Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners


Quotes of the Day:

"Insurrection by means of guerrilla bands is the true method of warfare for all nations desirous of emancipating themselves from a foreign yoke. It is invincible, indestructible." 
- Giuseppe Mazzini

"In such a society as ours the only possible chance for change, for mobility, for political, economic, and moral flow lies in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, in the use of fictions, of language." 
- Kathy Acker

"The art of teaching consists in large part of interesting people in things that ought to interest them, but do not."
- Robert M. Hutchins



1.  Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to step down Monday, marking a symbolic end to 20 years of war
2. Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea - United States Department of State
3. China says it 'drove away' U.S. warship on anniversary of tribunal ruling
4. Special Operations News Update - Monday, July 12, 2021 | SOF News
5. Cuba protests: Thousands rally against government as economy struggles
6. With The U.S. Military Gone, The CIA Faces Tough Challenges In Afghanistan
7. Hundreds of Thai medical workers infected despite Sinovac vaccinations
8. How the War on Terror Enabled China’s Surveillance Dystopia
9. French, U.S. Special Forces Agree to Beef Up Partnership in Africa
10. You’re Being Manipulated
11. Is Duterte squandering The Hague victory to appease Beijing?
12. Congress Has a Role Against China, Too
13. Pentagon analyzing request to send troops to Haiti
14. Short on expertise, Army Guard, Reserve want to snag retired warrants
15. Young Minds on Competition and Conflict | Mad Scientist Laboratory
16. Guantanamo prosecutor, an Army one-star, retires as 9/11 trial remains elusive
17. States Gear Up for Fight to Keep the National Guard Out of War
18. FDD | Xi Jinping Doesn’t Want to Admit He’s an Autocrat
19. Taliban squeezes Afghan government by seizing key border towns
20. Breaking Out of Our Silos: How to Strengthen Relationships Between Service-Specific Information Operations Communities, and Why We Need To
21. Whatever happened to the South China Sea ruling?
22. America’s Founding Beats the Chinese Communist Party’s
23. Henry Parham, Who Fought in a Black Unit on D-Day, Dies at 99



1. Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to step down Monday, marking a symbolic end to 20 years of war

Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to step down Monday, marking a symbolic end to 20 years of war
The Washington Post · by Dan LamotheJuly 12, 2021|Updated today at 6:46 a.m. EDT · July 12, 2021
KABUL — The top U.S. general in Afghanistan will step down on Monday, marking a symbolic end to 20 years of American military involvement here — and coming as an ascendant Taliban threatens to topple the central government.
Army Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, who has overseen the war effort for nearly three years, will relinquish responsibility in a ceremony at the top U.S. military headquarters. President Biden said last week that the military withdrawal he ordered will be complete Aug. 31, but Miller’s departure is among the only pieces left. Virtually all other troops, contractors and equipment already have exited, defense officials said on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.
Miller will depart Afghanistan as the war’s longest-serving senior U.S. officer. A former commander of the elite Delta Force, he oversaw a tumultuous period that included the Trump administration’s 2020 deal with the Taliban that set the stage for withdrawal, and the final call by Biden in April to remove all troops.
Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the chief of U.S. Central Command, arrived in Kabul on Monday morning to assume command of the remaining mission. He is expected to oversee the small-scale operation from his headquarters in Tampa, with a two-star Navy SEAL, Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, leading about 650 troops tasked with protecting the U.S. Embassy.
McKenzie told reporters traveling with him that he believes the Taliban are pursuing a “military victory” over the Afghan government, citing its recent battlefield victories in numerous parts of the country and the threat it poses to several provincial capitals. But he predicted the militants will encounter significant resistance in Kabul, noting how much larger and more complex the city of 6 million people and its defenses are now than when the Taliban ruled it in the 1990s.
“I think, certainly, the provincial capitals are at risk, and we’ll see how that shakes out over the next few weeks,” McKenzie said, speaking aboard a military aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean. “I think the Afghans are determined to fight very hard for those provincial capitals.”
McKenzie assessed that the Taliban are pursuing a “multipronged approach” in asserting power. If they cannot topple the central government, the general said, they are likely to “go wherever there is the least resistance” and consider a political settlement with senior Afghan officials.
McKenzie said he does not place any “undue regard” on Monday’s ceremony. He called his visit to Afghanistan a symbol that the United States will continue to support the Afghan government financially and with technical assistance from afar.
Still, the general acknowledged, the end of the military’s mission here marks a significant change in the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan.
“It won’t be done like it was done in the past, and we need to be very clear about that,” McKenzie said.
The rapid disintegration of security amid the withdrawal has put the president on the defensive. Last week, he said in remarks at the White House that he and his advisers anticipated problems but that focusing on them has been used for years as a rationale to extend the military mission while U.S. troops remained in harm’s way.
“Let me ask: How many more — how many thousands more Americans, daughters and sons — are you willing to risk?” Biden said. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.”
Biden said a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was “not inevitable,” however.
Numerous unresolved questions about the withdrawal have not been fully addressed yet. They include a promise to evacuate thousands of interpreters who worked alongside U.S. troops, and are fearful of being targeted by the Taliban.
The Biden administration also plans to continue carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as needed. However, without access to bases there, the military is expected to fly from installations hours away in the Persian Gulf, putting strains and limits on what U.S. troops can do. Administration officials are seeking new agreements with neighboring countries from which to carry out the strikes, but to date no deals have announced.
The military’s departure from Afghanistan, along with the deterioration of security throughout the country, also is expected to degrade the United States’ ability to monitor events on the ground.
McKenzie said that most of the information the U.S. military gets about the Taliban comes from Afghan forces, and that in areas where the Taliban have seized control, it will be more difficult to understand changes as they occur.
“That’s just a fact we’re going to have to recognize,” McKenzie said. “My knowledge of what’s going on in Afghanistan is not nearly what it was 180 days ago.”
The costs of the war, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have been staggering. About 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan, with an addition 20,000 wounded, according to Pentagon statistics. Nearly 800,000 service members have rotated through Afghanistan on assignment at least once, with nearly 30,000 of them deploying at least five times each, according to Pentagon data provided by The Washington Post.
Some 47,245 civilians, 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police, and 51,000 opposition fighters also have been killed, according to a study released by Brown University this year.
The Washington Post · by Dan LamotheJuly 12, 2021|Updated today at 6:46 a.m. EDT · July 12, 2021


2. Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea - United States Department of State

Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea - United States Department of State
state.gov · by Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State
HomeOffice of the SpokespersonPress Releases...Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea
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Fifth Anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal Ruling on the South China Sea
Press Statement
July 11, 2021
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Freedom of the seas is an enduring interest of all nations and is vital to global peace and prosperity. The international community has long benefited from the rules-based maritime order, where international law, as reflected in the UN Law of the Sea Convention, sets out the legal framework for all activities in the oceans and seas. This body of international law forms the basis for national, regional, and global action and cooperation in the maritime sector and is vital to ensuring the free flow of global commerce.
Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.
Five years ago, an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention delivered a unanimous and enduring decision firmly rejecting the PRC’s expansive South China Sea maritime claims as having no basis in international law. The Tribunal stated that the PRC has no lawful claim to the area determined by the Arbitral Tribunal to be part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. The PRC and the Philippines, pursuant to their treaty obligations under the Law of the Sea Convention, are legally bound to comply with this decision.
The United States reaffirms its July 13, 2020 policy regarding maritime claims in the South China Sea. We also reaffirm that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
We call on the PRC to abide by its obligations under international law, cease its provocative behavior, and take steps to reassure the international community that it is committed to the rules-based maritime order that respects the rights of all countries, big and small.
state.gov · by Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State



3. China says it 'drove away' U.S. warship on anniversary of tribunal ruling

An interesting statement from the US Navy:

“Under international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention, the ships of all states, including their warships,- enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea,” the U.S. Navy added.
“By engaging in innocent passage without giving prior notification to or asking permission from any of the claimants, the United States challenged these unlawful restrictions imposed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam.”



China says it 'drove away' U.S. warship on anniversary of tribunal ruling
euronews.com · July 12, 2021
BEIJING -China’s military said it “drove away” a U.S. warship that illegally entered Chinese waters near the Paracel Islands on Monday, the anniversary of an international court ruling that held Beijing had no claim over the South China Sea.
The USS Benfold entered the waters without China’s approval, seriously violating its sovereignty and undermining the stability of the South China Sea, the southern theatre command of the People’s Liberation Army said.
“We urge the United States to immediately stop such provocative actions,” it said in a statement.
On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that China had no historic title over the South China Sea, a ruling that Beijing said it would ignore.
The Benfold asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands consistent with international law, the U.S. Navy said in a statement on Monday.
The islands are claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, which require either permission or advance notification before a military vessel passes through.
“Under international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention, the ships of all states, including their warships,- enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea,” the U.S. Navy added.
‘INNOCENT PASSAGE‘
“By engaging in innocent passage without giving prior notification to or asking permission from any of the claimants, the United States challenged these unlawful restrictions imposed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam.”
Hundreds of other islands, reefs and atolls in the resource-rich waterway are contested by Brunei, China, Malaysia and the Philippines, with China claiming rights to resources within its so-called nine-dash line, or most of the region.
“By conducting this operation, the United States demonstrated that these waters are beyond what China can lawfully claim as its territorial sea, and that China’s claimed straight baselines around the Paracel Islands are inconsistent with international law,” the U.S. Navy said.
In its 2016 ruling, the Hague court also said China had interfered with traditional Philippine fishing rights at Scarborough Shoal and breached the country’s sovereign rights by exploring for oil and gas near the Reed Bank.
Freedom of the seas was an “enduring” interest of all nations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday.
“Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea,” Blinken said in a statement.
“The People’s Republic of China continues to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday at a regular briefing that the United States was harming peace and stability in the region. China urges Washington to stop “stirring up trouble” in the South China Sea, he said.
euronews.com · July 12, 2021





4. Special Operations News Update - Monday, July 12, 2021 | SOF News

Special Operations News Update - Monday, July 12, 2021 | SOF News
sof.news · by SOF News · July 12, 2021

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world. Topics include SOF history, Afghanistan, Little Bird, Somalia, NSW, Russian’s SOBR, ransomware attacks, upcoming SOF events, and more.
SOF News
General Scott Miller Finishes Long Tour. The commander of the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan has finally passed his command on to a new commander effective Monday, July 12, 2021. General Scott Miller leaves Afghanistan after serving almost three years as the RSM head military officer. All told, he has spent many years in Afghanistan to include commander of CFSOCC-A and later as commander of NSOCC-A/SOJTF-A. He is a veteran of the Battle of Mogadishu and a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). See “In symbolic end to war, U.S. general to step down from command in Afghanistan”, Reuters, July 12, 2021. Navy Rear Admiral Peter Vasely, a Navy SEAL, will lead a newly created organization called U.S. Forces Afghanistan – Forward. The primary mission will be protecting the embassy and international airport in Kabul.
GB Silver Star Award Reveals Somalia Operations. Six years ago a brutal firefight took place when Somali soldiers, backed by Kenyan forces, retook an important al-Shabab stronghold. A member of the 10th Special Forces Group, played a key role in the battle – code named Operation Piga Jangili. “Green Beret’s Silver Star Sheds Light on US Ground Combat in Somalia”, Miltary.com, July 7, 2021.
Q & A With IWTSD Director. Bob Newberry, the director of the Pentagon’s Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate, is interviewed by the directorate’s priorities and working with industry. He reports to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. (National Defense, Jul 7, 2021).
Sgt. Maj. Bennie Adkins Honored. The Alabama State Board of Veterans Affairs has approved naming the new state veterans home in South Alabama in memory of a Green Beret Medal of Honor recipient Bennie Adkins. (Alabama News, Jul 9, 2021).
919th SOW CoC. The 919th Special Operations Wing has a new commander. Colonel Jason Grandy took command during a ceremony on July 11, 2021 at Duke Field, Florida. (919th SOW, Jul 11, 2021).
Update on NSW Programs. Peter Ong provides some details on NSW developments ranging from Combat Crafts to mini submersibles that were briefed at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) held virtually in May 2021. All contracted Combat Craft Mediums (30) have been delivered, two of the Combat Craft Heavy have been delivered, and all of the Combat Craft Assault (32) have been fielded and are being sustained. The article goes on to describe the SOC-Riverine Craft, SDVs, and more. “Naval Special Warfare Programs Update With USSOCOM at SOFIC 2021”, Naval News, July 10, 2021.
Little Bird – Being Phased Out? USSOCOM has reached a decision point on the AH-6 and MH-6 Little Bird used by the Night Stalkers of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The helicopters conduct close air support and assaults and transport commandos to targets. “The Ferrari of US special operations helicopters may soon be headed out of service”, Business Insider, July 7, 2021. See also “The famous Spec. Ops. “Little Bird” might be retired soon”, War is Boring, July 9, 2021.

International SOF
Russia’s SOBR. The majority of terrorism incidents in Russia are handled by the Special Squad, Rapid Reaction teams. These regional teams are elite police units that were formed after the fall of the Soviet Union to combat organized crime. However the SOBR teams soon found themselves on the front line against terrorists from the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Find out more in “SOBR: The Killer Russian Special Forces Unit You Need to Know About”, 1945, July 7, 2021.
Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it five (almost) days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF History
Some Historical Milestones:
On July 9, 1941 the First Special Service Force was officially activated.
On July 8, 1961 the 20th Special Forces Group (A) was activated in Birmingham, Alabama.
On July 9, 1961 teams of Green Berets began organizing and training tribesmen in the Central Highlands of Vietnam into the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG).
Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS. Steve Balestrieri provides details on the career of the head of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. “Wild Bill Donovan, The Grandfather of American Intelligence”, SOFREP, July 11, 2021.
Srebrencia Massacre. 26 years ago Serbian forces killed over 8,000 Bosniak unarmed men and boys in July 1995. The town was captured by Serbian forces and the men and boys were gathered up, transported to areas outside of the city, and then killed.

COVID-19 and the Military
COVID in the US and Around the World. Death rates from COVID in the United States are sharply down; however new cases are starting to appear with the rise of the Delta variant among those locations with low vaccination rates. Other parts of the world are continuing to experience high death rates due to COVID.
COVID and the Military. The Department of Defense could begin mandatory vaccinations for COVID among military personnel by September 2021. The military has a long history of ‘mandatory vaccinations’ – so it should come as no surprise that the COVID vaccine will be mandated.

Commentary
The U.S. and Modern Conflict. James Jay Carafano provides insight into the ‘principles of war’ – saying that it is one of the first and most enduring doctrinal constructs to arise in Western warfare. He says newer concepts on warfighting are more sophisticated and complicated but that they haven’t really helped in winning wars. “America and the March Toward Modern Conflict”, The National Interest, June 24, 2021.

Great Power Competition
China, YouTube, and Disinformation. Co-ordinated videos have recently been appearing online (YouTube and other media) to counter reports from independent media on the treatment of the Uyghur community in the Xinjiang region of China. Some of these videos are produced by foreigners who seem to be quite favorable disposed to Red China. Read more in “The foreigners in China’s disinformation drive”, BBC News, July 11, 2021.
Russia and Ransomware Attacks. The U.S. may strike back against online criminal organizations in Russia that are responsible for cyber attacks against U.S. firms. There are fears that if the attacks continue they could cripple key sectors of the U.S. economy. President Biden has put in a call to President Putin to get the Russians to do something about the problem.
Europe
Lithuanian President Visits Polish SOCC. Gitanas Nauseda spent some time at the Polish Special Operations Component Command on Sunday, July 11, 2021. The visit was part of a tour of historical places in Poland. Nauseda was a member of a Polish special operations unit in his younger days. “Polish-Lithuanian union times best for two countries – Duda”, The First News (PL), July 11, 2021. In other news the Lithuanian Prime Minister announced that her government would build a barrier between Lithuania and Belarus to prevent migrants from crossing the border into Lithuania. EU officials believe Minsk is seeking revenge for Western sanctions over a number of issues and has assisted migrants in moving through Belarus into Lithuania. “Lithuania to build wall along Belarus border“, Deutsche Welle, July 7, 2021.
South of the Border
Haiti – A President Assassinated and Request for U.S. Military Assistance. The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was killed by a group that included two Americans of Haitian descent and 26 Columbians. Now the country is in a state of turmoil and the government has asked the U.S. to send in troops to protect key facilities. The U.S. is sending in some law enforcement and homeland security officials to assist in the investigation. Apparently the plot to assassinate the Haitian president was connected with a security firm in Miami, Florida. The firm, called CTY Security run by a Venezuelan emigre, is formally registered as the Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy LLC. Read more in “Colombians held in Haitin assassination say Florida firm hried them”, Tampa Bay Times, July 10, 2021. A Haitian doctor has been arrested under suspicion that he was one of the leaders behind the nightime assassination of the President.
Cuba Happenings. Some news reports indicate that demonstrations are taking place in the streets in opposition to some government policies. The country is having some economic difficulties and poor services offered by the socialized medical system. Something to keep an eye on over the next few weeks. For more see “Freedom! Thousands of Cubans take to the streets to demand the end of dictatorship”, Miami Herald, July 12, 2021.
Meanwhile, Julie Chung, the Acting Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs tweeted on Sunday night:
“Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages. We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing to help neighbors in need.”

