• Russian forces continued to launch assault operations south and southwest of Lysychansk. The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) officials claimed that Ukrainian forces had begun to withdraw from the city, but ISW cannot confirm these claims.
• Russian forces launched unsuccessful offensive operations north of Slovyansk and conducted spoiling attacks on settlements west of Izyum, likely to disrupt Ukrainian counteroffensives.
• Russian forces failed to advance along the Kharkiv City-Belgorod highway and continued to undertake measures to hinder Ukrainian advances towards the international border or Izyum.
• Ukrainian forces continued to launch counteroffensives north of Kherson City and reportedly liberated two settlements.
• Russian forces continued to transfer military equipment and personnel east of Melitopol.
• Russian occupation authorities are maintaining unsuccessful efforts to introduce ruble salary payments and set conditions to inflate electoral numbers in a future referendum.

• Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
• Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
• Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City;
• Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis;
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Once confirmed by the Senate, Fenton would become the first Green Beret to head SOCOM in more than 20 years. 

• artificial island-building and fishing fleet intimidation in the South China Sea;
• debt diplomacy and economic coercion throughout the Indo-Pacific, along the Silk Road, and into Africa to influence state behavior in ways beneficial to China; economic espionage and theft of intellectual property;
• military intimidation of Taiwan;
• funding research on alternative approaches to international law to rewrite history; efforts to influence politics in Australia and New Zealand; hostage diplomacy;
• seizing unmanned underwater vessels;
• internment and genocide of Uighurs in Xingjian to cleanse Chinese soil of indigenous non-Chinese cultures;
• co-opting small countries in Southeast Asia;
• river patrols, casinos, and the establishment of Chinese microcommunities in the Mekong River Basin to exert influence on host nations;
• strong-arming the extradition of overseas critics back to China; and
• influencing foreign media, sports, and Hollywood organizations to maintain a positive image of China.6

• the employment of the Wagner Group and other nonuniformed proxies in Syria, Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, and elsewhere;
• employment of the Night Wolves Motorcycle Gang to execute information operations and proxy conflict in Australia and Ukraine;
• election meddling in Europe and America;
• financing foreign political parties like the repressive Maduro regime in Venezuela;
• energy coercion;
• flying close to U.S. warships in attempts to elicit an overreaction;
• cyber-enabled disinformation campaigns; and
• poisoning of critics.7

• disinformation campaigns to purport government illegitimacy;
• propaganda initiatives to incite violence;
• money laundering and the creation of shell companies/fake nongovernmental organizations to support terrorism;
• the use of piracy, kidnapping for ransom, cybercrime, and other forms of transnational organized crime to raise funds for illicit operations;
• sarin attacks on public transportation; and
• online radicalization to recruit new members.10

