Quotes of the day:

“There is no good in anything until it is finished.”

- Genghis Khan

"The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people."

- Walt Whitman

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me." 

- Ayn Rand

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 22, 2023

2. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Visits Indo-Pacific Region

3. A Former U.S. Green Beret Says Ukraine Is His Generation's 'Most Righteous War'

4. Russia says it downed 3 drones outside Moscow, suspects it was attack by Ukraine

5. The Forgotten Element of Strategy

6. Nimitz Reports ‘Very Professional’ Interactions Despite US-Chinese Tensions

7. getting it right – military education

8. How Putin and Xi resurrected America

9. Nukes, helos and amphibs: House authorizers pass their $874B policy bill 58-1

10. Don’t Kill CAPE

11. Identifying – and Fixing – the Real Reason Military Equipment Sales to Our Allies Are Lagging So Badly

12.  Jihadi Blowback: The Wagner Group’s Hidden Downside

13. U.S., India cement partnership with slew of new defense deals

14.  Taiwan military aid granted by once-reluctant appropriators

15. House defense bill adds special Ukraine IG, Taiwan cyber cooperation

16. Chinese Firm Sent Large Shipments of Gunpowder to Russian Munitions Factory

17. The Depths of Our Diplomacy With China

18. We Need a Germ Theory for the Internet

19. NATO's Article 5 does not override Congress's war powers

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 22, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-22-2023

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly made gains on June 22.
• Senior Kremlin officials continue to publicly address the Ukrainian counteroffensive in a cohesive manner and acknowledge Ukrainian forces will conduct further operations, while continuing to inflate Russian successes.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) will form a “reserve army” by the end of June, form a new army corps, and reinforce key Western Military District (WMD) formations as part of intended force restructuring.
• The Russian MoD is unlikely to fully formalize Russian volunteer formations by its stated July 1 deadline.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). A Russian-created radiological incident at the ZNPP remains unlikely but not impossible.
• Ukrainian forces may be intensifying efforts to strike Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in southern Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Western partners have different expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive and stated that Ukrainian forces will perform operations as Ukraine sees fit independent of pressure from another country.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks near the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Kreminna.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks near Bakhmut.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces continued offensive operations on the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces are transferring GRU Spetsnaz units to Kursk and Bryansk oblasts to fight Russian partisans.
• Russian sources claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested a group of saboteurs in occupied Melitopol that allegedly planned the assassination of unnamed Zaporizhia Oblast occupation officials and sabotage against railroads.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 22, 2023

Jun 22, 2023 - Press ISW

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 22, 2023

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, and Mason Clark

June 22, 2023, 7:20pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:30pm ET on June 22. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the June 23 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly made gains on June 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Kreminna area in Luhansk Oblast, in western Zaporizhia Oblast, and on the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts.[1] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces in the Kreminna area achieved partial successes and consolidated themselves in new positions.[2] Ukrainian Tavrisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Valeriy Shershen reported that Ukrainian forces advanced up to one kilometer in western Zaporizhia Oblast and on the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts.[3] Shershen added that these Ukrainian advances were tactical measures aimed at improving Ukrainian positions along the front.[4] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces also conducted unsuccessful offensive operations along the Avdiivka–Donetsk City front.[5] Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated on June 21 that Ukrainian forces have liberated eight settlements and over 113 square kilometers of territory since starting counteroffensive operations on June 4.[6]

Senior Kremlin officials continue to publicly address the Ukrainian counteroffensive in a cohesive manner and acknowledge Ukrainian forces will conduct further operations, while continuing to inflate Russian successes. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed at a Russian Security Council meeting on June 22 that Ukrainian forces are regrouping and restaffing to prepare for further offensive operations in a single unspecified direction after “suffering significant losses.”[7] Shoigu claimed that both Russian and Ukrainian forces are preparing for further offensive operations. Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev claimed that Russian forces destroyed a heavily exaggerated amount of Ukrainian military equipment, including Western-provided equipment. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that his reporting on Ukrainian gains differs from official reports because Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov lie and exaggerate.[8] Prigozhin claimed on June 13 that Ukrainian forces have likely liberated over 100 square kilometers since the start of the counteroffensive, in stark contrast to the Russian MoD’s continual denial of Ukrainian territorial gains.[9]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) will form a “reserve army” by the end of June, form a new army corps, and reinforce key Western Military District (WMD) formations as part of intended force restructuring. Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia is forming reserves for an unnamed army corps and an unspecified “reserve army” and adding five regiments to the 1st Guard Tank Army and the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army — both part of the WMD.[10] Shoigu noted that the five regiments are already 60 percent staffed and equipped as of June 22. Shoigu’s announcement likely confirms ISW’s previous reports that the Russian military command is forming the 25th Combined Arms Army with recruits from the Russian Far East and is establishing the 40th Army Corps as part of the Southern Military District (SMD).[11] The 20th Combined Arms Army is based on the northeast Ukrainian border and the 1st Guards Tank Army was (prior to February 2022) Russia’s highest quality army, making these formations the logical first recipients of new regiments. Shoigu previously outlined Russian efforts to conduct large-scale military reforms between 2023 and 2026 to optimize Russian Armed Forces for large-scale conventional warfare and expand Russian conventional forces on January 17, though as ISW assessed at the time Russia will struggle to fully staff and equip these large formations using existing force-generation processes.[12]

The Russian MoD likely seeks to mitigate this force-generation challenge at least in part with volunteer formations.[13] Shoigu claimed that Russia recruited 114,000 servicemen for contract service and 52,000 volunteers — noting that 1,336 people sign contracts with the Russian MoD each day and that Russia can form a regiment every 24 hours. This statement is not to be taken literally though since Russian regiments typically contain over 2,000 personnel.[14] Shoigu added that Russia is not committing volunteers because “there is no urgent need” to deploy these forces to the battlefield. ISW previously observed residents of the Russian Far East receiving messages inviting men to join the 25th Combined Arms Army, indicating that the Russian MoD seeks to directly recruit volunteers to staff its formations.[15] Shoigu also ordered Russian volunteer formations on June 10 to sign military contracts with the Russian MoD by July 1, which will also formally provide additional forces to the Russian MoD for its large-scale military reforms.[16] Russia’s previous attempt to form a volunteer-based 3rd Army Corps in summer of 2022 did not establish a combat-effective force, however.[17]

The Russian MoD is unlikely to fully formalize Russian volunteer formations by its stated July 1 deadline. The Russian MoD claimed on June 22 that four additional volunteer formations signed contracts with the MoD and that more than 20 volunteer formations have done so since the MoD began the effort to have all volunteers sign contracts.[18] The MoD previously claimed on June 10 that more than 40 volunteer formations are currently active.[19] The MoD may nominally have all volunteer formations sign contracts before July 1, but the extent of actual command ties is unclear. ISW previously assessed that the MoD’s formalization efforts intend to centralize control over Russian irregular personnel and supplies to respond to Ukraine’s counteroffensive as well as restrict the influence of figures outside of the MoD.[20] It is unclear why a significant portion of volunteer formations have yet to sign contracts with the MoD, although Prigozhin’s criticism that MoD subordination could adversely impact command and control within irregular formations may be reflective of widespread concerns among these irregular Russian forces.[21] The signing of contracts is the first phase of formalizing volunteer formations, and it is unclear if the MoD will be able to quickly, or at all, establish practical and effective control once these formations are de jure subordinated to the MoD, and the scale of implementation will vary between units.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). A Russian-created radiological incident at the ZNPP remains unlikely but not impossible. Zelensky stated that the planned attack would release radiation from the ZNPP, and announced that Ukrainian officials will widely share their intelligence on the planned attack with partners and international organizations in the coming days.[22] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Kyrylo Budanov reported on June 20 that Russian forces had mined additional areas at the ZNPP, including the facility’s cooling pond.[23] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated on June 21 that its representatives have not observed any mines at the cooling pond, although it did acknowledge that Russian forces have mined areas in and around the ZNPP.[24] Russian forces would not be able to control the consequences of an intentional radiological incident at the ZNPP, which could impact their forces more than Ukrainian forces across the Kakhovka Reservoir given conditions at the time of the incident. An intentional radiological incident could also leave many areas in occupied southern Ukraine uninhabitable and ungovernable, further degrading Russia’s ability to cement its occupation of southern Ukraine, and the destruction of the power plant would be a drastic act. Russian forces may be signaling that they are preparing to sabotage the ZNPP in order to dissuade Ukrainian forces from conducting counteroffensive operations in the area. The Kremlin has routinely employed threats of nuclear escalation and warned of (largely Russian imposed) threats to the safety of the ZNPP in an attempt to pressure Ukraine to constrain its military actions and prevent further Western security assistance to Ukraine.[25] However, the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam also harmed Russian forces, and possible Russian plans to sabotage the ZNPP cannot be ruled out and should be prepared for by Ukraine and its partners.

Ukrainian forces may be intensifying efforts to strike Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported on explosions in Melitopol and Yakymivka in Zaporizhia Oblast and Chonhar in Crimea on June 22.[26] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a Storm Shadow strike on the Chonhar Bridge, along the E105 highway connecting Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast and Crimea.[27] Some Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces also struck a bridge across Lake Syvash.[28] Ukrainian forces may be intensifying their efforts to strike rear areas and vulnerable areas along GLOCs to disrupt Russian supply routes.[29] Widespread Russian milblogger outrage and concern about the strike could indicate that Russian forces may be increasingly concerned over their ability to secure GLOCs in southern Ukraine.[30]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Western partners have different expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive and stated that Ukrainian forces will perform operations as Ukraine sees fit independent of pressure from another country.[31] CNN reported on June 22 that senior US and other Western officials stated the Ukrainian counteroffensive thus far has failed to live up to expectations, but the officials acknowledged that the counteroffensive is still in the early phases and Western states remain hopeful that Ukrainian forces will make significant gains.[32] ISW continues to assesses that the slow pace of current Ukrainian counteroffensive operations is not emblematic of Ukrainian forces’ overall offensive potential and that Ukrainian forces are likely setting conditions for a future main counteroffensive effort which will take time to conduct.[33]

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly made gains on June 22.
• Senior Kremlin officials continue to publicly address the Ukrainian counteroffensive in a cohesive manner and acknowledge Ukrainian forces will conduct further operations, while continuing to inflate Russian successes.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) will form a “reserve army” by the end of June, form a new army corps, and reinforce key Western Military District (WMD) formations as part of intended force restructuring.
• The Russian MoD is unlikely to fully formalize Russian volunteer formations by its stated July 1 deadline.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). A Russian-created radiological incident at the ZNPP remains unlikely but not impossible.
• Ukrainian forces may be intensifying efforts to strike Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in southern Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Western partners have different expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive and stated that Ukrainian forces will perform operations as Ukraine sees fit independent of pressure from another country.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks near the Kupyansk-Svatove line.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Kreminna.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks near Bakhmut.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Ukrainian and Russian forces continued offensive operations on the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces are transferring GRU Spetsnaz units to Kursk and Bryansk oblasts to fight Russian partisans.
• Russian sources claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested a group of saboteurs in occupied Melitopol that allegedly planned the assassination of unnamed Zaporizhia Oblast occupation officials and sabotage against railroads.

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 and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks on the Kupyansk-Svatove line on June 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk).[34] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukranian sabotage and reconnaissance groups operating near Synkivka and Novoselivske (16km northwest of Svatove).[35] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continue to attack in the Kupyansk direction and are clearing forest areas as they advance toward Holubivka (5km north of Kupyansk) and Synkivka .[36]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Kreminna on June 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Bilohorivka-Dibrova direction (within 10km south of Kreminna), achieved partial success, and consolidated new lines.[37] Ukrainian military officials reported heavy fighting northwest of Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna), near the Serebrianske forest area (11km south of Kreminna), and north of Hryhorivka (10km south of Kreminna).[38] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russia‘s “Center” Group of Forces repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Kuzmyne (3km southwest of Kreminna) and in the Serebrianske forest area.[39] The Russian MoD also claimed that Russian forces stopped three Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups near Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna), Dibrova, and in the Serebrianske forest.[40] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are continuing to launch counteroffensive operations despite unsuccessful attacks in the past three days.[41] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed Ukrainian forces attempted and failed to advance from Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna) to Shypylivka (9km south of Kreminna).[42] The milblogger also claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces back into the Serebrianske forest area southeast of Kuzmyne and claimed that fierce battles continue near Yampolivka.[43]

Russian forces continued to counterattack Ukrainian positions near Kreminna amidst ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensives. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Dibrova, Bilohorivka, and Serebrianka.[44] Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of the Russian 76th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Division captured a Ukrainian position in the Kreminna direction.[45] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian VDV forces advanced deeper into the Serebrianske forest area after two days of fighting.[46] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have made “some progress” near Spirne.[47] A Ukrainian source shared graphic footage that indicates Ukrainian forces repelled attacks by Russian Storm-Z, 80th Guards Tank Regiment, and Akhmat forces in the Serebrianske forest.[48] Geolocated footage published on June 20 indicates Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian T-80 tank west of Chervonopopivka (6km northwest of Kreminna).[49]

A Russian source claimed that Russian forces are unable to resume full-scale offensive operations south of Kreminna due to lack of reserves on the Luhansk frontline. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian units are struggling to build on their successes due the lack of “consolidation groups,” which forces Russian assault groups to defend positions until reserve forces arrive instead of continuing their advances.[50] The milblogger claimed that Russian forces aim to create a buffer zone around Kreminna, reach the northern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, and seize Bilohorivka on the opposite bank — which Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted in spring–early summer of 2022 and suffered devastating losses.[51] The milblogger acknowledged that Russian forces have been trying and failing to reach Bilohorivka for several months.[52] The milblogger claimed that if Russian VDV forces break through from the north while another group of Russian forces simultaneously advances from Lysychansk (21km southeast of Kreminna), then Russian forces will likely restart full-fledged hostilities in the area and would reduce the intensity of hostilities in the Soledar direction (northeast of Bakhmut).[53] Russian forces previously failed to cross the Siverskyi Donets River north of Bilohorivka in May 2022 and are highly unlikely to imminently successfully cross the river in the same area during ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensives.[54]

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks near Bakhmut on June 22. Geolocated footage published on June 21 shows that Ukrainian forces recently made limited advances near Ozaryanivka (14km southwest of Bakhmut).[55] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), and Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[56] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported that the intensity of fighting has decreased in the Bakhmut area due to recent Russian force rotations.[57] Cherevaty stated that Russian airborne forces (VDV) and motorized rifle elements operate cautiously after seeing the degradation of the Wagner Group during the Battle of Bakhmut. Footage published on June 21 and 22 purportedly shows elements of the 137th Guards VDV Regiment (106th Guards VDV Division, Western Military District) and the “Prizrak” Battalion (a Luhansk People’s Republic formation) operating near Bakhmut.[58]

Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi published footage showing Ukrainian forces conducting a HIMARS strike in the Bakhmut direction.[59] Geolocated footage published on June 22 indicates that Ukrainian forces struck Russian forces south of Kodema (13km southeast of Bakhmut).[60]

Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on June 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka, Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka), Pobieda (4km southwest of Marinka), and Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka).[61] Ukrainian Tavrisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Valeriy Shershen reported that Russian assaults are the most intense near Avdiivka and Marinka.[62] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that elements of the 20th Guards Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) advanced near Novomykhailivka, increasing Chechen “Akhmat” Spetsnaz units’ ability to maneuver in the area.[63] Footage posted on June 22 purportedly shows elements of the 1st Slavic Brigade (1st Donetsk People‘s Republic Army Corps) operating near Sieverne.[64] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Sieverne and Pervomaiske.[65]

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

Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack in western Donetsk Oblast on June 22. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground attack near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[66]

Ukrainian and Russian forces continued offensive operations on the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts on June 22. Ukrainian Tavrisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Valeriy Shershen indicated that Ukrainian forces advanced up to one kilometer in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border area and in western Donetsk Oblast.[67] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces had partial successes on the Rivnopil-Staromayorske line (up to 8km south of Velyka Novosilka).[68] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces attempted to recapture lost territory near Makarivka (5km south of Velyka Novosilka).[69] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian ground attacks near Novodonetske (11km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) and Makarivka.[70] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Urozhaine (10km south of Velyka Novosilka).[71]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on June 22. The Russian MoD and other Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks on the Novodanylivka-Robotyne line (up to 12km south of Orikhiv).[72] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked near Pyatykhatky (23km southwest of Orikhiv) and that control of the settlement has changed multiple times.[73] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces control half of Pyatykhatky, and other Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced near Zherebyanky immediately southwest of Pyatykhatky.[74] Another Russian source claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces to positions north of Zherebyanky and that Russian forces established positions in nearby areas.[75] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks in the direction of Pyatykhatky.[76] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked southeast of Orikhiv near Verbove (19km southeast), and a Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances near Novofedorivka (18km southeast).[77] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group near Dorozhnyanka (6km south of Hulyaipole).[78]

A Russian milblogger claimed on June 22 that Ukrainian forces attempted a limited raid against islands in the Dnipro River delta southwest of Kherson City.[79] The source claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group near Hola Prystan (9km south of Kherson City). Other Russian milbloggers claimed on June 21 that Ukrainian forces did not attempt to land near Hola Prystan.[80] The milbloggers also claimed that the Russian 80th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (14th Army Corps, Northern Fleet) is defending near Hola Prystan.