Middle East
ISIS Regrouping in Iraq. The special operations forces of Iraq are busy hunting fighters of the Islamic State in the area south of Kirkuk – territory where ISIS hopes to regain a foothold. The terrain is difficult for counterinsurgency operations and favors ISIS. Small bands of fighters have been attacking military and police checkpoints, assassinating local leaders, and interupting electrical grids. Read more in “They Will Never Let Go: ISIS Fighters Regroup in the Heart of Iraq”, The Guardian, July 11, 2021.
Iran, Iraq Militias, and U.S. The military personnel stationed in Iraq are continuing to experience rocket and drone attacks by militia groups affiliated with Iran. Drone attacks have increased in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Some news reports indicate that Iran is putting pressure on the Kurds to distance themselves from the United States.

Africa
U.S. Policy for the Sahel and Coastal West Africa. The United States has some difficult policy choices to make when considering the violent extremism, democratic backsliding, and strategic competition (Russia and China) in the Sahel and coastal West Africa. Judd Devermont, the director of the the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, has some thoughts on this topic. “False Choices: U.S. Policy toward Coastal West Africa and the Sahel”, CSIS, June 24, 2021.
France Looks for ISR and SOF Help from US in Sahel. A request for continued ISR support and US Special Forces from France has the Pentagon and Biden Administration pondering how much involvement in the Sahel they wish to endure. France is pulling about 2,000 out of the region where they currently have 5,100 personnel – including those assigned to Task Force Takuba – an elite special operations force made up of Europe SOF. “France Stresses Need for Continued American ISR in African Sahel”, by Abaham Mahshie, Air Force Magazine, July 9, 2021. Jacqueline Feldscher reports that France and the United States signed an agreement on Friday, July 9, 2021, to cooperate more closely on counterterrorism operations. “French, U.S. Special Forces Agree to Beef Up Partnership in Africa”, Defense One, July 9, 2021. At a joint press conference with the French Minister of the Armed Forces on July 9, 2021 Secretary of Defense made reference to a “Special Operations Forces roadmap”:
“. . . I’m looking forward to signing the Special Operations Forces roadmap, which paves the way for enhanced cooperation between our Special Operations Forces, who have a long history of working together on a number of issues.”
More Foreign Troops for Mozambique. Rwanda says it is sending help to Mozambique to help fight Islamist militants in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Rwanda is joining other nations in the South African Development Community in providing security forces to Mozambique. “Rwanda Sends 1,000 Soldiers, Police to Fight Mozambique Militants”, Voice of America, July 9, 2021.
Afghanistan
Afghan Briefing. Abubakar Siddique offers a summary of the past weeks events in Afghanistan. Topics include the plight of interpreters, Taliban’s legitimacy, end to America’s war, Turkey’s future with Afghanistan, and more. “Taliban Gains, Afghan Borders, Biden Speech”, Gandara Briefing, July 9, 2021. His newsletter (emailed once a week) is a good news update on Afghanistan to follow if interested in Afghanistan.
Medical Advances. One of the more positive outcomes of the long Afghan conflict has been the medical advances that were first done on the battlefield and then later incorporated into the civilian world. During 20 years of operation in Afghanistan, battlefield medicine and treatment have advanced in wasy which would have been thought impossible in peacetime, “Medical Advances in Afghanistan Bring More Soldiers Home From Operations”, Army UK, July 9, 2021.

Upcoming Events
July 13-16, 2021
Green Beret Foundation
July 14, 2021. Webcast
The State of Special Operations Forces
Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)
July 16, 2021. Newport, Kentucky
Green Beret Foundation
July 29, 2021. Washington, D.C. (Can be viewed online)
National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2022

Books, Pubs, and Reports
Book – Handbook of U.s. Counterterrorism and Irregular Warfare Operations. Essays by leading scholars and practitioners on the topic of CT and IW campaigns and operations around the globe. Routledge, 2021, 536 pages.
CTC Sentinel. The July / August 2021 issue is now online. Several articles about right wing extremism in the U.S. and New Zealand. Combating Terrorism Center, West Point. PDF, 56 pages.

Podcasts, Videos, and Movies
Video – Liberation of Manila. In January 1945 the U.S. Army returned to the Philippines to oust the Japanese from the islands. Elements of the Sixth Army participated in a month-long block by block, building by building battle to liverate the Philippine capital of Manila. DVIDS, July 2, 2021, one hour.
Video – Ft. Carson Paradrop. A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the Wyoming Army National Guard conducted a joint paradrop training mission with the 10th special Forces Group on May 20, 2021. Both high altitude and static line jumps are featured. Video, 197th Public Affairs Detachment, May 20, 2021, 3 minutes.
**********
Photo: Navy SEALs conduct diving operations alongside the attack submarine USS New Mexico during training in the Mediterranean Sea, June 28, 2021. (photo courtesy of U.S. Navy)
sof.news · by SOF News · July 12, 2021



5. Cuba protests: Thousands rally against government as economy struggles

Will we see a tipping point that brings down the government or can a totalitarian government with control of the military and security services (as well as the ability to mobilize "pro-government" counter-protestors) put down such resistance?

Excerpts:
Thousands of pro-government supporters also took to the streets after the president went on television to urge them to defend the revolution - referring to the 1959 uprising which ushered in decades of Communist rule.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the protests were a provocation by mercenaries hired by the US to destabilise the country.
"The order to fight has been given - into the street, revolutionaries!" he said in an address on TV.
The top US diplomat for Latin America, Julie Chung, tweeted: "We are deeply concerned by 'calls to combat' in Cuba."
"We stand by the Cuban people's right for peaceful assembly. We call for calm and condemn any violence."

Cuba protests: Thousands rally against government as economy struggles
BBC · by Menu
Published
2 hours ago
Thousands of Cubans have joined the biggest protests for decades against the island's Communist government.
They marched in cities including the capital Havana, shouting, "Down with the dictatorship!".
Images on social media showed what appear to be security forces detaining and beating some of the protesters.
Cubans have been angered by the collapse of the economy, as well as by restrictions on civil liberties and the authorities' handling of the pandemic.
The protesters were demanding a faster coronavirus vaccination programme after Cuba reported a record of nearly 7,000 daily infections and 47 deaths on Sunday.
Last year, Cuba's largely state-controlled economy shrank by 11%, its worst decline in almost three decades. It was hit hard by the pandemic and US sanctions.
Thousands of pro-government supporters also took to the streets after the president went on television to urge them to defend the revolution - referring to the 1959 uprising which ushered in decades of Communist rule.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the protests were a provocation by mercenaries hired by the US to destabilise the country.
"The order to fight has been given - into the street, revolutionaries!" he said in an address on TV.
The top US diplomat for Latin America, Julie Chung, tweeted: "We are deeply concerned by 'calls to combat' in Cuba."
"We stand by the Cuban people's right for peaceful assembly. We call for calm and condemn any violence."
'There is no freedom'
The anti-government protests began with a demonstration in the city of San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, but soon spread throughout the country.
Many of them were broadcast live on social networks, which showed marchers shouting slogans against the government and the president, and calling for change.
"This is the day. We can't take it anymore. There is no food, there is no medicine, there is no freedom. They do not let us live. We are already tired," one of the protesters, who gave his name only as Alejandro, told the BBC.
Posts on social media showed people overturning police cars and looting some state-owned shops which price their goods in foreign currencies. For many Cubans, these shops are the only way they can buy basic necessities but prices are high.
image copyrightGetty Images
image captionSome protesters targeted police vehicles and state-owned shops

Analysis - protests show growing anger
By Vanessa Buschschluter, Latin America and Caribbean editor, BBC News Online
While the crowds of protesters do not look particularly large, the significance of thousands of Cubans taking to the streets across the country can hardly be overstated.
Shouting "Freedom!" and "Down with Communism!" may be considered tame in other parts of the world, but doing so on the tightly controlled Communist-run island can easily land you in jail.
The fact that people are daring to do so in small towns where they can be easily identified by the Communist authorities shows the levels of anger fuelling these protests.
And with protesters live-streaming footage on social media sites, the government is finding it hard to hide evidence of the discontent.
A video uploaded by the Cuban foreign minister showing government loyalists marching and shouting "These streets belong to Fidel [Castro, the late Cuban revolutionary leader]" was quickly countered by government critics sharing footage of the protests.

Cuba's economy is struggling. Tourism, one of the most important sectors, has been devastated by the restrictions on travel during the Covid pandemic.
Sugar, which is mostly exported, is another key earner for Cuba. But this year's harvest has been much worse than expected.
Cuba's sugar monopoly, Azcuba, said the shortfall was to blame on a number of factors, including a lack of fuel and the breakdown of machinery which made bringing in the harvest difficult, as well as natural factors such as humidity in the fields.
As a result, the government's reserves of foreign currency are depleted, meaning it cannot buy in imported goods to supplement shortages, as it would normally do.
Queues for food have been growing. In addition, power shortages have led to blackouts for several hours a day.
Some of the demonstrators sang Patria y Vida ("Fatherland and Life"), a rap and reggaeton hit. Its title plays on a slogan - Fatherland or Death - which dates back to the 1950s, when the late Fidel Castro's revolutionaries overthrew the government.
BBC · by Menu



6. With The U.S. Military Gone, The CIA Faces Tough Challenges In Afghanistan

Excerpts:
CIA paramilitary operations date back to the agency's founding. Yet in Afghanistan and elsewhere, these actions against the Taliban, al-Qaida and others became a defining feature of the spy agency over the past two decades. They've been marked by successes — and major controversies.
But with the U.S. military all but gone from Afghanistan, and with the Taliban rapidly gaining ground on the battlefield, the CIA faces a new set of challenges as it attempts to monitor developments in that country.
This also comes at a time when the CIA is assessing its global focus. There are calls for the agency to scale back counter-terrorism efforts and devote more resources to traditional spying on major powers such as Russia and China, and concentrate on threats like cybersecurity.

With The U.S. Military Gone, The CIA Faces Tough Challenges In Afghanistan
NPR · by Greg Myre · July 12, 2021

Afghan soldiers stand guard after the American military left the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, on July 5. While the U.S. military is now largely gone from Afghanistan, the CIA is still monitoring the Taliban and developments in the country, though under much more difficult circumstances. Rahmat Gul/AP
Just days after the Sept. 11 attack, a handful of CIA officers were the first Americans sent into Afghanistan. Gary Schroen was one of them, and he recalled his marching orders.

"Link up with the Northern Alliance [rebels], get their cooperation militarily, and they will take on the Taliban," he said in a 2005 interview with NPR. "And when we break the Taliban, your job is to capture [Osama] bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice."

CIA paramilitary operations date back to the agency's founding. Yet in Afghanistan and elsewhere, these actions against the Taliban, al-Qaida and others became a defining feature of the spy agency over the past two decades. They've been marked by successes — and major controversies.

But with the U.S. military all but gone from Afghanistan, and with the Taliban rapidly gaining ground on the battlefield, the CIA faces a new set of challenges as it attempts to monitor developments in that country.

This also comes at a time when the CIA is assessing its global focus. There are calls for the agency to scale back counter-terrorism efforts and devote more resources to traditional spying on major powers such as Russia and China, and concentrate on threats like cybersecurity.
CIA will remain in Afghanistan
CIA Director William Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee in April that the CIA wouldn't be leaving Afghanistan when the military did.
"The CIA will retain a suite of capabilities, some of them remaining in place," Burns said.
But he added an important caveat.
"When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government's ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That is simply a fact," Burns noted.
The CIA and the military depend on each other in war zones. The military provides protection that allows the CIA to operate more freely. The CIA provides intelligence that shapes military operations.
President Biden says the U.S. military withdrawal will be finished by the end of August. Just a few hundred troops are expected to remain to guard the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
In his limited public comments, Burns has not disclosed details about CIA operations in Afghanistan. But the agency did have a significant presence throughout the country for the past 20 years, and now it's certain to be much more limited, especially in dangerous areas outside the capital Kabul.

Limited mobility
In the early years of war, CIA officers were able to move around to meet with sources, said Doug London, who was the CIA's counterterrorism chief in the region until he retired in 2018.

"We were able to go anywhere. I was able to drive down around Kabul or Jalalabad or Khost and just go around the town and go to a coffee shop and have tea," he recalled.
"As security became harder, we started finding ourselves behind these massive fortresses. So it's hard when you're not out and about among the people," he added.
The first American killed when the U.S. entered the Afghan war in 2001 was a CIA officer, Johnny Spann. He was one of at least 18 men and women working for the agency who have died in Afghanistan over the past two decades.
CIA critics say operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were plagued by serious problems. They say abusive interrogations of suspects amounted to torture, and drone strikes sometimes resulted in civilian deaths.

The drone program included targeting Taliban members hiding out in neighboring Pakistan.

"From the CIA's point of view [the drone strikes] accomplished something — the elimination of many bad actors," said Husain Haqqani, who was Pakistan's ambassador to Washington a decade ago when these strikes were at their peak.
However, "the problem is there is always some some other damage that you have to deal with," said Haqqani, who's now at the Hudson Institute in Washington. "A lot of Pakistanis got angry about what they saw as sovereignty violations. The drones operated from within Pakistan, and yet the Pakistani public didn't know."
Greater emphasis on covert operations

The CIA has always had three core missions — spy to gather intelligence, analyze that intelligence, and conduct covert operations.

One of the most famous covert operations was in Afghanistan in the 1980s — though it wasn't really a secret. The CIA armed Afghan rebels, or mujahadeen, which helped those fighters drive the Soviet army out of the country.

But Doug London says that historically, the CIA's emphasis was spying and analysis. The balance changed after 9/11.

"The people who favored covert action, the paramilitary options, they rose much more quickly than your traditional foreign intelligence collectors," he said. "So they very much start to shape the agency."

In a book coming out in September, entitled The Recruiter, London argues the CIA should refocus on spying and analysis.

"What do we do with all these paramilitary officers? Can they be collecting intelligence against Russians, Chinese, North Koreans?" he said. "It's going to be a little bit of square pegs in round holes as you try to refashion them."

The CIA refashioned itself after the 9/11 attack, he says, and now should do so again.

Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.
NPR · by Greg Myre · July 12, 2021


7. Hundreds of Thai medical workers infected despite Sinovac vaccinations

Excerpts:
"This will be a different vaccine, either viral vector AstraZeneca or an mRNA vaccine, which Thailand will be receiving in the near term," he said, adding that the recommendation will be considered on Monday.
The announcement comes as the Southeast Asian country reported a record high of 9,418 community infections on Sunday. On Saturday authorities reported a record of 91 new daily coronavirus fatalities.
Thailand has reported a total of 336,371 confirmed infections and 2,711 fatalities since the pandemic began last year.
The majority of Thailand's medical and frontline workers were given Sinovac's shots after February with the viral vector vaccine from AstraZeneca (AZN.L) arriving in June.
Hundreds of Thai medical workers infected despite Sinovac vaccinations
Reuters · by Reuters
A health worker receives the Sinovac coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at the Samut Sakhon hospital in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand, February 28, 2021. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/File Photo
BANGKOK, July 11 (Reuters) - Thailand's health ministry said on Sunday more than 600 medical workers who received two doses of China's Sinovac vaccine (SVA.O) have been infected with COVID-19, as authorities weigh giving booster doses to raise immunity.
Of the 677,348 medical personnel who received two doses of Sinovac, 618 became infected, health ministry data from April to July showed. A nurse has died and another medical worker is in critical condition.
An expert panel has recommended a third dose to trigger immunity for medical workers who are at risk, senior health official Sopon Iamsirithawon, told a news briefing on Sunday.
"This will be a different vaccine, either viral vector AstraZeneca or an mRNA vaccine, which Thailand will be receiving in the near term," he said, adding that the recommendation will be considered on Monday.
The announcement comes as the Southeast Asian country reported a record high of 9,418 community infections on Sunday. On Saturday authorities reported a record of 91 new daily coronavirus fatalities.
Thailand has reported a total of 336,371 confirmed infections and 2,711 fatalities since the pandemic began last year.
The majority of Thailand's medical and frontline workers were given Sinovac's shots after February with the viral vector vaccine from AstraZeneca (AZN.L) arriving in June.
Thailand is expecting a donation of 1.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE.N)(22UAy.DE) vaccines from the United States later this month and has ordered 20 million doses that will be delivered after October.
Neighbouring Indonesia, which has also heavily relied on Sinovac, said on Friday it would give the Moderna vaccine (MRNA.O) as boosters to medical workers. read more
Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Jacqueline Wong
Reuters · by Reuters


8. How the War on Terror Enabled China’s Surveillance Dystopia

Excerpts:
Among the accused men was a group of 22 Uyghurs who were captured in Afghanistan and flown to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some of them had been members of a loose, ragtag coalition at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they had received weapons training they could use in the future against China, if the opportunity arose.
Their detention was legitimized by an alleged political maneuver in 2002. At the United Nations, Chinese diplomats protested America’s proposed invasion of Iraq. Hoping China might drop its opposition, lawyers defending the Uyghur terrorist suspects believed that the George W. Bush administration designated the Uyghur independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a terrorist organization. China continued to oppose war in Iraq despite the alleged favor but didn’t vote to block the Iraq invasion at the UN Security Council.
All of the Uyghur detainees said they hadn’t heard about al Qaeda until after they were sent to Guantanamo Bay. But as far as the United States was concerned, they were not disgruntled dissidents fleeing persecution in China and passing through Afghanistan, as they claimed, but militant jihadists waging a war on liberal democracy itself. Even if the liberal democracy in question was Chinese.
“I’d never heard of the ETIM before,” Sean Roberts, an expert on the Uyghurs and professor of international relations at George Washington University, told me. “None of the experts had heard of it.”
Suddenly, with America’s blessing, China had what it needed: a terrorist bogeyman.
...
And now, China justifies the surveillance of the Uyghurs by citing the terrorist threat. China sees enemies everywhere and treats them accordingly. Using artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, and old-school policing tactics, it’s erected the most invasive surveillance dystopia ever seen in the western region of Xinjiang. “You can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops one by one,” a party official said, explaining the dragnet strategy. “You need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”