1. The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, 2017), accessed 12 April 2022, https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nss/NSS2017.pdf.
2. The White House, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (Washington, DC: The White House, 2021), accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf.
3. John Arquilla, “Perils of the Gray Zone: Paradigms Lost, Paradoxes Regained,” PRISM 7 no. 3 (2018): 122, accessed 12 April 2022, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26470539; Lyle Morris et al., Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone: Response Options for Coercive Aggression Below the Threshold of Major War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2019): iii, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2942.html; Hal Brands, “Paradoxes of the Gray Zone” (January 2016), 9, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2737593; Mark Hoffman and Martin O. Hofmann, “Challenges and Opportunities in Gray Zone ‘Combat,’” in Advances in Cross-Cultural Decision Making (Los Angeles: Springer, July 2017), 155–66, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60747-4_15; Elizabeth K. Kiessling, “Gray Zone Tactics and the Principle of Non-Intervention: Can ‘One of the Vaguest Branches of International Law’ Solve the Gray Zone Problem?,” Harvard National Security Journal 12, no. 1 (2021): 116–63, accessed 12 April 2022, https://harvardnsj.org/2021/02/gray-zone-tactics-and-the-principle-of-non-intervention-can-one-of-the-vaguest-branches-of-international-law-solve-the-gray-zone-problem/.
4. David Ucko and Thomas Marks, Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2020), 4, accessed 12 April 2022, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/2245731/crafting-strategy-for-irregular-warfare-a-framework-for-analysis-and-action/fbclid/IwAR2gtE34ADXb-ZZh6IcjKxHN4O1tOtKTYM-kFJpAf1qT2aVaw-kydLuwBjM/.
5. H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (New York: HarperCollins, 2020): 17–18, 26, 33.
6. Roland Rajah, Alexandre Dayant, and Jonathan Pryke, Ocean of Debt? Belt and Road and Debt Diplomacy in the Pacific (Sydney: Lowy Institute for International Policy, October 2019), accessed 12 April 2022, https://think-asia.org/handle/11540/11721; Hearing on China’s Non-Traditional Espionage against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses, Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 115th Cong. (2018) (statement of E. W. “Bill” Priestap, Assistant Director, Counterintelligence Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation), accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12-12-18%20Priestap%20Testimony.pdf; Christopher Wray, “Responding Effectively to the Chinese Economic Espionage Threat” (speech, Department of Justice China Initiative Conference, Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], Washington, DC, 6 February 2020), accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/responding-effectively-to-the-chinese-economic-espionage-threat; Morris et al., Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone, 30–39; Daniel De Wit, “Competing through Cooperation: Leveraging Security Cooperation to Counter Chinese and Russian Influence in Africa,” Marine Corps University Journal 10, no. 2 (Fall 2019): 162, https://doi.org/10.21140/mcuj.2019100210; Scott Kennedy, “Beijing Suffers Major Loss from Its Hostage Diplomacy,” CSIS, 29 September 2021, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/beijing-suffers-major-loss-its-hostage-diplomacy; Kiessling, “Gray Zone Tactics and the Principle of Non-Intervention,” 127; Joanne Smith Finley, “Why Scholars and Activists Increasingly Fear a Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang,” Journal of Genocide Research 23, no. 3 (2021): 348–70, https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2020.1848109; Julia Stern, “Genocide in China: Uighur Re-education Camps and International Response,” Immigration and Human Rights Law Review 3, no. 1 (2021), accessed 12 April 2022, https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/ihrlr/vol3/iss1/2; Kerry Gershaneck, Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win Without Fighting” (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2020), 71, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Political%20Warfare_web.pdf; Tim Doescher, “How China Is Taking Control of Hollywood,” 13 December 2018, in Heritage Explains, podcast, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.heritage.org/asia/heritage-explains/how-china-taking-control-hollywood.
7. “Band of Brothers: The Wagner Group and the Russian State,” The Post-Soviet Post (blog), CSIS, 21 September 2020, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/band-brothers-wagner-group-and-russian-state; Kira Harris, “Russia’s Fifth Column: The Influence of the Night Wolves Motorcycle Club,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 43, no. 4 (2020): 259–73, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1455373; Kira Harris, “Russia’s Night Wolves in Australia,” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism (2021), https://doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2021.2014549; Matthew Lauder, “Wolves of the Russian Spring: An Examination of the Night Wolves as a Proxy for the Russian Government,” Canadian Military Journal 18, no. 3 (Summer 2018): 6–16, accessed 12 April 2022, http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vol18/no3/page5-eng.asp; “An Enduring Relationship–From Russia, With Love,” The Post-Soviet Post (blog), CSIS, 24 September 2020, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/enduring-relationship-russia-love; Morris et al., Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone, 48–70; “Russia Responsible for Navalny Poisoning, Rights Experts Say,” United Nations News, 1 March 2021, accessed 12 April 2022, https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086012.
8. Daniel Michaels and Margaret Coker, “Arms Seized by Thailand Were Iran-Bound,” Wall Street Journal (website), 21 December 2009, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB126134401523799287; Kiessling, “Gray Zone Tactics and the Principle of Non-Intervention,” 129; “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” Department of State, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/; Daniel Byman, “Putting the North Korea Terrorism Designation in Context,” Order from Chaos (blog), The Brookings Institution, 21 November 2017, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/11/21/putting-the-north-korea-terrorism-designation-in-context/; J. U. Chin, “Killing Kim: Political Sanctuary, Assassination, and Why Kim Jong-nam’s Death Won’t Be the Last,” Asia and the Pacific Policy Society, 28 February 2017, accessed 12 April 2022, http://ecite.utas.edu.au/121986/.
9. Fabian Maximilian Teichmann, “Recent Trends in Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing,” Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance 27, no. 1 (2019): 22, https://doi.org/10.1108/JFRC-03-2018-0042; Sam Mullins, “Twenty-Five Years of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia” in Hindsight, Insight, Foresight: Thinking About Security in the Indo-Pacific, ed. Alexander Vuving (Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2020), 112–13, accessed 12 April 2022, https://apcss.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/07-mullins-25thA.pdf; Bilveer Singh, “Crime-Terror Nexus in Southeast Asia: Case Study of the Abu Sayyaf Group,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 10, no. 9 (September 2018): 6–10, accessed 12 April 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26487539; Shyam Tekwani, “Political Violence in South Asia, 1995-2020,” in Vuving, Hindsight, Insight, Foresight, 91, accessed 12 April 2022 https://apcss.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/06-tekwani-25A.pdf.
10. Kaukab Jamal Zuberi, “Use of Cyber Space by Terrorist Organizations,” International Journal for Electronic Crime Investigation 2, no. 1 (2018): 6, accessed 12 April 2022, http://ojs.lgu.edu.pk/index.php/ijeci/article/view/258.
11. Paul A. Smith, On Political War (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press), 3, 7.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.; Angelo Codevilla, “Political Warfare: A Set of Means for Achieving Political Ends,” in Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare, ed. J. Michael Waller (Washington, DC: Institute of World Politics Press, 2009), 206.
14. Department of Defense, Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2020), 2, accessed 12 April 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Oct/02/2002510472/-1/-1/0/Irregular-Warfare-Annex-to-the-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.PDF.
15. Alan Furst, Night Soldiers: A Novel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988).
16. Richard Clarke and Linda Robinson “Special Operations Forces and Great Power Competition,” 5 November 2021, in Irregular Warfare Podcast, produced by the Irregular Warfare Initiative, accessed 12 April 2022, https://mwi.usma.edu/special-operations-forces-and-great-power-competition/.
17. Department of Defense, Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy, 5.