The Russian Navy is reportedly attempting to camouflage some of its missile carrying warships against possible Ukrainian strikes. Naval News reported on June 22 that Russian forces applied a new camouflage to the Admiral Essen Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate, which is capable of carrying up to eight Kaliber cruise missiles, to hide the vessel from Ukrainian drone operators.[81] It is unclear how successful this camouflage is at hiding the vessel from Ukrainian strikes, however.

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

Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces are transferring GRU Spetsnaz units to Kursk and Bryansk oblasts to fight Russian partisans. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on June 22 that Russian forces transferred 50 GRU servicemen to Tyotkino, Kursk Oblast and Suzemivka, Bryansk Oblast.[82] The Resistance Center also reported that Russian Special Operations Forces (SSO) and the GRU are competing for responsibility in border regions.[83] Elements of the Chechen “Zapad Akhmat” Special Forces Battalion recently arrived at the Nekhoteevka and Kozinka border checkpoints in Belgorod Oblast to defend against limited border raids by all-Russian pro-Ukrainian groups.[84] These Chechen elements reportedly occupy rear defensive positions in the area, and regular Russian formations in the area reportedly view these Chechen deployments as public relations measures for Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov.[85] Russian special forces formations may be competing for involvement in border protection operations in an effort to avoid deployment to more attritional frontal lines in Ukraine and preserve their forces.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Aleksandr Fomin stated that four Russian volunteer formations signed contracts with the MoD on June 22, namely the “Chechen Republic” Battalion, the “Alexander Nevsky” Detachment, the “Kutuzov” Brigade, and the “Suvorov” Division.[86] These volunteer formations will reportedly operate under a unified command of Russian Special Operations Forces (SSO), according to the new contracts.[87]

The Wagner Group is reportedly recruiting former Russian law enforcement personnel to form Wagner military police units in occupied Ukrainian territories. Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported that a Wagner recruiter claimed that Wagner military police units will have the authority to detain Russian volunteer and regular formation service members.[88]

Russian state space corporation Roscosmos continues efforts to recruit personnel for the “Uran” volunteer battalion. The Financial Times reported on June 20 that Roscosmos and other state-owned subsidiaries in the aerospace sector are recruiting their employees to join the “Uran” battalion.[89] The Financial Times noted that Roscosmos’ lack of public acknowledgement of the effort is likely aimed at preventing any further western sanctions against the company. ISW previously assessed the possible recruitment of highly educated and likely limited specialists in the Russian aerospace field suggests that Russian officials may be prioritizing immediate force-generation requirements over long-term human capital needs.[90]

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

Russian sources claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested a group of saboteurs in occupied Melitopol that allegedly planned the assassination of unnamed Zaporizhia Oblast occupation officials and sabotage against railroads.[91]

Russian federal subjects continue to assume patronage over select districts throughout occupied Ukraine. Zaporizhia Oblast Occupation Head Yevgeny Balitsky met with Penza Oblast Governor Oleg Melnichenko on June 22 to discuss the restoration of infrastructure facilities in Polohy and Tokmak raions in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast under the patronage of the Penza Oblast administration.[92]

A Russian independent outlet claimed that Russian businessmen affiliated with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Russian deputy theater commander in Ukraine Army General Sergei Surovikin are profiting by looting the remains of Mariupol factories. The outlet claimed that Russian businessmen exported at least $1.5 million worth of sheet steel, coal, raw material, and other Ukrainian property from warehouses in Mariupol.[93]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks).

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

A Belarusian independent outlet reported on June 22 that a likely Russian Mi-24 helicopter crashed in Baranovichi Raion, Brest Oblast.[94] The Belarusian Ministry of Defense claimed that a Mi-24 helicopter of unspecified ownership made a “hard landing” in Baranovichi Raion, however.[95]

Satellite imagery obtained on June 19 indicates that unknown construction work is ongoing on the northeastern part of the 1405th Artillery Ammunition Base near Osipovichy, Belarus since March–April 2023.[96]

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. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Visits Indo-Pacific Region

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Visits Indo-Pacific Region

defense.gov

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Immediate Release

June 21, 2023 |×

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Pentagon Spokesperson Lisa Lawrence provided the following readout:

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Christopher P. Maier, visited South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia from June 12-17, 2023.

On June 12, Assistant Secretary Maier participated in the United States Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR) change of command where Maj. Gen. Michael Martin relinquished command to Brig. Gen. Derek Lipson. The Assistant Secretary met with Joint Service special operations personnel to understand their role in extended deterrence in the Korean Peninsula and the region. In addition, he met with service members stationed at Camp Humphreys to discuss Preservation of the Force and Family (POTFF) programs and to hear firsthand how to better support the needs of servicemembers and their families serving at SOCKOR.

In the Philippines, Assistant Secretary Maier observed a U.S.-led training exercise for members of the Philippines Coast Guard in Palawan. He also conducted key leader engagements with senior Navy and Coast Guard officials from Western Command and the regional office of the National Coast Watch Center to discuss challenges and opportunities within their areas of responsibility. In Manila, Assistant Secretary Maier met with U.S. special operations (SOF) personnel supporting the Philippines' territorial defense initiatives. He also held discussions with defense officials in the Philippines' Department of National Defense on opportunities to build upon an already strong foundation of SOF cooperation, particularly in support of maritime operations.

In Australia, Assistant Secretary Maier conducted bilateral meetings with officials from Australian Department of Defence to discuss outcomes of their recent Defense Strategic Review and implications for combined efforts to address gray zone challenges in the region and increase U.S.-Australia special operations integration. In addition, Assistant Secretary Maier participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute focused on U.S. and Australian special operations partnership supporting deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. He rounded out the trip participating in a discussion with Australian Special Operations Command leadership on further integration of joint and combined special operations planning and activities. Finally, Assistant Secretary Maier attended the Last Post Ceremony at the Australia War Memorial, laying a wreath in honor of fallen Australian servicemen and women and in recognition of shared sacrifices as our nations have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for more than a century.

3. A Former U.S. Green Beret Says Ukraine Is His Generation's 'Most Righteous War'

Excerpt:

It's a totally different war than anything I've experienced before…. My worst day in Iraq or Afghanistan, the worst possible day when we felt like things were totally out of control, doesn't even compare to a normal day here. I think there's a lot of lessons that need to be learned that aren't being learned [by] Western militaries.

A Former U.S. Green Beret Says Ukraine Is His Generation's 'Most Righteous War'

rferl.org · by Vazha Tavberidze · June 21, 2023

David Bramlette is a former U.S. Army Ranger and Green Beret who commanded a team in Ukraine's Foreign Legion for 10 months last year. He currently works for the Romulus T. Weatherman Foundation, an NGO that leads operations in Ukraine to identify, recover, and repatriate Americans killed in action.

In an interview from Kyiv recently with RFE/RL Georgian Service's Vazha Tavberidze, Bramlette said the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a classic case of "good versus evil," gives high marks to the Ukrainian military but isn't impressed with their Russian counterparts, and chides the West for overrating Russian forces. Bramlette also likes the chances of the Ukrainian military as it is now beginning a long-anticipated counteroffensive, explaining that Ukraine's fighting capabilities are on an upward trajectory while Russia's military is heading in the opposite direction.

RFE/RL: As an Army Ranger, you fought in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Apparently, that wasn't enough. You came back to fight more, to fight for Ukraine. Why do you think this war is your war?

David Bramlette: First off, I think this is probably the most righteous war that my generation will see. In my mind, this is good versus evil. I was sitting in grad school at Johns Hopkins [University] in my last semester, and we were talking about whether Russia would invade conventionally. And, I'll be honest, I didn't think they're going to do it. I didn't think they could be that dumb, honestly, and they did. I served in Ranger Regiment and Special Forces Group and, you know, 10th Special Forces Group and special forces more generally, our motto is De Oppreso Liber, which stands for: to free the oppressed. So, you know, what a Green Beret does, essentially, is to enable a partner force to resist an invasion or to overthrow a corrupt, authoritarian government, essentially.

The Tavberidze Interviews

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vazha Tavberidze of RFE/RL's Georgian Service has been interviewing diplomats, military experts, and academics who hold a wide spectrum of opinions about the war's course, causes, and effects. To read all of his interviews, click here.

When this kicked off, I was like, I have the knowledge, I have the skills, I have the ability to help. I basically took a leave of absence from school and came on over. It's a totally different war than anything I've experienced before…. My worst day in Iraq or Afghanistan, the worst possible day when we felt like things were totally out of control, doesn't even compare to a normal day here. I think there's a lot of lessons that need to be learned that aren't being learned [by] Western militaries.

RFE/RL: What are some of the major takeaways that need to be learned from this war?

Bramlette: Green Berets, more generally, especially special operations leaders, officers, they need to become very, very comfortable with being uncomfortable and not having communications with the guys who are out in the field. That's because of direction finding, EW (electronic warfare), etc., etc. From March until October [2022], when I would send a four-man reconnaissance element out, I wouldn't know that they were OK until I could pretty much throw a rock and hit them.

RFE/RL: So, you need to rely on decision-making of your men on basically every level.

Bramlette: Yeah. The American military has a very hard time with that. It's become a very difficult issue with empowering junior NCOs (noncommissioned officers) and even junior officers to certain respects. They need to learn to trust their guys. And part of that comes with focusing on the basics of just basic soldiering.

I went down to Fort Bragg (recently renamed Fort Liberty) and talked to the officers going through the Green Beret course. And the things I harped on the most were basics, basics, basics. I asked all of them, "When's the last time any of you dug a fighting position? Went out in the woods and dug a fighting position?" None of them raised their hands. They've never done it. "When was the last time you went out in the woods and did a squad attack?" -- which is a battle drill that is one of those things that should just happen automatically. Years ago, probably if they went through ranger school, if they went through ranger school.

So, those are some of the lessons. I think there are a lot of hang-ups, leftovers from the global war on terror, where everybody wants to be a cool guy, seek up-close quarters battle kind of stuff, because it's fun and it's cool. But you're not going to do that out here [in Ukraine]. I mean, if you go into a building when there's artillery and tanks around, you're pretty likely to get blown up. And there are a lot of really hard lessons. I think Ukrainians have learned those lessons now, but I think at the beginning of the war there were a lot of hard lessons like that they learned.

RFE/RL: Ukrainians have learned those lessons through sheer practice. Every now and then, when I interview Western commanders, one line that I hear is that they say Ukraine today has one of the most powerful, well-trained, and effective armies in the world. Considering you fought alongside them for 10 months, what do you think?

Bramlette: I wouldn't say that's a fair assessment. That sounds like a talking point that somebody wrote up and they're repeating. It's more complicated than that, because, you know, you have professional Ukrainian Army units, who had been working together, serving together since 2015, served out in the Donbas together, and then you have units that are new brigades that are newly formed full of volunteers.

So you have a huge discrepancy in the level of experience and training, essentially. But I stopped combat operations December 1, [2022]. So, I don't have a window in terms of what result all that Western training that's been going has had. I can promise you it is a huge, huge help. And that's something that's kind of hard to quantify and measure, but I guarantee you, the guys who are doing that training are seeing massive improvements.

RFE/RL: How would you personally rate the effectiveness of the Ukrainian military?

Bramlette: I would say they are pretty damn effective. You don't have to be super proficient to be effective, right? Let's take the Kraken detachment (a Ukrainian special forces unit), for example. We worked with them in the spring, at the time, not super proficient, but they were effective. And that's what matters, you know, and I'm sure those guys have become more proficient over time.

I would say what makes Ukrainians so effective on the battlefield is that they're so motivated. You know, these guys are retaking the towns they grew up in, they're retaking homes that they grew up in, where they had their first kiss. Imagine if you were in their shoes. I think you would be pretty motivated even if it's very dangerous. Their level of acceptable risk is much higher. And it should be, it's appropriate.

RFE/RL: I think it would be unfair if we left out the Russians you fought against for 10 months. How effective are they?

Bramlette: Most of the time we were based out of Kharkiv. and up until the counteroffensive in September [2022] we were mostly facing [fighters from] LPR, DPR (Russia-backed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions) and then the big Russian military unit we were facing was the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, coming out of the Kola Peninsula (where it is based). The 200th, the Russian unit, got really banged up. There's a bunch of public reporting on the unit, but they were basically decimated in the initial days of the invasion and then they continued to be decimated over and over again.

I can only talk about my [own experience], but from what I saw they are not proficient at all. I still think we overestimate the capabilities of the Russian military, especially in the West.

RFE/RL: Even after all this big myth-busting that the Russian Army, in fact, is not the second-most powerful army in the world, we still overestimate the Russians?

Bramlette: Yeah, I think so. Honestly, because if you look at the trajectory of the Russian military, it's either flat, or it's going down, because they're taking so many casualties and they've also decimated all of their cadres who train soldiers. In a Russian unit, you have basically a lot of line units, and then you have a training battalion essentially, who are like the cadre, they're the most experienced guys and those cadre, those experienced guys, have also been sent to the front and sent to the meat grinder.

Not only have you lost your most experienced fighting units, but you've also lost the people who are supposed to be training the fighting units. And so, the trajectory is down and the Ukrainian trajectory is shooting up. I mean, we're seriously talking about F-16 [fighter jets] now, they might get [those] next.

RFE/RL: You were there when Ukraine launched its counteroffensive last year. What do you expect the current one to achieve?

Bramlette: I'm bullish on Ukraine, obviously. I think Ukraine will achieve a lot. I'm not going to speculate on…their counteroffensive or how they're going to do it. But from what I've seen of the Russians, and from what I've seen of the Ukrainians, I think it's going to go really well….

When I was talking about trajectories, I think Russia is flat or going worse. If they're getting worse, then it's in Ukraine's interest to wait until the perfect moment, even if it's flat. It's in their interest to wait until the perfect moment to attack. I think that shows a high degree of professionalism. The general staff or whoever's doing it, [Valeriy] Zaluzhniy (commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces) and so on, are pretty good at what they do, I think.

RFE/RL: Speaking of Western military assistance, what do you think Ukraine needs to make this counteroffensive a success?

Bramlette: As [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy told Congress, they need more of everything…. We've not given them enough tanks to accomplish the mission. I think what the U.S. has been banking on is that Ukraine can do more with less. We have this combined-arms ideology that, if you can effectively use tanks, artillery, air support, infantry support, and use them all together, you kind of have this synergistic effect, right.

That's all well and good. But you have to keep in mind that the Ukrainian military has gone from 196,000 people in uniform pre-February 24, 2022, to 700,000 people in uniform. That's not counting all the guys who are in reserve. If we look at the number of Ukrainians who have been trained by Western militaries, it needs to be way more. I would say tanks and artillery are the biggest things and long-range missiles -- and props to the Brits for taking the lead on that. France needs to step up to the plate and deliver those missiles as soon as possible. Then there is the TAURUS [air-launched cruise] missile from Germany.