How the War on Terror Enabled China’s Surveillance Dystopia
The U.S. has failed to achieve its missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the War on Terror’s legacy lives on in nearby western China.
The Daily Beast · July 12, 2021
Getty
Twenty years after 9/11, the U.S. has failed to achieve its missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the War on Terror’s worst legacy lives on in nearby western China, where the Communist Party has erected a vast surveillance system.
Some 11 million people, mostly Muslim minorities from the Uyghur and Kazakh ethnic groups, live under a system of total control, their every move monitored by facial recognition cameras and artificial intelligence. About one-tenth of the population has been taken away to concentration camps for imaginary terrorist crimes, where they undergo indoctrination, brainwashing, and torture.
The U.S. has roundly condemned China’s persecution of the Uyghur people. But during the course of researching my book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey Into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future, I learned how a political maneuver the U.S. made following 9/11 allowed a major escalation in China’s designation of the ethnic group as an enemy element in Chinese society.
The story of Uyghurs went back to 9/11. Through heavy-handed repression and paranoia, China inspired young men from persecuted minority groups to join the East Turkestan Islamic Party (ETIM), a small terrorist group, which sent fighters for weapons training in Afghanistan and later Syria. China helped bolster their ranks, legitimacy, and recruitment.
Among the accused men was a group of 22 Uyghurs who were captured in Afghanistan and flown to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some of them had been members of a loose, ragtag coalition at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they had received weapons training they could use in the future against China, if the opportunity arose.
Their detention was legitimized by an alleged political maneuver in 2002. At the United Nations, Chinese diplomats protested America’s proposed invasion of Iraq. Hoping China might drop its opposition, lawyers defending the Uyghur terrorist suspects believed that the George W. Bush administration designated the Uyghur independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a terrorist organization. China continued to oppose war in Iraq despite the alleged favor but didn’t vote to block the Iraq invasion at the UN Security Council.
All of the Uyghur detainees said they hadn’t heard about al Qaeda until after they were sent to Guantanamo Bay. But as far as the United States was concerned, they were not disgruntled dissidents fleeing persecution in China and passing through Afghanistan, as they claimed, but militant jihadists waging a war on liberal democracy itself. Even if the liberal democracy in question was Chinese.
“I’d never heard of the ETIM before,” Sean Roberts, an expert on the Uyghurs and professor of international relations at George Washington University, told me. “None of the experts had heard of it.”
Suddenly, with America’s blessing, China had what it needed: a terrorist bogeyman.
Chinese intelligence operatives were allowed to visit Guantanamo and interrogate the 22 captives, a red-carpet treatment. China was the only foreign country whose representatives were allowed to enter the camp and photograph the Uyghur suspects. But the Uyghurs refused to cooperate and answer the Chinese intelligence agents’ questions. They’d been tortured in China, after all, and their families back home were in danger.
After the Chinese agents interrogated each Uyghur suspect for up to eight hours, sometimes every day for three to four days, a team of Pentagon interrogators allowed the Chinese agents to take their photos. U.S. soldiers held at least one Uyghur in a chokehold as the Chinese visitors took their photos. The U.S. government then handed over the Uyghurs’ classified files to the Chinese agents, despite earlier promises to the Uyghur detainees that their files would remain secret, free from Chinese eyes.
“I was disappointed in my country,” their military translator, Rushan Abbas, told me. By October 2002, the Pentagon’s interrogators had begun to conclude that some of the Uyghur prisoners were not jihadi terrorists, but separatist fighters training for an independence movement against China.
Oops.
“Many of them were wonderful, sweet people. They clearly weren’t terrorists who had some vendetta against the U.S.,” Abbas told me.
“China justifies the surveillance of the Uyghurs by citing the terrorist threat.”
Another month passed, but still the Uyghurs were held in their cells. The U.S. government wasn’t sure what to do with them. Since they were held extra-judicially under the Defense Department’s improvised label of “enemy combatant,” their detention had no grounding in any American law or the Geneva Conventions. Consequently, no legal procedure existed to determine where and how to release them.
The legal limbo continued as, behind the scenes, American diplomats tried to arrange deals with other countries to grant the Uyghurs asylum as refugees. They weren’t welcome in America, where members of Congress didn’t want Guantanamo “terrorists” to be resettled in their districts.
In May 2006, after 5 of the 22 men had been imprisoned in Guantanamo for 3 years, those 5 were resettled in Albania, the only country that would take them in.
“The five people accepted by Albania are by no means refugees, but terrorist suspects of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” declared a Chinese government spokesman four days after the release. “It has a close relationship to al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
The Communist Party had a hot list of threats to China, on which were the “five poisons”: democracy agitators, Taiwan supporters, Tibetans, the Falun Gong spiritual group, and Muslim Uyghur terrorists.
Meanwhile, 17 Uyghurs languished in Guantanamo’s highest-security compound, Camp 6, nicknamed the “Tomb.” It was a place so dark and dank that its inmates clamored and applauded when the sun came over the prison’s single rooftop window.
Finally, in 2009, after seven years in American captivity, 6 of the 17 remaining Uyghurs were resettled in Palau, a tiny Pacific island, while the remaining captives were resettled in Slovakia, El Salvador, Bermuda, and elsewhere. These were the only places that would take them, but only after the United States promised to pay $93,333 per man, to help cover each Uyghur’s housing and living expenses. Feeling unwelcome and not at all at home, most of them gave up their newly appointed abodes and later moved to Turkey.
But China had what it needed. The decision to lock up the Uyghurs at Guantanamo Bay, with no evidence of a terrorist plot, helped China justify its treatment of the Uyghurs. It painted them as a terrorist time bomb that needed to be defused through heavy-handed measures.
And now, China justifies the surveillance of the Uyghurs by citing the terrorist threat. China sees enemies everywhere and treats them accordingly. Using artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, and old-school policing tactics, it’s erected the most invasive surveillance dystopia ever seen in the western region of Xinjiang. “You can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops one by one,” a party official said, explaining the dragnet strategy. “You need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”
Adapted from The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey Into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future by Geoffrey Cain. Copyright © 2021. Available from PublicAffairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Daily Beast · July 12, 2021


9. French, U.S. Special Forces Agree to Beef Up Partnership in Africa

French, U.S. Special Forces Agree to Beef Up Partnership in Africa
The new agreement shows that counterterrorism will still be a top focus for the Pentagon.
defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher
French and American special operators will work together more closely on counterterrorism operations in Africa under an agreement signed by defense leaders on Friday, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said.
The agreement, which follows an announcement that France will cut its troop presence in the Sahel roughly in half, indicates America is not done fighting terrorism even as President Joe Biden withdraws U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Parly said she and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “signed a roadmap to strengthen even more the relationship between our two special forces,” during a meeting at the Pentagon.
“We can rely on the strong support from the United States, especially in the counterterrorism operations” in the Sahel, Parly said, in an interview with Defense One’s Executive Editor Kevin Baron hosted by the Atlantic Council, in Washington. Parly declined to reveal details of the special operations forces agreement but said the French rely on American intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, “which are particularly useful to get the right information [and] intelligence on those groups.”
A Defense Department spokesman did not reply to a question seeking more details about what the partnership would entail.
The increased partnership in the Sahel comes as the Pentagon is also considering returning U.S. special operators to Somalia to train local forces to fight al-Shabab, the New York Times reported, after former President Donald Trump abruptly ordered all American troops out of the country in December.
France has operated in the Sahel, a region of Africa between the Sahara Desert to the north and the savanna to the south, targeting terrorists from al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Last month, Macron announced that France was ending its Barkhane mission in the Sahel after eight years of fighting, and two coups in Mali. But during a virtual meeting of Sahel region leaders on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would cut the number of French troops in the Sahel from more than 5,000 to between 2,500 to 3,000 by next year. The troop reduction in the Sahel will allow the French military to focus on the growing terrorist threat in southern Africa. Parly said the change did not reflect a desire by France to pull out of counterterrorism missions, rather, it was to adjust to more recent conditions.
“Macron was absolutely convinced that we had to adapt our military layout as the terrorist groups also adapt their behavior,” Parly said.
Violent extremist organizations in the Sahel were “neither degraded nor contained,” according to the most recent Pentagon inspector general report on the region, which was released in November.
“French counterterrorism operations since 2013 have likely denied [violent extremist organizations] the ability to establish permanent control of and consistent safe havens in the Sahel region,” the report says. “However, the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in Mali created instability that led to the growth of al-Qaeda and ISIS-aligned groups that continue to expand operations throughout the Sahel.”
The report also said the United States does not conduct strikes in the Sahel except to defend its own troops.
defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher



10. You’re Being Manipulated

Excerpt: America is in the grips of an epistemic crisis—an assault on reality, a rising inability to distinguish fact from fiction, an effort to shut down free inquiry—that poses an existential threat to liberal democracy.


