modern surveillance and communications technology makes it much easier for states to identify threatening powers and coordinate defensive responses. A Chinese bid for hegemony in Asia would be impossible to disguise, and states threatened by this attempt could share concerns, pool resources, and formulate a collective response quickly. As the rapid and vigorous Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illustrates, countries facing a common danger can act with surprising swiftness when necessary.

If Regional Hegemony Is Not an Option, What Then?

If China’s prospects for regional hegemony are limited, then what do the United States and China have to fight about? Each is a vast country populated by hundreds of millions of patriotic citizens. They have large and sophisticated economies that no outside power could successfully strangle, powerful conventional military forces, and second-strike nuclear capabilities. An enormous ocean separates them, and neither side could possibly mount a successful invasion of the other. Coexistence is not merely desirable; it is unavoidable.

Yet China’s leaders could still decide to choose the same risky path that other would-be hegemons have followed. If they believed the regional balance of power heavily tilted in their favor, that nearby states could be bullied into neutrality, that one or two triumphs would render subsequent resistance impossible, and that other states in Asia would eventually regard Chinese primacy as legitimate, then the risks of a hegemonic bid (however ill-advised) would rise. In the worst case, Chinese leaders could convince themselves that conditions temporarily favored a bid for regional hegemony while at the same time fearing that the balance of power could turn against them decisively if the opportunity was not seized. This combination of wishful thinking and paranoia is that textbook condition for preventive war; precisely the logic that convinced German and Japanese leaders to launch unsuccessful bids for hegemony during the first half of the 20th century.

The implications for the United States and its Asian partners are clear. On the one hand, they should work to mitigate the various factors that can impede effective balancing and could lead Beijing to erroneously conclude that a bid for hegemony might succeed. At the same time, however, the United States and its allies need to make it crystal clear that they not trying to threaten China’s independence or territorial integrity, undermine the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, or crash the Chinese economy. Reassurance is needed so that China’s leaders do not conclude that they have no choice but to pursue hegemony even if the odds of success are small.

Consistent messaging will be essential. Although recent speeches by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen were clearly intended to reassure Beijing about the scope and purpose of U.S. export controls and other economic measures, efforts to give NATO a strategic role in Asia and the more confrontational closing statement issued after the G-7 summit meeting earlier this month send a different signal, one that cannot help but heighten tensions

On several occasions over the past three centuries, a great power concluded that its security required it to establish a dominant position over its neighbors. All but one of these attempts failed catastrophically. China would be unwise to make the attempt, but the United States and its allies would be equally unwise if their own actions unwittingly convinced Beijing that a risky bid for hegemony was still its best option.

This piece was published in cooperation with the Asian Peace Programme at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute.

Foreign Policy · by Stephen M. Walt · May 31, 2023

17. The China hawks briefing DeSantis

Excerpt:

Among the briefers we could confirm: GORDON CHANG, ELBRIDGE COLBY, HARRY KAZIANIS and BRANDON WEICHERT. Three of them didn’t respond to requests for comment. Weichert declined to comment but didn’t deny when asked if he was briefing the DeSantis campaign. A spokesperson for DeSantis’ campaign didn’t respond to multiple inquiries.

The China hawks briefing DeSantis

Politico · by ALEXANDER WARD and ARI HAWKINS · May 31, 2023

With help from Lara Seligman and Daniel Lippman

Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS is getting briefed by a bevy of national security experts, many of whom promote a hard line on China.

The Republican and members of his advisory team are holding formal and informal conversations on issues like the Washington-Beijing relationship and the war in Ukraine, two people familiar with the events told NatSec Daily.

Among the briefers we could confirm: GORDON CHANG, ELBRIDGE COLBY, HARRY KAZIANIS and BRANDON WEICHERT. Three of them didn’t respond to requests for comment. Weichert declined to comment but didn’t deny when asked if he was briefing the DeSantis campaign. A spokesperson for DeSantis’ campaign didn’t respond to multiple inquiries.

We don’t know to what extent any of these four are shaping foreign policy positions for Team DeSantis, but the briefings indicate DeSantis and his confidantes are at least weighing their ideas. So we decided to look at their takes on the world.

The Gatestone Institute’s Chang has twice predicted the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party. During a Fox Business appearance Tuesday, he criticized the Pentagon for requesting a meeting between Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN and his Chinese counterpart — who is under U.S. sanctions — later this week. “We showed that we’re not serious about the measures we impose, and that contributes to a further breakdown in deterrence,” he told MARIA BARTIROMO. Chang supports increasing tariffs on China over Beijing’s theft of American intellectual property.

The Marathon Initiative’s Colby has gained notoriety for pushing the United States to marshal its resources toward countering China, even if that means downsizing America’s support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. “You look at the military they’re building; it is obviously designed to take on not just Taiwan, but the United States, Japan,” he told British magazine UnHerd last week, adding that China is also “developing a global military…that looks like the American military.”

Kazianis, CEO of the Rogue States Project who has declared his support for DeSantis, is an advocate for calming tensions with North Korea before they spiral out of control. He told USA Today on Tuesday, ahead of a military satellite launch by Pyongyang, that a crisis with North Korea was “getting ready to explode again upon the world stage.”

“Pyongyang, thanks to decades of investments that total billions of dollars, is no military paper tiger but can raise tensions far beyond anything we saw” in previous years, he continued. “And that could put us on the brink of a nuclear showdown.”

Weichert, a senior editor for the 19FortyFive national security website and former congressional aide, wrote recently that “American military might would be required to deter a potential Chinese invasion of its democratic neighbor,” adding that China is looking at “taking the Indo-Pacific for itself.”

“Ron DeSantis understands this threat, though. He recognizes Taiwan’s strategic importance to the United States as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for American power in the Indo-Pacific,” per Weichert.

18. Why the United States Doesn’t Need an “Arsenal for Democracy”

I disagree. We need to rebuild the Arsenal of Democracy and we need to take on partners like South Korea and other like minded capable partners.

We need new ways to build the "iron mountain" when and where needed. Whenever we talk about flexibility and efficiency (especially efficiency) we get business practices such as "just in time logistics" which works great for business with an overnight transportation capability such as FEDEX. But it rarely works for military operations and the fog and friction of war.

Excerpts:

A more focused set of responses aimed at using existing DIB capacity more efficiently would be a better approach.

First, investments in modernizing the DIB: including upgrading production equipment and making greater use of automation and artificial intelligence can increase speed and capacity on existing production lines. The United States should concentrate efforts on systems in highest demand in Ukraine and most essential to a US-China contingency, including Stingers and Javelins, ammunition, artillery systems, and PGMs at all ranges.

Second, defense contractors should seek ways to increase flexibility across production lines to further expand surge capacity; like by building multi-use production facilities that can shift between systems as needed. Such facilities would have a standard set of manufacturing capabilities that can be easily modified for the needs of specific platforms. Cross-training of employees can support this type of agility.

Third, any additional investments in expanding capacity should be focused on vulnerabilities in the supply chains of high demand systems rather than spread across the DIB. The government should look into increasing the number of suppliers for some inputs, stockpiling key components, or building specialized teams to anticipate obsolescence issues.

Finally, Washington should develop mechanisms that prioritize existing DIB bandwidth based on national security goals. This will mean making tradeoffs between potential buyers based on need, for example between Taiwan and Middle Eastern partners. Relying on arms exporting partners like South Korea, India, and France to meet some global demand could be helpful. The United States should also encourage greater DIB investment from Europe, for its own defense and to increase contributions to Ukraine.

Rather than doubling down on increased DIB capacity—an expensive and blunt way to insure against geopolitical uncertainty—Washington should focus on flexibility and efficiency to more sustainably meet near-term defense needs and hedge against more diverse long-term risks.

Why the United States Doesn’t Need an “Arsenal for Democracy”

Jennifer Kavanagh

Date Published: May 22, 2023

As the war in Ukraine continues, there is an emerging consensus across the national security community – including senior defense leaders, members of Congress, defense industry professionals, and think tankers – that the US defense industrial base (DIB) is in crisis, lacking the capacity to meet the demands of a major power war or adequately arm allies and partners for self-defense. The most widely endorsed solution to these perceived shortcomings is a rapid and significant increase in DIB capacity to re-create the “arsenal for democracy” of the World War II era, but this approach would be a costly overcorrection to the underlying challenges. Instead, Washington should adopt a more narrow and sustainable strategy that includes increasing efficiency and flexibility in the US DIB and prioritizing arms transfers across partners.

gjia.georgetown.edu · · May 22, 2023

A Defense Industrial Base in Crisis?