Mattis, who served as defense secretary from January 2017 until December 2018, wed physicist Christina Lomasney on Saturday, Garrett Ross of Politico first revealed.

• ‘Boomers, Moose, Enlisted Jesus’ and more Air Force lingo for the rest of us
• This Army officer’s epic rant about company command is a work of art
• Ukraine has the HIMARS and is putting them to use
• How a selfie with James Mattis shows he’s a Marine for the people
• The real-life Maverick who took on 7 Soviet jets in a classified Korean War dogfight

• Ralph Jennings

What to watch: The U.S. approved the sale of 250 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Taiwan in 2019, but Taiwanese defense officials expressed concern in May that the high demand for Stinger missiles in Ukraine may delay the delivery to Taiwan, expected by 2026.

• Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shaken many in Taiwan, where both civilians and the Ministry of Defense are seriously considering how they would fight back if Beijing attacked.
• But experts say Taiwan has invested relatively few resources into waging the type of asymmetric warfare Ukraine has used to effectively repel Russia's larger military.

• "Taiwanese senior military leaders are resistant to transforming into a defense-focused force instead of a power projection force," said Ivan Kanapathy, former National Security Council director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
• The Taiwanese military, known as the Republic of China Armed Forces, is still focused on acquiring expensive heavy armor like tanks and big-ticket vessels and weapons required for launching a land invasion from the sea. Those offensive capabilities are easy targets for Chinese missiles launched from the mainland, and they aren't very useful in defending against a Chinese attack.
• Instead, it should be buying more truck-mounted missile launchers and surface-to-air missiles, Kanapathy told Axios. "They just need to deny air superiority from the [People’s Liberation Army]," he added.
• "Taiwan is committed to safeguarding freedom and democracy by strengthening self-defense, enhancing asymmetric capabilities and mobilizing our population, while expanding cooperation with the U.S. and like-minded partners," the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in D.C., told Axios in a statement.

• Retired U.S. Adm. James Stavridis has also called on Taiwan to acquire smart mines, cybersecurity, and "special forces who can neutralize Chinese advance teams, and air defense systems."
• "There has been this wake-up call in the Pentagon to make sure Taiwan is serious, and we need to get serious too," Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told the New York Times in May.
• Taiwan's military knows it has weaknesses and wants more assistance from the U.S. and its allies, experts say. “The Taiwanese troops barely have opportunities to conduct exercises with the allies,” Shu Hsiao-huang, an analyst at the Taiwanese government-affiliated Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said in May.