You’re Being Manipulated
Political partisans are using social media to divide, dominate, disorient, and ultimately demoralize the people on the other side.
The Atlantic · by Peter Wehner · July 9, 2021
America is in the grips of an epistemic crisis—an assault on reality, a rising inability to distinguish fact from fiction, an effort to shut down free inquiry—that poses an existential threat to liberal democracy. Which is why Jonathan Rauch’s new book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, is so timely and so essential. It helps us understand this moment better than anything else I’ve read and offers insights into what can be done to strengthen what Rauch calls a “reality-based community.” Rauch’s “constitution of knowledge” is a structured system of institutions and rules that we depend on to settle disagreements and discover truth. As Rauch puts it, “Free speech is not enough; you have to get a lot of the settings right.”
I first met Rauch—an award-winning journalist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic—in the mid-1990s. I quickly came to admire his intellectual fair-mindedness and integrity, his calm disposition and generosity of spirit in public debates, the precision of his arguments and his willingness to engage with me on any topics, including ones on which we disagreed. He’s since become a close friend and part of a community of writers and public intellectuals with whom I often interact and who have imparted to me knowledge and wisdom.
I called him recently to talk about his book, and about polarization, epistemic disruption, and the blast radius of Donald Trump, whom Rauch describes as “a genius-level propaganda operative.” The Republican Party has become “an institutionalized propaganda outlet,” he argues. But we also talk about the dangers of so-called “cancel culture” and the left’s “totalistic ideology,” what cognitive psychology can teach us about politics, the writers who have shaped his political sensibilities and philosophy, his pivotal role in the gay-rights debate and his concerns about where it’s heading, his thoughts on atheism and Christianity, and his aspirations as a writer and a public intellectual.
Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Peter Wehner: What’s different and more dangerous about American politics today than before, and why is this epistemic disruption so much worse now than ever before? Or is it worse now than ever before?
Jonathan Rauch: It probably tracks polarization, to which it’s closely related. And indications are that polarization is at its worst since approximately the time of the Civil War. That’s not a sentence anyone enjoys saying or thinking about. And I think the same is true of the epistemic crisis.
There was a big one in the 1850s. The South engaged in a campaign to create an alternative reality in which the North was the aggressor and it was coming down to destroy the South and its lifestyle. And that was very effective in ginning up war fever, which was the intention. I don’t think we’ve seen anything remotely like that since that time in terms of magnitude and danger. And the present crisis, of course, is of a very different nature.
So why now? It’s been building for a long time. Polarization per se is not new, but the more polarized a society gets, the easier it is to manipulate people by hating on the other side. Polarization opens the door for propaganda campaigns. And then propaganda exploits polarization, because it seeks to further divide the society. That’s what Putin was doing in 2016 when he used the Internet Research Agency to stimulate protests, even opposite protests across the street from each other. Divide the society. That in turn weakens your opponents; weakens the society; lays the groundwork for cultism, demagoguery, and so on. So first, polarization creates a substrate that’s favorable to propaganda.
The second one is technology. We had a major information revolution in the form of internet, digital media, social media. And those turned out to be designed much better for propaganda and disinformation and “canceling” than they were for truth. They did not evaluate truth in transmitting information. They simply evaluated addictiveness, which means they prioritized outrage and enticing the false conspiracy theories over truth.
And then a third thing that happened, and I argue it must not be underestimated, and that’s the arrival of Donald Trump and conservative media, which he co-opts and exploits.
Donald Trump is a genius-level propaganda operative. He had the audacity and skill to look at Russian-style disinformation and adapt it to American politics. He used all the power of his campaign, then his presidency, then his entire political party, plus conservative media, to push disinformation and conspiracy theories and trolling through every possible channel on a scale that was never dreamed of in America before. So this is the first time America has ever been exposed to Russian-style disinformation on a massive scale from a domestic actor. And when you take that, which is just an enormous change, and you add it to the technology and the polarization, you get what we’ve got.
Wehner: Pluralism provides a context for how citizens can live together and even flourish amidst differences over priorities and values. So how does a nation like America cohere, when citizens are divided along the lines of truth and falsity, reality and unreality, and are living in different epistemic universes? How can a shared sense of reality be recovered?
Rauch: At the theoretical level, James Madison had the answer to that problem, and he had the answer both in politics and in the epistemic realm, the realm of knowledge. The answer is that when you’ve got a large, diverse society, you have to harness that diversity by putting people into managed conflict with each other so that they’re forced to come to some kind of understanding in order to get anything done and no one group can dominate in the long term.
The U.S. Constitution is basically a mechanism that forces compromise and disperses power in order to make that happen, and it forces people to follow rules. That’s the only way you can run a large society with a lot of political diversity. It requires that individuals and institutions commit themselves to those rules and those values. If they don’t commit themselves to those rules and values, no paper constitution will defend them.
The same is true of the constitution of knowledge, which is not written down but is very similar to the U.S. Constitution. It’s a way of creating managed conflict about opinions, ideas, facts—forcing them into contention and making people persuade each other in order to make knowledge—and do that in a systematic, structured way. It’s a very, very similar kind of thing. To make it work, first, you need a lot of diversity, because we never see our own biases. We have to have people with different biases, however wrong-headed they might seem to me or to you. Then you need people who are committed to making knowledge by putting those into managed conflict and living with the outcome, even if it’s not always favorable and even if they think it’s wrong. So those are the values and structures you need, and they work fantastically well.
I claim that the constitution of knowledge is the greatest social technology ever invented by human kind. It’s transformed us as a species. It makes possible the global network of knowledge seekers and error checkers who put the COVID vaccine in my arm a couple months ago. It makes possible the organization of millions of expert minds in hundreds of countries, thousands of institutions who can pivot and decode a genome in two days. It’s astonishing. So the big-picture answer to your question is the constitution of knowledge and sticking with those values and defending those values and understanding them.
Unfortunately, it worked so well for so long that we forgot it was there. We decided, Well, free speech is enough. You have free speech; you’ll have a marketplace of ideas; truth will emerge from that. That’s how the internet was supposed to work. No structure, just peer-to-peer conversations. Well, that’s a disaster. Madison knew that. So we need to recommit to these rules; we need to understand what they are; we need to defend them in an active way.
Wehner: And what, specifically, can be done?
Rauch: In terms of responding to disinformation, this is the hardest part of my book to talk about because you want to be able to say, “Here are the three things you need to do and you solve it.” And it’s not like that. Major epistemic disruptions, like the development of the printing press or, in the 19th century, offset printing, require all-of-society responses, mostly nongovernmental but including many, many actors and institutions figuring out how to change the rules, revise the rules so that you can adapt to these new technologies and tactics.
So what are we talking about? Social media and digital media need systemic redesign. The press needs to get savvier about the use of disinformation and not fall for it hook, line, and sinker by repeating every conspiracy theory in order to debunk it. The public needs to be made aware of what’s going on; that’s why I wrote this book. A population that understands it’s being manipulated and understands the tactics can still be manipulated because they’re very powerful tactics, but we’ll have more resistance if they understand what’s going on.
Civic activism on matters like depolarization can make a difference. That’s where groups like Braver Angels come in. It turns out that when people actually know that the real level of disagreement is lower than they’ve been led to believe, that itself can reduce polarization. Direct civic action can help. Setting up watchdogs, monitors, and academic centers that understand this information, and penetrate the networks where the campaigns are hatched in order to disrupt them, alert social-media companies, intelligence agencies, and so on. I can go on in this vein, but you get the idea. We’ve got a long way to go, but all of those things are already starting to happen.
Wehner: Your book relies on brain science and social psychology. What do you think they have to teach us about understanding politics and this political movement?
Rauch: We’ve learned a lot from psychology, especially the last 50 years, that has been revolutionary about systemic biases. Social psychology has shown us how we can be manipulated and shown us, interestingly, that having a high IQ is not only no defense, that those people are actually even better at rationalizing falsehood, [but that] they put all that mental horsepower to work to justify their biases.
So the next step is applying social psychology, cognitive psychology, to better understand how to counter sophisticated tactics that exploit cognitive vulnerabilities. That, too, is starting to happen. There’s not going to be any magic buttons there. But it’s important that Facebook and Twitter now clearly understand how outrage hijacked people’s minds, and that even though it can make them a lot of money, it’s going to toxify their environment and make their business model unviable. So we’re starting to see these ideas spread in important ways.
Wehner: What do you think is the most important legacy that Trump will leave?
Rauch: In the world I’m thinking and writing about, it’s that he has modeled for all time to come how to apply Russian-style disinformation in U.S. politics. And although he may have particular genius at doing that, this is an art that lots of people can practice. The KGB practiced it very successfully for a long time, not because they were geniuses, but because they had technicians who knew how to do it.
So it’s not just Trump anymore. I think he’s transformed the Republican Party into an institutionalized propaganda outlet; I think he’s had the same effect on conservative media, and that’s very hard to pull back in. Because once people start doing that, and they know it works, they continue to do it. And also the Republican base is in on it. They like it.
Disinformation is a participatory sport, not a spectator sport. It’s fun to tell yourselves narratives about how you really won; the other side cheated; you’re heroically taking back democracy; you’re in an existential fight against evil; you’re saving the country. This is way more fun than the boring truth. So the base now has picked up this style of spinning conspiracy tales, telling them to itself, acting on it; and the base is now leading the politicians. I don’t know how you put that genie back in the bottle. I think that’s maybe his most important contribution.
Wehner: I know people who believe the threat from progressivism, whether we’re talking about cancel culture or “wokeness,” is vastly overstated. You clearly see it as a concern. What’s the nature of the threat posed by the progressive left today? And how is cancel culture a type of informational warfare?
Rauch: The tactics are not ideological. The left can use them; the right has used them; anyone can use them. So the tactics are distinct from the politics.
The right has latched on to disinformation, conspiracism, and trolling because they have the power to do those things. And they’re really good at them. The left has latched on to canceling because the left has the power to do those things and is really good at them. But they could swap tomorrow, and they probably will. So we mustn’t think of canceling as a left-wing phenomenon. It’s a weapon; it’s an information-warfare phenomenon. And if one side gets it, you can be sure [that] eventually the other side will get it too.
Having made that distinction, I said the second big point of my book is: You’re being manipulated. People tend to think of cancel culture as this bad thing that goes on online or it’s because of repressive ideologies. I want them to say, “No, actually this belongs in the same bucket as the stuff Trump is doing.” Maybe the ideological goals of the people using it are different, but they are also waging information warfare. By information warfare, I mean organizing and manipulating the social and media environment for political advantage in order to divide, dominate, disorient, and ultimately demoralize the people on the other side.
One way to do that is to flood the zone with falsehoods and conspiracy theories, and to cause mass disorientation. Another way is trolling: using outrage to hijack people’s brains. But another way to do that is use social pressure to silence, demoralize, isolate, and shame those who are your targets. And anyone can be the target. It turns out probably the most frequent victims of canceling are progressives who are canceled by other progressives. This is about dominating the information space by shutting down, chilling a whole sector of that space.
So how do they do that? Well, you say something they don’t like, or say anything at all. This really can be quite random. And almost instantly, a campaign of outrage is stirred up. They’re usually organized as swarms. They frequently go after employers so that people’s jobs are endangered. They frequently go after friends and professional associates of those targeted, saying, “If you agree with this person, you’re in trouble too.” They certainly go after the self-esteem of the people who are targeted by saying that they’re just horrible, awful people. They use out-and-out lies; they strip context; they reduce entire careers and reputations to a single word and a single tweet; they organize secondary boycotts; they seek to punish and silence—all of these things are completely hostile to the constitution of knowledge, which is about forcing us to debate other people’s arguments instead of trashing them as people and demolishing their careers. And canceling is effective because no one wants to get on the wrong side of this, and so people are widely chilled.
Surveys now find that 62 percent of Americans and 68 percent of students are reluctant to share their true political views for fear of negative social consequences, and a third of Americans say that they’re worried about losing a job or job opportunities if they express their true political views. Very significantly, that third is about the same across the entire political spectrum. Progressives are just as worried and frightened as conservatives. That’s a really bad information environment. That’s like a town that’s so polluted with smog that you can barely breathe.
Wehner: You did a podcast with Andrew Sullivan, who seemed to think that cancel culture was an equivalent threat to that of MAGA world, whereas you don’t think that they are equivalent threats, though both are threatening.
Rauch: There is an interesting argument on which is the greater threat. One side says that Trump, MAGA world, has control of a political party; they had the presidency; they might soon have it again; there’s nothing like that on the left, which, every time they face an electorate, they lose, the extreme left.
Another view says, no, the culture precedes the politics. The left has the cultural commanding heights; they’ve got academia; they’ve got newsrooms; increasingly, they’ve got employers. They’ve marched through the institutions and are imposing a totalistic ideology. Trump doesn’t have a totalistic ideology. He’s just an opportunist demagogue. But the left does, and they’re out to impose it. So that’s a debate, which is interesting and important.
When I wrote the book, I thought it was a horse race. I finished the book before November 3, 2020. I thought I was writing for a world in which odds were 2-to-1 that Joe Biden would be president and Trump would quickly fade away and Republicans would move on and people would see a chapter about Trumpian-style disinformation warfare and think, Well, that’s yesterday’s newspaper. That threat’s gone. So there’s actually probably more words in the book about the canceling side of things.
I had no idea what was about to follow on November 4. I should have seen it, because Trump clearly signaled his intention to run the biggest disinformation campaign that’s ever been tried by far in the U.S. against the election, starting on November 4. He told us he was going to do that. And he started that in April 2020, with the campaign against mail-in voting.
But since the election, we’ve seen the “Stop the Steal” movement, which I argue is kind of the 9/11 of epistemic warfare. It’s the moment when a threat that’s been emerging and developing for a long time bursts into full public view, showing its true capabilities. It’s now convinced 70 percent of the Republican Party that the election was stolen. That we’re no longer a democracy. It’s convinced 47 percent of independents that Trump won the election or that they don’t know who really won. This is astonishing. There’s no precedent for this. So now I don’t think it’s a horse race at all. In June or July 2021, I don’t even think it’s close. I think we’ve got an emergency on our hands.
Wehner: I want to shift to the intellectual journey of Jon Rauch. Who were the key figures in your intellectual evolution, the people who most shaped your mind?
Rauch: I’m going to try to divide the world into people I’ve read and people I’ve known. Among the people I’ve read, my earliest big influence, when I was a teenager, is probably Bertrand Russell, because of his skepticism and his incisive writing. And then, when I got to my 20s, it was George Orwell, whose essays I gobbled down at the age of 23. That was a transformative experience.
Wehner: Why?
Rauch: His unflinching commitment to truth at all costs. The kind of honesty that he used about himself and others, and because of his ability to see broadly across categories, to write about Shakespeare with a kind of political brilliance and to write about politics with a kind of literary brilliance.
When I got into my 30s, it was probably Karl Popper, the 20th century’s greatest philosopher of science. Popper figures out that knowledge is an organized search for error, and that it evolves like the ecosystem. You don’t have to have finality to have knowledge. Those are also transformative ideas, and they apply in politics, as well, by the way. Popper’s great insight is that something as great as knowledge really comes from trial and error. That trial and error is incredibly powerful, if you get the incentives right. And that’s informed everything I’ve written.
On the personal side, George Will. When I was about 15, my older brother got a subscription to Newsweek, and there was this columnist on the back page. I was too young to know if I agreed with him or not—I was, in those days, a Naderite liberal—but I knew there was something about the kind of writing and the kind of thinking and the depth that he brought to it that was new to my experience of journalism. And I later got to know him, and all of that is absolutely real.
The late economist Charles Schultze was one of the first people I encountered when I came to Washington. He had a way of looking at things that was wise—that way of looking at the world, urging us to step back, calm down. An equally big personal influence is Bill Galston, who has the same sort of wisdom, and to me that constitutes a balanced view of the world, an ability to transcend the moment and one’s own prejudices to the extent that’s possible. Be tough-minded with oneself.
Then there’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan. When I was a sophomore in high school, I won an essay-writing contest in my school, and the prize for that was a paperback called Coping: Essays on the Practice of Government, a collection of essays by Moynihan. I was too young to understand it, but I knew there was something about the way he was thinking that I wanted to emulate. Of course, later I understood what that was, which is the complete resistance to cant and the deep grounding in empiricism. I’m very happy to say that thanks to George Will, I was able to meet Moynihan a few months before he died and tell him that story and give him a copy of a book I had written. Moynihan and Orwell are the two I’d emphasize as transformative.
Wehner: You were a key figure in the same-sex marriage debate in the 1990s. How did you see your role in the same-sex-marriage debate at the time?
Rauch: One is that I thought I had the right answer. I realized right away that this was an issue for me because I was, by that point, a social conservative and said: This is a conservative movement. This is gay people saying, “We’ve had it with being isolated individuals who live in our own separate world and are alienated from norms like marriage and family. That failed us in the AIDS crisis.” And I said, Here’s a case where all my core beliefs come together—equality for gay people; better lives for young people, who need the prospect of marriage; and joining, upholding, and strengthening possibly society’s most important nonpolitical institution. So I saw myself as having something to say that only a few other people were saying, and doing it in a more systematic way.
Another thing I thought I was doing was just more political, which is helping the public understand that the case for gay marriage is a conservative case. That’s why progressive gay and lesbian people and leaders were at best ambivalent about marriage, especially at first. A lot of them were against it because they perceived it, rightly, to be an embrace of this bourgeois norm that they didn’t want. So I thought I could have a public and political role in explaining that this was a conservative movement.
I also co-founded a group call the Independent Gay Forum, which was a network of conservative, center-right, and libertarian writers and thinkers who are gay, and we wanted to take back at least the gay intellectual world from the monotonal progressives, extreme leftists in many cases who had basically commanded it to that point. These were people who thought if you were gay, it meant you had to be pro-choice and anti-capitalist. And we thought that was nonsense. Marriage was also a good way to open up a new front and take back the agenda from the left. And it succeeded in that, but unfortunately only for a while.
Wehner: What do you mean by that? What’s happening now?
Rauch: For 15 or 20 years, the focus of gay and lesbian equality was more about responsibilities than rights. It was about service to our country in the military, service to each other in our communities in marriage, and service to children as mentors and parents. And that was a transformative thing for how the world saw gay and lesbian people. It allowed the flourishing of a gay center. But then we won all those things. And so people like me said, Okay, good, we can hang up our spurs and focus on something else. I went off and did polarization and now the epistemic crisis, and other people went off and did other things. And meanwhile, the progressives hadn’t gone anywhere. If anything, a lot of them got even more rabidly left-wing, and they just swooped down from the hills and retook all the villages. So unfortunately, with very important exceptions, intellectually speaking, the movement is now very left-wing and a lot of the people in the driver’s seats are gender radicals. Which is a very different point of view than gay and lesbian marriage advocates had. So it’s a different world now.
Wehner: As a gay man, what would you most hope to convey to Christians that you think they miss and need to hear? And what would you most hope to convey to the gay-rights movement about Christians that you think they don’t see or need to hear? Another way to put it is: What are the main misunderstandings on each side that would help both sides better understand the other?
Rauch: I would like Christians, especially evangelicals, to understand that we are not a threat to your moral order. That the Bible, properly understood, does not condemn the loving, permanent, binding commitment of two same-sex individuals to each other and to their community. I want them to understand that vast numbers of gay people are religious. I want them very much to come to grips honestly with the fact that the evangelical world and much of mainstream Christianity turned its back on gay people, not only condemned us and singled us out for condemnation as if homosexuality were the worst sin in the world—they did that, of course, for centuries—but when the AIDS crisis came, they turned away. We had to open our own churches in order to do the job of ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the gay community. That’s disgraceful. And we still haven’t seen the Christian world face up to that. So I want them to look into their souls and do better.
On my side, I’d like to see better understanding that freedom of religion and religion are the founding precepts of this country and of our liberal order. And that freedom for gay people must mean freedom for everyone, including religious people. And that would be true even if religion were not specifically carved out in the First Amendment as something of special importance. And so I would want gay people to understand that religion does have a special role in American life, and it’s entitled to that role and we should accommodate that to the greatest extent that it’s possible to do so without handicapping or severely inconveniencing ourselves. This is not an area where we should be insisting on total purity.
Wehner: You once told me that you’re “color-blind” when it comes to faith. What did you mean by that?
Rauch: Among my very earliest perceptions was this idea that there’s some great daddy in the sky that in addition to looking after the entire universe, cares about us, performs miracles, lets all kinds of evil happen but blames us for that—I just thought that was ludicrous. And it didn’t get less ludicrous as I got older; it got more ludicrous. So I knew in my heart from a very young age that I could not be religious. I did try at one point in my early teens at a Jewish religious camp. I was fooling myself and I knew it, so I gave up. So my early attitude toward all that, coming out of reading Bertrand Russell, is: Religion is irrational; we’d be better off without it.
Partly as a result of meeting some people—including you and my freshman-year college roommate, Mark McIntosh, and others who opened my eyes to a kind of faith that, although I can’t participate in it, a kind of faith that is rational and quite deep and quite profound—I began to realize that the person who was missing out was not them; it was me. And that most people are wired to receive the frequencies of faith and to do that in a way [that] for the most part is good for them, good for their lives, good for their communities.
You know, it may not be objectively rational, but Francis Collins can be a Christian. Wow! Well, he’s certainly smarter than I am. So that’s when I realized I was missing a faith gene. I wasn’t receiving the frequencies that some other people could receive. And I began to think: I’m perfectly functional this way. In fact I love it; I wouldn’t trade it, the same way I wouldn’t trade being gay or Jewish. Whatever burdens and difficulties it has, there are many offsetting benefits from being different.
But that said, I do recognize that your life and Francis’s life are in some ways richer than mine because you perceive those frequencies. And for that reason, I liken my condition to color-blindness. I function perfectly well, everything works, but there are hues in life that I don’t perceive and depths that I can’t participate in.
Wehner: Last question: What have been your aspirations as a writer and public intellectual? What have you strived to achieve in terms of the characteristics of your work—and what would you like to be said when it’s all done?
Rauch: I’ve given it a lot of thought since probably the age of 26 or 27. I wrote down an aphorism, which is “I don’t want to be a big shot. I don’t want to be a hot shot. I want to be a deep shot.” I realized that the people I admired the most were the people who had a quality that I think of as wisdom. And that wisdom had certain qualities, like balance, fairness, objectivity to the extent an individual can be, a certain kind of integrity. And above all, I had a desire to be useful, to be constructive.
There’s a whole scientific literature on wisdom. It’s not intelligence; it doesn’t even correlate with intelligence. It’s not skill; it’s not experience, though it does involve those things. The main thing it involves is that it’s helpful to society, to individuals and the people around them in navigating complex social environments and solving problems. And I knew that was what I wanted.
If I can’t contribute in a constructive way in some kinds of conversations, I’m not very interested. So you don’t find me writing polemics about the culture war, you don’t find me doing cultural criticism, a genre that I pretty much detest. I’m looking for areas throughout my whole career where I can figure out a right answer or a better answer or make a suggestion about how to look at things that will actually be constructive. So that’s what I want to be known for. I would like people to say that I figured out some ideas, some suggestions, maybe even some truths that helped solve some problems for some people.
The Atlantic · by Peter Wehner · July 9, 2021



11. Is Duterte squandering The Hague victory to appease Beijing?

Excerpts:

As a middle power caught in the increasingly heated rivalry between China and the US, the lesson for Manila is to pursue an independent foreign policy, according to Cabalza, the foreign affairs expert who has also studied at the National Defence University in Beijing.

“Manila should choose its own national interest. It takes courage to depend on its own capability and build it with a vision to protect the country’s own sovereignty and territorial integrity.”


Is Duterte squandering The Hague victory to appease Beijing?
Experts say China’s gains in South China Sea ‘impossible’ to reverse while urging the Philippines to boost military capability and alliances.
Al Jazeera English · by Ted Regencia
In the days leading up to the fifth anniversary on Monday of The Hague’s 2016 ruling that rejected China’s historical claim to most of the disputed South China Sea, the Philippines’ often abrasive Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr sounded celebratory, hailing the occasion as “a milestone in the corpus of international law”.
“The Philippines is proud to have contributed to the international rules-based order,” he said of Manila’s role in challenging Beijing before the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
In a dig at China, Locsin said that the decision “dashed among others a nine-dash line; and any expectation that possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
Locsin then cited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s videotaped message at the UN General Assembly, in which the Filipino leader said the case was now “beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon”.
But since taking office in 2016, Duterte has usually been less assertive – failing to challenge China’s moves to expand its maritime dominance in the region despite the landmark victory – and foreign policy experts said his “defeatist rhetoric” has compromised the country’s integrity and diminished its legal standing.