Prior to HIMARS (light multiple-rocket launchers) showing up last year, we were taking artillery and mortar fire all the time and a lot of it in close. HIMARS started showing up, and over the course of that month, I would say, we noticed like a 50 percent decrease in the amount of artillery being fired at us because the Russian supply depots were getting blown out; they were getting targeted.

When you introduce a longer-range missile, you're pushing those supply hubs back and this is important: You're increasing the survivability of the Ukrainian units, especially the newly formed brigades, who don't have a ton of training. You're increasing the survivability of those guys who are right up against the Russian lines.

No masterful stroke from the [Ukrainian] General Staff or Zaluzhniy is going to win this war. It's literally going to be the grunts in the field carrying the AK (Russian-made automatic weapon) and just banging up against trenches, banging up against fortified positions…. I mean, that is the Ukrainian soldier, and that's who is going to win the war. If [we can do] whatever we can do to increase the survivability of those guys, I think it's going to end this war way quicker.

RFE/RL: In your first answer, you said, "This is the most righteous war I have ever fought." You've fought in two other wars; why do you think of them as less righteous?

Bramlette: Iraq and Afghanistan, I have sort of bittersweet or mixed feelings about, because they were also some of the best times in my life. But, you know, I did not agree with the way we went about those wars. Especially Afghanistan. I was a Green Beret and that [war] would have been a perfect operation for purely Green Berets, with just close air support. When you start introducing conventional armed military forces, the U.S. Army, Marines, whatever, they don't have the…. If you take a kid who's 18 years old and you put a rifle in his hand and send them through basic training, and then expect him to go and do counterinsurgency, he does not have the maturity to handle that. So that's why I have mixed feelings about it.

I'm very passionate about freeing the oppressed. That's what the Green Berets do. I think it would have been a prime opportunity for Green Berets to take control of that. Iraq…the fact that I don't have a good answer for you, this should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about it. And compared to Ukraine. Ukraine is a European country that has a democratically elected government.

I'm sitting in Kyiv right now, and it's like being in New York City or Washington, D.C., or just a regular American city, you know. It's righteous because when Russia invaded, it felt like, August, September 1939, like if we don't stop this thing here, it could get way worse. Because if you look at it in hindsight, if you look at the trajectory of what Russia has done since the fall of the Soviet Union, I mean, you have Transdniester (Moldovan pro-Moscow breakaway region), you have Chechnya, you have Georgia, you have 2014's Crimea and Donbas, the dawning of MH17 (the 2014 shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine). You have all the polonium and Novichok poisonings, you have Czech ammo depots blowing up like they're out of control. I compare them to a rabid dog. If we don't -- if you look at that trajectory -- if we don't stop them here, the next stop on that trajectory is a NATO country.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

• 
  
• Vazha Tavberidze is a staff writer with RFE/RL's Georgian Service. As a journalist and political analyst, he has covered issues of international security, post-Soviet conflicts, and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations. His writing has been published in various Georgian and international media outlets, including The Times, The Spectator, The Daily Beast, and IWPR.
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rferl.org · by Vazha Tavberidze · June 21, 2023

4. Russia says it downed 3 drones outside Moscow, suspects it was attack by Ukraine

Actual attack? False flag? Or just disinformation?

Russia says it downed 3 drones outside Moscow, suspects it was attack by Ukraine

AP · by The Associated Press · June 21, 2023

Two drones were brought down outside Moscow as they approached the warehouses of a local military unit, Russian authorities said Wednesday, in what could be the latest attempt by Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia during the early stages of Kyiv’s most recent counteroffensive.

At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the Ukrainian forces were regrouping after what he described as a failed counteroffensive and could be readying new attempts to attack Russian positions.

The two drones came down near the village of Lukino, administratively part of the city of Moscow, Russian media reported. The wreckage of a third drone was reportedly found about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away. No damage or casualties were reported.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it was “an unsuccessful attempt at a terrorist attack” by “the Kyiv regime” on its facilities in the Moscow region, adding in a statement that all three drones were brought down by electronic jamming.

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Ukraine, which doesn’t usually confirm attacks on Russian soil, made no immediate comment. Previously, Ukrainian officials have emphasized the country’s right to strike any target in response to Russia’s invasion and war that started in February 2022.

Last month, two drone attacks jolted the Russian capital, in what appeared to be Kyiv’s deepest and most daring strikes into Russia. The first one, on May 3, targeted the Kremlin itself but the Russian authorities announced the devices were shot down before they could do any damage. The second one, on May 30, brought the war home to Muscovites, although the actual damage was minimal.

At the time of the attack on the Kremlin, Putin said Moscow’s air defense “worked in a satisfactory way,” but added it was “clear what we need to do to plug the gaps” in the system.

Other drones have reportedly flown deep into Russia multiple times. Since February, when a UJ-22 crashed 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly approached the Russian capital.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, confirming Wednesday’s drone attack, said only that “the means of combatting drones did their job.”

Meanwhile, train traffic was briefly disrupted on the Crimean Peninsula on Wednesday, according to its Russian-installed governor, Sergei Aksyonov.

Aksyonov didn’t say what caused the disruption, but some Russian media outlets reported that the rail lines were blown up overnight in apparent sabotage operations. A few hours later, the authorities said the service was restored. Rail lines through Crimea are crucial for supplying Russian forces at the front line in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considers illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his country aims to reclaim the peninsula in a counteroffensive that began in recent weeks.

In response to Ukraine’s military threat using advanced weapons supplied by Western allies, Russia has in recent weeks expended “significant effort” on assembling “elaborate” defensive lines on the approaches to Crimea, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry.

For the Kremlin, ensuring control of Crimea is “a top political priority,” the ministry said in a tweet Wednesday. There is “intense fighting” in parts of southern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces are testing Russian defenses, it added.

Putin claimed there had been a recent lull in the fighting in Ukraine, claiming that Kyiv’s forces were regrouping after suffering heavy losses. He warned in an interview with Russian state television, however, that “their offensive capability hasn’t been exhausted yet, they have reserves and the enemy is considering where and how to use them.”

As analysts cautioned the war could go on for years, Putin said that more Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, fitted to some Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, will be deployed and that the new Sarmat ICBM, code-named Satan by NATO allies, is set to enter service soon. The Russian military will also add more drones, he told military academy graduates.

Also Wednesday, European Union countries agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia over the war, including measures aimed at preventing third countries and businesses from circumventing existing sanctions. For example, they would restrict the export of sensitive technological goods to third countries who could then transfer them to Russia.

Also, Ukraine’s allies pledged several billion dollars in non-military aid to rebuild its war-ravaged infrastructure, fight corruption and help pave the country’s road to membership of the European Union. Diplomats and political leaders at a Ukraine Recovery Conference in London urged private-sector companies to invest and revive an economy battered by the war.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by The Associated Press · June 21, 2023

5. The Forgotten Element of Strategy

Jagger/Richerds: 

​"​Yeah, time is on my side, yes it is

Time is on my side, yes it is​"]

​Pink Floyd:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

​Chambers Brothers:

Time has come today

Young hearts can go their way

Can't put it off another day

I don't care what others say

They say we don't listen anyway

Time has come today​

​On a more serious note– 

Conclusion:

​If we remain naive or willfully ignorant about the role that time plays in success, the promises of our political leaders will remain merely performative.

But we need more than performative promises. The major technological and geopolitical challenges we face demand that the United States act faster. Advances in quantum technologies will render obsolete entire communication networks that depend on encryption. Precision-guided weapons and autonomous systems like drones have made American bases around the world vulnerable. The ability to shift supply chains to improve U.S. resilience and reduce our vulnerabilities depends on the ability of the United States to build mining and manufacturing facilities more quickly.

To meet its needs at home, and protect our interests around the world, Washington needs to deliver on time.

The Forgotten Element of Strategy

Without incorporating time into our calculations, we will always be too late. 

By Nadia Schadlow

The Atlantic · by Nadia Schadlow · June 22, 2023

The United States is at risk of paralysis.

Time and time again, in one sector after another, we articulate strategies and set objectives, but we usually fall short, because we’ve failed to take into account the crucial element of time. Tasks we once accomplished swiftly now drag on for years. Problems we once resolved efficiently now prove interminable. Without incorporating time into our strategic calculations, we will always be too late.

I saw this firsthand while I worked at the White House. In 2017, as deputy national security adviser for strategy, I helped write the U.S. National Security Strategy. I knew that actually implementing the initiatives it detailed would be harder than writing it. Presidential executive orders and White House strategies are merely aspirational until they are linked to budgets, and until tasks are assigned to the organizations that must implement them. But even that is not enough. The NSS outlines priorities, but it does not specify when they must be achieved or provide a mechanism to track how long they are taking. The result is a problem that plagues Democratic and Republican administrations alike, as their initiatives aren’t executed swiftly enough to accomplish what they are intended to achieve. Examples abound:

American leaders consistently emphasize the need to reduce dependence on China for crucial minerals, and although we have abundant domestic resources, it still takes well over a decade, on average, to open a new mine in the United States.

Eric Schmidt and Robert O. Work: How to stop the next world war

Top military leaders lament that we have lost the art of moving fast and that unless we accelerate required changes, we won’t be prepared to deter and win wars. China is acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States. As we continue to provide Ukraine with ammunition and other military equipment, we struggle with replenishing our stockpiles of arms and munitions. For some weapons systems, replenishment will take at least five years, just to restore stocks that were already inadequate to sustain a major conflict. This is particularly problematic, because the United States might run out of certain munitions in less than a week should conflict with China erupt over Taiwan.

We desperately need more ships, but maintenance delays for naval vessels result in, as one retired admiral put it, “the equivalent of losing half an aircraft carrier and three submarines each year.” Those numbers continue to move in the wrong direction. And many of our weapons systems depend on software upgrades; any delays can render them obsolescent.

The problems are not limited to national security. Climate change has been deemed an existential threat for decades, but we have made little progress in mitigating the effects of global warming. It is hard to reconcile an existential threat with glacial progress. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services struggles to process immigrants in a timely fashion, even with staffing increases and technological improvements. Similarly, U.S. officials have complained about the lack of qualified STEM workers for years, without succeeding in addressing the problem.

The United States finds itself unable to get important things done at what military leaders have called the “speed of relevance.” New technology is disrupting existing political, economic, and regulatory architectures faster than they can be rebuilt, exposing a growing gap between the promises of leaders and their ability to deliver. This gap between promises and outcome creates cynicism at home and abroad. Americans are skeptical that government can adapt and reform, given the speed of technological change. Internationally, friends and allies are questioning U.S. competence. Our rivals, in turn, register our inability to deliver, weakening deterrence.

Time wasn’t always a problem as the Pentagon itself proves. The construction of what is still by far the largest office building on Earth took just 16 months. The construction supervisor, Leslie Groves, was known as “the biggest S.O.B around,” a man who “had the guts to make difficult decisions,” as one subordinate later recalled. He demanded decisions in 24 hours or less, or an explanation. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s scientific adviser Vannevar Bush said that nothing should stand in the way of a program to build an atomic bomb “at the maximum speed possible.” The resulting Manhattan Project, directed by Groves, took about three years.

Later, President John F. Kennedy’s Apollo program put humans on the moon within a decade, spinning off thousands of new innovations, such as integrated circuits and solar panels. It required building a pair of major facilities—the Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center—each within a few years. In the 1950s, the Air Force fielded six new fighters from five different manufacturers in only five years, and during the early years of the Cold War, generations of ICBMs came and went within a decade. The revolutionary Minuteman missile was conceived in the late ’50s and deployed in the early ’60s.

Read: Your smart toasted can’t hold a candle to the Apollo computer

In the diplomatic realm, the Marshall Plan was announced in 1948, and within three years, it had provided nearly $15 billion to rebuild Western Europe. Inspired by his World War II experiences—having seen the “superlative system of the German autobahn”—President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation funding the U.S. interstate highway system in June 1956, and within 10 years, it was substantially completed.

These successes shared a common absence. Sprawling bureaucracies and stifling regulations had not yet materialized. The Defense Department could act quickly to buy the tens of thousands of microchips from Texas Instruments that it needed for the Minuteman missile. In the fall of 1962, the Air Force started looking for a new computer to guide the Minuteman II, and by the end of 1964 it had found one and test-fired the first missile.

Consistency in funding was crucial too. For instance, the overall cost of the Apollo space program actually declined as work shifted from research and development into production and operations. The program had the money it needed when it needed it, and the funding was sustained for years.

Moreover, in many of these cases, individuals were given the power to make decisions and to build strong teams quickly. The Marshall Plan’s administrator, Paul Hoffman, could hire qualified experts within weeks, recruiting the best from government, academia, and industry to staff each mission area. The Marshall Plan was a “business plan to be carried out by businessmen,” as one media executive put it. The Apollo program assembled young engineers and scientists with similar speed. Today, most of these hiring practices would be illegal.

We can no longer live off the accomplishments of past generations. To compete in today’s world, and to protect American interests, we must take time into account.

Calls for bureaucratic reform are nothing new. The Defense Department alone, for instance, has seen well over 150 efforts to upgrade acquisition systems, speed up processes, and buy what it needs when it’s needed. Empowering leaders to take greater risks can speed up processes. And experts have long warned of the dangers of compliance cultures that cripple organizations, as individuals spend more time checking boxes than actually getting results.

Such reform efforts will continue. Some may even succeed. But there is an additional approach that we might pursue: incorporating time as a foundational element of strategy.

In practical policy terms, this would mean including time as an input into policy promises and initiatives, just as we do other factors, such as funding and personnel. Given the abundance and granularity of data today, and the availability of new analytical tools such as large language models, this input is possible in a way that it was not in the past.

Alec Ross: The Pentagon’s army of nerds

What we might call time-sensitive strategies have several benefits. They force policy makers to account for time, which in turn helps them define objectives realistically. These strategies could impose a sense of discipline too—like the Gantt charts of the early 1900s, which helped managers track the time required for each stage of a complicated process. Policy makers would need to account not just for what needs to be done, but also for when it needs to be done.

Time-sensitive strategies would also force greater transparency. Americans deserve to know whether a promise can be fulfilled tomorrow, or whether it will likely take many years. This could in turn reduce cynicism and might appeal to the best of Americans’ desire to improve and innovate and fix things, allowing them to ask why certain tasks take so long and advocate for improvements.

And finally, such strategies might reveal flawed assumptions, and drive decision makers toward more creative approaches. If leaders are forced to ask why things are taking so long, they in turn will identify persistent regulatory, legislative, and funding obstacles, and explain how they will be removed or overcome. Often, we need new ideas less than new ways of accomplishing long-standing goals.

If we remain naive or willfully ignorant about the role that time plays in success, the promises of our political leaders will remain merely performative.

But we need more than performative promises. The major technological and geopolitical challenges we face demand that the United States act faster. Advances in quantum technologies will render obsolete entire communication networks that depend on encryption. Precision-guided weapons and autonomous systems like drones have made American bases around the world vulnerable. The ability to shift supply chains to improve U.S. resilience and reduce our vulnerabilities depends on the ability of the United States to build mining and manufacturing facilities more quickly.

To meet its needs at home, and protect our interests around the world, Washington needs to deliver on time.

The Atlantic · by Nadia Schadlow · June 22, 2023

6. Nimitz Reports ‘Very Professional’ Interactions Despite US-Chinese Tensions

How are we supposed to interpret this? Good news, THe PLAN suddenly maturing and growing up? An attempt to reduce tensions?

Nimitz Reports ‘Very Professional’ Interactions Despite US-Chinese Tensions

Even as Beijing rejects a mil-to-mil hotline, a carrier’s Pacific deployment sees no untoward run-ins.

​

BY JENNIFER HLAD

NEWS EDITOR, DEFENSE ONE

JUNE 22, 2023 01:20 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

Aircraft from Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG) and Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (MKI ARG) fly in formation past the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) U.S. Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Carson Croom

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Threats

Even as Beijing rejects a mil-to-mil hotline, a carrier’s Pacific deployment sees no untoward run-ins.

|

June 22, 2023 01:20 PM ET

• Navy
• China
• Asia-Pacific

By Jennifer Hlad

News Editor, Defense One

June 22, 2023 01:20 PM ET

• Navy
• China
• Asia-Pacific

ABOARD THE USS NIMITZ—Recent close calls between Chinese and American ships and aircraft have underscored the tension between the Chinese and U.S. military, but not all interactions between the two militaries are unsafe or unprofessional.