In his March 28 testimony on the Pentagon’s FY2024 budget request, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon planned to invest over $30 billion to expand the US. defense industrial base (DIB). This commitment responds to the emerging consensus that defense sector consolidation and inconsistent investment have left the United States without the defense industrial capacity to meet the demands of a major power war or adequately arm allies and partners, including especially Taiwan and Ukraine but also key frontline allies in Europe and countries like Philippines and Japan in the Indo-Pacific, for self-defense.

Many policymakers and defense experts argue that the best solution to these perceived shortcomings is a rapid and significant increase in DIB capacity aimed at filling US stocks and arming partners “to the teeth,” including a shift to wartime levels of weapons production and a re-creation of the “arsenal for democracy”—the term used by Franklin D. Roosevelt to describe the mobilization of American industry to support European and US involvement in World War II.

A critical assessment of the US DIB and its response to the Ukraine war, however, suggests that existing gaps are limited and pose a less severe national security threat than the prevailing narrative warns. A move to rebuild an “arsenal for democracy” would be out of proportion to underlying challenges and impose new costs and layers of bureaucracy. Shifting the US DIB to wartime footing also risks becoming a self-fulfilling prediction, making war more likely by further militarizing US foreign policy, and potentially feeding new arms races.

Instead, Washington should adopt a more narrow and sustainable strategy, using existing defense industrial bandwidth more efficiently by modernizing production lines, eliminating supply chain bottlenecks for key systems, increasing flexibility, and more rigorously prioritizing arms transfers across partners.

Meeting Near-Term Weapons Demand

The primary source of near-term pressure on the US DIB comes from Ukraine’s insatiable demand for weapons, including Javelin anti-tank and Stinger air defense systems, artillery, and ammunition.

Most of what the United States has sent Ukraine to meet near-term needs has come from US stockpiles, but Washington has struggled to keep pace with Ukraine’s requirements. There are now signs that remaining reserves are reaching levels that the Pentagon is unwilling to fall below, especially for high-demand capabilities. More recent US security assistance packages to Ukraine have not included any additional Stingers or Javelins, for instance. Furthermore, military aid to Ukraine over the first four months of 2023 included a greater share of promised future production through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative than was the case over 2022.

However, this does not mean that US stocks are “low” in absolute terms or unable to meet other near-term demands should they arise; just that the Pentagon sees risk in drawing down stocks—sized to meet US needs in specific contingencies—any further. The United States has sent Ukraine about a third of its stockpiled Javelin missile systems and a fourth of its Stingers, but that leaves at least 60-70 percent remaining in each case. Refilling US stocks to pre-war levels will take time, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has noted that the US military can meet near-term requirements with the weapons it has on hand today.

As US stocks become more constrained, Washington will have to rely more on new production to arm Ukraine. The US DIB is already ramping up to meet these demands. For example, production of 155mm ammunition will increase from 15,000 to 90,000 shells per month by the end of 2024. By the end of 2023, production rates for Javelin missiles will double their pre-war baseline, and Stinger missile production will rise 50% by 2025.

The scale and speed of planned increases are objectively quite large, but they will still fall short of Ukraine’s demand. There are isolated obstacles – for example, supply chain bottlenecks and obsolescence issues – that have constrained production timelines for key systems. But the gap between Ukraine’s requirements and US production capacity is as indicative of Ukraine’s sky-high requirements as it is of US DIB deficiencies. For instance, Ukraine says it needs 250,000 ammunition rounds per month, about 25 times the amount used for a similar period in Afghanistan. An effort to supercharge DIB capacity might result in this higher production level in the long-term but it will be no better in meeting near-term demands than the status quo. Furthermore, it is not clear that the additional investments and risks required to meet this higher production level are aligned with the narrow US interests at stake in Ukraine.

A Long-term Munitions Gap?

Whether a larger-scale investment across the DIB makes sense for reasons beyond demand coming from Ukraine will depend in part on the types of wars the United States is most likely to confront in the future . Some defense analysts suggest that the experience in Ukraine shows that future wars are likely to consume munition stocks more quickly than the Pentagon has planned, creating a long-term gap. However, the reality is murkier for two reasons.

First, the risk of a major near-term US ground war seems lower than that of a maritime or air conflict in the Indo-Pacific. A substantially weakened Russia is unlikely to pose a significant conventional military threat elsewhere for some time, and there are few other flashpoints that could trigger a US ground campaign. An Indo-Pacific war, however, would rely on different weapons and military strategies than observed in Ukraine. Second, although Ukraine is fighting using US systems, it is not fighting as the United States would fight. It lacks the manpower of US forces, the more advanced and longer-range US weapons, and facility with the US combined arms approach—which Secretary Austin has argued could reduce Ukraine’s ammunition use. With these advantages, the US “burn rate” of munitions in a future war might be much lower than Ukraine has experienced.

Ukraine’s high rate of weapons consumption might be more relevant to Taiwan – another heavy buyer of US arms and possible source of pressure on the US DIB – which could face some of the same force size and training issues. Still, Taiwan’s needs in a potential conflict are likely to differ from Ukraine’s, favoring longer-range missiles and air defense and anti-ship mines rather than the shorter-range systems and artillery featured centrally in Ukraine.

Taiwan does have unmet weapons needs, including a large backlog of delayed US deliveries. However, these delays result less from insufficient US DIB capacity than they do from ineffective prioritization of arms sales partners. Between 2018 and 2022, the United States sent arms to over 100 countries, but has no means to prioritize across buyers based on need; this leaves vulnerable partners like Taiwan waiting behind legacy clients like Saudi Arabia for crucial systems like Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The fastest way to meet Taiwan’s needs may be to find better ways to prioritize existing DIB bandwidth rather than building more capacity.

Meeting Surge Demands

Limited evidence that future wars will look like Ukraine does not mean that the US military has all the systems it might need in a crisis situation. Some wargames show that a US-China conflict would quickly burn through available stocks of medium and long-range precision-guided missiles (PGMs). The Pentagon is currently reassessing war plan requirements and may increase stockpiles of some systems as a result. But if gaps exist, DoD has time to address them: most experts assess the risk of an imminent war involving the United States to be low and the US DIB appears to possess a substantial ability to surge production when needed.

Contrary to some narratives, US DIB expansion in response to the war in Ukraine has shown that defense contractors can often reach surge production more quickly than expected. For example, Lockheed Martin was able to rapidly expand the production of HIMARS by 60% using cross-training of personnel and adding a second production shift. Some peacetime surge capacity also exists for advanced munitions. Production of long-range anti-ship missiles, the LRASM and JASSM-ER, is expected to double in 2023, due to modernization and automation introduced into existing production lines.

The US experience after Operation Inherent Resolve offers additional evidence of US DIB surge capacity. When DoD demand for PGMs increased following this campaign, defense contractors responded quickly with little lead time, producing about 400% more short and medium-range PGMs than planned in DoD’s Future Years Defense Program between FY 2017-2019. With this ability to meet surge demands even in the absence of a true crisis, there is little evidence that a shift to wartime production levels is required currently to meet future US needs.

An Alternative Way Ahead

The US DIB faces some challenges, but the “arsenal for democracy” model would be an overcorrection. Not only would such an approach encourage over-investment in the defense sector, but the move to wartime footing could raise the risk of future conflict. Mobilizing US industry to wartime levels of arms production lowers barriers to new conflicts, deepens the militarization of US foreign policy, and could provoke adversaries to take increasingly escalatory positions.

A more focused set of responses aimed at using existing DIB capacity more efficiently would be a better approach.

First, investments in modernizing the DIB: including upgrading production equipment and making greater use of automation and artificial intelligence can increase speed and capacity on existing production lines. The United States should concentrate efforts on systems in highest demand in Ukraine and most essential to a US-China contingency, including Stingers and Javelins, ammunition, artillery systems, and PGMs at all ranges.

Second, defense contractors should seek ways to increase flexibility across production lines to further expand surge capacity; like by building multi-use production facilities that can shift between systems as needed. Such facilities would have a standard set of manufacturing capabilities that can be easily modified for the needs of specific platforms. Cross-training of employees can support this type of agility.

Third, any additional investments in expanding capacity should be focused on vulnerabilities in the supply chains of high demand systems rather than spread across the DIB. The government should look into increasing the number of suppliers for some inputs, stockpiling key components, or building specialized teams to anticipate obsolescence issues.