“Manila certainly missed a chance to echo a consistent unified narrative on its claims … which Beijing saw as an opportunity to flex its muscles and build the largest coast guard and maritime militia for its strategic advantage,” said Chester Cabalza, president and founder of Manila-based think-tank International Development and Security Cooperation.
“Instead, Filipinos heard defeatist rhetoric from the commander-in-chief as he kept mum on continuous Chinese incursions into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ),” he told Al Jazeera.
Collin Koh, research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said the Duterte administration “squandered the opportunity” in emphasising the significance of the decision “whether it ought to be doing it alone or in concert with like-minded external parties” such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United States.
‘Victory Day’
It was in July 2016, less than two weeks into the Duterte presidency when The Hague tribunal concluded, based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), that China’s assertion of historic rights within its “nine-dash line” and maritime entitlements over most of the South China Sea had “no legal basis”.
The ruling also affirmed the Philippines’ jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles (370km) from its coast. As such, China’s fishing activities and construction of artificial islands within that area were deemed an infringement of Philippine sovereign rights. The Philippines refers to that particular area as the West Philippine Sea.
Moreover, the court ruled that of all disputed South China Sea features – even those controlled by Beijing – none were considered “habitable” and able to sustain economic activity in its original form, and therefore were not entitled to an EEZ – thus clearly falling within Philippine EEZ.
Protesters descend on the Chinese consulate in Manila in 2019 to oppose the Asian superpower’s growing sway in the Philippines, and as tensions rise over Beijing’s presence in the disputed South China sea [File: Ted Aljibe/AFP]
To commemorate the ruling this year, Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros has proposed that the country declare July 12 as the National West Philippine Sea Victory Day.In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, she said Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III – who died last month – should also be commended for his decision to take on China and secure a “landmark legal victory”.
“Even when the Philippines was going against the Goliath that is China, he pursued the case merely on the principle that it was the right thing to do.”
Protests are also expected on Monday outside China’s diplomatic mission in Manila.
China has said repeatedly that it does not recognise the 2016 ruling, and has continued to expand its artificial islands in Mischief Reef, as well as in Scarborough Shoal, which Manila lost to Beijing in 2012.
Duterte’s gambit
Campaigning for the presidency in 2016, Duterte charmed voters with his hardline stance on China. In one campaign swing, he promised to ride a jet ski in the South China Sea and challenge the Chinese incursion in Philippine waters. He said he always wanted to die a hero.
But as soon as he became president, Duterte started to backpedal on his promises, saying the Philippines cannot afford to take on China because a confrontation would only lead to bloodshed.
In a Talk to Al Jazeera interview in October 2016, Duterte also said that his jet ski remark was a “hyperbole” and that he did not even know how to swim. He later said it was all “a joke” to show his “bravado”, and that only “stupid” people would believe it.
In a stunning admission in June 2019, Duterte said he had reached a verbal agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2016 allowing China to fish within the Philippines’s EEZ, despite a constitutional mandate that the state must protect its marine wealth, including its EEZ, and “reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens”.
In recent months, Chinese vessels, believed to be manned by Chinese maritime militia personnel, were seen in the South China Sea within the Philippines’ EEZ [File: Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters]
“It was a mutual agreement,” Duterte explained. “Let’s give way to each other. You fish there, I fish here.”In several public remarks, Duterte has emphasised that better relations with China have brought economic dividends to the Philippines, through direct investments, financial assistance and loans.
Salvador Panelo, who was Duterte’s spokesman at the time, defended the deal saying that while it was “verbal” it was still “valid and binding”.
But Panelo’s replacement, Harry Roque, said this April that there was “no truth” to the deal and that it was “quite simply conjecture”.
“No such treaty or agreement exists between the Philippines and China,” Roque said, explaining that even a fishing agreement “can only be done through a treaty” and in “written form”.
‘Swarming’
Amid the Duterte administration’s diplomatic dithering, the situation in the South China Sea came to a head earlier this year, when several reports revealed that hundreds of Chinese vessels had gathered within the Philippine EEZ.
The “swarming incident” has since been repeated several times, prompting several diplomatic protests by Manila, which denounced Beijing’s “blatant disregard” of its commitment “to promote peace and stability in the region”.
In May, the presence of hundreds of Chinese vessels so exasperated Locsin, the Philippines’ top diplomat, that he fired an expletive-laden statement on social media.
“China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O… GET THE F*** OUT,” Locsin wrote on Twitter.
According to reports, Manila has filed more than 120 diplomatic protests with China over incidents in the disputed waters since 2016.
In the past two and a half months, the Philippines has increased its patrols across the South China Sea beyond anything seen in recent years. AMTI tracks their activities and their encounters with Chinese vessels in a new feature: https://t.co/MsEEx0IpLs pic.twitter.com/tN91IqP2C7
— AMTI (@AsiaMTI) July 4, 2021
In recent months, he has said that he wants to maintain friendly ties with China, citing Manila’s “debt of gratitude” for Beijing’s help in providing coronavirus vaccines. He has also banned his Cabinet from speaking about the South China Sea, after key security and diplomatic officials criticised China for the swarming.
But despite Duterte’s efforts to cosy up to Beijing, observers say China has only been further “emboldened”, and the growing tension has now left Manila with no choice but to step up its action to assert its rightful place in the South China Sea.
Cabalza, the security analyst based in Manila, said that now is not the time for the Duterte administration to be “flip-flopping on foreign policy”, urging a “more strategic” approach that balances the country’s economic and security interests.
“China’s art of war and deception should not be taken for granted.”
He urged the Philippines to “fast-track” its military modernisation programme “to increase its presence in the aerial and maritime domains” and halt the Chinese incursions.
“If Manila seriously considers balanced and fearless engagement with Beijing, it needs to capacitate on strengthening a robust national security infrastructure that deals with China’s grey zone strategy and massive disinformation,” he said, adding that Manila should also continue filing diplomatic protests every time an incursion happens.
South China Sea ‘fait accompli’
Koh, the foreign affairs analyst from Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, also noted how the Philippines has lagged over the years in “building up the stick” in terms of military capacity to carry out “more vigorously” maritime patrols within its EEZ.
That could have been partly addressed by Manila if Duterte had not gone out of his way to gradually undermine its decades-long alliance with the US, Koh said. Since the beginning of his presidency, Duterte has shown his disdain towards the US, even making the unsubstantiated claim that he could be a target of the CIA.

“The open expression of desire to prioritise ties with Beijing – even at the expense of the 2016 award, the lack of political will to maintain persistent maritime presence and the alliance relationship with the US would have had the combined effect of emboldening Beijing,” he explained to Al Jazeera.
With the progress China made in fortifying its artificial islands in the South China Sea, it will be “impossible to even envisage” that it would “willingly relinquish those possessions” within the Philippines’ EEZ, Koh said.
“There’s no way to reverse the fait accompli short of evicting the Chinese from those artificial outposts by use of force, which would mean war.”
Without resorting to armed conflict, it is still possible for the Philippines to assert its maritime sovereignty and rights by putting “a principled and consistent stance” on the issue, Koh added.
He says the Philippines should pursue daily maritime law enforcement actions and patrols of its EEZ.
“The recent Philippine Coast Guard challenge and dispersal of Chinese and other foreign fishing vessels in the Philippine EEZ, around Sabina Shoal and Marie Louise Bank, is a good example,” Koh said.

“These actions may not compel China to reverse its acts in the South China Sea, but at the very least may help deter Beijing from thinking of more drastic actions to further undermine the status quo.”
In May, Chinese vessels also left Sabina Shoal, after the Philippines issued a radio challenge.
Hontiveros, an opposition senator and critic of Duterte’s South China Sea policy said the radio challenges showed that “the Philippines can assert our ownership of the West Philippine Sea without resorting to war.”
As a middle power caught in the increasingly heated rivalry between China and the US, the lesson for Manila is to pursue an independent foreign policy, according to Cabalza, the foreign affairs expert who has also studied at the National Defence University in Beijing.
“Manila should choose its own national interest. It takes courage to depend on its own capability and build it with a vision to protect the country’s own sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Al Jazeera English · by Ted Regencia



12. Congress Has a Role Against China, Too

Excerpts:
In the case of the Senate-passed United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA), the jury is still out on whether Congress can address weaknesses in the bill’s domestic policy proposals to outcompete China.
USICA’s centerpiece would boost funding for science and technology development infrastructure through academic institutions and the commercial sector. But this infrastructure and resulting innovation will be vulnerable to CCP theft. There is no credible vetting and research security mechanism for funding recipients, as underscored by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence members’ warnings and (unsuccessful) attempt to amend the bill, and the research-focused institutions being asked to own the program are ill-equipped to manage what is fundamentally a national security undertaking. If these funding programs pass, will Congress demand, as it should, rigorous executive branch oversight over disbursement and more safeguards to protect innovation from CCP exploitation?
Earlier this year, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., spoke alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, at a virtual policy dialogue and offered the following observation about America’s foremost policy challenge: “Nothing will upset and surprise Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party more than having bipartisan groups put down the tools of partisan politics and pick up the hard work of crafting a consensus long-term strategy with regards to China.”
He is exactly right.
The United States is still in the early stages of shaping a long-term strategy to defend its interests and values against the CCP’s global ambitions. Congress is just scratching the surface of its potential role in that mission. Bipartisanship is critical to the way forward.
Congress Has a Role Against China, Too
Lawmakers’ bipartisan momentum against the CCP is a good start. Here are three ideas for the way forward.
defenseone.com · by Maseh Zarif
Recent work by Congress to advance a series of bills intended to strengthen U.S. competitiveness and capabilities at home and abroad may seem like a signal of Capitol Hill’s “awakening” on China policy. But this campaign is hardly the only significant endeavor Congress has undertaken on the issue lately, nor should it be the last.
Congress’s momentum on China policy since 2020, as well as its hiccups, hold three key lessons for the way forward, whatever the outcome of the current legislative blitz.
First, Congress should use its legislative power to support America’s friends and populations abroad facing the abuse and coercion of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.
That is what members of Congress did when they shepherded several bills into law that strengthen a free Taiwan (TAIPEI Act and Taiwan Assurance Act), expose the CCP’s genocidal campaign in Xinjiang and authorize related sanctions (Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020), address CCP human rights abuses in Tibet (Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020), and hold actors accountable for violating Hong Kong’s autonomy and enabling oppression (Hong Kong Autonomy Act).
These laws should rebuke any perception that American politicians are incapable of overcoming partisanship to confront the CCP’s aggression and repression.
Second, lawmakers should leverage existing—and often neglected—oversight tools.
In 2020, the Defense Department began to keep track of Chinese military-linked companies operating in the United States, to comply with a 1999 law it had left unfulfilled. The military-industrial ecosystem in which these companies operate enables the CCP to amass power, influence, and coercive leverage, as our colleagues Emily de La Bruyère and Nathan Picarsic detailed in a Foundation for Defense of Democracies report. These listings lay the groundwork for a ban on the flow of some U.S. investments into many of these entities. Before this prohibition, Americans were helping finance these companies, sometimes inadvertently, through capital markets.
This progress was propelled by the prodding of a 2019 congressional oversight effort initiated by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Chuck Schumer, D-New York, along with Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. Their call for implementing the 1999 law, coupled with updated legislative guidance to the Defense Department, has compelled the Trump and Biden administrations to act.
Members of Congress have continued to press for restrictions on these companies’ reach into the U.S., and they should exercise oversight with vigilance.
Third, lawmakers and relevant committees should ensure the executive branch implements policies consistent with their intent. Two recent cases are instructive.
Democrats and Republicans on the armed services committees worked together last year to establish the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, or PDI, in the Pentagon’s 2021 defense authorization law. PDI was meant to bolster the U.S. defense posture in the Indo-Pacific region and ensure the military command closest to the threat got what it needed. As a former Senate Armed Services Committee staff member who helped develop the PDI concept has explained, lawmakers had specifics in mind for how PDI investments would be allocated, given DOD’s prior shortcomings.
Yet President Joe Biden’s defense budget request for next year, submitted in May, failed to meet Congress’s aim for the PDI. Lawmakers panned the Pentagon’s request at a SASC hearing. Key committee leaders have rightly vowed to use the defense authorization and appropriations processes to correct course.
In the case of the Senate-passed United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA), the jury is still out on whether Congress can address weaknesses in the bill’s domestic policy proposals to outcompete China.
USICA’s centerpiece would boost funding for science and technology development infrastructure through academic institutions and the commercial sector. But this infrastructure and resulting innovation will be vulnerable to CCP theft. There is no credible vetting and research security mechanism for funding recipients, as underscored by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence members’ warnings and (unsuccessful) attempt to amend the bill, and the research-focused institutions being asked to own the program are ill-equipped to manage what is fundamentally a national security undertaking. If these funding programs pass, will Congress demand, as it should, rigorous executive branch oversight over disbursement and more safeguards to protect innovation from CCP exploitation?
Earlier this year, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., spoke alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, at a virtual policy dialogue and offered the following observation about America’s foremost policy challenge: “Nothing will upset and surprise Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party more than having bipartisan groups put down the tools of partisan politics and pick up the hard work of crafting a consensus long-term strategy with regards to China.”
He is exactly right.
The United States is still in the early stages of shaping a long-term strategy to defend its interests and values against the CCP’s global ambitions. Congress is just scratching the surface of its potential role in that mission. Bipartisanship is critical to the way forward.
Maseh Zarif is director of congressional relations at FDD Action, which is related to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a former professional staff member on the House Homeland Security Committee. Jane Tilles, an undergraduate student at American University majoring in international studies and political science, recently interned at FDD Action.
defenseone.com · by Maseh Zarif




13. Pentagon analyzing request to send troops to Haiti


As Kissinger would ask: What is the central logic for such a deployment? (and what is the IO plan to support explaining that central logic?)

A few points to consider:

1. Develop a clear understanding of the strategic aim.
2. Determine the end state required to achieve the strategic aim.
3. Identify friendly and enemy center of gravity, decisive points, and culmination.
4. Identify the operational objectives that will produce the end state.
5. Determine the sequence of actions most likely to achieve the operational objectives.
6. Organize and apply the resources of the force to accomplish the sequence of actions.

And we could think in terms of appreciate the context, understand the problem, develop an approach.

Pentagon analyzing request to send troops to Haiti
militarytimes.com · by Danica Coto · July 11, 2021
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Pentagon is analyzing a request to send troops to Haiti in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse , but no decisions have been made, a spokesman said Sunday
Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby said on Fox News Sunday that a team — largely comprising agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI — was heading down to Haiti “right now” to help with the investigation of the assassination.
’'I think that’s really where are our energies are best applied right now, in helping them get their arms around investigating this incident and figuring out who’s culpable, who’s responsible and how best to hold them accountable going forward,’' Kirby said.
Kirby’s statement came as hundreds of Haitians sought solace in prayer at Sunday church services as a political power struggle threatened to further destabilize their fragile country after the assassination of Moïse.
Roman Catholic and Protestant church leaders asked for calm and told people to remain strong as anxiety about the future grew, with authorities providing no answers or theories about who masterminded the killing by a group of gunmen early Wednesday at the president’s home. Martine Moïse, the president’s wife, was critically injured and was transported to Miami for treatment.
“Facing this situation, we will not be discouraged... You must stay and fight for peace,” Father Edwine Sainte-Louis said during a sermon broadcast on TV that included a small picture of Moïse with a banner that read: “Haiti will remember you.”
Authorities have arrested at least 19 suspects, 17 of whom are Colombian and two Haitian-Americans. At least three others were killed and six are on the run, the government said. Prosecutors have requested that high-profile politicians including presidential candidate Reginald Boulos and former Haitian Senate President Youri Latortue meet officials for questioning as the investigation continues. Authorities also said they plan to interview at least two members of Moïse’s security detail.
Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph is currently leading Haiti with the help of the police and military, but he faces mounting challenges to his power.


A worker waits for customers at a bus terminal in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, July 10, 2021, three days after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home. (AP Photo / Matias Delacroix)
Ariel Henry, whom Moïse designated as prime minister a day before he was killed, has said he believes he is the rightful prime minister, a claim also backed by a group of legislators who are members of Moïse’s Tet Kale party. That group also supports Joseph Lambert, head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, as the country’s provisional president.
Haiti, a country of more than 11 million people, currently has only 10 elected officials after it failed to hold parliamentary elections, leading Moïse to rule by decree for more than a year until his death.
While the streets were calm on Sunday, government officials worry about what lies ahead and have requested U.S. and U.N. military assistance.
“We still believe there is a path for chaos to happen,” Haiti Elections Minister Mathias Pierre told The Associated Press.
The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990. The last U.N. peacekeeping mission arrived in 2004 and all military peacekeepers left the country in 2017. But a stabilization group stayed behind to train national police, help the government strengthen judicial and legal institutions and monitor human rights. That mission ended in 2019 and was replaced by a political mission headed by an American diplomat, Helen La Lime.
In addition to helping normalize the country, the U.N. peacekeeping force played an important role after a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people and after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. But U.N. troops from Nepal are widely blamed for inadvertently introducing cholera, which has afflicted over 800,000 people and killed more than 9,000 people since 2010. Some troops also have been implicated in sexual abuse, including of hungry young children.
Laurent Dubois, a Haiti expert and Duke University professor, said questions over Moïse’s assassination could remain unanswered for a long time.
“There are so many potential players who could be behind it,” he said, adding that the political strength of Pierre, the interim prime minister, is an open question. “There is going to be some jockeying for positions of power. That is one big worry.”
In Port-au-Prince, resident Fritz Destin welcomed a priest’s sermon urging people not to be discouraged.
“The country needs a lot of prayers,” he said. “The violence makes life a little uncertain.’'
AP videographer Gerardo Carrillo contributed to this report.

militarytimes.com · by Danica Coto · July 11, 2021


14. Short on expertise, Army Guard, Reserve want to snag retired warrants


Short on expertise, Army Guard, Reserve want to snag retired warrants
armytimes.com · by Davis Winkie · July 9, 2021
The Army is developing policy that opens the door for retired active-duty warrant officers to continue serving in the Army Reserve or National Guard while still drawing their pensions.
The service has “approved” the initiative, according to Chief Warrant Officer 5 Rick Knowlton, the senior warrant officer adviser for the Army Talent Management Task Force, who spoke during a Thursday Association of the United States Army discussion panel.
“We have approximately 600 warrant officers retiring in the next 12 months,” Knowlton told Army Times in a follow-up phone interview. “That is [at least] 12,000 years worth of experience that’s walking out the door. Why would we not see if it matches up with what we need in the Guard and Reserve?”
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth signed a directive authorizing the program on July 1.
“It’s just the beginning of a developing process,” Knowlton said. The Guard and Reserve are currently working to develop the program and identify their needs, he added.
Once implemented, the policy could help the reserve components fill a growing number of vacant positions for the Army’s technical experts.
The Army Reserve is currently “about 1,000 warrant officers short,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Patrick Nelligan, the USAR’s command chief warrant officer. “We’re going to be very specific on to whom we would offer this opportunity based on your skillset, based on your grade…and where you’re willing to be assigned.”
The Army National Guard did not immediately respond to an emailed request for its total number of warrant officer vacancies.