The USS Nimitz, now on its way home to Bremerton, Washington, had “several” interactions with Chinese military aircraft and ships during its seven-month deployment to the western Pacific. But every one was “very polite and very professional,” the aircraft carrier’s commander, Capt. Craig Sicola, told journalists. “I would say that probably some of the most professional interactions I’ve had in my 29 years [in the Navy] are with them.”

Sicola said he anticipated more tension because of the strained relationship between the two countries. But, he said, the Chinese “reached out, and their scripts are very professional, just like we’ve arranged.”

Sicola’s comments came as U.S. leaders work to restore military-to-military communications with China, despite repeated refusals from Beijing. “It is absolutely vital that we have these kinds of communications,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China this week.

China stopped regular communication with the U.S. military in August, following a visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Recent incidents—including the USS Chung-Hoon being cut off by a Chinese military vessel in the Taiwan Strait—have highlighted the need for a closer connection. The Chung-Hoon is part of the Nimitz strike group, but the aircraft carrier was not nearby when the ships nearly collided.

The Nimitz participated in several exercises with other countries during the deployment, including one with the Japanese and South Korean militaries. “To see those two countries come together with us, that is a testament to the stability that we have, the economic stability in this region is extremely important for everyone,” Sicola said.

While people generally see an aircraft carrier and focus on its fighter jets, bombs, and missiles, Sicola said he tells his crew that their “No. 1 mission is peace and diplomacy.”

“I don’t want to fight. I’ve spent a whole career fighting,” he said. “If we come back from this deployment and nothing unprofessional or unsafe happened, and nobody shot at anybody, this is the biggest win you could ask for.”

Rear Adm. Jennifer Couture, who took command of the Nimitz strike group a few days after the Chung-Hoon close call, said the deployment’s purpose was “to just deter those who might prevent us from taking advantage of the freedom of navigation, to deter aggression, for the benefit of all people.”

Navy and Pentagon leaders have “made it clear” that the Indo-Pacific “is a place where there’s competition: competition for resources, and competition for dominance,” she said. “For us, sailing around the waters of this area, far from home, demonstrates our commitment to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows—for all nations, not just America.”

7. getting it right – military education

A long time mentor of mine from the National War College, Dr. Cynthia Watson.

I loved my time at NWC both as a student and as a member of the military faculty.

getting it right

military education

CYNTHIA WATSON

JUN 23, 2023

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AMB James Smith will discuss current trends at work in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, 19 July between 5-6 pm Eastern. The link is below. As I discussed earlier this week, AMB Smith has held an array of interesting national security positions and, as President Obama’s representative to the Kingdom, interacted frequently with the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. I recommend this session highly.

I spent today at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. for two meetings. The first was at the National War College where graduation a fortnight ago today put 209 or so folks, schooled in strategic thinking, into the national security communities around the world to help their nations develop and execute strategies. Obviously, the United States values our gradautes to include those students from allied and partnering nations with whom we expect to share activities, views, and strategies in the future. No students were in the building today as the Class of 2024 will report on 7 August, merely 8 weeks after their predecessors marked across the stage to get their graduate degrees and shake General Mark Milley’s hand.

It takes a lot of preparation to execute the curriculum at the War College or any of the joint professional military education (JPME) establishments around the world. It is a rigourous preparation sequence because so many evaluations provide feedback on what military education needs to accomplish. JPME schools in the United States also face the dual requirements of the civilian accreditors (in National’s case, that is the Middle States Commission on Higher Education which oversees the schools from the District and beyond to the north) and the Joint Education and Doctrine Directorate of the Joint Staff, known colloquially as the J-7.

Military education is something the United States values greatly as we entrust our officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted personnel with great responsibility. We have back to Thomas Jefferson commissioning the U.S. Military Academy at West Point developed a series of schools with rather specific objectives but also broad inculcation of values on behalf of the nation. Joint Professional Military Education is for officers.

Contrary to the myths of the Vietnam era when many mischaracterisations occurred, those in uniform in the United States are anything but ‘knuckle-draggers’. They have a wide variety of political views but teach take an oath to the Constitution of the United States as do any federal employees at all. Easily the most serious students I experienced in six different academic settings (my learning and teaching post-secondary institutions here and in the United Kingdom) were in JPME because these people both defend the nation and lead others in harm’s way. All have undergraduate degrees, most already have masters’ degrees (often multiple degrees) and terminal degrees are not uncommon.

No one in uniform takes on that weighty obligation without seriousness of purpose. Indeed, the oath officers swear upon receiving their commissions or promotions to a higher rank includes the sentence ‘I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion’ to remind the individual this is a voluntary act the individual chooses to accept. Education helps with that seriousness, requiring a payback period upon completing the degree so the taxpayer is not merely educating someone who then leaves for something else. This JPME is to sow logic and thinking into the Force.

Military education is both necessary for a more prepared officer (and service) and also an incentive for retention. Today’s military indeed finds retention a challenge as the contrasting demands and opportunities of twenty-first century life disincentivises a military career to many.

The education is a fascinating balancing act for any institution because the increasing demands on officers’ time go beyond learning objectives. The higher anyone goes in rank, the more each needs leadership appreciation, knowledge of their particular expertise within the Service, the role the Service contributes to the Force, the linkages across the Joint Force, broader understanding of specific topics relevant to contemporary political-military events, grasp of national documents such as the National Defense or National Security Strategies, and other aspects of their military careers. Additionally, the J-7 determines specific requirements they must meet such as warfighting; some of those specifics appear in U.S. law while other objectives appear in the Officer Professional Military Education Policy (less than affectionately called the OPMEP) issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on a regular basis. The Chairman assigns each JPME institution specific learning objectives for a graduate to know when she or he assume specific jobs designated as Joint positions. On-the-job training doesn’t work well during conflict so this opportunity is essential. Without holding one of those Joint positions at some juncture in her career, an officer cannot achieve Flag or General Officer rank.

Then the education the JPME schools offer is also put into the learning experience. JPME today is a 10 month opportunity rather than a two year master’s program. The intensity of the program becomes a back breaker for many students in their initial weeks as they find the move from 16-18 hour days in their operational jobs into the classroom far harder than they expect because the seminar experience allows no one to hide or be unprepared.

Faculty revise the curriculum annually, with learning objectives revalidated regularly, but occasionally the real world encourages (or forces) change on the fly. Even with those changes, meeting the range of required objectives to satisfy the civilian and military accreditors is an on-going process.

Traditional civilian universities generally have at least 12 weeks, often more, between the end of the spring term and convocation in the fall, allowing faculty the opportunity to research to their heart’s content and revise their curricula in a somewhat leisurely manner. The federal employees who teach in the JPME system must accomplish those activities in a shorter period along with mandatory faculty programs to help bring new faculty into the system annually.

It’s no wonder the hallways were quiet in Roosevelt today but a mere three weeks from now that will not be the case as newbie faculty arrive on about 10 July. At that point, the entire cycle begins anew for the next year.

It’s seductive to assume this is all proforma but the U.S. JPME system remains the gold standard around the world. Whatever one thinks of various decisions our political leaders take on our behalf, it’s a remarkable education we offer our officers to think logically, coherently, and creatively to execute the missions they receive. I only wish the policy makers took as much time to understand all of the steps as the JPME students get the opportunity do absorb.FIN

The entire oath for an officer is

"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the _____ (Military Branch) of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." retrieved from military.com at https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/swearing-in-for-military-service.html

8. How Putin and Xi resurrected America

Conclusion:

Neither Biden’s gaffes nor Trump’s tantrums can change the realities created by Putin and Xi’s bellicosity; America’s European and Asian alliances have rarely been so empowered. Indeed, the only consequence of America’s disarray at home is that the US cannot start wars to pursue fanciful aims, such as bringing democracy to Iraq or progress to Afghanistan. And that is just as well.

How Putin and Xi resurrected America

Domestic disarray has created a myth of decline

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · June 22, 2023

Future historians will struggle to explain the recent dramatic rise of America’s global power. Faced with a long list of irreconcilable differences at home, and two consecutive presidents whose distinguishing characteristic is the intensity of the opposition they provoke, this century is so often painted as one of US decline.

But the blatant contradiction between disarray at home and increased power abroad has a simple explanation: the greater part of American power does not derive from what the US itself, let alone individual presidents, are able to do, but from the cooperation and support it receives from friendly countries around the world. US power depends on the magnitude and the cohesion of its alliances — and the latter can change very quickly.

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This, of course, is key. Years of talk in Europe of replacing the “increasingly outdated” US-directed Nato alliance with an alternative centred in the European Union ended abruptly last February when the Russians attempted to seize Kyiv in a day and Ukraine in a week. Had they succeeded, as both Russian and US intelligence had predicted (it was the always-wrong CIA that prompted Biden’s offer to evacuate Zelenskyy), Nato would have collapsed.

Yet because the Ukrainian guards fought off elite Russian paratroopers at the Antonov airfield, inaugurating fierce resistance across the entire front, and because the US and UK immediately reacted by promising military aid, a seemingly moribund Nato was suddenly resurrected.

Without waiting for discussions or agreements, some countries simply acted: Norway airlifted 2,000 LAW anti-tank weapons, which are point-and-shoot rockets, neither new nor advanced — but just the thing to fire at Russian armour flooding into the country. And its example was followed by Denmark, Canada and then others, while far more advanced missiles arrived very quickly from the US and the UK, inaugurating a flow of weapons from most Nato countries that still continues.

Seeing all this, Sweden’s government abandoned its long-cherished stance of neutrality to apply for Nato membership, while Finland, which shares a very long border with Russia, felt confident enough to sign up as well. Russian threats were met with ridicule: “We already have 50,000 Russians buried in our country from the last war… but we have room for many more.”

The United States thus suddenly found itself leading a thoroughly revived and expanded Western alliance the power of which has reach into North Africa and the Middle East. All of which greatly added to the sum total of American power, even if Biden sometimes stumbles and his Vice President sometimes laughs at the wrong time.

But the war in Ukraine is far from the only boost. In fact, now that Russia is declining in several ways, what has added to global American power is the emergence of a vast, if informal, Indo-Pacific de facto alliance to contain China.

Today, there is no equivalent of the “multilateral” North Atlantic Treaty that formally links the US and Canada to European states; nor is there a second Nato-style structure of multinational commands staffed by thousands of officers. Instead, in response to the threat from China, there are “joint activities”, ranging from constant diplomatic coordination and intelligence exchanges to an entire panoply of air, land and naval exercises that bring together American, Australian, Indian and Japanese forces, with lesser participations by Canada, Chile, France, the Philippines, South Korea, the UK and Vietnam.

Vietnam’s involvement is particularly revealing — and not only because it regularly hosts US and Japanese naval vessels and submarines where it most hurts Beijing: very close to the major Chinese submarine base on the island of Hainan. On paper, Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party has warm, indeed “fraternal”, relations with the Chinese Communist Party. In practice, however, the Chinese are constantly trying to dislodge the Vietnamese from their islands in the Gulf of Tonkin, and neither side forgets for a minute their bloody wars, both ancient and modern, including the 1979 conflict in which some 30,000 Chinese soldiers died. As a result, Vietnam, which started sharing intelligence with Australia many years ago, and has received much help from the Indian navy with its submarines, is now cooperating at sea with the US and Japan, receiving retired naval vessels from both.

As for India, whose armed forces have been steadily advancing in competence, it was not American diplomacy that overcame its long-standing “non-alignment” — but a very long series of Chinese territorial seizures, from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the east, some of which resulted in armed confrontations. For decades, whenever the two countries’ leaders met, Beijing only wanted to discuss the splendid opportunities for profitable economic cooperation and for vast joint infrastructure projects, brushing aside the border disputes as very minor matters that could be resolved by low-ranking officials. Then, in the subsequent months and years, while the grand economic projects were never actually implemented, Chinese border troops would creep forward to seize more territory.

This Chinese gambit worked beautifully until June 2020, when skirmishes at the high-altitude Himalayan border in Ladakh resulted in a number of casualties. When the Chinese stuck to its playbook again this year, India’s Foreign Minister rebuffed them decisively.

Why did the Chinese keep pushing India until it was forced into an informal but powerful alliance with the United States? The only possible explanation is that China’s rulers are too absorbed in invisible but constant intra-party intrigues and too distracted by everyday matters to acquire any serious understanding of the outside world. The result is that foreign nations are reduced to caricatures, with the Indians written off as dirty and weak.

China’s behaviour with India is certainly consistent with its equally irrational territorial claims elsewhere. Japan, for instance, has long been a very close US ally, but for a brief interval in 2010 when a new party came to power that gave in to neutralist temptations. Yet that ended abruptly on 7 September, 2010, when a Chinese fishing trawler with a reportedly drunk skipper collided with two Japanese patrol boats off the coast of the disputed Senkaku islands.

Instead of apologising, or at least ignoring what happened, China’s foreign ministry issued imperious demands for the immediate return of the captain and furious denunciations that incited mob attacks against Japanese offices and even visiting Japanese tourists — culminating in a series of incidents that seemed perfectly designed to rekindle Tokyo’s loyalty to Washington. Since then, Japan has built up its armed forces and, starting with prime minister Abe from 2012, it has re-emerged as an active ally of the US. Meanwhile, with Australia both now more pro-American and more interested in rebuilding its neglected armed forces, the US has capable allies across the Indo-Pacific that magnify its power — a principle reason why Xi’s threats to invade Taiwan have simmered down.

Neither Biden’s gaffes nor Trump’s tantrums can change the realities created by Putin and Xi’s bellicosity; America’s European and Asian alliances have rarely been so empowered. Indeed, the only consequence of America’s disarray at home is that the US cannot start wars to pursue fanciful aims, such as bringing democracy to Iraq or progress to Afghanistan. And that is just as well.

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · June 22, 2023

9. Nukes, helos and amphibs: House authorizers pass their $874B policy bill 58-1

Nukes, helos and amphibs: House authorizers pass their $874B policy bill 58-1 - Breaking Defense

With a GOP-controlled House and a Democrat-controlled Senate, nothing in the bill is final until the last minute conference negotiations are completed, but here are the key issues to watch.

By JUSTIN KATZ, ASHLEY ROQUE and JASPREET GILL

on June 22, 2023 at 12:47 PM

breakingdefense.com · by Justin Katz, Ashley Roque, Jaspreet Gill · June 22, 2023

House lawmakers in their annual policy legislation moved to force the creation of a low-yield nuclear cruise missile that would be fired from US Navy submarines. (US Navy)

WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee overnight advanced its annual defense policy bill with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote that includes several potential major Pentagon policy shifts, such as the establishment of a program of record for a low-yield nuclear cruise missile.

The final vote of 58-1 took place in the early hours of today, following lengthy debates about social issues ranging from critical race theory to drag shows on military installations. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., was the only lawmaker to vote in the negative. The bill recommends an $874.2 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2024, which aligns with the budget deal the White House made with congressional leaders in May. (Although the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 approved a defense spending cap of $886 billion, the House Armed Services Committee lacks the jurisdiction to approve roughly $12 billion in funding controlled by other committees.)

While the bill’s passage out of committee is a significant step towards the president’s desk, the legislation — and all of its provisions — must now survive a debate on the House floor as well as reconciliation with the Senate’s counterpart bill before being signed into law.

Separately, the Senate Armed Services Committee, House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committees are all advancing their own pieces of defense legislation this week which are expected to be completed or unveiled in the coming weeks.

That’s a wrap on House Armed Services Committe’s markup of the #FY24NDAA. The committee approves the bill in a 58-1 blowout.

(Dem Ro Khanna is the only member voting against the bill.) pic.twitter.com/YLD9Mmn8B0

— Connor O'Brien (@connorobrienNH) June 22, 2023

New House, New Life For A New Nuclear Weapon

With the House now in GOP control for the first time since 2018, Republicans, led by Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn were able to approve a provision that directs the Pentagon to establish a program of record for a low-yield nuclear cruise missile. Experimentation for such a weapon has effectively been on life support since the White House last year expressed opposition to its development, citing fears it would increase the possibility of nuclear-armed conflict.