Finally, Washington should develop mechanisms that prioritize existing DIB bandwidth based on national security goals. This will mean making tradeoffs between potential buyers based on need, for example between Taiwan and Middle Eastern partners. Relying on arms exporting partners like South Korea, India, and France to meet some global demand could be helpful. The United States should also encourage greater DIB investment from Europe, for its own defense and to increase contributions to Ukraine.

Rather than doubling down on increased DIB capacity—an expensive and blunt way to insure against geopolitical uncertainty—Washington should focus on flexibility and efficiency to more sustainably meet near-term defense needs and hedge against more diverse long-term risks.

. . .

Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.

Image Credit: U.S. Army, Flickr

gjia.georgetown.edu · by Zara Ali · May 22, 2023

19. A China-Taiwan DMZ? Meet the Kinmen islanders who want a bridge, not a war

Photos, graphics. and video at the link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/asia/taiwan-china-tensions-kinmen-island-dmz-intl-hnk/index.html

A China-Taiwan DMZ? Meet the Kinmen islanders who want a bridge, not a war

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/asia/taiwan-china-tensions-kinmen-island-dmz-intl-hnk/index.html

By Eric Cheung, Will Ripley and John Mees, CNN

Updated 12:11 AM EDT, Thu June 1, 2023

Kinmen, TaiwanCNN — 

As the sun sets over Taiwan’s Kinmen islands, the neon lights of mainland China dazzle in the distance just 2.5 miles away.

Yet as striking as the lights on the horizon are the reminders, everywhere, of war. Kinmen’s beaches are lined with anti-invasion spikes, its islands dotted with aging military posts, its streets home to countless bomb shelters – defenses prepared long ago for an invasion that never came. Or, at least, one that hasn’t come yet.

The shadow of war has hung over these islands ever since Taiwan and mainland China split at the end of the Chinese civil war in the late 1940s. Kinmen, a near and easy target for the mainland’s Communist forces, was bombarded with an estimated one million artillery shells in the years that followed.

Though active fighting ended in Kinmen in 1979, Beijing continues to claim self-governing Taiwan as its territory and recently has been making increasingly bellicose threats toward Taipei. As a consequence, many see the likelihood of war returning to these lands as higher now than it has been in decades.

If China were to attack Taiwan, Kinmen could be an early focus for its People’s Liberation Army. Lying hundreds of miles from Taiwan’s capital Taipei – but just a few from the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen – it is acutely vulnerable to hostile action from the world’s largest military. Taiwan has just a few thousand troops stationed here.

That lingering potential for invasion might make it seem like an unlikely place to construct a bridge to mainland China. Except, that’s exactly what many residents are calling for.

The idea of a bridge to mainland China is part of a wider proposal, unveiled in full earlier this year by a cross-party alliance of eight local councilors, to turn Kinmen into a demilitarized zone (DMZ) – or so-called “peace island.”

The Chinese mainland city of Xiamen, as viewed from Taiwan's Kinmen islands at dusk.

John Mees/CNN

The proposal envisages removing all of Taiwan’s troops and military installations from the islands and turning Kinmen into a setting for Beijing-Taipei talks aimed at “de-escalating tensions.” It sees the bridge, which would stretch between Kinmen and Xiamen, as a way of boosting economic ties.

The controversial proposal has been backed by some opposition politicians, including the former Taipei city mayor and presidential hopeful Ko Wen-je but, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been given short shrift by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and ignored out of hand by Taiwan’s Presidential Office and military.

The Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees Taiwan’s China policy, has also strongly rejected the idea of a bridge as “Trojan horse carrying tremendous national security risks” – going so far as to claim it was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence operation, intended to downgrade Taiwan and incorporate Kinmen into the mainland.

Enter your email to subscribe to the CNN Five Things Newsletter.

close dialog

You give us five minutes, we’ll give you five things you must know for the day.

Sign Me Up

By subscribing you agree to our

privacy policy.

“We ask that individuals in all sectors of the Taiwan society not dance to the CCP’s tune by entertaining its policy proposals,” the Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.

Others say that even if the idea is well-intentioned, it ignores China’s increasing belligerence under leader Xi Jinping, and all but invites Beijing to seize the territory in a conflict situation.

“As we all see from the current Russo-Ukrainian war, Russia was able to drive straight into Ukrainian territory because both countries are connected by land,” said Ho Chih-wei, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

“(The Taiwan Strait) is a natural barrier that has proved very important in stopping China’s military aggression against Taiwan. But if such a bridge were to be constructed, it would bring about many risks,” he added.

When approached by CNN, Taiwan’s Presidential Office and military refused to comment directly on the matter.

Anti-invasion spikes along the coast of Taiwan's Kinmen islands.

Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

An experiment in cooperation

When CNN visited Kinmen recently, many older residents cited both the painful memories of war and a desire for longstanding peace and prosperity as reasons to consider a new approach to relations with China.

As Yang Chien-hsin, a 68-year-old cafe owner, put it: “We experienced what it was like when war broke out in the past, and we do not want that to happen again.”

Kinm

Yang is one of many older residents who can remember those dark days after the civil war, when travel between Taiwan’s main island and Kinmen was restricted, a curfew was in place, and families were prohibited from turning on lights at night to avoid attracting enemy attention.

“We had to hide in air shelters almost every day,” recalled Yang, who runs a specialty coffee shop in Kinmen’s northeastern Jinsha township. “We were so used to the sound of shells landing. As soon as we heard it, we knew we had to go into hiding. You were at their mercy whether or not you were alive.”

But while Kinmen’s physical closeness to China once made it a center of military activity (at one point Taiwan had stationed 92,000 troops there in preparation for a counter-offensive that never materialized), that same proximity has made it a center of more diplomatically minded exchanges.

When tensions between Beijing and Taipei began to ease at the turn of the century, many on both sides saw Kinmen – which had enjoyed a thriving relationship with Xiamen before the civil war cut off all communication – as an ideal testing ground for tentative cross-strait cooperation.

A regular 30-minute ferry service connecting Kinmen and Xiamen was launched in 2001, a move that helped make the islands a popular tourist attraction for visitors from China and boosting the island’s rural economy. In 2018, more than 745,000 mainland Chinese tourists visited Kinmen, collectively spending more than US$360 million that year, according to local authorities.

A Chinese civilian ship passes through the waters between mainland China and Kinmen.

John Mees/CNN

And in a further rapprochement, in 2018, the Chinese mainland began supplying Kinmen with drinking water via a pipeline between the two.

The polarized nature of the islanders’ experiences, of decades of bombardment and decades of (albeit limited) reconciliation, played a key role in shaping the views of many of those who spoke to CNN.

“We had to live a very hard life in the past. We couldn’t eat well and we didn’t have good clothing,” said Yang Pei-ling, a 75-year-old owner of a souvenir shop.

“We are glad that such an era is behind us,” she added.

The family history of others stretches even further back, to before the civil war.

Historically part of mainland China’s Fujian province, Kinmen has a distinct history from Taiwan’s main island. While Taiwan was heavily influenced by five decades of Japanese rule, between 1895 and the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Japanese did not reach Kinmen until 1937.

“Kinmen is very close to mainland China, and we had lots of exchanges in the old days,” said Huang Li-cheng, a 91-year-old shopkeeper. “We are not hostile to each other.”

Attitudes toward China are expected to play a major part in next year’s presidential election to determine who will replace outgoing leader Tsai Ing-wen.

During a recent trip to Kinmen, Taiwan Vice President and DPP presidential candidate William Lai said he recognized the sacrifices of the islanders during decades of conflict.

“I want to thank everyone who participated in the task of defending our nation here in Kinmen,” he said during a campaign speech.

“If we want to pursue peace, we must pursue real peace through our strength and determination, so as to defend the country’s safety, and protect people’s lives and property,” he added.

Kinmen was repeatedly shelled by Communist China's forces up until 1979 but today has tourism links with the mainland.

John Mees/CNN

An economic balancing act

Today, the signs of war that once ravaged these islands play an integral part of Kinmen’s economy, with its many military relics making it a popular destination for visitors from both mainland China and Taiwan.

Old propaganda loudspeakers, military barricades and secret tunnels are popular with the tourists, as is the famous Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor – one of the best-selling liquors in Taiwan.

Popular too with visitors from China are the souvenirs crafted out of the million or so artillery bombshells that the Communist forces fired over all those years ago.

This mix of historical and economic factors has left some islanders feeling the need to strike what they claim is a balance between Beijing and Taipei at a time of spiraling tensions.

“We cherish democracy, freedom and rule of law with Taiwan, but we want to have closer ties with China for greater economic benefits,” said Wu Chia-chiang, chairman of the Kinmen County Tourism Association.