Retired warrants who continue with part-time service must waive a day of their pension — and a day of any VA disability pay they receive — for each calendar day they drill or train.
Retirees in grades lower than chief warrant officer 5 can be considered for further promotion in the reserve components, too.
Warrant officers who take advantage of the program may be eligible for skill bonuses and could also increase their pensions — the directive says that troops can convert to a non-regular, or reserve component, retirement once they end their service.
Those retirements will factor in any promotions and additional years of reserve component service, and may result in a greater monthly benefit.
Retired warrants who rejoin could become eligible for dual-status technician civilian jobs as well, according to Chief Warrant Officer 5 Teresa Domeier, the Guard’s command chief warrant officer.
Those jobs, which require part-time reserve component membership, operate on the federal general schedule pay scale and could let retired warrants work towards a second retirement.
Knowlton added that the talent management task force is also considering other options for meeting reserve component warrant needs, such as direct commissions for cyber warrant officers.

armytimes.com · by Davis Winkie · July 9, 2021

15. Young Minds on Competition and Conflict | Mad Scientist Laboratory

I am not worried about our future. I meet so many brilliant young people these days. We need to empower them. They will get it right and make our future bright.

339. Young Minds on Competition and Conflict | Mad Scientist Laboratory
madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil · by user · July 12, 2021
[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist leveraged age diversity in the subject webinar, part of this year’s series of Competition and Conflict virtual events – exploring our adversaries’ views on Competition, Crisis, Conflict, and Change. On 6 May 2021, the following panel of prominent and diverse young minds from the national security arena shared their ideas about the future of Competition and Conflict for the next decade:
Jessica Budlong – Founder and Executive Director of the Nuclear Fusion Project; Communications Assistant at University of Denver; Former Research Intern at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
MAJ Amos Fox – Executive Officer, 3rd Squadron, 4th Special Forces Assistance Brigade; School of Advanced Military Studies graduate and COL Tom Felts award winner
CPT Lauren Hansen-Armendariz – Deputy Chief of Innovation, 101st Airborne Division; Intelligence Officer
Evanna Hu – CEO, Partner at Omelas; Technologist; Information Environment Subject Matter Expert; Lecturer; Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council
MAJ Michael Kanaan – Active duty Air Force AI Expert; Author of “T-Minus AI;” Director of Operations, Department of the Air Force / MIT Artificial Intelligence; Former Co-Chair of AI, U.S. Air Force
Jimmy Zhang – Policy Analyst, Emerging Threats at Department of Homeland Security; Director, National Security Programs at Embolden; Former International Affairs Specialist at Department of Justice
Today’s post highlights the insights gleaned from their panel discussion — Read on!]
Younger generations are particularly interested in the future of Competition and Conflict, and seek to be heard and have an impact in the national securityarena. They recognize that although it is difficult to predict the future security landscape, our Nation’s agility in responding to rapidly evolving threats will be critical to mission success. As such, they conceptualize strategy and competition as a constant process that must be continuously adjusted and maintained. These generations conceptualize the future of national security in novel ways and can help the Army frame its vision for the future.
1. Although new to us, most trends and threats in national security will have historical precedent. Conceptualizing national security in this way embodies the idea of “combinatorial creativity,” in which ideas and techniques from one industry are applied to a new one. Thus, integrating security efforts across Government agencies and with the private sector can promote the flow of ideas, and allow for more creative solutions to emerging threats.The panelists noted that China’s Military-Civil Fusion facilitates this integrated “triple helix” approach. They argued that the United States should consider new ways to expedite the flow of ideas beyond the creation of task forces, which are often temporary in nature. One way in which this could be done would be by increasing investment in , which enlist creative thinkers to solve problems and promote new ideas.
2. The line between war and peace will continue to blur, challenging our cognitive security. Although competition with peers like China and Russia will escalate, so too will opportunities to collaborate (e.g., on climate change). As the grey zone widens, it will be difficult to describe competitors as strictly allies or adversaries, increasing complexity in the international sphere. Importantly, however, this feature of competition is not new, as panelists noted that the United States and the Soviet Union cooperated in space, even at the height of the Cold War.
3. The information sphere is democratizing, allowing the information pillar of DIME to stretch across all domains. Increased accessibility and proliferation of disinformation will challenge trust across entire generations. The ethical implications of the United States engaging in offensive information operations are still debated, and very few DoD offices have the authority to engage in such practices. Regardless of whether it chooses to employ this tactic, the United States must determine how to maintain credibility both domestically and abroad as disinformation becomes more engaging and accessible.
To thrive in this constantly evolving, competitive security space, the panelists recommend the United States and the Army develop a variety of critical competencies, from defined grand strategy practices to a thriving team mentality. Adjustments in U.S. military budgets will need to be made to meet these objectives. While cutting excess and overhead will help, the panelistsalso acknowledged that Senior Leaders need to better collaborate with Congress in order to define DoD goals and ensure that the U.S. budget aligns correctly with its stated priorities. Along these lines, the panelists proposed:
1. Creating diverse and innovative teams with a culture of experimentation and learning will be critical to Army success in competition and conflict. Supporting Soldiers to take risks, learn, and share their experiences will create a culture of innovation. These teamswill require leaders who operate based on a “we” mentality, connect their members with resources and personnel to support their efforts, and are willing to change course when a technique no longer works. The panelists noted that leadership will be the defining element of success in great power competition, and the best leaders will be collected under pressure and willing to adapt.
To create teams with these characteristics, the panelists argued that the United States should increase spending on Professional Military Education (PME). The panelists asserted that problems and solutions start with people. By increasing training and retraining of our forces, we can maintain the U.S. comparative advantage in creative and resilient Services.
The United States can leverage significant demographic and cultural diversity, a major strength compared to our peer competitors. The U.S. military and security sphere should prioritize recruitment and retention of diverse perspectives.The panelists even suggested revisiting the accessibility of security clearances in order to fully leverage these populations.
2. Explicitly define each desired end-state and describe acceptable conditions and responses to them. Establishing clearly defined goals and accounting for sub optimization will allow the United States to build in off-ramps on both sides and lead to the creation of a consistent and acceptable grand strategy. Defining objectives will also allow the United States to distinguish between problems to be solved vs problems managed, creating achievable expectations.
3. The United States should shift from prioritizing power projection capabilities to prioritizing denial capabilities. Developments in AI and cyber are largely offensive-dominant and can in many ways undermine stability of the international system. However, “a willingness to go somewhere different” could enable the United States to maintain strength in the international arena while simultaneously creating a more stable international order.
The panelists noted that creating the type of change they hope to see will take time. While younger generations are excited to make an impact, they will still need to be incentivized to become involved in security. In many cases, this effort will involve incentivizing older generations to be open to the ideas and propositions of the incoming generations. Developments will be part of “the long game” and will require a holistic approach: synthesis between generations and between the public and private sectors.
The panelists argued that advancement can be achieved by optimizing and augmenting processes that already exist, and fully committing to applying what we have already learned to new areas of the government. This effort may take the form of integrating new technology or reimagining an existing policy. By continuously experimenting, acknowledging what doesn’t work, and institutionalizing what does, the United States can ensure it maintains its position as a global leader.
To learn more about our Young Minds on Competition and Conflict webinar, review our panelists’ biographies and watch the entire video of the panel discussion (via a non-DoD network).
If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:
>>>> THIS WEEK!!! If you want to learn more about age diverse perspectives and the future of national security, make sure you plug into the upcoming TRADOC Leader Professional Development webinar — Bridging Generations: Leading Gen Z in the Future Army! Hosted by GEN Paul E. Funk II, Commanding General, TRADOC, this webinar features guest speaker Jason Dorsey, President of the Center for Generational Kinetics and author of Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business and What To Do About It. Don’t miss this informative webinar on Thursday, 15 July 2021, from 1100-1200 Eastern. The webinar will be streamed on the TRADOC Facebook Page and the TRADOC Watch Page.

>>>> REMINDER!!! Army Mad Scientist is CALLING ALL CREATORS with our Multi-Media Contest for imaginative artists who would like to showcase their ideas about future possibilities in alternative ways. For more information, check out our announcement and flyer, then consult your inner muse, unleash your creative talent, get cracking developing your multi-media entry, and submit it to madscitradoc@gmail.com. There are only 26 days left… deadline for submission is 6 August 2021!!!

madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil · by user · July 12, 2021



16.  Guantanamo prosecutor, an Army one-star, retires as 9/11 trial remains elusive


Guantanamo prosecutor, an Army one-star, retires as 9/11 trial remains elusive
armytimes.com · by Ben Fox, The Associated Press · July 11, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army general who spent the past decade leading an oft-stalled effort to prosecute five men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is retiring from the military, leaving his post as chief prosecutor as a trial remains elusive.
The retirement of Brig. Gen. Mark Martins was disclosed by a civilian employee of the Defense Department in an email sent late Thursday to relatives of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and wasn’t publicly announced by the Pentagon or the Office of Military Commissions, which oversees the tribunals.
According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, Martins decided to leave now because 10 years is “about the longest any military officer can serve in a single assignment.” Also, the scheduled resumption of pretrial hearings after more than year-long hiatus due to the pandemic, meant it was “time to transition to new leadership” of the tribunals for prisoners held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“With the actual trial dates not yet set, there is an ideal window to identify a successor and get her/him settled in before the merits phase actually begins,” said the email from Karen Loftus, director of the prosecution’s Victim Witness Assistance Program.

In this photo reviewed by U.S. military officials, the Office of Military Commissions building used for Periodic Review Board hearings is seen April 18, 2019, in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Martins, a Harvard Law School classmate of former President Barack Obama, started as a vocal defender of the widely criticized military tribunals, or commissions, process that combines elements of civilian and military law. He has since stopped publicly speaking about proceedings mired in legal challenges and which could be shut down entirely if President Joe Biden achieves his intention to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
Martins did not respond Friday to messages and the Office of Military Commissions declined comment, issuing only a statement that said a judge would decide whether upcoming pretrial hearings would need to be rescheduled. His retirement was first reported by The New York Times.
Michael O’Sullivan, a deputy chief prosecutor, will assume the position of acting chief, according to the email.
Taking up his duties as chief prosecutor in 2011, Martins predicted that the revamped commissions for the five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks would be more transparent and fair to defendants than a previous effort. That also applied to other terrorism defendants at the base, including a Saudi prisoner charged in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

Biden's precise intentions for Guantanamo remain unclear, however.
Ben Fox, The Associated Press
November 29, 2020
Obama sought to close the Guantanamo detention center but was blocked by Congress, which passed legislation barring the transfer of prisoners to the U.S. for any reason — including prosecution or imprisonment.
After backing off a plan to try 9/11 defendants in federal court in New York, the Obama administration worked with Congress on an overhaul of the tribunals. Changes included restrictions on the use of evidence gained through coercion or torture and improved viewing access for the media and select observers.
“I believe that thoughtful people looking at this process will notice the changes,” Martins told The Associated Press in an interview shortly after taking up the post. “I wouldn’t be in this job if I wasn’t convinced that individuals could be given a full and fair trial under law and that the outcome will be both legitimate and ultimately perceived to be legitimate.”
Critics said the changes didn’t go nearly far enough to ensure a fair trial for men such as the 9/11 defendants, who were held in clandestine CIA prisons for several years and subjected to what was then euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation” and is now considered torture.
In part, the prosecution’s case in the 9/11 attacks rests on statements that the defendants — who include Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks — gave to the FBI after they were transferred by the CIA to the military at Guantanamo in September 2006.
Still, legal challenges largely revolving around what evidence can be used at an eventual trial have kept the case bogged down. The effort has also been beset by the logistical difficulty of trying to hold proceedings in a specially designed courtroom on the isolated U.S base.
There have been more than 40 rounds of pretrial hearings since the May 2012 arraignment and the estimated start date for what would likely be a lengthy trial before a jury of military officers has been repeatedly put off.
The Biden administration has said it intends to close Guantanamo after a review of operations, but has not publicly released details about when or how that will happen.

armytimes.com · by Ben Fox, The Associated Press · July 11, 2021


17. States Gear Up for Fight to Keep the National Guard Out of War

Are such laws constitutional? Does this create a new political-military crisis? I suppose the federal government could cut federal funding to the states that pass such laws and shift the resources to developing necessary capabilities in the reserves.

Perhaps the National Guard should lose its seat on the Joint Chiefs.

On the other hand can this be a forcing function that pushes Congress to do its job in authorizing the use of military force and declaring war?

States Gear Up for Fight to Keep the National Guard Out of War
military.com · by Steve Beynon · July 11, 2021
At least 31 states have legislation on the table that aims to deny the president's authority to deploy National Guardsmen to combat zones without a declaration of war, and supporters of the effort are eager for a Supreme Court battle to define who has ultimate control of state troops.
Dan McKnight, a veteran who heads the lobbying effort for the legislation through his Bring Our Troops Home organization, argues that Congress has been asleep at the wheel in its authority to declare war, ceding its powers to the White House. He said he is not against National Guard troops seeing combat, but thinks members of Congress should not be able to duck the decision.
He's trying to change that by tapping state lawmakers to assert authority over troop deployments, a back door into a dilemma in which the U.S. has waged decades of war without a formal declaration since the 1950s. However, experts say that a grappling match with the Pentagon about its authority over troops is an uphill battle, and the effort faces steep odds in federal court.
"We'll go and fight any war you ask us to do," McKnight told Military.com. "All we ask is, if we raise our hand and swear an oath, you send us to a war declared by Congress."
The Guard makes up about 33% of the Army's total force. Being unable to deploy Guardsmen abroad could undermine the president's ability to wage war, in theory ratcheting up pressure to formally declare war.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, an Obama-era commander of American troops in Afghanistan, said during that war's peak in 2009 that the National Guard would be the "key" to the war effort. At the time, the National Guard made up 15% of the 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and 7% of the 144,000 in Iraq.
State efforts to seize authority over the Guard have been a relatively obscure issue until this year. No laws have passed yet. Because of legislative schedules, most of the 31 states haven't held votes or hearings on the proposal. McKnight believes 2022 will be the big year for the issue and is aiming to have a bill on the table in every state.
"This year, we got it introduced in 31 states. Next year, we'll have all 50 states," he said. "I think we're going to get it passed in Texas, Florida, Idaho and South Dakota. Maybe even Wyoming."
But Dwight Stirling, CEO of the Center for Law and Military Policy, told Military.com that the state bills would be toothless. Even if they're passed, it wouldn't matter, he said.
"The [legislation effort] reflects a misunderstanding of how the National Guard is constructed," Stirling said. "There is nothing a governor or state legislature can do to prevent or restrict the President's call-up authority. Any state law purporting to place caveats on the President's authority to federalize state guard troops is null and void, representing feckless words on a piece of paper."
McKnight ran with the idea after seeing the effort started in West Virginia, where Delegate Pat McGeehan, a Republican, has proposed the measure for the past seven years in a row. In 2019, it was defeated with a tied vote in the House.
McGeehan told Military.com he sees the issue as a vehicle to impact foreign policy, a rare topic in state legislatures.
"State legislators never really thought they could have influence over foreign policy," he said. "If enough states follow through, you remove a lot of Pentagon power. It's a matter of which state gets this through first."

Capt. Craig Giese, executive officer for Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Kunar, scans the horizon for possible threats on a dismounted patrol in route to Observation Point Bull Run. Giese, a Lodi, Wisconsin, native, is also a member of the Wisconsin National Guard's 97th Agribusiness Development Team. (Shawn Vradenburg/U.S. Army)
The issue has achieved momentum in dozens of state legislatures this year, mostly after lobbying efforts by McKnight. While it hasn't passed yet in Texas, which has the largest National Guard contingent among the states, preventing Guardsmen from deploying to combat without a war declaration is part of the Texas Republican Party's platform, which sets the agenda for the party in the state.
Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton, a Republican, told Military.com the state can't control how the entire military deploys, but is hoping to play at least a small role in forcing Congress to flex its war power.
"We can protect at least some of our citizens from deploying [to an undeclared war]," he said.
But National Guard troops ultimately fall under the president. Even if the legislation makes it into law, it would likely be outmatched by the federal government's superseding authority to deploy troops. McGeehan said the law would "certainly" be challenged in the courts.
A hypothetical showdown between a governor and the president might be moot if troops are activated under federal orders; it's unlikely they would be in a position to disobey the president. Since those missions are also funded by the federal government, states might not have any tools to cling to their troops.
"We pray for a Supreme Court battle," McKnight said.
The issue hinges on overturning a 1990 Supreme Court decision in Perpich v. Department of Defense. In that case, then-Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich fought the federal government over activating the state's National Guard for a training mission in Central America. He lost.
McKnight and other supporters of overturning the court's decision argue that the ruling specified training events, not combat deployments.
An unclassified Defense Department report detailing what is known as the "Ohio Incident" shows there is precedent for governors refusing to relinquish their Guard forces to the federal government; it almost caused the Ohio National Guard to effectively be disbanded.
In the late 1980s, Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste refused to let his 16th Engineer Brigade deploy to Honduras for a roadbuilding project. The chief of the National Guard Bureau moved against Celeste, threatening to withdraw the Ohio National Guard from the state, according to the report.
There was "a real threat of losing virtually all the Ohio National Guard if he didn't comply," the DoD report added. California and Maine also balked at deployments, and other governors made public comments saying they would refuse to let their Guard go if asked. Celeste eventually backed down, but the 420th Engineer Brigade from Texas was deployed instead.
-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.
military.com · by Steve Beynon · July 11, 2021


18. FDD | Xi Jinping Doesn’t Want to Admit He’s an Autocrat

Excerpts:
Xi had little to say with respect to foreign affairs. He made no direct mention of the U.S. Xi painted China as a victim of outside aggressors, claiming that Beijing only wants what is best for the world. “Peace, concord, and harmony are ideas the Chinese nation has pursued and carried forward for more than 5,000 years,” Xi said. “The Chinese nation does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes.”
Of course, the U.S. and its allies are rightfully concerned that now—after China’s “national rejuvenation” has taken many steps forward—the CCP will seek to expand its power beyond its borders.
However, Xi did not saber rattle, even with respect to hot button issues such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Concerning the former, he claimed that Beijing will continue to respect the principle of “one country, two systems” and that the CCP’s moves are merely intended to “safeguard national security.” Many Hong Kongers would beg to differ, as the CCP’s actions are undoubtedly aimed at ending the degree of autonomy they previously enjoyed.
And on Taiwan, Xi said that the party would continue to seek “peaceful national reunification.” Still, “complete reunification is a historic mission” requiring “an unshakable commitment.” Time will tell how committed Beijing really is to peace.