Advocates of the weapon, called SLCM-N, say America’s adversaries will develop similar munitions regardless of the White House’s policy concerns and the United States must be prepared. Those advocates include the country’s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, who has told lawmakers the weapon, despite the administration’s opposition, provides “options” in case of an emergency situation.

“I will say that to you though, as members of Congress who have oversight responsibilities, my position on SLCM-N has not changed,” Milley said in April 2022. “My general view is that this president or any president deserves to have multiple options to deal with national security situations.”

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., attempted to modify Lamborn’s amendment with language that would allow the Pentagon to scrap the SLCM-N program of record if the Navy, which would be the weapon’s primary user, found integrating it would harm the submarine fleet’s ability to conduct “conventional missions.” The committee voted down Courtney’s perfecting amendment.

Ships, Helos, Munitions: The Bread and Butter of The Defense Bill

The committee on a bipartisan basis approved a provision that would assist the Navy in paying for an additional San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock. While congressional authorizers have shown overwhelming support for that ship, which the White House did not request, House appropriators have thus far not included it in their defense spending bill, meaning it’s not yet clear whether the Pentagon will ultimately begin buying the ship next year.

Pararescuemen assigned to the 57th Rescue Squadron perform dynamic hoist training with an HH-60G Pave Hawk in Romania. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Noah Sudolcan)

The committee approved a provision that would prevent the Air Force from using money to shut down, or prepare to shut down, Sikorsky’s HH-60 production line. As part of its fiscal 2024 budget request, the service wanted to stick to plans it established last year to end procurement of the helicopter, dropping an original program of record from 113 to 75.

At the same time, though, the Army’s selection of the Bell’s V-280 Valor for its multi-billion-dollar Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program, places more focus on Sikorsky’s helo production as Army leaders now have a clear vision of what will replace a sizable number of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks. However, they must also grapple with UH-60 sustainment plans and the as of yet undetermined mix of FLRAA and Black Hawks to fly in the future.

House defense authorizers this week also noted concerns about reductions in T-38 Talon sorties due to a lack of serviceable General Electric J85 turbojet engines. To better understand the issue, the committee approved a provision requiring the Air Force secretary to provide an overview of the T-38 fleet, including airworthiness and readiness rates, the strategic maintenance plan for the T-38, impacts of the T-7 program’s delays on the lifespan of the T-38 fleet, and other issues.

House lawmakers would also seek to keep the Adaptive Engine Transition Program going, after the Air Force indicated it was ditching the program for the F-35, with $588 million in authorized funds — a significantly greater amount than what House appropriators would back, based on the $150 million they offered to keep the program alive. (The HASC would also fully fund the engine core upgrade, the Pentagon’s preferred approach for modernizing the F-35’s engine.) Those legislative moves come just as engine-maker Pratt & Whitney entered into a high-profile spat with airframe maker Lockheed Martin over the engines’ future.

RELATED: Pratt blasts Lockheed’s ‘confusing and misleading’ adaptive engine advocacy (Exclusive)

Elsewhere for the Army, the full committee cited concerns about the service’s prepositioned stockpiles (APS) and, if a provision is ultimately signed into law, the service secretary is tasked with crafting a plan to improve inspections. Although the committee did not cite its specific concerns about APS, the Pentagon’s inspector general has released several damning reports about poorly maintained equipment from those stockpiles including some sent to Ukraine, and a separate report released on Tuesday digging into the problems of one particular stockpile, APS-5 in Kuwait, that could impact readiness.

Innovation Front

Looking further into the future, House lawmakers want to create a new “nontraditional innovation fielding enterprise” (NIFE) in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to “streamline coordination and minimize duplication of efforts among elements of the Department of Defense on matters relating to the development, procurement, and fielding of nontraditional capabilities.”

NIFE would be led by the director of DIU, Doug Beck, and designated leads from each military service, according to an amendment introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc. DIU would coordinate with the Joint Staff and combatant commanders to “identify operational challenges that have the potential to be addressed through the use of nontraditional capabilities, including dual-use technologies, that are being developed and financed in the commercial sector.”

Beck would also serve as the chair of the NIFE Resource Advisory Board, which would include each service-level lead, the director of the Joint Staff, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer and the director of the Office of Strategic Capital, according to the amendment. The board would meet on an annual basis to identify 10 objectives that can be supported through NIFE and fielded within three years.

In April, the Defense Department announced that DIU will now report to the secretary of defense rather than the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (USD(R&E)). Beck was also tasked with providing the secretary of defense an assessment of its capabilities and what milestones DIU plans to hit.

House lawmakers on the cyber, information technology and innovation (CITI) subcommittee in June also proposed expanding the USD(R&E)’s role to include more oversight of commercial technologies for defense under a new role and title: undersecretary of defense for technology integration and innovation.

Now, lawmakers want the Pentagon’s comptroller to review the functions of the USD(R&E), saying the committee is concerned the office “has neither fully nor sufficiently executed the authorities granted to it under statute and in policy for managing, overseeing, and improving innovation-related investments across DOD.” According to an amendment introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), progress in innovation is lagging in key defense technology areas.

“The committee is also concerned the Department of Defense may be missing opportunities to fully collaborate science and technology efforts within and across all components for maximum efficiency and effectiveness,” according to the amendment. “The mix of investments that military components and defense agencies make in disruptive and incremental technology development remains unknown and unassessed.”

The amendment also says that “new technologies continue to get bogged down in long, linear development structured defense acquisition programs that delay their delivery to the warfighters who need them.”

The comptroller is tasked with recommending policies and statutory changes for the USD(R&E).

The formal vote on the committee’s markup comes the same day as the other three committees overseeing the Pentagon — the Senate Armed Services Committee and House and Senate Appropriations Committees — continue marking up their own respective annual defense bills — all lengthy, but necessary steps before the bills can reach President Joe Biden’s desk for a final signature.

Michael Marrow contributed to this report.

breakingdefense.com · by Justin Katz, Ashley Roque, Jaspreet Gill · June 22, 2023

10. Don’t Kill CAPE

Excerpt:

There is always room for better consultation between the Department of Defense and the congressional leaders who are charged by our Constitution with raising armies, maintaining navies, and providing for the common defense. While political stakeholders will not always agree with every recommendation that emerges from a team of diligent independent analysts, hopefully upon further reflection they will agree that having a high quality and independent analytic function is an essential ingredient for building a world-class force in today’s challenging world.

Don’t Kill CAPE

By CHRISTINE FOX, JAMIE MORIN and BOB DAIGLE

defenseone.com · by Christine Fox

Members of the Office of the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation listen to a briefing in the A-10 maintenance hangar at Warfield Air National Guard Base, Md., in 2017. U.S. Air National Guard / Airman Sarah M. McClanahan

The storied Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office is invaluable to the Pentagon. Three former directors explain why.

June 22, 2023 08:00 AM ET

• Commentary
• Pentagon
• Congress
• Defense Budget
• Acquisition

In recently introduced legislation, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has proposed to close the Defense Secretary’s team of independent analysts, the storied Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation. Along with directing the firing of the Director and her deputies, the draft legislation wipes out several laws written since 2009 that have charged the CAPE office with independent responsibilities for analyzing what sorts of major acquisition programs the military needs and what they are likely to cost.

While we are not familiar with the details of the apparent policy clash that has led to the chairman’s proposal, as former directors of the organization we do know that the disestablishment proposal is unwise and will undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of our national defense. The CAPE organization’s work is key for ensuring that resource decisions in the Department are strategy-driven, based on robust analysis, and informed by realistic cost assessments.

At a time when the national security challenges facing the Department demand joint solutions and creative responses to stiff competition from potential adversaries, CAPE provides valuable decision support to the Defense Secretary and other senior DOD leaders. In a typical year, each analyst in the office is responsible for reviewing an average of $30 billion in taxpayer funds, and develops an average of $1.5 billion in reallocation proposals for consideration by the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense along with their senior leadership team of military and civilian officials. Perhaps understandably, those who benefit from the status quo are often uncomfortable with this detailed scrutiny by a team of highly skilled and independent analysts, but it is indispensable to have a smart and effective defense in a rapidly changing world. That’s why several countries around the world have sought to create similar organizations to advise their defense leaders.

The CAPE office has played a major role in the dramatic improvements in the performance of the defense acquisition system since 2009. By improving the data and analytic tools used to perform estimates of the cost of future acquisitions, and by institutionally insisting that those estimates be fully resourced, CAPE has helped to reduce the number of failing acquisition programs (as measured by breaches of the Nunn-McCurdy Act standards) from an average of 6.25 per year in the decade before the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, or WSARA, to 2.27 per year in the 12 years since that law’s passage. Measured another way, the median growth in costs of major defense acquisition programs initiated (Milestone B approval) during the ten years before WSARA was 27 percent, while in the ten years after WSARA, cost growth dropped to only 3 percent. These improvements mean that needed capabilities are reaching the force more consistently.

Since the office’s elevation in 2009, CAPE has also become a go-to organization for congressionally directed studies, with the annual defense authorization and appropriations bills tasking as many as 25 studies per year. These continued taskings illustrate the credibility of the CAPE organization even outside the Department.

In 2021, Congress created a commission to recommend reforms to the Department of Defense’s resource allocation process. The commission (on which one of us serves) is scheduled to issue its report next March, with a focus on improvements to “enable the United States to more effectively counter near-peer competitors by adopting new technologies more effectively and integrating and implementing those technologies into the field to respond to current and future threats.” Disestablishing the CAPE would be incompatible with many of the recommendations for improved analysis that the commission has heard from stakeholders and documented in its March 2023 Status Update to Congress.

There is always room for better consultation between the Department of Defense and the congressional leaders who are charged by our Constitution with raising armies, maintaining navies, and providing for the common defense. While political stakeholders will not always agree with every recommendation that emerges from a team of diligent independent analysts, hopefully upon further reflection they will agree that having a high quality and independent analytic function is an essential ingredient for building a world-class force in today’s challenging world.

Christine Fox was the first Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation for the Department of Defense and later served as acting Deputy Secretary of Defense. Jamie Morin was the second Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation for the Department of Defense and previously served as Acting Under Secretary of the Air Force. Bob Daigle was the third Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation for the Department of Defense and previously served on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee.

11. Identifying – and Fixing – the Real Reason Military Equipment Sales to Our Allies Are Lagging So Badly

Excerpts:

The most important change, however, would be to give the defense industry a sustained demand signal—one that includes a requirement that industry plan for potential surge production.

Using DPA authorities in a limited and targeted way, awarding multi-year contracts, and paying contractors to maintain latent production capacity are all ways to overcome production shortfalls.

With rising powers like Russia and China becoming more aggressive on the world stage, the United States must quickly expand its industrial defense base to provide sufficient deterrence. Doing so will allow us to equip ourselves and our allies—keeping everyone safer as a result.

Identifying – and Fixing – the Real Reason Military Equipment Sales to Our Allies Are Lagging So Badly

By Maiya Clark & Jonathan Harman

June 23, 2023

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/06/23/identifying__and_fixing__the_real_reason_military_equipment_sales_to_our_allies_are_lagging_so_badly_942633.html?mc_cid=0783156924&mc_eid=70bf478f36

The State Department has finally moved to speed up the process to approve military equipment sales to allies. The changes made include developing a regional approach to arms transfers, prioritizing customers based on U.S. national security interests, and streamlining State’s internal processes.

The changes are laudable, but they won’t get to the root of the problem.

Providing weapons to friends and allies serves U.S. security interests. It creates more capable allies who can better defend themselves. It forges tighter relationships with our friends by creating a continuing need for spare parts and maintenance support. And it supports U.S. jobs and the economy.

Unfortunately, to complete U.S. arms sales usually takes years—time countries like Ukraine and Taiwan cannot afford. To avoid these lengthy delays, countries have started going elsewhere to obtain needed weapons. Look no further than Poland, which recently signed contracts with South Korea to buy tanks and artillery pieces. Normally, the United States would be the seller of choice for items like these.

While simplifying and expediting weapons sales is a step in the right direction, it will not resolve the core issue behind the backlog of U.S. weapons sales: an extremely limited U.S. defense industrial base capacity.

With powers like China and Russia becoming increasingly aggressive, the United States needs to find ways to speed up arms sales to its allies and partners for its own sake as well as theirs. Last December, Japan announced that it intends to increase its defense spending by 60 percent. To reach its long-term goals, Japan will need to purchase more U.S.-made weapons like Tomahawk missiles. If the U.S. is going to meet these needs, things must change.

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The State Department’s 10-point plan aims to streamline the arms sales process to ensure that all sales are approved within 48 hours. To do this, the U.S. government will take a regional approach to arms transfers and prioritize sales based on U.S. national security goals. Through this plan, the State Department hopes to reduce the delivery time to select U.S. allies by up to two years.

This is all for the good. However, streamlining the approval process is only a partial solution at best. Even after approval has been granted, it can take years for our friends and allies to get what they purchased. For example, though Taiwan contracted years ago to buy Javelin missiles, Harpoon missiles, and F-16 fighters, these arms won’t be delivered until 2026 at best.

Why such a long wait? The answer is in a slow contracting process and a woefully lacking industrial base.

Today’s defense industrial base is scaled for minimal production to equip the U.S. military for small regional operations. These production levels are insufficient to compete with China’s military expansion or keep up with munitions consumption in Ukraine.

Take 155mm artillery shells as an example: at the start of the war in Ukraine, U.S. plants could produce 15,000 155mm shells per month. Ukrainian forces use approximately 6,000-8,000 of the shells per day. The U.S. Army is planning a 500% increase in 155mm shell production to reach a max production rate of 70,000 shells per month—but getting up to this rate will take at least a year, and still only meets a fraction of Ukraine’s need.

Despite the shift in the U.S. defense strategy to focus more on rising powers like China and Russia, thus far defense companies have not been required to expand their production capacities.

Given the option, defense companies would rather produce small quantities of a given item over a long period of time, rather than ramp up production and fill orders quickly. After all, it doesn’t make business sense to invest in new factories, equipment, and employees only to shut down the facilities and lay off the employees after a few years.

This is a problem, and it’s making America less secure. Undersized production capacity keeps the U.S. from arming its allies and replenishing its own depleted munitions stockpiles. However, there are policy levers the U.S. government can use to increase defense production capacity.

One is Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA) which gives the president authority to expand defense industrial production via loans, loan guarantees and purchase commitments. It also gives the commander-in-chief authority to procure and install equipment in private industrial facilities.

The most important change, however, would be to give the defense industry a sustained demand signal—one that includes a requirement that industry plan for potential surge production.

Using DPA authorities in a limited and targeted way, awarding multi-year contracts, and paying contractors to maintain latent production capacity are all ways to overcome production shortfalls.

With rising powers like Russia and China becoming more aggressive on the world stage, the United States must quickly expand its industrial defense base to provide sufficient deterrence. Doing so will allow us to equip ourselves and our allies—keeping everyone safer as a result.

Maiya Clark is a senior research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense. Jonathan Harman is a Center intern.

12. Jihadi Blowback: The Wagner Group’s Hidden Downside

Conclusion

Although Wagner Group’s activities in Africa were initially hailed as a low-cost victory for Russia, the group’s activities may actually be fueling renewed jihadism in southern Russia and the borderlands. Wagner’s African operations are inflaming anti-Russian sentiment in the Sahel, which could come back to bite Russia, especially as the invasion of Ukraine has weakened Russian capacity elsewhere in its supposed sphere of influence, particularly the Caucasus and Central Asia. Should the proper spark set the tinder aflame, Russia could face its own wave of militant jihadism sweeping across its borders.

Some leaders in the West may prefer to encourage Russia’s descent into a jihadist backlash in service of great-power competition. Surely, Russia would be weakened by a new Sunni insurgency on its southern borders. Yet, allowing jihadism to grow unchecked in West Africa, the Caucasus, and Central Asia is too dangerous of a side effect. Instead, the proper Western response should be to discourage African governments from aligning with the Wagner Group and Russia. The organization has yet to show the ability to resolve longstanding jihadist conflict and its tendency to commit war crimes against Sunni civilians only inflames tensions. Instead, Western leaders need to encourage countries in the Sahel to pursue solutions that incorporate military and non-military elements to combat jihadism. Many civilians join such organizations because of a lack of services, infrastructure, or local government. Luckily, Western democracies are in a strong position to help build such local capacity in a way that the Russian state, with its over-militarized approach to counter-terror operations, clearly is not.