“It is hard for an ordinary resident here to choose between the two.”

But maintaining that balance is becoming increasingly difficult, with China’s leader Xi Jinping pointedly not ruling out taking Taiwan by force and making ever more ominous references to what his Communist Party terms “reunification of the motherland.”

A weapons stockpile and asymmetric warfare: How Taiwan could thwart an invasion by China -- with America's help

At the same time, China’s aggressive military activity around Taiwan has accelerated under Xi, reaching a high when United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August last year – and spiking again after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen visited current Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California in early April.

In the most recent exercises, China sent more than 100 warplanes and a dozen warships around Taiwan, and simulated strikes by aircraft carrier-based warplanes.

In an interview with CNN in April, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu condemned Beijing’s actions in no uncertain terms. “Look at the military exercises, and also their rhetoric, they seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan,” Wu said.

“The Taiwanese government looks at the Chinese military threat as something that cannot be accepted and we condemn it,” he added.

And among Taiwan’s broader population, China’s increased military activity has led to a hardening of views toward Beijing.

An opinion poll conducted last August by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation showed that 52.9% of citizens surveyed viewed Pelosi’s visit favorably despite the escalating tensions, and that 81.6% opposed Beijing’s One China policy that regards Taiwan as an inalienable part of China’s territory.

It found that 55% of Taiwanese citizens believed Beijing’s military coercion had reduced their inclination to unite with mainland China, while only 18% believed it had strengthened it.

Maestro Wu Tseng-dong turns the remains of Chinese artillery shells fired on Kinmen into kitchen knives for tourists.

John Mees/CNN

But for Maestro Wu, a Kinmenese blacksmith who specializes in turning artillery shells from China into kitchen knives, any differences between Taipei and Beijing are best resolved through talking.

“Our political systems are different. Our ideals are somewhat different. We hope that with more exchanges, both sides can get closer to each other, and we can become more harmonious,” he said.

“Regardless of the politics, we share the same ancestors and we are all compatriots,” added Yang, the owner of the specialty coffee shop.

“There is no need for compatriots to hurt each other. We do not want war to happen again.”

20. Beware China’s salami tactics in Taiwan

Excerpts:

Beijing effectively uses its economic leverage to punish countries that get too close to Taiwan, as it recently did to Lithuania when Vilnius allowed Taiwan’s trade office to use the country’s name. Over the past few years, the number of countries that recognize Taiwan has fallen by more than a third (from 21 to 13), and Taipei continues to be excluded from international agencies like the World Health Organization.

Investors are also taking note. Earlier this month, business magnate Warren Buffett announced he had sold his stake in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation — which dominates advanced chip fabrication — because he doesn’t like its location. And if the “Oracle of Omaha” decides it’s time to pull up anchor, other investors will likely follow — to Beijing’s great delight.

Beijing’s salami-slicing strategy poses a challenge that’s quite different from the threat of an outright invasion. It places the onus of escalation on Taiwan and the U.S. — which both are reluctant to do for fear of provoking China and triggering the very war everyone is trying to avoid. And thus China is getting its way — moving ever nearer to exerting control over Taiwan and shaping its future.

Taiwan’s slow, steady strangulation by China is the real threat — one Washington ignores at its peril when focusing too much on the improbable threat of an invasion.

Beware China’s salami tactics in Taiwan

Politico · by Ivo Daalder · June 1, 2023

From across the pond

Beijing’s strategy poses a challenge that’s quite different from an outright invasion— Taiwan’s slow, steady strangulation is the real threat.

Kinmen, an island in the Taiwan strait that is part of Taiwan's territory, is so close to China that the deep-water port of Xiamen, one of China's biggest, lies less than three miles away across the water | An Rong Xu/Getty Images

By

June 1, 2023 4:01 am CET

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.”

Shortly before setting off for Japan and Taiwan to lead a delegation of prominent Chicagoans on a visit, I received an email from one of the travelers asking whether we had contingency plans for getting out of Taiwan in case something happened.

The question didn’t surprise me —discussions in the United States regarding China and Taiwan have focused on the increasing likelihood of war in the region for months now. Whether China will invade the island seems to be a given at this point — the questions are when and how.

Our visit to Taiwan, however, underscored that this debate misses the point: There’s no doubt that, under Xi Jinping, Beijing is bent on ensuring the People Republic of China’s control over the island it regards as sovereign territory — and few in Taiwan doubt he’s willing to use force to that end.

However, an outright invasion is currently the least likely contingency, as China’s decade-long political, economic and military encroachment on Taiwan may well achieve its goal just as well.

Beijing knows that an outright invasion would be difficult and costly — mainly because the U.S. and its regional allies and partners have woken up to the possibility and started to respond by bolstering defenses.

Washington has taken the lead here, increasing its military and diplomatic presence throughout the Indo-Pacific. A visit to Okinawa highlighted the U.S. military’s shift in focus and mission there, transitioning from managing alliance relationships to preparing for conflict. The Marines, in particular, are rapidly transforming their misplaced focus on fighting land wars in the desert with heavy armor into becoming an agile force able to communicate, sense, shoot and move in a maritime environment that’s characterized by long distances.

As one commander put it, “tanks don’t drive well at sea.”

Equally important, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has also worked assiduously to build and strengthen its alliances in the region.

The U.S.-Japan security relationship is now the strongest it’s been in decades, bolstered by Tokyo’s decision to double defense spending over five years, while investing in new capabilities necessary to defend itself and enhancing deterrence throughout the region. Australia has also adapted its defense strategy and posture to focus on maintaining a strong deterrent in the Pacific. And Washington has successfully prodded both Tokyo and Seoul to set aside their differences to strengthen their bilateral and trilateral relations. The Quad leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. now meet on a regular basis as well, most recently at the margins of the Hiroshima G7 meeting.

Finally, as Taiwan absorbs the lessons of Ukraine and starts increasingly investing in asymmetric capabilities to thwart a much more powerful foe, the combined effort is sending Beijing an unmistakable message that war across the Straits would be bloody and costly — and its outcome far from certain.

In other words, deterrence is strong and will only get stronger in the years ahead. And Beijing knows it.

While warning that time is running out and keeping the use of force to unify Taiwan very much on the table, China’s overarching goal isn’t to invade its neighbor but to bring it under its sway. It’s something China’s been at for decades — steadily encroaching on Taiwan’s political, economic and military room for maneuver. And it is succeeding, in part because neither Taipei nor Washington and its allies has an effective response to Beijing’s slow strategy of steady strangulation.

Take the South China Sea, for example. While Beijing has long claimed sovereignty over the maritime area it shares with other countries, it eventually started building an island chain on reefs and shoals by dredging sand and adding other materials. This, even though Xi promised former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2015 that China wouldn’t militarize the islands — which is precisely what it’s been doing ever since. And though the U.S. and other navies regularly transit the area to deny China’s sovereignty claims — as the International Court of Justice ruled in 2016 — Beijing remains undeterred, steadily expanding its presence and control over the region without an effective response.

Or take Hong Kong. When Britain agreed to hand the territory back to China in 1997, Beijing committed to respecting the democratic and legal system it had enjoyed for at least another 50 years. But in 2019, China brutally ended this so-called “one country, two systems” experiment, putting Hong Kong under direct rule — ending its democratic freedoms and its citizens’ legal protections. And though widely condemned, Washington, its allies and its friends have largely accepted this new reality.

We’ve seen Beijing embark on similar salami tactics in and around Taiwan as well.

Last August, following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, China launched a blistering military response, shooting missiles across the island and exercising how it might blockade access to the island. In the process, it obliterated the median line in the straits, which both sides had seen as effectively impervious until a few years earlier. Chinese military planes and ships now cross the median regularly, as many as 10 times a day, further encroaching on Taiwan’s freedom of maneuver.

And while the extent and duration of China’s military exercises, launched after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this year, were shorter than before, the number of planes and ships involved exceeded those previously employed — sending Taipei and Washington an unmistakable signal of menace.

It’s not just China’s military that’s steadily encroaching on Taiwan either — it’s doing so politically and economically as well.

Beijing effectively uses its economic leverage to punish countries that get too close to Taiwan, as it recently did to Lithuania when Vilnius allowed Taiwan’s trade office to use the country’s name. Over the past few years, the number of countries that recognize Taiwan has fallen by more than a third (from 21 to 13), and Taipei continues to be excluded from international agencies like the World Health Organization.