FDD | Xi Jinping Doesn’t Want to Admit He’s an Autocrat
His rhetoric is a mishmash of different concepts, some directly at odds with one another.
fdd.org · by Thomas Joscelyn Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD's Long War Journal · July 8, 2021
On July 1, Xi Jinping delivered a speech commemorating the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For longtime Xi watchers, his address contained little, if anything, that was new. Still, the speech, which was transcribed into English and released on state-controlled media websites, provides a useful window into how Xi continues to see his party 100 years after its founding. With that framework in mind, here are some observations.
To be sure, Xi relied on standard CCP motifs. He preached the greatness of China’s ancient civilization and obsessed over the need for “national rejuvenation”—the main justification the CCP offers for its own existence. Xi repeated all of the historical grievances that the CCP has used as a pretext for its absolute power. “After the Opium War of 1840…China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and suffered greater ravages than ever before,” Xi lamented. This led to the country enduring decades of “intense humiliation,” in which the people “were subjected to great pain, and the Chinese civilization was plunged into darkness.” Since then, Xi said, “national rejuvenation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.” It’s a “dream” Xi says he and the CCP are making a reality.
But it is striking how much of Xi’s rhetoric is a mishmash of different concepts, some of which are directly at odds with one another. Careful readers will note ideological fault lines throughout Xi’s explanation of the CCP’s role.
Consider that Xi used the word “democratic,” in one form or another, at least several times to describe the party. He claims that the CCP achieved “great success” in the “new democratic revolution” of the 20th century. “The victory of the new-democratic revolution put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, to the state of total disunity that existed in old China, and to all the unequal treaties imposed on our country by foreign powers and all the privileges that imperialist powers enjoyed in China,” Xi claimed.
Incredibly, Xi said the CCP is still democratic to this day, explaining that one of the party’s goals is to “enhance” its “capacity to conduct sound, democratic, and law-based governance.” The Chinese leader even claimed the party will “develop” what he calle a ”whole-process people’s democracy” that “safeguard[s] social fairness and justice.”
This rhetorical framing should stand out to anyone with a passing familiarity of the CCP and Xi’s increasing power within it. The CCP has never been “democratic.” Today, according to Xi, it has a staggering 95 million members. But that is still less than 7 percent of China’s 1.4 billion citizens. The CCP has always been authoritarian—none of its power is drawn from anything resembling a true democracy. But as many have noted, Xi has consolidated his grip on power over the past decade, meaning that the party has become increasingly autocratic.
Some of the CCP members in Xi’s audience know the party’s inside baseball better than anyone, and certainly better than any outside observers, as they’ve witnessed Xi’s power grab firsthand. So, I would like to imagine that some of them privately demurred when Xi said: “The party has no special interests of its own—it has never represented any individual interest group, power group, or privileged stratum.” That isn’t true, as demonstrated by Xi’s own career.
This obvious tension is only exacerbated by Xi’s call for increased obedience. He said that his nation “must uphold the core position of the general secretary on the Party Central Committee and in the party as a whole, and uphold the Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership.” The former position—that of general secretary—is Xi’s own. And like all good autocrats, Xi wants to ensure that the armed forces remain unwaveringly loyal to him and the CCP’s centralized leadership. “We will take comprehensive measures to enhance the political loyalty of the armed forces,” Xi said.
All of which is to say that Xi’s repeated references to “democracy” are somewhat bizarre. His definition of “democratic” is either vastly different from ours, or he employs the concept as a defensive shield against critics who correctly point out that the CCP is anything but pro-democracy.
There is some discussion in Washington concerning whether the CCP is truly Marxist. The issue is that modern China is not organized like the anti-democratic Marxist regimes of the 20th century, with their centrally managed economies. Beijing operates a hybrid system of sorts—“socialism with Chinese characteristics”—with the party maintaining total political power, while allowing for some degree of economic competition to spur innovation and growth. The CCP still has ultimate control of the economy and is heavily involved in overseeing key industries and companies, but Beijing realized long ago that it was self-defeating to attempt to micromanage every last business transaction.
For his part, Xi openly embraced the Marxist label—which, again, is at odds with the notion that the CCP is democratic. “Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology upon which our Party and country are founded; it is the very soul of our Party and the banner under which it strives,” Xi said. “The Communist Party of China upholds the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts.”
But at another point in his speech, Xi hints at the adjustments the CCP made to its Marxist doctrine—modifications that became all the more necessary after the Soviet system fell. He says that a “hallmark” distinguishing the CCP “from other political parties is its courage in undertaking self-reform,” as this allowed the party to remain “so vital and vibrant despite having undergone so many trials and tribulations.” The autocratic regime’s ability to continue adjusting will be tested in the future, when economic and demographic challenges arise, including an aging population. In that vein, Xi reminds his audience that even as the party “fought to establish and consolidate our leadership over the country, we have in fact been fighting to earn and keep the people’s support.”
Even in an autocracy, therefore, some level of popular support is necessary to avoid potential political turmoil. So far, however, the CCP has survived all democratic and other political challenges to its authority.
Xi had little to say with respect to foreign affairs. He made no direct mention of the U.S. Xi painted China as a victim of outside aggressors, claiming that Beijing only wants what is best for the world. “Peace, concord, and harmony are ideas the Chinese nation has pursued and carried forward for more than 5,000 years,” Xi said. “The Chinese nation does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes.”
Of course, the U.S. and its allies are rightfully concerned that now—after China’s “national rejuvenation” has taken many steps forward—the CCP will seek to expand its power beyond its borders.
However, Xi did not saber rattle, even with respect to hot button issues such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Concerning the former, he claimed that Beijing will continue to respect the principle of “one country, two systems” and that the CCP’s moves are merely intended to “safeguard national security.” Many Hong Kongers would beg to differ, as the CCP’s actions are undoubtedly aimed at ending the degree of autonomy they previously enjoyed.
And on Taiwan, Xi said that the party would continue to seek “peaceful national reunification.” Still, “complete reunification is a historic mission” requiring “an unshakable commitment.” Time will tell how committed Beijing really is to peace.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal. Follow Tom on Twitter @thomasjoscelyn. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.
fdd.org · by Thomas Joscelyn Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD's Long War Journal · July 8, 2021


19. Taliban squeezes Afghan government by seizing key border towns



BY BILL ROGGIO | July 9, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
In addition to militarily taking control of key districts throughout the country, the Taliban is cutting off the key revenue sources to the Afghan government by taking control of important border crossings that serve as dry ports for good shipped overseas. The Taliban now controls three of Afghanistan’s eight dry ports, including two on the border with Iran.
In the past 24 hours, the Taliban took control of the Islam Qala and Turghundi border crossings, both which are in Herat province and border Iran. The Taliban seized the Shirkhan Bander crossing in Kunduz province which borders Uzbekistan two weeks ago, and has maintained control of the crossing.
Afghan forces protecting all three dry ports put up little resistance. In all three instances, the Afghan security forces and customs officials abandoned their posts and fled across the border.
There are eight dry ports in Afghanistan, two of which are inland and located in Kabul City and Mazar-i-Sharif (Hairatan Dry Port). The other three dry ports, Torkham in Nangarhar, Aqeena in Faryab, and Spin Boldak in Kandahar are currently under government control. However, heavy fighting has been reported in Spin Boldak district and the Taliban is slowly advancing on the Spin Boldak crossing.
The dry ports are major sources of revenue for an impoverished Afghan nation. The Islam Qala Dry Port generates an estimated $20 million a month, according to TOLONews.
The security situation has deteriorated rapidly since President Biden announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan on April 14, 2021.
Today, Taliban currently controls 204 districts and contests another 124 districts, according to the real time assessment by FDD’s Long War Journal.
Prior to the Taliban’s offensive, which began in earnest on May 1 – upon expiration of the date that the U.S. government originally committed to completing its withdrawal under the Doha Agreement – the Taliban controlled only 73 districts and contested another 210.
Afghan DistrictsAs of May 1, 2021As of July 5, 2021Taliban Controlled73204Contested210124Gov’t Controlled11570
The Taliban’s strategy of seizing rural districts has not only allowed it to surround major cities and put pressure on population centers, it has also enabled it to squeeze the Afghan government’s revenue from goods crossing the border.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
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20. Breaking Out of Our Silos: How to Strengthen Relationships Between Service-Specific Information Operations Communities, and Why We Need To
We have to succeed and win in the information and influence domain and most importantly the human domain.

The first sentence of this excerpt seems to be too often forgotten, misunderstood, or ignored. It is the human domain that is most important, not the ones and zeros. Oh and we are going to have to deconflict our acronyms. IW is information warfare and irregular warfare.
Despite the popular image of electrons flowing through cyberspace, IW is inherently a human endeavor, and getting the best minds together in the same room is the responsibility of commanders everywhere. Strengthening the relationship between information warfare professionals spread across the military services by leveraging formal and informal relationships is an easy and cost-effective way to increase our competitive advantage. While each service retains specialists, equipment, and knowledge spanning the spectrum of information-related capabilities, this article will focus on the Air Force’s relatively new 14F information operations (IO) officer, the Army’s psychological operations (PSYOP) 37 series, and the Army’s FA30 (information operations) functional area.


Breaking Out of Our Silos: How to Strengthen Relationships Between Service-Specific Information Operations Communities, and Why We Need To - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Robert Stelmack · July 12, 2021
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series, “Full-Spectrum: Capabilities and Authorities in Cyber and the Information Environment.” The series endeavors to present expert commentary on diverse issues surrounding US competition with peer and near-peer competitors in the cyber and information spaces. Read all articles in the series here.
Special thanks to series editors Capt. Maggie Smith, PhD of the Army Cyber Institute and MWI fellow Dr. Barnett S. Koven.
In the past few years, joint force and interagency leaders have increasingly emphasized the growing importance of information warfare. The US military services have each made strides toward updating doctrine, procuring the right equipment, and reorganizing force structure to better compete with our adversaries. The Joint Staff is working to publish JP 3-XX, which will define the joint lexicon of operations in the information environment (OIE), information warfare (IW), and the roles and responsibilities of the services both for organizing, training, and equipping their OIE forces as well as how to employ them.*
While these strategic updates are important and will assist in ensuring that the joint force plans and executes operations from a point of shared understanding, there are activities and initiatives that can be done now to ensure that we are best postured to compete globally.
Despite the popular image of electrons flowing through cyberspace, IW is inherently a human endeavor, and getting the best minds together in the same room is the responsibility of commanders everywhere. Strengthening the relationship between information warfare professionals spread across the military services by leveraging formal and informal relationships is an easy and cost-effective way to increase our competitive advantage. While each service retains specialists, equipment, and knowledge spanning the spectrum of information-related capabilities, this article will focus on the Air Force’s relatively new 14F information operations (IO) officer, the Army’s psychological operations (PSYOP) 37 series, and the Army’s FA30 (information operations) functional area.
It may come as a surprise to some that the Air Force possesses an information operations capability. Understanding the history behind the Air Force specialty code 14F’s recent establishment demonstrates why its development is so significant. While US Army PSYOP forces and their capabilities are by no means new, the youth and size of the Army’s PSYOP branch relative to the Army as a whole means that the shared knowledge within the joint force about the unique capabilities of modern Army PSYOP forces remains quite low.
Many of the changes that are currently happening to information operations capabilities are a direct result of the military’s strategic shift toward great power competition. The Department of Defense is engaged in persistent competition, and in order to gain and maintain a competitive advantage, the US military must be prepared to meet our adversaries wherever and however they operate. Even though the tools and capabilities utilized for competition are important, nothing will ever subsume the criticality of investing in human capital. It is our hope, by highlighting the many opportunities to cut through imaginary barriers across the services in this article, that we can collectively invigorate cross-service cooperation and ultimately improve the effectiveness of the US military’s information warfare efforts.
So . . . the Air Force Does Information Operations?
In May 2018, the US Air Force established the IO badge, designed for those in the Air Force specialty code 14F. IO officers integrate physical and informational Air Force capabilities to influence target audiences or adversary decision making, including specialization for leveraging PSYOP, military deception, and operations security. What makes a 14F unique among both Air Force and joint force peers is the occupation’s particular focus on the social sciences. It is a firm requirement that 14Fs hold a degree in a social science, like behavioral science or anthropology. The Air Force believes that academic expertise enables 14Fs to better integrate target audience personal, cultural, and cognitive biases into planning, whether the target audience is a specific adversary decision maker or a neutral third-party audience.
Today, 14Fs are responsible for executing three specific mission types. The first, and most common, is at the air operations center (AOC). The AOC is the beating heart of the joint forces air component commander while in theater, fulfilling a similar role to a joint operations center. It is through the AOC that the Air Force plans and executes air operations. Although each AOC is organized in a similar way, every AOC includes its own unique mix of an information operations team (IOT) and an influence operations cell within the IOT. It is also common to find the influence operations cell manned entirely by 14Fs and possibly find the IOT being led by one too. The IOT coordinates cyberspace operations, space, electronic warfare, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) planners to enable cohesive nonkinetic operations. In addition to those functions, many combatant command and major command J39 billets—traditional IO staff directorates—are being filled by 14Fs as well.
The second major mission for 14F officers is within special operations units. You may find 14Fs using their talents to combat disinformation through Joint Task Force Indo-Pacific, where adversaries “continuously sow” disinformation to achieve their regional objectives. Another point of interest would be US Special Operations Command’s new joint military information support operations (MISO) WebOps Center, where 14Fs leverage their social-science academic backgrounds to more effectively “address the opportunities and risks of the global information space.”
The final mission for 14F officers is manning the various continental US-based reachback units, like those found within 16th Air Force, the Air Force’s first information warfare component numbered air force. The organization combines cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, IO, ISR, and weather in order to present information warfare capabilities and solutions to the various geographic combatant commands, with an emphasis on reducing the information stovepiping that is common among the various information-related capabilities in the military and interagency. Of particular note is the information warfare cell, which has been integral to providing IW and other information-related capabilities, with a particular emphasis on cyber-enabled MISO. Although a relatively recent development in terms of Department of Defense years, 16th Air Force has set the standard for what information operations and strategic communication should look like for the Air Force, and 14Fs have been a core part of that work.
So, yes, the Air Force “does” IO and does it well. The unique education requirements for the Air Force’s 14Fs combined with planning and executing operations that emphasize leveraging the cognitive domain, and career-enhancing opportunities (e.g., advanced education and the Education with Industry program) make the Air Force 14Fs unique and valuable members of the joint force’s IW roster.
Information Warfare Will Play a Lead Role in Great Power Competition
Great power competition is the latest focus of leaders within the Pentagon. If the great power competition trend began with former President Barack Obama’s rebalance toward the Pacific region and continued with former President Donald Trump’s focus on the People’s Republic of China, it is now solidifying under President Joe Biden. In particular, the White House’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance specifically calls out China as the United States’ most aggressive threat and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin refers to China as America’s “pacing threat.”
Using the term great power competition to define interactions between the United States and other global powers may be new, but the rules that define great power competition are not. The most important of those rules—such as nuclear deterrence theory, mutually assured destruction, and a norms-based international world order—are legacies of the Cold War. However, what makes great power competition more dynamic is a renewed emphasis on IW as a means of exercising soft and hard power.
While the purpose of this article is not to join the chorus of voices attempting to define IW—it is important to recognize some of the term’s key attributes. For example, any definition of IW will involve new technological developments, such as cyber warfare, social media, and space operations, and some a bit older, like psychological operations or electronic warfare. Definitions aside, one truth remains—leveraging the information function is all about influencing your adversary’s decision-making cycle while protecting your own. This is where the critical intersection of IW and great power competition comes into play. The process of influencing adversary decision making was particularly important during the Cold War, where one wrong move could set the world on a crash course toward nuclear war. In fear of a small nation-on-nation kinetic engagement driving the Soviet Union and United States into full-on conflict, the preferred methods of competition became those of intrigue and proxy wars—terms that now all fall under competition below the threshold of armed conflict.
The IW revolution is expanding. With it, opportunities to compete under the threshold of armed conflict are becoming increasingly more complicated and pronounced. Influence operations are not limited to leaflets and loudspeakers but can now be expertly delivered directly to the intended target audience with products carefully designed with the assistance of data-driven artificial intelligence. Cyber operations allow adversaries to target nation-states and nonstate actors with deniability. Space operations, which were once the business of a handful of superpowers, now feature a diverse set of players competing for resources and developing never-before-seen capabilities. Whereas the first space race was mostly a battle of prestige, the modern iteration has nation-states competing with multinational companies for limited orbital availability while also fielding new capabilities such as continuous global coverage ISR, satellite-based internet, and more.
Winning in great power competition requires clear strategic vision and direction along with desired end states. Influence operations coupled with new technological capabilities represent the United States’ most potent tool to meet end states, all while competing under the threshold of armed conflict. The practice of influencing adversary decision making is complicated and requires disciplined and well-coordinated whole-of-government operations, the integration of kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities, and an understanding of how cognitive factors impact an adversary leadership’s decision-making cycle. To conduct IW effectively, the US military must leverage the cadre of professionals who have the multidisciplinary education, experience, and dedication to increase our opportunities for success.
Getting IW Professionals in the Same Room
While the diversity of IW talent across the joint force is a good thing, we run the risk of stovepiping our information professionals like our intelligence-related capabilities were stovepiped in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Each military service retains tremendous IW talent. The unique assessment, selection, and training pipelines found across the services leads to diversity of thought. If nothing else, even just the unique qualities everyone brings to the fight based on their respective service’s culture enables joint access to potential capabilities and personnel that might otherwise be missed or overlooked. Ensuring that all IW capabilities are communicating, integrating, and operating together will lead to increased chances for success in great power competition.
For its part, the Army retains numerous specialists in the constituent fields of IW—ranging from electronic warfare and cyber operations specialists to graphic illustrators and videographers. Compared to the Air Force’s 14F IO officer, it is the Army’s 37-series military occupational specialties and FA30 functional area that maintain the most complementary skill sets. Army PSYOP officers and noncommissioned officers and FA30 officers often find themselves in similar roles as their Air Force counterparts—as part of an information operations working group, often as the chief. PSYOP forces, with their focused training in language, culture, and influence practices, are the Army’s premier influence agents, exploiting psychological vulnerabilities to gain competitive advantage. FA30 officers are trained in the integration of all information-related capabilities (e.g., MISO, military deception, and PSYOP) and work to ensure information operations are well planned and coordinated to achieve the commander’s intent and desired effects. While many of these functions may seem similar, they each require extensive specialized training.
When information professionals from across the services are brought together effectively, they can achieve incredible effects. In practice this cooperation seldom occurs outside of a theater of operation. There are, however, opportunities for joint events throughout a unit’s training cycle—usually in the form of joint multinational training exercises like Pacific Sentry in the Indo-Pacific and Eager Lion in Jordan. Recently the Air Force ran its first information warfare test exercise, which included opportunities to synchronize IO, electronic warfare, cyberspace operations, and more. Joint exercises are fantastic training laboratories that develop important lessons learned and shared understanding across the services. While participation in joint training exercises should be encouraged and continued, there are numerous opportunities for smaller-scale cooperation that can be leveraged and sustained over the course of a training year. Repeat exposure to joint force information warfare specialists—and the informal and formal relationships that result—provides IW professionals with a tremendous opportunity to accelerate their effectiveness.
First, missions that normally call for an Army 37 series or FA30 should also consider tasking Air Force 14Fs as well. 14Fs are equally qualified to perform these tasks and also bring a unique skill set and perspective that can enhance IO effectiveness. Additionally, the experience and exposure 14Fs would gain through operating in these roles will lead to increased coordination between joint information warfare professionals in the future.
Second, formal, and informal exchanges should be expanded between the Air Force information operations community and PSYOP units. These include increased attendance at IW-related training courses (like the Army PSYOP Officer Qualification Course, which Air Force 14Fs already attend), participating in unit exercises, and instructor exchanges. The relationships developed between Army PSYOP and Air Force IO officers during these events often lead to additional joint training opportunities during pre-mission training and even to broader collaboration during operational deployments. We can attest to this, having experienced it firsthand.
In reality, interservice coordination is, in large part, driven from the bottom up and requires significant pushing and pulling to connect. Commanders—in both the Army and the Air Force—should strongly incentivize and encourage their IW professionals to seek out, and participate in, joint training opportunities. Units at all levels should routinely invite joint service counterparts to participate in training—even for small unit–level exercises. The nature of information warfare requires collaboration—training in a single-service, siloed environment is unrealistic. Ultimately, the United States must learn to unify and coherently wield its IW capabilities in concert to gain strategic advantage and to win in great power competition, and the first step is to start bringing all IW forces together to foster collaboration and coordination.
Each military service has its own rich history of information warfare and service-specific culture tends to color how IW professionals approach problems in the information domain—and that is a good thing. However, the Department of Defense needs to be more creative and committed to finding ways to bring all IW professionals together in the same room to better leverage the skills of our joint partners if we are to gain advantage over our adversaries in great power competition. Breaking down the imaginary barriers between services and building bridges among the various IW specialties is crucial if our country is going to compete against our near-peer foes in the modern era. To do this, we must focus on growing the information warfare force we need for today, and for the future.
*While information warfare as a term has been in use for decades and has seen an uptick in use recently, it remains an undefined term in joint doctrine. Similarly, information operations does have a joint definition, but the services offer their own definitions as well. JP 3-XX is set to establish the joint terms for OIE, IW, and IO, and to encourage the services to adopt similar language. The Air Force is currently set to revise its service definitions toward the JP 3-XX definitions.
Captain Robert Stelmack is former chief, Air Force Information Operations Reachback Team, 67th Operations Support Squadron. He is currently the Air Force’s first information operations officer to attend the Naval Postgraduate School’s MS in Information Strategy & Political Warfare program.
Captain Don Gomez is an Army psychological operations officer currently assigned as an instructor of Arabic at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a Leadership Fellow with the Center for Junior Officers and has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, Department of Defense, US government, or any organization with which the authors are affiliated.
Image credit: Airman 1st Class Jonathan W. Padish, US Air National Guard (adapted by MWI)
mwi.usma.edu · by Robert Stelmack · July 12, 2021