Jihadi Blowback: The Wagner Group’s Hidden Downside - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Raphael Parens · June 23, 2023

On June 15, 2023, a convoy of white soldiers hit an improvised explosive device near Keibané, Mali, killing two and wounding eleven. They brutally retaliated against local villagers, killing five, including the local village chief. Unfortunately, this kind of savagery is nothing new for many in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya, and other countries in Africa where the Wagner Group, a Russian-backed and oligarch-supported mercenary group, has taken up residence. This shadowy organization, known for fighting in Ukraine, also holds massive influence over security operations on the African continent, having ousted traditional security guarantors, like France, in Mali and the Central African Republic. Wagner, which operates outside of the Russian government in name only, pushes Russian geo-strategic interests on the continent, building security relationships and government reliance on Russia as a security guarantor.

Up to this point, the group has been a low-cost, high-upside force for the Russian government in Africa — a few trucks in the Central African Republic or a few helicopters in Mali. The group has posed some risks — in Ukraine, some will point to the growing void between Wagner Group and the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as the potential for the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin to potentially challenge Vladimir Putin for the presidency in the future. However, the group’s involvement in Africa may be creating a much bigger problem. If Wagner continues its security assistance campaign on the continent, the group could be unwittingly building the conditions for a jihadist outbreak along Russia’s southern borders and terror attacks within Russia itself. Russia already has a long history of enmity with jihadist groups, and a large base of Russian-born, radicalized Sunni fighters that could be pushed to retribution for Wagner’s human rights abuses against Muslims on the African continent. While such a grave threat to Russian stability might entice some in the West, such a development could aggravate the already-increasing worldwide threat posed by rapidly expanding Africa-based jihadism. Further, the prospects of renewed ethno-religious conflict in the Caucasus and Central Asia have wide-ranging impacts for the United States, China, and India.

Wagner and Russia’s History with Islamism

The Wagner Group is a private military company with deep ties to the Russian government and military. An organization founded and owned by Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with ties to organized crime and a long history as “Putin’s chef,” the company’s first contracts supported Russian deployments in Syria. From there, the group branched out in Africa, beginning with Libya in 2018, and moving into Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali, Mozambique, and Madagascar soon after. The group’s forces are composed of a variety of former Russian special forces and personnel from other military intelligence groups.

Become a Member

African countries employ Wagner to combat a variety of terrorist, separatist, and jihadist forces that they see as threatening state sovereignty. These non-state armed groups include several non-ideological rebel coalitions including the Coalition of Patriots for Change and Coalition Siriri in the Central African Republic; al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Islamic State affiliates in Mali; and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Islamic State affiliates in Burkina Faso. While the groups in the Central African Republic are insurgents and the groups in Mali and Burkina Faso are Sunni jihadist organizations, they share similar goals — the political overthrow of incumbents and the establishment of new governments. Their aims threaten stability and good governance in the region, particularly as national militaries have been incapable of defeating these groups on their own.

Historically, Western and U.N. forces were brought in to fight alongside each state’s national military — French forces were deployed in Mali for nearly a decade. Western interventions failed to eliminate these threats to central government stability, however, and the Russia-backed Wagner Group stepped in.

When the Wagner Group was brought into the Central African Republic and Mali, French operations were forced out — Paris saw its presence as incompatible with that of the Russian mercenaries. This changing of the guard also forced a reevaluation among the insurgents. The introduction of Wagner fighters has forced jihadist organizations in particular to reorient their propaganda and recruitment tools toward Russia, particularly as the West no longer appears to be the primary supporter of such regimes and as Russian mercenaries have begun committing a stunning streak of war crimes. This, in turn, has made Russia a prime target for terrorist attacks.

Russia has long been a historical target of jihadist enmity, albeit a lesser-known one than oft-mentioned enemies such as Israel, France, and the United States. Traditional jihadist literature tells a tale of near and far enemies — near enemies being the apostate, westernized regimes of the 1980s Arab world and far enemies being Western states and other non-Muslim governed countries. However, the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 put the state in the crosshairs of the nascent al-Qaeda movement. More recently, Islamic State leader Abubakr al Baghdadi, in his famed 2014 speech, “A Message to the Mujahidin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan,” divided the world into two camps, pitting Muslims against “Jews, Crusaders, and their allies … being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews.”

The Islamic State, in particular, has a variety of grievances with Russia, including its involvement in Syria in support of Shiite leader Bashar al Assad, relations with the Iraqi state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, historical claims against territorial agreements and claims by imperialist Russia (including the Sykes-Picot agreement), its ties with Israel and China, and its alleged role in the anti-Islamic State campaign in the Philippines. The group also maintains enmity towards Russia for campaigns the state has carried out, including anti-Islamic activities in Dagestan, the 2000s war in Chechnya, operations against Russian-based Islamic State cells, influence campaigns in Central Asia, expanding ties with the Taliban against Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and “its alleged desire to occupy Muslim lands.” The Islamic State, as a result, sees Russia as the “leader of the ‘crusader East’” — similar to its views of the ‘crusader’ West. Islamic State Khorasan Province has even praised support by “crusader governments” — Western states — for Ukraine against Russia as a sign of divine justice for campaigns by the latter against the Islamic State.

Today, Russia is also a significant source of terrorist activity in the greater Middle East and former Soviet states — and such fighters from Russia, Chechnya, and the Caucasus could turn on Russia if provoked by Russian anti-Sunni activities. Sara Brzuszkiewicz argues that thousands of fighters from Russia and the Caucasus have joined jihadist organizations in the last decade and, as of 2019, many had gone to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq: “roughly 800 in both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, between 1,500 and 3,000 in Uzbekistan, around 1,900 in Tajikistan and at least 400 in Turkmenistan.” Another source suggests that 1,700 “homegrown violent extremists” from Russia and the Northern Caucasus had joined the Islamic State of Iraq-Syria. Senior leadership of the Islamic State even reflects such jihadist inflows, including the now-deceased “minister of war” of the Islamic State Syria-Iraq, Tarkhan Batirashvili, known as “Omar the Chechen.” Islamic State Khorasan Province and Tajik Islamic State have also seen an increase in Russian-linked financial support recently, including digital donations of rubles. Further anti-Sunni activity on the African continent could turn these Russian-born fighters against the Russian government — such grievances have already pushed Islamic State Khorasan Province to attack the Russian embassy in Kabul, killing two embassy staff.

Russia’s intervention in Syria has provided further fodder for an anti-Russian attack by jihadists. In this conflict, Russia aligned with the Assad regime, a Shiite government, and its Hizballah allies, an Iran-backed Shiite jihadist group, in combating the Islamic State and other Sunni Islamist groups. Playing sides among Sunni and Shiite extremist parties is a dangerous game, particularly given Russia’s large foreign fighter flows toward such terror groups. Such groups — and Russian-born fighters — may now even view Russia as the primary patron of Shia Islam. Colin Clarke argued in testimony to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that such “ready-made, native force(s)” could return to Russia and blend in with local populations while plotting attacks.

Wagner in Africa

The Wagner Group’s involvement on the African continent is stoking even further enmity towards Russia among Sunni jihadist groups. Wagner has specifically targeted Malian civilians “in (the) Mopti, Segou, Tombouctou, and Koulikoro regions,” areas known to be affiliated with jihadist organizations. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, this includes “nearly 500 civilian fatalities from these attacks, including the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Moura in the Mopti region in late March 2022. Overall, 71% of Wagner’s engagement in political violence in Mali has taken the form of violence targeting civilians.” Wagner also attacks civilian targets without Malian army participation — raiding the towns of Lougui and Hombori in May 2022.

Wagner Group killings and human rights violations against civilians have acted as a strong recruiting tool for jihadist groups and have led to shifts in jihadi rhetoric in the Sahel away from France and towards the Wagner Group and Russia. In August 2021, ahead of the anticipated Wagner deployment to Mali, Iyad Ag Ghali, the Tuareg leader of al-Qaeda, mentioned Russia as a group enemy for the first time. Approximately one third of al-Qaeda propaganda statements in 2022 either mentioned Wagner Group or “used their presence to justify anti-army attacks.” The Russian mercenary presence in Mali has helped these groups to garner support — local sources say that jihadist recruitment increased in central Mali between May and July 2022, followed by a fundraising increase in September and October 2022 in markets and mosques.

Mozambique displays many of the same symptoms of a jihadi pivot towards Russia. In the East African country, Wagner Group failed in its operations against Islamic State affiliates in the Cabo Delgado region and quickly withdrew in 2019. Yet, Islamic State’s newsletter highlighted Russia’s (and China’s) ambitions in exploiting Mozambique’s natural resources, associating the group with other “crusader” states investing in the country, including businesses from the United States, France, and South Africa. This pivot toward Russia as the common enemy is becoming more and more common, particularly when Wagner Group and the Russian state come up against jihadist groups in Africa.

Given the globalized nature of jihadism today, the reactions to Russia’s anti-Sunni activity in Africa will not necessarily be localized to the Sahel. The international networks of affiliations between al-Qaeda and Islamic State have allowed these groups to plot cross-continental attacks in the past, as was seen in the November 2015 Paris attacks by Islamic State Syria-Iraq. Indeed, anti-Russian jihadist propaganda originating in West Africa is free and available to potential acolytes in far-away Russia — it is only a click away in today’s internet age. The Wagner Group could very well be sowing future jihadist movements on Russian soil with its war crimes against Sunnis in Africa.

A Vulnerable Russia

Russia is no stranger to terrorist attacks, and Putin’s government has tended to respond to such attacks with massive displays of force. Putin’s rise to power followed a string of apartment bombings across Russia in 1999, which prompted then-prime minister Putin to initiate a massive air campaign against Chechnya. He said of the attackers, “we will pursue them everywhere … we’ll catch them in the toilet. We’ll wipe them out in the outhouse.” Then, in 2004, when Chechen insurgents took 300 hostages at a school in Beslan, he oversaw a bloody Russian rescue operation featuring flame-throwers, grenade launchers, and a tank cannon, which killed 180 children and injured over 750 people.

However, the Wagner Group’s anti-Sunni activities in Africa could now spur another wave of attacks against a Russian state made uniquely vulnerable by the war in Ukraine. If reports on Russia’s military commitment to Ukraine are correct, 97 percent of the military is currently deployed to Ukraine, according to the U.K. defense minister. Although Russia’s Border Security Service — which would likely deal with cross-border Islamist threats — is separate from the regular Russian army and its deployments in Ukraine, this organization is not immune to the effects of the conflict. In December 2022, Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to step up operations in border regions, perhaps reflecting weakness within the Border Security Service.

Should Sunni jihadist organizations choose to strike into Russia, Russian-born or foreign fighters will likely enter from the Caucasus or Central Asia. Russia’s western border already appears to be porous, as demonstrated by far-right Ukrainian militia leader Denis Nikitin and his Russian Volunteer Corps’ partisan-like attack on the Bryansk region in early March. If Russia’s borders near Ukraine are weakened, the same is likely true in the Caucasus and Central Asia — as seen in an attack on a southern Russian border checkpoint in May by the Musulmanskii Corpus. These weak borders could allow for a massive influx of jihadist fighters looking to punish a weakened Russian state still supporting anti-jihadist regimes in Africa and the Middle East.

The Breaking Point

Though Wagner Group operations in the Sahel and North Africa have provided the basis for renewed grievances against the Russian state, an internal event could actually provide the spark for a jihadist uprising within Russia’s borders. Three scenarios could cause such a conflagration: Chechen leadership change, an anti-Muslim event, such as renewed selective drafting of minorities, or an attack by one of the jihadist organizations in the Caucasus.

Chechnya, the Muslim-majority Russian republic that unsuccessfully fought to gain independence from Russia in the 1990s, could be the starting point of conflict if there were changes in political leadership. Support is waning for Chechen President Ramzdan Kadyrov’s Muslim-majority Chechen private army given high levels of casualties in Ukraine and its questionable efficacy. Kadyrov has extensive ties to the Russian state and Moscow, essentially, pays him off in exchange for peace between Chechnya and Russia. Kadyrov has been able to paper over anti-Russian sentiment in Chechnya with brutal enforced disappearances and killings. Today, rivals have suggested that Kadyrov may be suffering from serious kidney problems, but observers question whether this could significantly shake up the Chechen political system. Still, Kadyrov’s fate as Chechnya’s leader may be tied up with Putin and Russia’s success in Ukraine. If he were to lose power, Chechnya might again become a hotbed for anti-Russian jihadist activity, particularly if a separatist or Muslim fundamentalist leader took power.

A political or military anti-Muslim event in Dagestan or any of the former Caucasus and Central Asian Soviet states, largely Sunni Muslim, could also light the fuse set by the Wagner Group in Africa. Anti-draft protests might provide the necessary kindling. Such protests broke out in September 2022, as protestors in Dagestan accused the Russian military of calling up a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities for military duty in Ukraine.

As has happened in Africa and across the Muslim world, competition between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Caucasus could also fan the flames. The al-Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate and Islamic State-linked Wilayat Qawqaz have been locked in a recruitment battle recently, which could spur competing “spectacular attacks to persuade potential acolytes that their terrorist or insurgent organization has a stronger resolve to fight the adversary — in this case, the Russian state and security services.” These attacks could provoke a heavily militarized Russian response, as occurred in Chechnya in the early 2000s. Such responses could themselves accelerate the now-familiar cycle of jihadist violence, state-sponsored counter-terror violence, refugee crises, and political crisis.

The Russian government should also be concerned with the long-term effects of militarizing its minority populations — through enforced conscription, military training, and battlefield deployments to Ukraine — many of which have longstanding grievances with the Russian state. Given Russia’s overwhelming military commitment to the campaign in Ukraine, Moscow would struggle to mount a secondary counter-terror operation in the Caucasus or Central Asia. Even if the war ends soon, Russia’s military will likely be hindered by sheer attrition in Ukraine, delaying or preventing potential deployments elsewhere.

Conclusion

Although Wagner Group’s activities in Africa were initially hailed as a low-cost victory for Russia, the group’s activities may actually be fueling renewed jihadism in southern Russia and the borderlands. Wagner’s African operations are inflaming anti-Russian sentiment in the Sahel, which could come back to bite Russia, especially as the invasion of Ukraine has weakened Russian capacity elsewhere in its supposed sphere of influence, particularly the Caucasus and Central Asia. Should the proper spark set the tinder aflame, Russia could face its own wave of militant jihadism sweeping across its borders.

Some leaders in the West may prefer to encourage Russia’s descent into a jihadist backlash in service of great-power competition. Surely, Russia would be weakened by a new Sunni insurgency on its southern borders. Yet, allowing jihadism to grow unchecked in West Africa, the Caucasus, and Central Asia is too dangerous of a side effect. Instead, the proper Western response should be to discourage African governments from aligning with the Wagner Group and Russia. The organization has yet to show the ability to resolve longstanding jihadist conflict and its tendency to commit war crimes against Sunni civilians only inflames tensions. Instead, Western leaders need to encourage countries in the Sahel to pursue solutions that incorporate military and non-military elements to combat jihadism. Many civilians join such organizations because of a lack of services, infrastructure, or local government. Luckily, Western democracies are in a strong position to help build such local capacity in a way that the Russian state, with its over-militarized approach to counter-terror operations, clearly is not.

Become a Member

Raphael Parens is a Eurasia Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute living in Republic of the Congo. He studies African conflict, Russian military policy, and paramilitary groups. He has published papers on the Wagner Group and conflict in Africa through the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Counterterrorism Center at West Point and Foreign Affairs.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Raphael Parens · June 23, 2023

13. U.S., India cement partnership with slew of new defense deals

U.S., India cement partnership with slew of new defense deals

Defense News · by Jaime Moore-Carrillo · June 23, 2023

The U.S. and India unveiled several defense cooperation initiatives on Thursday during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit, deepening a strategic partnership forged by shared geopolitical goals but beset by human rights concerns raised by members of Congress.