Investors are also taking note. Earlier this month, business magnate Warren Buffett announced he had sold his stake in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation — which dominates advanced chip fabrication — because he doesn’t like its location. And if the “Oracle of Omaha” decides it’s time to pull up anchor, other investors will likely follow — to Beijing’s great delight.

Beijing’s salami-slicing strategy poses a challenge that’s quite different from the threat of an outright invasion. It places the onus of escalation on Taiwan and the U.S. — which both are reluctant to do for fear of provoking China and triggering the very war everyone is trying to avoid. And thus China is getting its way — moving ever nearer to exerting control over Taiwan and shaping its future.

Taiwan’s slow, steady strangulation by China is the real threat — one Washington ignores at its peril when focusing too much on the improbable threat of an invasion.

More from ... Ivo Daalder

Politico · by Ivo Daalder · June 1, 2023

21. Taiwan receives backlogged Stingers from 2019 weapons sale

How is our defense industrial base doing?

Taiwan receives backlogged Stingers from 2019 weapons sale

BY LAURA KELLY - 05/31/23 4:35 PM ET

The Hill · · May 31, 2023

Taiwan has received a shipment of Stinger missiles and other military equipment originally approved in 2019, as the U.S. works to fulfill a backlog of nearly $19 billion in weapons sales to the island democracy.

A State Department spokesperson told The Hill on Wednesday that reports of Stinger missiles arriving in Taipei last week were related to a $223.56 million weapons sale initially approved in July 2019.

That weapons sale included more than 250 Stinger missiles — an anti-aircraft weapon favored for its light weight and capability to be fired from a soldier’s shoulder, which has proven to be a favored weapon for Ukrainian forces battling Russian aggression.

The English-language Taipei Times reported on May 27 that a batch of Stinger missiles arrived in Taipei from the U.S., citing a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News.

While Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said earlier this month that President Biden is expected to announce the first tranche of a $1 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan directly from Department of Defense stockpiles — and approved by Congress for 2023 — the State Department spokesperson said the Stingers that arrived in Taiwan are related to the earlier approved arms sale.

“In 2019, we notified a proposed [Foreign Military Sale] case to TECRO [Taipei Economic And Cultural Representative Office In The United States] for this system,” the spokesperson said.

“As such, this case predates authorities included in Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (TERA) as incorporated into the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act.”

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have pushed the Biden administration to find solutions to the $19 billion backlog in defense deliveries, which U.S. officials say are related to ongoing COVID-19 supply chain issues and production lines that have gone dormant.

3 dead, including child, in Russian missile attack on Ukraine China accuses US of interference with naval exercise before spy plane intercept

The U.S. and Taiwan are alarmed that Chinese aggression towards the autonomous, island-democracy — that Beijing claims as part of its territory — is a prelude to a wider conflict and are working to outfit the island with defense capabilities they say will deter a Chinese invasion.

China regularly violates Taiwanese air and naval space and has conducted live-fire military exercises around the island in response to high-profile meetings between U.S. and Taiwanese officials, such as when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited the island in August 2022 and when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in California in April.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded to the reports of the delivery of Stingers on May 26, criticizing the U.S. as interfering in China’s internal affairs, calling the weapons delivery “extremely wrong and dangerous.”

The Hill ·  May 31, 2023

22. Misfiring Cannons, Rotted Tires Among US Army Gear Pulled for Ukraine, Watchdog Finds

Not a good message to telegraph to our adversaries. We not only have to be able to fight tonight, but we have to be able to fight in 30 days too. Will our war stocks be ready in 30 days or when they are needed?

It takes a lot of time, money, and hard work to maintain our war stocks.

Misfiring Cannons, Rotted Tires Among US Army Gear Pulled for Ukraine, Watchdog Finds

It’s not the first time the unit and its contractor have been faulted for poorly maintained equipment by the service's inspector general.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

When technicians got a look at one U.S. Army howitzer set to ship to Ukraine, it wasn’t pretty. The M777 cannon, which an Army contractor was presenting for inspection, “would have killed somebody” if it were fired, the technicians said, according to a recent report by the Defense Department’s inspector general.

The investigation details numerous failures by an Army unit and a contractor that could have endangered the lives of Ukrainian or U.S. troops if the faulty equipment had been fielded. The report also exposes problems with a program designed to help soldiers deploy quickly across the world.

Nor is it the first time the inspector general faulted the Army’s 401st Army Field Support Battalion and Amentum Services: a report in June 2018 cited similar problems.

Near the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the Army requested that the 401st send all six of its M777 howitzers stored in Kuwait to Europe. The cannons were part of the Army’s prepositioned stock program, which stores vehicles and weapons abroad to speed and simplify the process of deploying units from the United States.

The commander in charge of the stores told his superiors that the M777s were not fit to be sent to Ukraine, the inspector general report said. According to the report, the contractor had skipped the quarterly and annual services for the cannons for 19 months.

In response, the Army sent out a field repair crew that found the M777s in a sorry state. Four of the six cannons had breech-blocks that could not properly lock, meaning that firing could result in misfires that would kill soldiers manning the gun. On all the cannons, old hydraulic fluid had been recycled, which threatened further malfunctions.

Even when the issues were fixed and the guns shipped to Europe, problems persisted. Staff in Europe found worn firing pins and faulty firing mechanisms that forced the Army to yet again delay the howitzers’ shipment to Ukraine.

The cannons weren’t the only problem, though.

The 401st’s logisticians in Kuwait had previously rated 28 of their 29 M1167 Humvees as fit for use. The M1167 is an up-armored version of the Army’s standard utility vehicle that carries an anti-tank missile launcher.

When the military ordered the 401st to send all 29 vehicles, though, the unit found that 26 of the vehicles were non-functional. Among the vehicle problems were dead batteries, fluid leaks, and faulty gauges.

After fixing the problems, the 401st sent the vehicles to Europe, only for the Army to find other issues. A Europe-based unit had to replace the tires on 25 of the 29 vehicles due to dry rot.

One vehicle had a tire shred due to dry rot in the middle of delivery to Ukraine’s military, according to the report. When the Europe-based unit replaced the shredded tire with the spare, the spare also failed “due to dry rot” the report said.

The vehicles should have been kept in condition such that they would be operational with little or no major repairs, a standard known as Technical Manual 10/20, the report said.

With little time to spare, one vehicle that was missing an non-essential part was eventually sent to Ukraine with a note for Ukrainian forces to request a replacement part later.

The commander of Army Materiel Command, Gen. Charles R. Hamilton, told inspector general auditors that maintenance had been funded at 30 percent of its requirement in fiscal year 2023, or $27.8 million of the $91.3 million requirement.

Both Army Material Command and the 401st disputed some of the inspector general's findings, launching yet another rebuke from the inspector general.

Army Materiel Command claimed the contractor was not contractually obligated to maintain the equipment in a state such that it was immediately ready to go. Auditors shot back that this was untrue, citing the agreement with the contractor.

Army Materiel Command and the 401st commander in charge of the Kuwait stores also said that auditors picked the wrong service manual to evaluate the rot in the tires. Again, inspector general auditors weren’t having it, noting that whatever the manual might say, the vehicles’ tires were so poorly maintained that they shredded under use.

The 401st has not sent faulty equipment since these errors arose,, thanks to increased inspections by their staff, the report said. Auditors cautioned, however, that the 401st had not written these checks into its policy, meaning that the next commander may not enforce the same inspection standards.

The contractor responsible for maintaining the supplies is Amentum Services, according to USASpending, a government-run database of federal contracts. The inspector general report did not name the contractor in its own report.

Amentum has held the contract since 2016 and will continue until January 2024, charging $947.6 million for its services so far. The company is among the largest providers of government services, employing more than 20,000 workers.

It’s not the first time the inspector general has cited 401st and Amentum for a failure to maintain equipment.

In 2018, an inspector general report found that the 401st was not ensuring that its contractor was properly maintaining prepositioned equipment. Consequently, auditors found that 314 of 433 vehicles they inspected were not on the correct maintenance schedule.

The contractor at that time was URS Federal Services, later acquired by a firm named AECOM, which in 2020 spun out Amentum as a separate business.

The chief of the land-based prepositioned stocks at Army Sustainment Command did not respond to the 2018 inspector general report.

In a bleak prediction that was eventually fulfilled, the 2018 inspector general report warned that “vehicles and equipment that are not properly maintained are less likely to be operable and combat-ready for deploying units.”

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

23. China accuses US of interference with naval exercise before spy plane intercept

Admit nothing. Deny everything, Make counteraccusations.