• Both sides vowed to retake what they had lost and unify China under their own flag. But it's worth noting, said Jessica Drun, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, that "the PRC government has never had jurisdictional control over Taiwan."
• For the first few decades, the two competing governments were somewhat evenly matched. Taiwan may have even had the upper hand. Taiwan had diplomatic relations with powerful countries and the backing of the United States, while China suffered through years of domestic upheavals and economic devastation.
• But starting in the 1960s and 1970s, as China's domestic and foreign policies evolved, Beijing convinced most of Taiwan's diplomatic allies to switch sides, oversaw dramatic economic growth, and launched a rapid military modernization.
• China is now an economic, technological and military giant with a population of 1.4 billion, dwarfing Taiwan economically and militarily. And leaders in Beijing have made clear that unification by force is on the table.

• Taiwan's Ministry of Defense is staffed almost entirely by military officers, and the country lacks a well-developed security studies academic community. This means defense policy is shaped by career military officers whose perspectives have all been shaped by lifelong loyalty to the same institution, and there are few alternative information sources outside the military itself.
• Before Taiwan's transition to democracy in the late 1980s, it was an authoritarian one-party state run by the KMT, and the military served as the KMT's muscle. As a result, distrust in Taiwan between politicians and the military lingers, preventing more proactive oversight of defense policies.
• Due to that distrust, among other factors, many Taiwanese in the general public also do not see a military career "as a respectable career choice," says Drun.
• Scandals and corruption have also plagued the Taiwanese armed forces, and it has struggled to recruit talent.

• "Nor does the Democratic Progressive Party have a deep 'bench' of civilian defense experts who can help to translate top-level political guidance into an actionable plan, especially in the face of entrenched resistance."

• Ressa, a Filipino American, said in a keynote address at the East-West Center's International Media Conference in Honolulu that the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission issued the decree Tuesday.
• She said Rappler would fight the order, which "affirmed" an earlier decision to revoke the organization's certificates of incorporation.
• "We’re not shutting down. Well, I’m not supposed to say that," Ressa said. "We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular."
• The Philippine embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

• She was previously convicted in the Philippines of "cyber libel" and could serve prison time in a case widely seen as politically motivated.

• "Most people, they don't realize they're being manipulated, that these platforms are biased against facts," Ressa previously told Axios Editor In Chief Sara Goo in an exclusive interview published Tuesday morning. "You don't get facts. It's toxic sludge. Social media encourages anger, hate, conspiracy theories. There's violence," and it's getting worse, she added.

• "Who knows what the new administration will do. If the rule of law wins, these cases [against me and Rappler] will be thrown out. I look forward to a new administration and their upgrading of the rule of law," Ressa told Goo.

• ‘Boomers, Moose, Enlisted Jesus’ and more Air Force lingo for the rest of us
• This Army officer’s epic rant about company command is a work of art
• Ukraine has the HIMARS and is putting them to use
• How a selfie with James Mattis shows he’s a Marine for the people
• The real-life Maverick who took on 7 Soviet jets in a classified Korean War dogfight

Idea rejection in bureaucracies is often a clueless crime scene. There are no fingerprints because no one says, “No.” Managers and co-workers use passive-aggressive put-downs, grimaces, or admonishments like:

• We tried it before.
• Don’t rock the boat; be a team player.
• It won’t work here; we’re different.
• The boss will never buy it.
• We have mission to do—no time for this.

• Appear before a panel of those same managers to brief the idea. (None of the managers offered positive responses or encouragement during or after the brief.)
• The panel reassigned Matt to a new location to work on the idea.
• They required him to report to another manager who was not known for innovative receptiveness.
• They advised Matt to stop talking to outsiders (IC colleagues) about the idea.
• They required that he write a detailed execution plan.
• Then, he had to work up a detailed budget.
• He had to coordinate with legal.
• Finally, Matt had to go on a roadshow to formally brief everyone who might be affected.

• Survival instinct (Human nature)
• Cultural rigidity (Organizational nature)
• Leadership

1. The absence of defined Senior Intelligence Service (SIS) roles
2. Management turnover
3. Leadership quality

As a consequence of the war in Ukraine, an already strong NATO just got stronger.

The domestic foundations of U.S. foreign policy are much more fragile than they once were.

Greater clarity on NATO’s future could help dampen rivalry between Russia and the West.

In a conflict that is likely to end with a negotiated settlement, sustainment could provide vital leverage for Ukraine.

It is clear that Ukraine needs additional Western military support.

• As competition with China increases, US special operators are investing in language skills to counter Chinese influence.
• At a recent Senate hearing, special-operations leaders described the importance of operators who are proficient in foreign languages.