The new deals, totaling billions, span a number of key industries — including semiconductors, aerospace, and artificial intelligence.

Modi touted the partnership in his Thursday address to a joint meeting of Congress.

“The United States has become one of our most important defense partners,” Modi said, triggering a standing ovation. “When defense and aerospace in India grow, industries in the states of Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Pennsylvania thrive.”

But government officials and activists raised concerns about the Modi administration. Approximately 70 Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), signed a letter Monday urging the Biden administration to make human rights a centerpiece of the week’s negotiations. The cohort criticized the “rise of religious intolerance, the targeting of civil society organizations and journalists and growing restrictions on press freedoms and internet access” across the subcontinent.

Several Democratic lawmakers — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — boycotted the speech, citing Modi’s human rights record. Modi was welcomed by those who did attend; call-and-response cries of “Jai Hind”—”Long Live India”— rang from the Senate chamber’s upper deck as Modi left the room and some members of Congress sought Modi’s autograph after his speech.

In mid-May, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation jailed Defense News contributor Vivek Ranghuvashi on unspecified espionage charges. White House and Pentagon officials skirted questions about Raghuvanshi’s detention this week, while the National Press Club issued a statement stating it was “deeply concerned about [his] arrest and detention.”

Modi did not acknowledge the crackdown when asked about it by a reporter at the White House, instead hailing India’s democratic credentials. Biden also avoided a similar question, noting “an overwhelming respect for each other because we’re both democracies.”

Raghuvanshi would likely have covered a number of high-profile deals unveiled this week. India agreed to procure $3 billion worth of MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones. GE Aerospace said it would partner with Indian flight tech company Hindustan Aeronautics to produce fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force.

Micron Technology, an American semiconductor firm, pledged to spend upwards of $2.75 billion on construction of an assembly and test facility in India. Meanwhile, the two powers kickstarted negotiations for a reciprocal defense procurement arrangement to coordinate the exchange and development of military technology.

The day before Modi’s address, Indian and American bureaucrats along with executives from startups and defense contractors congregated for a daylong conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to network and showcase new tech in the hopes of facilitating “joint innovation on defense technologies and accelerate the integration of India’s budding private sector defense industry with the U.S. defense sector,” according to the White House.

Overlapping strategic concerns and growing economic incentives are drawing the once distant powers together. Both are wary of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific (though the Biden administration has shied away from mentioning Beijing explicitly during Modi’s visit). The U.S. is also keen to distance India from Russia, the country’s leading arms supplier. New Delhi, meanwhile, is eager to develop an organic defense industry of its own.

The recent slate of agreements builds on decades of summits and signings. Bush administration officials and their Indian counterparts penned a “U.S.-India Defense Relationship” framework in 2005, setting out mutual priorities and areas of cooperation. A series of subsequent economic agreements culminated in the pair’s first strategic dialogue in 2010, as then-President Barack Obama ushered in the American “Pivot to Asia.”

Obama consecrated India as a “major defense partner” during the prime minister’s last full-fledged state visit to Washington in 2016. The U.S. began sharing advanced military communications technology with New Delhi two years later.

The QUAD, an informal security collective including India, Japan, Australia and the U.S., held its first meeting in 2021. Earlier this year, India and the U.S. launched the “Initiative on Emerging and Technology” to streamline the exchange of military technology and expertise.

Jaime Moore-Carrillo is an editorial fellow for Military Times and Defense News. A Boston native, Jaime graduated with degrees in international affairs, history, and Arabic from Georgetown University, where he served as a senior editor for the school's student-run paper, The Hoya.

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

14. Taiwan military aid granted by once-reluctant appropriators

Taiwan military aid granted by once-reluctant appropriators

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · June 22, 2023

WASHINGTON — When Congress approved up to $2 billion in Taiwan military aid per year via the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, appropriators balked. They instead opted to fund that assistance as U.S.-backed loans, fearful that providing such a large amount of security aid via grants would take too much out of the budget for the State Department, which administers the program.

But this year they’ve changed their tune. House Republicans have allocated $500 million in Taiwan Foreign Military Financing – a program that allows other countries to purchase U.S. military equipment using grants or loans – in their FY24 State Department spending bill.

The House foreign aid funding panel released the draft text of its appropriations bill on Thursday and is expected to vote on it Friday. The proposed Taiwan military aid aims to deter China from attacking the island. Beijing views Taiwan as a rouge province and has threatened to retake the island by force if necessary.

Appropriators from both parties argued last year that allocating Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, for Taiwan would force a limited State Department budget to compete with other security assistance programs or possibly humanitarian priorities.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate’s State Department funding panel, expressed those concerns to Defense News last year. But in April he indicated that he wants his panel to reverse course this year, stating that “we need to actually put money toward Taiwan’s defense needs.”

The State Department did not request Taiwan Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, in its FY24 budget request. Instead it asked for an additional $113 million worldwide FMF account, which could be used for Taiwan or other countries across the globe.

Providing FMF grant assistance to Taiwan was among the 10 bipartisan proposals the China Committee recommended to the House in May.

Even as the House bill adds $500 million to the security aid budget for Taiwan, it cuts the State Department budget to $52.5 billion, 24% below President Joe Biden’s budget request.

Democrats derided the State Department cut as harmful, with Appropriations Committee top Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut arguing that full funding is “critical to bolstering our national security.”

The bill also maintains traditional levels of security aid funding for other U.S.-friendly countries. That includes $3.3 billion in FMF for Israel, $1.3 billion for Egypt and $425 million for Jordan – the top three U.S. military aid recipients this year.

Taiwan’s $762 billion gross domestic product is significantly higher than all three of those countries, and Taiwanese lawmakers have approved an $18.3 billion defense budget for FY23 — a 13.9% increase over FY22.

Separately, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the Senate in March that he plans to take advantage of another FY23 defense authorization to transfer U.S. weapons to Taiwan from U.S. stockpiles via presidential drawdown authority, the same mechanism Biden has used to send weapons to Ukraine.

“My team is working diligently to make sure that we have the right capabilities in that particular drawdown,” Austin said. “And of course we have that authority. We will need the appropriations as well.”

The FY23 National Defense Authorization Act stipulates that Taiwan must increase its defense budget every year to remain eligible for the FMF program.

About Bryant Harris

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

15. House defense bill adds special Ukraine IG, Taiwan cyber cooperation

House defense bill adds special Ukraine IG, Taiwan cyber cooperation

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · June 22, 2023

WASHINGTON — The House’s $874 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024, advanced early Thursday, would establish a special inspector general for Ukraine aid, mandate Pentagon cybersecurity cooperation with Taiwan, authorize procurement of nine battle force ships and permit some aircraft retirements.

The bill is the first of three major defense bills Congress expects to move forward in less than three days. The Armed Services Committee voted in favor of the bill 58-1 after 14 hours of debate, setting the stage for the full House to vote in July before negotiating final legislation with the Senate. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., was the lone no vote.

“It is a good bill that will strengthen our national defense and provide for our warfighters,” House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said at the beginning of the mark up on Wednesday. “It will help build the ready, capable and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and our other adversaries.”

Still, Rogers and other Republican defense hawks previously have criticized the $886 billion defense top line as “inadequate” because it doesn’t keep pace with inflation. The top line is up 3.3% from last year, and is locked in place after Congress negotiated a deal to raise the debt ceiling while cutting non-defense spending to $704 billion.

Rogers has joined Senate Republicans in calling for Congress to circumvent the debt limit deal’s defense spending caps through supplemental spending packages for the Pentagon later this year, though House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has resisted that idea.

Ukraine and Taiwan

The Armed Services Committee used electronic voting for the first time this year to mark up the defense authorization bill and more than 800 amendments, allowing lawmakers to move through the marathon session slightly faster than in prior years.

The amendments included a provision from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that would establish an independent inspector general to oversee Ukraine aid, similar to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan. Republicans have called for this measure to provide an additional layer of Ukraine aid oversight beyond the Pentagon Inspector General. The committee approved the Ukraine inspector general as part of a package of nonpartisan amendments adopted by voice vote.

Democrats unsuccessfully sought to add $500 million to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative beyond the $300 million the Biden administration requested. Republicans argued the boost would harm readiness, with Rogers noting the offset “robs just about every operations and maintenance account in existence.” The proposed increase, introduced by Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, failed in a 28-31 party-line vote.

The bill stipulates that $80 billion of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds it provides should go toward giving Kyiv long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, which the Biden administration has so far refused to send.

Additionally, the bill includes some bipartisan recommendations advanced by the House China Committee last month, including an amendment from China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., requiring the Defense Department to collaborate with Taiwan on cybersecurity.

Republicans passed 31-28 another China provision introduced by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, over Democratic objections. That amendment requires the Pentagon to submit a report on plans to blockade fuel shipments to China in the event of a conflict. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, deemed the provision too aggressive and argued the Pentagon likely has classified plans for this scenario already.

Procurement

The bill authorizes procurement of nine battle force ships: two Virginia-class submarines, one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Arleigh Burke destroyers, two guided missile frigates, one T-AO fleet oiler and one amphibious transport dock ship.

The Navy did not request the amphibious ship, but the Marine Corps asked for $1.7 billion in its unfunded priority list to finish buying it.

The Armed Services Committee sided with the Marines, arguing the Pentagon’s plans to pause the line would allow the amphibious fleet to drop below the statutory 31-ship requirement. These ships are usually purchased every other year, but an amendment added by sea power subcommittee Chairman Trent Kelly, R-Miss., would authorize incremental funding through FY25 to allow the Defense Department to begin contracting and procuring the next amphibious transport dock in FY24.

Republicans also cited the Pentagon’s decision to pause buying amphibious ships as part of their justification for a provision in the bill that would abolish the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office and move its duties elsewhere, accusing the office of slowing down the acquisition process.

Lawmakers said the proposed pause could upend workforce and supply chains when Congress is focused on bolstering the shipbuilding industrial base. The bill also invests $251 million in the submarine industrial base in the hopes of getting it on track to build two Virginia-class and one Columbia-class submarines per year.

Republicans also passed an amendment from Strategic Forces subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., that would institutionalize the sea-launched cruise missile nuclear program, while allocating nearly $196 million for its research and development in FY24. Democrats said instating the program would cost at least $31 billion and fundamentally change the mission of attack submarines.

But Lamborn failed to secure enough support to undo Rogers’ provision barring construction at the temporary Space Command headquarters in his Colorado district until Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall makes a long overdue final basing decision and justifies it to Congress. Lamborn withdrew the amendment in the face of opposition from Rogers and two other Alabama lawmakers on the committee, who want the Air Force to place the headquarters in Huntsville.

The bill would thwart Navy efforts to retire three amphibious ships and two cruisers, but it would allow the Air Force to retire 42 A-10 Warthog attack planes after long blocking efforts to do so. And the committee added by voice vote an amendment from Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., to prevent the retirement of Air National Guard squadrons until six months after Congress receives a report on how to fill the gap.

About Bryant Harris

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

16. Chinese Firm Sent Large Shipments of Gunpowder to Russian Munitions Factory

Chinese Firm Sent Large Shipments of Gunpowder to Russian Munitions Factory

By Ana Swanson and John Ismay

Reporting from Washington

June 23, 2023

Updated 9:55 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by John Ismay · June 23, 2023

The previously unreported shipments between a state-owned Chinese company and a Russian munitions factory last year raise new questions about Beijing’s role in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Long boxes of Russian ammunition in the forest north of Kharkiv, Ukraine, in January. Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

By Ana Swanson and

Reporting from Washington

June 23, 2023Updated 9:55 a.m. ET

On two separate occasions last year, railroad cars carrying tens of thousands of kilograms of smokeless powder — enough propellant to collectively make at least 80 million rounds of ammunition — rumbled across the China-Russia border at the remote town of Zabaykalsk.

The powder had been shipped by Poly Technologies, a state-owned Chinese company on which the United States had previously imposed sanctions for its global sales of missile technology and providing support to Iran. Its destination was Barnaul Cartridge Plant, an ammunition factory in central Russia with a history of supplying the Russian government.

These previously unreported shipments, which were identified by Import Genius, a U.S.-based trade data aggregator, raise new questions about the role China has played in supporting Russia as it fights to capture Ukrainian territory. U.S. officials have expressed concerns that China could funnel products to Russia that would help in its war effort — what is known as “lethal aid” — though they have not said outright that China has made such shipments.

Speaking from Beijing on Monday, Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said China had assured the United States that it was not providing lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine, and that the U.S. government had “not seen anything right now to contradict that.”

“But what we are concerned about is private companies in China that may be providing assistance,” Mr. Blinken said.

Some experts said the shipments Poly Technologies had made to Barnaul Cartridge Plant since the invasion, which totaled nearly $2 million, according to customs records, constituted such lethal assistance. According to the customs records, Poly Technologies intended its shipments to be used in the kinds of ammunition fired by Russian Kalashnikov assault rifles and sniper rifles.

William George, the director of research at Import Genius, said that Poly Technologies “may be toeing the line on exactly what constitutes lethal aid to Russia,” but that the implications of the shipments were clear.

“When shipping large quantities of gunpowder intended for the creation of military cartridges to a country at war, it’s unreasonable to imagine that the finished product won’t be used to lethal effect on the battlefield,” Mr. George said.

“It is lethal support,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The question is, how impactful and large scale is that?”

Spent Russian ammunition casings near a destroyed Russian armored vehicle at a frontline position in the northern region of Kyiv in March 2022.

Mr. Gabuev said that China had generally refrained from any actions that would “in a visible, forceful way” cross red lines the U.S. government had detailed at the beginning of the war about what would constitute a violation of Western sanctions. Since Poly Technologies has a history of shipments to the Barnaul plant before the war though, China might see those shipments as part of regular trade flows.

“By and large, China tries to stick to those red lines,” he said. “Having said that, we see that there are some contracts and transactions going on.”

Poly Technologies is a subsidiary of China Poly Group Corporation, which is owned by the Chinese government. Previous reports by The Wall Street Journal and CNN documented shipments of navigation equipment and helicopter parts from Poly Technologies to Russian state-backed firms.

Barnaul Cartridge Plant, the recipient of the powder shipments, is privately owned. But Russian procurement records provided to The New York Times by C4ADS, a Washington, D.C.-based global security nonprofit, show the company had numerous contracts with divisions of the Russian government and military over the past decade, including the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Barnaul Cartridge Plant was added to a list of companies sanctioned by the European Union in December. Open source information suggests the plant may have served as a training camp linked with the Wagner Group, a private Russian military force with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

There is no known direct link between these particular shipments of smokeless powder and the Ukrainian battlefield, and in customs paperwork Poly Technologies described the powder as being “for assembly of foreign-style hunting cartridges.”

But Brian Carlson, a China-Russia expert and the head of the global security team of the think tank at the Center for Security Studies, said that while such cartridges could be used for hunting, this was rare. “These are military cartridges,” he said.

Most modern firearms and other weapons used by soldiers and civilians alike rely on smokeless powder to propel a bullet to its target. When the trigger is pulled, a firing pin strikes the rear of the ammunition cartridge, igniting the powder, which burns extremely fast and forces the bullet down the barrel of a firearm.

This kind of powder is also used by militaries as the propellant for mortar ammunition, launching explosive-laden projectiles weighing from four pounds to 30 pounds or more.

Poly Technologies and Barnaul Cartridge Plant did not respond to requests for comment.

The war in Ukraine, now in its 17th month, has intensified in recent weeks. The ability of both militaries to obtain munitions and equipment has become a crucial factor that could influence the war’s outcome.

Ukrainian soldiers after firing a rocket-propelled grenade at Russian troops. The type of powder sent by a Chinese company to a Russian ammunition factory is used as the propellant for mortar ammunition.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Western countries clamped down on their trade with Russia following the invasion, to try to starve the country of military goods as well as supplies that feed their economy and help the government generate revenue.

But countries like China, India, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey stepped in to provide Russia with goods ranging from mundane products like smartphones and cars to aircraft parts and ammunition.