China accuses US of interference with naval exercise before spy plane intercept

BY JARED GANS - 06/01/23 7:34 AM ET

The Hill · · June 1, 2023

China’s defense ministry is accusing the United States of interfering with and surveilling a naval exercise in the South China Sea before an incident during which one of its fighter jets intercepted a U.S. spy plane last week.

The Southern Theatre Command of China’s military said in a statement on Wednesday that it “operated professionally” and in accordance with all laws and regulations. But the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has accused the pilot of the Chinese J-16 fighter of performing an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” while intercepting a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft.

The U.S. said the Chinese jet flew directly in front of its aircraft’s nose.

“The RC-135 was conducting safe and routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace, in accordance with international law,” the U.S. said.

Senior Col. Zhang Nandong, a spokesperson for the Southern Theatre Command, said the U.S. was making “false accusations” to try to confuse the international community, calling on the U.S. to “conscientiously restrain the actions of front-line naval and air forces, strictly abide by relevant international laws and relevant agreements, and prevent accidents at sea and in the air.”

China has claimed almost all of the South China Sea to be its own, but the U.S. does not recognize that claim.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday that the U.S. must end its “dangerous acts of provocation” that threaten China’s sovereignty and security.

“Such provocative and dangerous moves are the root cause for maritime security issues,” she said.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been on the rise in recent months as China has also condemned U.S. support for Taiwan, a self-governing democratic island that China considers to be part of its territory.

3 dead, including child, in Russian missile attack on Ukraine Climate paradox: Emission cuts could ‘unmask’ deadly face of climate change, scientists warn

China has conducted multiple military drills near the island over the past year, spurring fears that it may plan to invade Taiwan as part of a reunification effort.

China also said its defense chief has declined to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin while they are both present at a security conference in Singapore this weekend.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Hill · by Rebecca Beitsch · June 1, 2023

24. Prove It Before You Use It: Nuclear Retaliation Under Uncertainty

Some interesting and useful fictional vignettes.​

Prove It Before You Use It: Nuclear Retaliation Under Uncertainty - War on the Rocks

JOHNATHAN FALCONE, JONATHAN RODRIGUEZ CEFALU, AND MAARTEN BOS

warontherocks.com · by Johnathan Falcone · June 1, 2023

It is 2028, and the United States Space Force’s early warning radar modernization is complete. Technical Sergeant Jack Nichols works at Buckley Space Force Base operating systems that detect and assess ballistic missile threats against the United States and Canada. Since arriving at the Colorado base, Nichols has experienced his share of false alarms. However, these are no ordinary false alarms; the system Nichols watches provides early warning that the United States is under ballistic missile attack. While these existential alerts would distress most, he maintains an “old school” validation protocol: He evaluates the warning against his sensor’s input settings and raw data output, resolving any concerns.

But today, the warning that flashed across his screen was different. Recent modernization efforts introduced next-generation sensors and machine learning–powered tools to manage the increased flow of information. These purported improvements made the raw data inaccessible to Tech Sgt. Nichols. The system had identified an incoming missile, but he couldn’t help but wonder: What if this was a mistake? What if the system had been hacked or had malfunctioned? And, just as unsettling, what if the newly implemented algorithm had made a decision based on flawed or biased data?

Become a Member

To some extent, his concerns do not matter. His training dictates that he has less than two minutes to evaluate and report the warning. This expediency ensures the president maintains the option to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike before an adversary’s weapon — if a first-strike weapon is, in fact, inbound — strikes the American homeland. Nichols understood that the president’s decision to retaliate requires balancing the inherent limitations of early warning accuracy with the concern that presidential control may be lost if the warning turns out to be true. But, he wondered, could the pressure from this uncertainty be alleviated if the president could issue a delayed order?

A New Nuclear Era

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine as well as North Korea’s provocative ballistic missile testing have renewed concerns about the possibility of nuclear escalation. Meanwhile, China’s burgeoning submarine-launched deterrent capability and Iran’s rebuilding of its nuclear capability have provided additional reasons for concern.

This unease is exacerbated by the advanced offensive capabilities in cyberspace demonstrated by these same actors. U.S. adversaries, such as Russia and China, have targeted critical national infrastructure, including electrical grids and nuclear facilities. Perhaps what is most destabilizing is that these adversaries are incentivized to hide their capabilities until they are ready to be used, so the true extent of the cyber-nuclear threat is unknown.

Given this security environment, the Biden administration continues the push to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent. This modernization effort includes investing in the capacity and hardening of the nuclear command, control, and communications architecture. Furthermore, it potentially entails the integration of machine learning systems and other emerging technologies — despite objections from experts writing in these virtual pages — as outlined in the Nuclear Posture Review.

However, as the hypothetical vignette in our introduction illustrates, modernizing equipment and systems may not be enough to achieve the administration’s goals of “non-use and to reduce the risk of a nuclear war.” President Biden — and any future U.S. leader — still retains the “launch-under-attack” option. In this approach, when early warning sensor data indicates a “medium or high confidence” of a threat, the White House is alerted, and the president and their advisors convene. At this emergency conference, the president will be briefed their options and decide whether or not to launch nuclear weapons, even if the warning’s legitimacy is not conclusively determined.

This approach is a remnant of the Cold War. We argue it is inadequate in today’s strategic landscape, given the proliferation of nuclear weapons and cyber capabilities, as well as the technical limitations and human biases associated with the use of automated and machine learning systems. Instead, we argue that this administration should break from its predecessors and adopt a “decide-under-attack” posture. This action would shift the retaliation posture from a time-constrained decision in the fog of war to deliberate action based on evidence of an attack.

Cold War Posture Endures

In the 1970s, the United States was concerned that the Soviet Union could launch a surprise attack using thousands of land-based missiles against then-vulnerable Minuteman missiles and command and control nodes. The concern was that after this attack, the United States would be unable to retaliate with nuclear weapons. To deter this threat and maximize response options, a launch-under-attack posture was adopted in 1979. Under this posture, Minuteman missiles were required to launch within 30 minutes of receiving reliable warning that the United States was under attack. Later, in the 1980s, submarine-launched ballistic missiles were also configured to this posture.

This policy was extended even after the fall of the Soviet Union. Planners determined that an effective counterstrike required, at minimum, a five-minute launch sequence. This left the remaining 25 minutes for satellite and radar detection, operator assessment, communication to the president, and a nuclear-use decision. These time constraints encouraged successive U.S. administrations to maintain the launch-under-attack policy.

However, simulations by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have demonstrated that hundreds of silo-based Minuteman missiles would likely survive a first strike. In fact, according to recent analysis published on this platform, the United States would maintain “more warheads per retaliatory target than before the Russian strike,” weakening the primary rationale for the posture. This somewhat puzzling result is due to the survivability of U.S. silo-based missiles and the fact that there will be fewer military targets remaining, since many Russian missile silos will be empty after a first strike.

“Launch-Under-Attack” in a Complex World

A launch-under-attack posture exposes the United States to an increased risk of accidental or mistaken launch in the modern nuclear era. To be available as an option, launch-under-attack relies on accurate warning data and a viable launch capability. The follow-on corollary is that to be effective in its deterrence role, adversaries must believe that a first strike would be detected and retaliatory weapons would be employed. Underpinning these capabilities is the nuclear command, control, and communications architecture. But unlike during much of the Cold War, modernized command and control systems are more reliant on computers and thus are susceptible to cyber exploitation. This is a significant risk when combined with an outdated retaliatory option, as it impacts incentives for preemptive or retaliatory nuclear launch decision-making.

Two cyber risks are routinely discussed in policy circles. First, critical hardware and software components may be compromised in supply chains. Adversaries can introduce malware or malicious code to digital and automation components to infiltrate both networked and non-networked elements of communications systems. If U.S. nuclear systems were compromised by a supply chain attack, it could either undermine the national command authority’s confidence in its second-strike capability or, from the adversary’s perspective, reduce the risk of a retaliatory strike.

The second cyber risk is spoofing, which involves the injection of false data into key computer-mediated systems. Spoofing can take two forms in early warning systems: hiding actual inbound missiles or creating fake signals of inbound missiles. The former is more likely to originate from a nuclear peer in an effort to further compress Washington’s decision-making window by obfuscating early warning data in hopes of increasing the effectiveness of a first strike. The latter, on the other hand, is more likely to be injected by a non-peer or terrorist group aiming to manipulate global perceptions of American brinkmanship or trigger catalytic nuclear war between two or more powers.

During a crisis, cyber vulnerabilities can increase the risk of a preemptive strike or a mistaken launch. This is because cyber attacks can disrupt critical systems, which can reduce trust in early warning and second-strike capabilities. Additionally, such attacks can create confusion and make it difficult to distinguish between a genuine attack and a false alarm, potentially resulting in a mistaken launch from the side that thinks it is under nuclear attack. The launch-under-attack posture exacerbates this problem because it requires a decision to be made. Even if the president opts for nonretaliatory measures, this is still a deliberate choice amidst the prevailing uncertainty.

The rationale for this posture has also been challenged by proliferation, which has driven increased demands on technical systems. When the launch-under-attack posture was first implemented, there were only two major nuclear powers. This is not the case today. The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review recognizes both Russia and China as major nuclear powers and strategic competitors. In the absence of strategic intelligence suggesting an imminent first strike, the already short decision timeline is further compressed by the need to collate early warning system detection with ever-growing sets of radar and intelligence data. Command, control, and communications systems — particularly early warning system components — that are modernized and integrate machine learning will help alleviate some of this information-induced pressure. However, technical limitations and human biases introduce additional risks.

Fundamental to machine learning systems are the data and algorithms that train the system. Data, which is used to train algorithms, can be poisoned or biased, while the algorithms themselves may produce results of indeterminable quality. Moreover, training machine learning systems based on infrequent occurrences is challenging. In the case of implementing machine learning tools for early warning systems, the infrequency of missile launches poses a unique challenge for training these systems. And in the absence of real-world data, simulations will be used to generate the necessary data sets. Effective simulation data will rely on intelligence about adversary delivery capabilities. Inaccurate intelligence risks creating bias in the system’s training, and there may be insufficient opportunities to validate the models using real-world events.

Accurately assessing nuclear capabilities is a challenge because intelligence is fallible, and open source data reveals only so much. But these assessments and the follow-on technical challenges may be more pronounced in a scenario where the primary nuclear threat is temporarily a non-peer, like North Korea. If a machine learning system is overtrained on particular data, it can make inaccurate predictions when presented with new information. For example, if early warning systems are overtrained on data from known Russian and Chinese capabilities, the model may misclassify sensor data from a new North Korean capability. More generally, proliferation — to include both new states developing nuclear weapons and existing powers expanding capabilities — generates greater uncertainty in model outputs. This uncertainty may make it more difficult for decision-makers to assess a threat.

Compounding these technical weaknesses is an operator’s tendency to overestimate the system’s accuracy, particularly as operators are further removed from the original data. For instance, when an operator interprets radar data, they will determine whether a missile is there or not. When an algorithm performs this interpretation, it may simply output whether an attack is in progress or not. Again, because actual events are infrequent, a system will frequently and correctly evaluate “no attack,” convincing operators and decision-makers that the system is more accurate than it is. This can lead to an overconfidence dubbed automation bias, and it is especially prevalent in military settings due to training and organizational trust. The human-machine interaction at the operator level, combined with the launch-under-attack option for the president, are conducive to facilitating a positive launch decision, even without certainty of a threat.

Building Resiliency Through Policy

The Swiss cheese model of accident causation is a risk management tool used in a variety of industries. The model uses a slice of cheese to represent individual safeguards. Each safeguard has inherent weaknesses, which are portrayed by the holes in each slice. In the visual analogy, by stacking multiple slices of cheese together, the likelihood of an unwanted outcome is reduced. Ideally, enough cheese slices are stacked so that the holes do not align, and threats are thwarted.

In the U.S. nuclear architecture, multiple safeguards are stacked to prevent weaknesses in each component from aligning. However, the launch-under-attack posture creates an opportunity for system weaknesses to align by creating incentives to overly trust early warning systems, which is where the nuclear-use decision chain begins. Even as just an option, the president will face a “premium on haste in a crisis” to launch from a high confidence warning, or otherwise face the strategic and political repercussions of indecision. Thus, the posture’s mere availability paradoxically constrains the president’s decision-making process, which is informed by vulnerable machine-produced data in a time-compressed, high-stress environment.

Decide-Under-Attack in the Electronic Environment

The current retaliatory posture must consider two factors: first, the inherent and increasing vulnerability of systems that inform decision-making, and second, the fundamental importance of presidential control in U.S. nuclear policy. It is crucial for a retaliatory posture to ensure the availability of weapons and command and control from the use decision to execution.

Retired Adm. James Winnefeld, former commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, proposed an approach that better balances deterrence and safety. This posture, called “decide-under-attack,” introduces a delayed response option to reduce the time pressure inflicted by launch-under-attack.

Ultimately, an attack warning will prove to be real or false. But the president will decide whether to launch weapons or not without knowing if it is the former or latter. Among the four possible scenarios, two outcomes must be avoided. The first would be that the president fails to launch when an attack warning is real. The second would be an irretrievable retaliatory strike even though the warning is false. The cyber- and system-based vulnerabilities highlight the uncertainty inherent in the information that feeds this decision-making process. And due to the induced time constraints, a launch-under-attack posture increases the likelihood of these unwanted outcomes.

Decide-under-attack improves upon launch-under-attack by allowing the president to opt for a delayed response. This option extends the reach of command and control and reduces the pressure caused by uncertainty and time constraints. Upon receiving a warning, the president can choose to order specific or all components of the nuclear triad to execute a delayed attack. For example, the president may decide to ready the submarine- and land-launched components while keeping the long-range bombers grounded to minimize the potential for escalation if the warning proves false.

In a scenario where the president has a higher degree of confidence that the warning is real and is concerned about the survivability of the land and sea components, they may also order the strategic aircraft to take flight. Even if it is a real warning and the president becomes incapacitated (or communications are lost), weapons would be available and the command and control concept would be intact, enabling a retaliatory strike.

However, if the warning proves false, the president can cancel the strike. The risk of a premature decision is reduced because the president knows that the order could still be carried out even in the event of their death or disrupted communications. Decide-under-attack effectively addresses the risk of mistaken launch in today’s posture by pivoting the retaliation decision from time-constrained to proof-based.

Furthermore, the proposed posture serves as a deterrent to adversaries with cyber capabilities. A strategic adversary could launch a real strike and use cyber-based tactics to induce additional uncertainty. This heightened uncertainty may overwhelm the president, making it difficult to initiate a retaliatory response. Consequently, this situation may create incentives for adversaries to launch a first strike. However, if adversaries believe that a delayed retaliatory response is likely, the incentive to launch such a cyber-nuclear attack is reduced.

Other actors, namely terrorists with cyber capabilities, may try to provoke a preemptive launch by fabricating a false signal. The decide-under-attack posture addresses this by delaying the response until there is greater evidence, such as additional sensor correlation or confirmation of weapons impact. A potential weakness of this approach would be if an adversary could convincingly deliver a false signal across multiple systems to provoke a launch order and then disrupt communications. However, the time delay, combined with the availability of alternative communications methods (since the warning was false), adds layers of resilience to prevent a mistaken launch.

Moreover, this approach accounts for system and human biases that could potentially lead to actions based on a false warning, which have been the sources of near-accidental or mistaken launches. As such, the decide-under-attack option builds resiliency by expanding the decision space. That space can be used to recall an order, modify an order to achieve a proportional response, or validate the inbound weapon’s origin. This posture not only increases the credibility of Washington’s retaliatory capability but also accounts for false nuclear alarms caused by anything from equipment malfunction and algorithmic error to deliberate spoofing and human fallibility.

Conclusion

Returning to the scene at Buckley Space Force Base: Tech Sgt. Nichols stared at the warning on his console. For a moment he wondered if this was his Colonel Petrov moment, a Soviet officer credited with “saving the world” when he deliberately failed to act on an erroneous report of an incoming American strike. But unlike the dilemma facing the Soviet colonel, Nichols knew that modern nuclear brinkmanship was more complex than ever before, with many different nuclear actors and the constant threat of terrorism. And although he knew that advanced systems were imperfect, who was he to question the machine?

Fortunately, Tech Sgt. Nichols had been briefed on a new launch policy. The president had abandoned the old launch-under-attack posture for a decide-under-attack approach. This meant that before any nuclear exchange began, the retaliatory decision would give greater weight to proof than “time to impact” of an inbound threat. He was assured that he could report the notification and then take additional time to verify its origin, validity, and accuracy without fear that it would be too late to alter his original report. This renewed his confidence in the systems, both machine and human, that are responsible for the world’s safety.