Both state-owned and private Chinese companies have sold Russia products that could plausibly be used by either civilians or the military — including drones, semiconductors, hunting rifles, navigation equipment and airplane parts.

China has remained officially unaligned in the war. Officials there argue Beijing is a neutral party and a peacemaker. In practice, however, China has become an important diplomatic, economic and security partner for Russia, after proclaiming a “no limits” partnership early last year.

In a speech in April in Washington, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen called that partnership a “worrisome indication” that China is not serious about ending the war. And she warned that the consequences for China of providing Russia with material support or assisting in evading sanctions “would be severe.”

In recent months, U.S. officials have also privately reached out directly to Chinese financial institutions to discuss the risks of facilitating the evasion or circumvention of sanctions and export controls.

Chinese companies “have a choice to make,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said in an interview on Fox Business TV earlier this month. “They can provide Russia with material support for their military and continue to do business with an economy that represents maybe $1.5 trillion and is getting smaller, or you can continue to do business with the rest of the world.”

Poly Technologies is one of China’s largest arms exporters. It produces equipment for police and military forces, including weapons, personal protective gear, explosives and missile systems. It attracted censure in past decades for shipping small arms to Zimbabwe. In the last few years, it has sent weapons shipments to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria, according to records accessed through Sayari Graph, a mapping tool for corporate ownership and commercial relationships.

Poly Technologies’ parent company has dozens of subsidiaries engaged in industries like real estate and film production, including operating one of the world’s largest auction houses.

Barnaul products have been common on American shelves in recent years, including ammunition for military-style rifles, hunting rifles and American handguns. The goods came to America through several importers, including MKS Supply, LLC, a wholesale ammunition distributor in Dayton, Ohio.

According to an MKS Supply official, the company stopped working with Barnaul Cartridge Plant early last year following a U.S. government ban on imports of Russian ammunition.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing.

Ana Swanson is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy. @AnaSwanson

John Ismay is a Pentagon correspondent in the Washington bureau and a former Navy explosive ordnance disposal officer. @johnismay

The New York Times · by John Ismay · June 23, 2023

17. The Depths of Our Diplomacy With China

The Depths of Our Diplomacy With China

Published 06/21/23 08:30 AM ET

Patrick M. Cronin

themessenger.com

Although Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s mission to Beijing succeeded in rekindling high-level talks with China, stability between the world’s two most consequential powers will remain elusive.

Optimists can applaud that U.S.-China engagement is back on the 2023 calendar. The second half of the year will be cleared for Foreign Minister Qin Gang to visit Washington, presumably followed by a steady stream of senior official visits to China and culminating in a leaders’ meeting.

Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen wants to curb U.S. investments that help modernize the People’s Liberation Army while avoiding decoupling and expanding cooperation. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo wants to clarify tech export policies aimed at de-risking, while protecting U.S. firms in China and preserving U.S. exports to China valued at more than $150 billion a year. Climate envoy John Kerry wants to urge the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters to step up their efforts to tackle the global challenge of climate change. In November, a year after their first in-person leaders’ summit in Bali, a second meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping will likely be held in San Francisco.

Pessimists can point out that stark disagreements remain. There are no signs that bilateral relations will be able to emerge from the deep trough into which the two powers have sunk. Even Secretary Blinken remains “clear-eyed” about the fundamental differences separating the United States and China — from Taiwan to technology and human rights to maritime rights. So, no one should be surprised if there are more disruptions to the diplomatic schedule. After all, relations have been treading water since a Chinese spy balloon fell into the ocean off the coast of South Carolina in February.

From further revelations about espionage and cyber intrusions that could stymie critical infrastructure in a crisis to sharp power threats against U.S. forces and our allies and partners, there is no shortage of likely problems ahead.

We often hear that U.S.-China relations have reached new depths. Military guardrails would be mutually beneficial, but apparently, that is not Beijing’s current view. Thus, the current aim of diplomacy is to ensure relations don’t sink even lower.

Shorn of pomp and sentiment, diplomacy is about sustained dialogue. China put Blinken through the wringer: fly from Washington to Beijing and then hold your own with Foreign Minister Qin for more than seven hours; on the next day, engage China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, for more than three hours; and, finally, after the Chinese have milked Blinken of every word he might wish to utter to Xi, be granted 35 minutes with the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Blinken emerged from this exercise in diplomatic endurance with no visible signs of wear and tear. Still, spending your entire weekend jet-lagged, trying to inject your talking points while listening to a lengthy recitation of CCP watchwords about the need to show greater respect, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and cease denying China’s right to develop, is an under-appreciated skillset of U.S. foreign policy.

We should recall the last visit to Beijing by a U.S. secretary of state when diplomatic niceties were scarce. Then Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the United States of a “direct attack” on trust, casting a shadow on bilateral relations, and demanded the Trump administration “stop this kind of mistaken action.” Secretary Mike Pompeo deflected the criticism, noting America’s “fundamental disagreement” with Beijing’s assessment.

Interspersed among the hours of Secretary Blinken’s tireless dialogue in Beijing, Qin repeated China’s call on the United States to change its mistaken approach, Wang admonished that Washington must choose either cooperation or confrontation, and Xi averred that “Neither side should try to shape the other side by its own will, still less deprive the other side of its legitimate right to development.”

Sustained diplomacy requires persistence, despite the absence of significant tangible results. Sometimes the reward of U.S.-China engagement, to invoke the poetry of T.S. Eliot, is to end a long exploration by arriving where you started and knowing the place for the first time. Secretary Blinken and his many hosts in China discovered nothing new from a frantic weekend of diplomacy. However, they did return the world to the glimmer of hope from Bali that great-power war is not inevitable.

The United States and China will cooperate when it serves their interests. Meanwhile, before bemoaning diplomacy as feckless or the abysmal state of U.S.-China relations, we should remember there is always a lower state to which major powers could return: namely, war. We should be thankful for the depths to which our diplomats will go to avert it.

Patrick M. Cronin, Ph.D., is Asia-Pacific Security Chair at the Hudson Institute.

themessenger.com

18. We Need a Germ Theory for the Internet

Excerpt:

We can continue to treat technology platforms as a town square where the loudest, ugliest voice wins the day. But instead of metaphors that blame individuals, or encourage us to just sign out when things get noxious, we can embrace the standard of public health. The solution won’t come from more content moderators or ever-smarter chatbots but from new infrastructural commitments: pipes, valves, and pumps that would actually keep users safe.

We Need a Germ Theory for the Internet

The Atlantic · by Thomas Krendl Gilbert, Nathaniel Lubin · June 21, 2023

For years, a primary metaphor for the internet has been the “town square,” an endless space for free expression where everyone can have their say. But as scaled digital platforms have grown to dominate most of modern life, metaphors centered solely on speech have failed to explain our current civic dysfunction.

Perhaps the better way to understand the internet is to compare it to a much older infrastructure problem: citywide sanitation systems. Posted content is akin to water; websites and other interfaces are analogous to pumps; and unintended feedback loops correspond to risk of infection. A public-health framework for understanding the internet would focus not on online information itself but on how it is generated, spread, and consumed via digital platforms.

This model’s genesis lies in the two-century-old story of early advocates for clean water in Victorian England. At the time, the life-threatening diseases that ravaged cities—cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, and scarlet fever—were not new. What were new were modern living conditions. Infections that might have taken weeks to spread through a village suddenly ravaged whole populations within days, and no one understood what was causing the massive outbreaks.

Read: ‘The cloud’ and other dangerous metaphors

The Victorian working classes knew whom to blame when disease broke out: doctors. Mobs assaulted members of the medical establishment, leaving government officials unsure how to weigh the safety of physicians against the public interest. Why the rage? The traditional response to disease—quarantines—had become ineffective in industrialized cities, prompting the public to distrust those who profited from treatment.

The first serious approach to the problem was taken by a coalition of doctors, liberal advocates, and social reformers starting in the 1830s. Known as miasmists, they pushed the idea that noxious air was the culprit in epidemics. If a neighborhood could not pass the smell test, the argument went, one immediately knew it was already too late to be saved.

Miasmists, including prominent ones such as Florence Nightingale, have an ambivalent legacy. They were among the first to emphasize that disease had not just biological but also social and economic causes, a crucial insight. But simultaneously, they were dead wrong about the role of air in the spread of the common diseases of the time, a reflection of an elitist worldview and overprescribed morality.

This tension revealed itself during two key events. One was the Great Stink of 1858, in which a combination of hot weather and poor waste disposal transformed the Thames into a cesspool. The stench was so bad that even the curtains of the houses of Parliament had to be caked with lime. No one was safe from the foul air, and by the miasmists’ assumptions, that meant that no one was safe from disease. But, in fact, no major outbreak followed the Great Stink.

Second was the groundbreaking work of a brilliant doctor, John Snow, who had suspected for years that water (not air) was the actual cause of urban epidemics. In a painstaking natural experiment, Snow demonstrated that the Broad Street pump was the source of the 1854 cholera epidemic in the Soho area of London. His data revealed that residents living across the city became sick if they happened to get water from the pump, even while a nearby brewery that drew its water from a different source had no recorded cases. There was no other reasonable explanation: Some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism, localized at the pump, was responsible for infection. Though Snow was careful to frame his results so as not to explicitly reject the miasma theory, the implications were obvious.

After much debate, over the next 20 years London implemented the world’s first modern sewer system. And from 1850 to 1900, urban illness was reframed from a problem of individual circumstance and negligence to one of economic dependency and social interconnectedness. Once it became clear that not only medical professionals but also effective water piping and safety valves were needed, public policy shifted from one-off treatments to longitudinal assessment of population health, fueled by new mechanisms for evaluation. The stakes of public health had shifted: If cholera epidemics continued, they did so only because cities refused to provide potable water to vulnerable populations.

Today we are living in an online version of the Great Stink, and have dire need of John Snow’s methods. Evidence is building rapidly that social media causes great harm at scale, especially in terms of declining mental health and societal trust. But because these effects are not directly measurable (except for what’s been revealed from whistleblowers and difficult natural experiments), like Snow, we are left to speculate about causes while trying to source better data.

Read: The internet is rotting

What would it take to build something similar to sanitation infrastructure for social media or generative AI? As we argue in detail in a recently released project, it would mean building assessment tools to connect design features—such as the feedback loops embedded in content-recommendation systems—with population outcomes such as mental-health effects.

To extend the metaphor, current technology interventions tend to focus on moderation strategies centered on specific users and individual pieces of content. This is akin to the role of nurses in public health, crucial and under-resourced providers of well-being. But just as nobody should think that good nursing is the best way to address unclean water, content moderation is insufficient to address dysfunctional platform architectures.

Modern platforms already operate as experimental laboratories, running randomized controlled trials over and over to improve outcomes based on companies’ goals. What we need are tools to assess the pump—the models and interfaces of platforms that determine how populations are exposed to content over time—to gauge whether restrictions need to be implemented to protect at-risk groups. For potential problems such as mental-health impacts or systemic reductions of trust, platform effects would be assessed alongside internal metrics for growth and revenue. And just as epidemiologists learned to focus on infants and children as particularly vulnerable subpopulations, today’s researchers must give special consideration to crucial risk vectors, such as chronic use of social media by adolescents.

Sanitation didn’t just make epidemics easier to control and mitigate; it made the diseases themselves easier to understand, leading eventually to germ theory. Beginning with the early experiments of Louis Pasteur, the new science of bacteriology confirmed the existence of microorganisms, as John Snow only suspected. Once the specific bacterium responsible for cholera was identified under a microscope, a new cornerstone of public health was established.

We are at a similar moment now: We have strong ideas about the causal mechanisms that may be mediating harms from products (such as interpersonal comparisons among teenagers leading to mental-health issues). But just as 1850s London did not need germ theory to start evaluating the effects of water and establish sanitation systems, the first step for mitigating harms in large-scale models is to establish baseline effects independent of explanation. The lesson of public health is that such baselines will be necessary in order to build consensus on what platforms and large language models need to measure and optimize for.

We can continue to treat technology platforms as a town square where the loudest, ugliest voice wins the day. But instead of metaphors that blame individuals, or encourage us to just sign out when things get noxious, we can embrace the standard of public health. The solution won’t come from more content moderators or ever-smarter chatbots but from new infrastructural commitments: pipes, valves, and pumps that would actually keep users safe.

The Atlantic · by Thomas Krendl Gilbert, Nathaniel Lubin · June 21, 2023

19. NATO's Article 5 does not override Congress's war powers

Well this is a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious). This is one time I agree with Rand Paul. However, I would make a little more bold statement. Nothing trumps our Constitution.

I wonder who these mistaken legislators are?

Excerpts:

For decades, many legislators have incorrectly interpreted Article 5 as an obligation that unquestionably commits the United States to provide military support should a NATO ally be attacked. To support their assertion, those who pine for a perpetual Pax Americana paraphrase Article 5 of the NATO Treaty by stating that, “an attack against one or is an attack against all.”

But that is not exactly what Article 5 states. Article 5 states, “The Parties agree that an armed take against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all and . . . each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense . . . will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith . . . such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force…” In other words, NATO allies are committed to assist each other in the event of an attack, but military action is not mandated, and the United States maintains its sovereign capacity to determine what kind of response is warranted.

NATO's Article 5 does not override Congress's war powers - Responsible Statecraft

responsiblestatecraft.org · by Senator Rand Paul · June 22, 2023

NATO’s Article 5 does not override Congress’s war powers

We must make clear that ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ does not automatically trigger a US military response.

June 22, 2023

Written by

Senator Rand Paul

NATO’s Article 5 does not override Congress’s war powers

When faced with questions relating to America’s role in the world, we would be wise to heed the advice of our Founding Founders. George Washington urged distance from the “frequent controversies” of Europe. Thomas Jefferson pursued a course of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

As NATO continues its post-Cold War expansion, it is worth pointing out that, by its own terms, the NATO Treaty does not commit Americans to the military defense of our allies. To that end, I introduced a resolution reasserting that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty does not supersede Congress’s responsibility to declare war or authorize military force before engaging in hostilities.

For decades, many legislators have incorrectly interpreted Article 5 as an obligation that unquestionably commits the United States to provide military support should a NATO ally be attacked. To support their assertion, those who pine for a perpetual Pax Americana paraphrase Article 5 of the NATO Treaty by stating that, “an attack against one or is an attack against all.”

But that is not exactly what Article 5 states. Article 5 states, “The Parties agree that an armed take against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all and . . . each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense . . . will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith . . . such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force…” In other words, NATO allies are committed to assist each other in the event of an attack, but military action is not mandated, and the United States maintains its sovereign capacity to determine what kind of response is warranted.

Furthermore, Article 11 of the NATO Treaty states that the provisions of the Treaty are to be carried out in accordance with each country’s respective constitutional processes.

The Constitution grants to Congress the sole authority to determine where and when we send our sons and daughters to fight. We cannot delegate that responsibility to the president, the courts, an international body, or our allies. This is a constitutional responsibility that all members of Congress have freely taken and one that the American people expect us to uphold.

I proposed the same text of my resolution when the Senate was considering the inclusion of Sweden and Finland into NATO. At the time, some of my colleagues questioned my approach, and one in particular argued that that my proposal would demonstrate to our allies that the United States is going “wobbly” on Article 5. I would argue that our men and women in the field do not want Congress to go wobbly on the Constitution.

Over the years, there has been a disturbing trend of executive overreach, undermining the checks and balances that our founders established to prevent such abuses of power. Collective defense should not be used as a pretext to bypass the constitutional requirement for congressional approval. By clarifying that the NATO Treaty does not supersede the Constitution, we can respond to those who would deceive the public about what America’s commitments are and renew our commitment to the highest law in the land. Respecting congressional war powers does not hinder our national security or imply a disregard for treaties. On the contrary, it ensures that the decision to use military force is subjected to rigorous scrutiny and debate by the representatives of the people, just as our Founding Fathers intended.

We must continue to show our fealty to the Constitution and elevate diplomacy to the forefront of United States foreign relations. For years I’ve led the fight to return war-making powers to Congress where they belong, and I’m proud to continue those efforts by introducing this resolution with support in the Senate and House of Representatives. It’s long past time that we respect the balance of power and reassert Congress’s voice.

20.

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