Become a Member

Johnathan Falcone is an active-duty U.S. Navy officer currently serving as a chief engineer in the Littoral Combat Ship program. He was awarded the 2022 Alfred Thayer Mahan Literary Award by the Navy League of the United States and is a graduate of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and Yale University. @jdfalc1

Jonathan Rodriguez Cefalu is the founder and Chairman of Preamble, Inc., a company on a mission to provide ethical guardrails for AI systems. Jonathan holds a computer science degree, with honors, from Stanford University. He created the Snapchat Spectacles augmented reality glasses when his first startup Vergence Labs was acquired by Snap Inc. in 2014.

Michael Kneeshaw is a bioinformatics scientist and researcher with a focus on machine learning and simulations. He is currently leading the development of a wargame simulator called SIMC4, which is special-built for simulating catalytic nuclear war scenarios. The project is funded by the Preamble Windfall Foundation, a 501(c)(3).

Maarten Bos is a quantitative experimental behavioral researcher, with expertise in decision science, persuasion, and human-technology interaction. He has worked in academia and industry research laboratories, and his work has been published in journals including Science, Psychological Science, and the Review of Economic Studies. His work has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, NPR, and the New York Times. Maarten received his Ph.D. in the Netherlands and postdoc training at Harvard Business School.

All vignettes are fictitious and have been developed from open source information. The authors’ opinions are their own and do not reflect the official stance of the U.S. Navy or other (previous) affiliations.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Johnathan Falcone · June 1, 2023

​25. Claudia Rosett, who reported from Tiananmen Square, dies at 67

​Saddened to lose another friend too soon.

Claudia Rosett, who reported from Tiananmen Square, dies at 67

The Washington Post · by Harrison Smith · May 31, 2023

Claudia Rosett, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and editorial board member who chronicled Russia’s first brutal war against the Chechens, exposed corruption within the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and dodged tanks and gunfire while covering the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, died May 27 at her home in the Finger Lakes region of New York. She was 67.

The cause was cancer, said her husband, Tim Wilson.

Across a four-decade career in journalism, Ms. Rosett reported on foreign affairs and human rights issues, wrote guest essays for publications including the New York Times, Forbes and the New York Sun, and was a frequent guest on radio and television networks such as Fox News, where she accused the Biden administration last month of failing to offer an adequate response to the Russia-China partnership and recent clashes in Sudan.

Ms. Rosett believed in “free markets and free men,” as she put it, favoring the conservative economic theories of Milton Friedman (a friend of her father, who once served as dean of the University of Chicago’s business school) and the hawkish approach of officials such as John Bolton, the Republican consultant and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, whom she described as “a Gulliver dispatched to Lilliput, a truth-teller in a den of diplomats.”

She appeared to toggle seamlessly between journalism’s news and opinion sides, writing editorials in between stints as a reporter. After joining the Journal in 1984 as a book reviews editor, she moved to Hong Kong in 1986 to become editorial page editor of the paper’s Asia edition, then went to Moscow in 1993 to work as a reporter and eventually a bureau chief. She was a member of the Journal’s editorial board for five years before leaving in 2002 to work as a freelance writer.

“She possessed the essential qualities of the best journalists: enormous curiosity, strong listening skills, and a nose for a good story,” Jack David and Melanie Kirkpatrick, a former editorial board colleague at the Journal, said in a tribute for the Hudson Institute think tank, where Ms. Rosett was an adjunct fellow.

During her years in Russia, Ms. Rosett traveled to Grozny, the Chechen capital, to report on the Kalashnikov-wielding rebels fighting for independence from Moscow. She also took a clandestine tour of a remote labor camp that was part of what she described as “one of the most sordid, and profitable, joint ventures in Russia today: a state-to-state deal between Moscow and Pyongyang under which some 15,000 North Koreans, tended by North Korean guards, log the vast birch and pine forests of southeastern Siberia.”

“It is practically slave labor,” a security officer told her.

As a freelance reporter in the early 2000s, Ms. Rosett spent years investigating the oil-for-food program, a multibillion-dollar U.N. initiative that allowed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to sell oil on the world market — where it otherwise faced economic sanctions — so long as the proceeds were used for humanitarian staples.

The program “evolved into a bonanza of jobs and commercial clout,” she wrote in a 2003 essay for the Times, lamenting that the secrecy surrounding its transactions served as “an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling.”

Ms. Rosett reported on alleged payoffs and conflicts of interest and chronicled the investigation into U.N. officials such as Benon V. Sevan, the program’s former executive director, who was indicted by a U.S. federal prosecutor in 2007 for taking about $160,000 in bribes. (By then, Sevan was in his native Cyprus, outside the reach of prosecutors who sought his extradition. His lawyer called the charges “baseless.”)

Her reporting gained national attention, with Times columnist William Safire likening her investigation to Inspector Javert’s tireless pursuit of Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables.”

Yet Ms. Rosett remained perhaps best known for her coverage of Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989, when she traveled from Hong Kong to Beijing to interview student protesters about their campaign for democracy and economic reform. Ms. Rosett, who was working for the Journal’s editorial pages, remained at the scene as the government cracked down on journalists and declared martial law.

On the morning of June 4, troops backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled through Tiananmen Square, killing and arresting activists while violently suppressing the protests. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to several thousand.

Ms. Rosett was among the last journalists to leave the square, according to John Pomfret, who covered the protests for the Associated Press and became a China bureau chief for The Washington Post. She returned to her hotel room to file a 2,500-word dispatch about the confrontation, beginning with a vivid account of a clash between soldiers and demonstrators at “a burning bus barricade,” where demonstrators wielded “bricks and bottles, their only weapons against the guns of their country’s own army.”

“With this slaughter,” she wrote, “China’s communist government has uncloaked itself before the world.”

Ms. Rosett went on to detail the determination of the student leaders who refused to leave the Monument to the People’s Heroes, a towering monolith at the center of the square, despite being surrounded on three sides by thousands of armed troops. She also took note of a soldier’s corpse, a brutal symbol of a people’s fury, that had been stripped and spat on by civilians.

“No doubt when the Chinese government has finished dealing with its people, the tidy square will be presented again as a suitable site for tourists, visiting dignitaries and the Chinese public to come honor the heroes of China’s glorious revolution,” she concluded. “It will be important then to remember the heroes of 1989, the people who cried out so many times these past six weeks, ‘Tell the world what we want. Tell the truth about China.’ ”

Ms. Rosett received an Overseas Press Club citation for excellence for her coverage of the massacre. She continued to write about the confrontation on anniversaries of June 4, calling on the Chinese government to recognize and honor the demonstration, which remains one of the country’s most censored and polarizing topics.

“During Tiananmen, she was absolutely fearless,” Pomfret said in an email. “And, when the rest of the world sought to forget, she reminded us about it because it was — and remains — a key turning point in China’s recent history.”

The oldest of five children, Claudia Anne Rosett was born May 29, 1955, and spent her early years in New Haven, Conn., where her father was studying for a doctorate in economics at Yale University. His teaching and administrative work took the family overseas to Taiwan and the Netherlands — “When you are eight years old and in a Dutch school, you learn Dutch very quickly,” Ms. Rosett recalled — and also to Rochester, N.Y., where she graduated from high school.

Ms. Rosett inherited a love of poetry from her mother, a homemaker, and went on to study English literature in college and graduate school. She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale in 1976, a master’s from Columbia University in 1979 and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1981.

For a time, she freelanced in Chile, reporting on the Augusto Pinochet regime’s experiment with free-market economics. She also contributed to the Journal, landing a full-time job at the newspaper after she reviewed “The Butter Battle Book,” Dr. Seuss’s 1984 picture book about the follies of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction.

Like the book itself, her review was written in rhyme: “The fable is cute, but it wears a bit thin / For those coming over the wall in Berlin.”

Ms. Rosett left the Journal around the same time as her mentor, Robert L. Bartley, the Pulitzer-winning editor of the newspaper’s editorial page. She later became a journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a foreign policy fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative think tank.

In 2006, she married Wilson, a retired British army officer and former oil-for-food official who had been a source for her reporting.

Two earlier marriages ended in divorce. In addition to her husband, survivors include two brothers and two sisters.

Ms. Rosett was a cultural omnivore, reciting John Keats verses in between discussions of the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” or Chicago-school economics. Interviewed by the Collegian, the student newspaper of Hillsdale College, she advised students to “read the eclectic, crazy stuff,” including mysteries, thrillers and especially “poetry, whether you like it or not.”

“Keep your powder dry,” she added, offering one more lesson from a life spent chasing stories. “And don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions.”

The Washington Post · by Harrison Smith · May 31, 2023

​

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