21.  Whatever happened to the South China Sea ruling?

Excerpts:
Scholars have argued that there is not much the Philippines can do to force China’s compliance with the ruling. That may be true, but it can surely raise the costs for China’s non-compliance, even if Beijing can afford to bear them.
One option could be to impose sustained reputational damage on Beijing over the issue, particularly as it counters mounting international criticism over Xinjiang and Hong Kong. But the narrative has to be framed in more emotive language by highlighting the plight of Filipino fishermen who have lost their livelihoods instead of couching it in legal jargon and finer points of the law of the sea.
Further, maintaining discourse pressure by constantly invoking the ruling and having China repeatedly dismiss it would also highlight the hypocrisy in Beijing’s self-portrayal as a benevolent, responsible actor in the international system.
Another course of action for Manila could be to demand that the ruling be incorporated into the South China Sea Code of Conduct with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – negotiations which Beijing is keen to quickly wrap up. Given the internal discord within the ASEAN, the Philippines should enhance coordination with Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of whom have used the tribunal ruling to bolster their claims.
Raising awareness about the ruling in the Philippines and why it matters may also help deter any future Filipino leader from ignoring the ruling. At the very least, the Philippines should stop doing China’s bidding by dismissing the ruling and squandering its hard-won leverage.

Whatever happened to the South China Sea ruling?
Five years ago the Philippines largely squandered a
crucial legal win. But it’s not too late to marshal support.
lowyinstitute.org · by Pratik Jakhar
Five years ago on this day, an international tribunal in a landmark ruling dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague said on 12 July 2016 that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control historically over the key waterway.
What was expected to catalyse a stronger pushback against Chinese actions in the disputed sea has, essentially, been reduced to just a moral victory for the Philippines.
Clearly the verdict has had little impact on China’s behaviour as its land reclamation and creeping militarisation continues unabated, while its vessels regularly intrude into Filipino waters.
What was not expected was that the leader of the primary litigant of the case – the Philippines – would seek to undermine his country’s legal win.
Despite the recent tensions between Beijing and Manila, Rodrigo Duterte has shown an inexplicable reluctance to use the ruling, instead dismissing it as scrap paper. The reasoning is based on the belief that good relations with China would bring in economic benefits and that confronting Beijing will lead to repercussions. Critics, both at home and abroad, have questioned this approach as much of the promised billions of dollars in investments have yet to materialise.
As the Philippines gears up for presidential polls in 2022, the issue will surely feature in the campaigning rhetoric even if it is just political grandstanding.
Policy flip-flops, contradictory statements and incoherent action have characterised Duterte’s approach towards China, and foreign policy more broadly.
After years of putting the ruling on the backburner, Duterte told the UN General Assembly last year that it “is now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon”. But the supposed change of tack was short-lived. In May, he switched back to his earlier stance, threatening to throw the verdict “in the waste basket”.
A more forceful articulation on the importance of the ruling has come from other officials, most notably Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin who said in June: “We firmly reject attempts to undermine it; nay, even erase it from law, history and our collective memories.” Filipinos also appeared to back a more assertive stance to the country’s claim in the South China Sea, according to a July 2020 poll reported by Reuters.
And as the Philippines gears up for presidential polls in 2022, the issue will surely feature in the campaigning rhetoric even if it is just political grandstanding. Boxer-turned-Senator Manny Pacquiao and Vice President Leni Robredo – a possible contender for the top post – have both called out Duterte for kowtowing to China.
The view from the deck of USS Theodore Roosevelt as it transits the South China Sea in April, 2021 (US Pacific Fleet/Flickr)
From Beijing’s perspective, its goal of deflecting international attention from the ruling and effectively rendering the decision irrelevant has largely succeeded. To be sure, the verdict did inflict a heavy blow to the legal legitimacy of China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, and set a precedent for other claimants such as Vietnam and Malaysia.
But the Philippines’ handling of the ruling may have, in fact, reduced the appeal for other countries to challenge Beijing on legal grounds.
For China, it also reinforced the idea that it can get away with ignoring international law when it suits its interests. Yet, it has been careful not to be seen as a rogue state in the rules-based international order, often citing differing interpretations of international law in its defence. Through state media commentarywhite papers and an effective PR campaign, China has sought to discredit the tribunal ruling as a political tool to deny China’s “legitimate” rights in South China Sea.
For instance, a report about a 200 page-long “Legal Critique” published in 2020 by a Chinese think tank and an international law firm claimed that the tribunal is “not competent to determine the lawful effect of China’s nine dash line and related historic rights”.
China has also sought to muffle criticism by railing against “double standards” and what it sees as selective application of international norms. After vowing that the Communist Party will resolutely defend China’s sovereignty, President Xi Jinping is unlikely to back down and take a more accommodating approach on the South China Sea issue.
Constantly invoking the ruling and having China repeatedly dismiss it would also highlight the hypocrisy in Beijing’s self-portrayal as a benevolent, responsible actor.
Scholars have argued that there is not much the Philippines can do to force China’s compliance with the ruling. That may be true, but it can surely raise the costs for China’s non-compliance, even if Beijing can afford to bear them.
One option could be to impose sustained reputational damage on Beijing over the issue, particularly as it counters mounting international criticism over Xinjiang and Hong Kong. But the narrative has to be framed in more emotive language by highlighting the plight of Filipino fishermen who have lost their livelihoods instead of couching it in legal jargon and finer points of the law of the sea.
Further, maintaining discourse pressure by constantly invoking the ruling and having China repeatedly dismiss it would also highlight the hypocrisy in Beijing’s self-portrayal as a benevolent, responsible actor in the international system.
Another course of action for Manila could be to demand that the ruling be incorporated into the South China Sea Code of Conduct with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – negotiations which Beijing is keen to quickly wrap up. Given the internal discord within the ASEAN, the Philippines should enhance coordination with Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of whom have used the tribunal ruling to bolster their claims.
Raising awareness about the ruling in the Philippines and why it matters may also help deter any future Filipino leader from ignoring the ruling. At the very least, the Philippines should stop doing China’s bidding by dismissing the ruling and squandering its hard-won leverage.
lowyinstitute.org · by Pratik Jakhar

22. America’s Founding Beats the Chinese Communist Party’s
And on a positive note. I remain bullish on America because of our founding principles. It is those principles that allow us to overcome our mistakes and right our wrongs.
Unfortunately, in today’s America, our media rarely talk about the biggest miracle in human history — the unprecedented achievements of America since her independence. In the late 18th century, America was founded upon a number of key principles: freedom of speech, rule of the law, the free-market system, checks and balances, democracy, equality, and meritocracy. Since then, Americans have led the world in technological innovation, inventing electric-power generation, the airplane, telephone, personal computer, the Internet, and many other major technologies. By 1916, the U.S. surpassed the whole British Empire, becoming the largest economy in the world.
America also leads the world in improving human rights. In the 19th century, America emancipated its slaves, a stain on its Founding yet defeated by that Founding’s very principles. In the 20th century, America led the world, defeating fascism, militarism, and communism. And thanks to the civil-rights movement, America again lived up to its founding principles, abolishing all the laws that discriminated against black and Hispanic Americans.
For our nation’s 245th birthday, we should remind all Americans: On economic, technological and social-justice fronts, America is the greatest nation on earth. Rather than using the failed big-government or Communist ideology to transform America, we should cherish America’s founding principles.
America’s Founding Beats the Chinese Communist Party’s
As both nations celebrate recent anniversaries, it’s worth looking at why the U.S. wins out.
National Review Online · by Yukong Zhao · July 11, 2021
Signing the Declaration of Independence, 1912 (Library of Congress)
As both nations celebrate recent anniversaries, it’s worth looking at why the U.S. wins out.
This July, both America and China have celebrated anniversaries important to each respective nation: America marked the 245th anniversary of its independence, and China marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
China celebrates the immense progress it purports to have made in recent decades: lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, developing unmatched manufacturing capabilities, building a modern infrastructure, as well as making rapid technological advancement in 5G communication, high-speed railways, space exploration, and other areas. As expected, the government-run Chinese media delivers all the credit to the CCP.
In America, by contrast, we see a totally different picture. A few days ago, the Olympic athlete Gwen Berry turned away from the U.S. flag during the national anthem. The Biden administration canceled South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore fireworks celebration in front of statues of our great presidents. Instead of promoting patriotism, the Biden administration, through the Department of Education, is supporting efforts to indoctrinate our children with critical race theory, which baselessly claims that there is widespread systemic racism against black and Hispanic Americans in modern American society, requiring extensive government redress. Perversely, our non-government media supports these and other government efforts, joining the Biden administration in dwelling more on “social injustice” in America than on American patriotism.
If we only listen to the Biden administration and our mainstream media, we see America as a problematic nation plagued by social injustice, and in need of a fundamental transformation. Some would mistakenly conclude that China’s big-government control is a better way to solve America’s socioeconomic challenges. But as someone who escaped Communist China and now lives in democratic America, I want to tell you that neither the Chinese media nor the American mainstream media are telling you the whole story.
The Chinese media do not tell you about the horrendous atrocities and extreme poverty created by the CCP in the first 30 years of its reign. Guided by the Marxist ideology, Mao Zedong and his comrades launched the nationwide Class Struggle movement and murdered millions of innocent landlords and other political opponents. The Great Leap Forward, Mao’s Communist utopian experiment, starved 30 million Chinese people to death. The Cultural Revolution Mao launched destroyed 3,000 years of Chinese cultural heritage, murdered tens of thousands of people, and led to economic collapse in China.

It is true that China has made tremendous progress in improving the living standard of its people, but it’s not because of the big-government/Communist ideology. On the contrary, it is because former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping wisely abandoned most of the Communist ideology and started learning from the West after he took power in 1978. Politically, Deng stopped the Communist Class Struggle Movement. Economically, he gradually abolished the Communist doctrine of state ownership and planned economy and introduced private ownership, the free-market system, and modern technologies from the West.
After the CCP loosened its iron-fist of big-government control, the highly motivated, hardworking Chinese people released their energy and creativity and successfully built China into the second-largest economy in the world. It was the private-ownership and free-market system America champions, not China’s Communist ideology, that contributed to China’s rapid economic growth and technological advancement. In spite of its economic and technological progress, the Chinese government has not provided the individual and political freedom to its people. In Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the rest of China, political dissidents are frequently jailed. For regular Chinese, the CCP still monitors and limits what they say in public or on social media, and controls their ability to wire money abroad and even how many children they can have. To pursue individual freedom, tens of thousands Chinese emigrate to industrial nations each year. Their favorite destination is America.
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Unfortunately, in today’s America, our media rarely talk about the biggest miracle in human history — the unprecedented achievements of America since her independence. In the late 18th century, America was founded upon a number of key principles: freedom of speech, rule of the law, the free-market system, checks and balances, democracy, equality, and meritocracy. Since then, Americans have led the world in technological innovation, inventing electric-power generation, the airplane, telephone, personal computer, the Internet, and many other major technologies. By 1916, the U.S. surpassed the whole British Empire, becoming the largest economy in the world.
America also leads the world in improving human rights. In the 19th century, America emancipated its slaves, a stain on its Founding yet defeated by that Founding’s very principles. In the 20th century, America led the world, defeating fascism, militarism, and communism. And thanks to the civil-rights movement, America again lived up to its founding principles, abolishing all the laws that discriminated against black and Hispanic Americans.
For our nation’s 245th birthday, we should remind all Americans: On economic, technological and social-justice fronts, America is the greatest nation on earth. Rather than using the failed big-government or Communist ideology to transform America, we should cherish America’s founding principles.
YuKong Zhao is the president and co-founder of 
National Review Online · by Yukong Zhao · July 11, 2021
23. Henry Parham, Who Fought in a Black Unit on D-Day, Dies at 99

Another fascinating and little known part of our history.

Henry Parham, Who Fought in a Black Unit on D-Day, Dies at 99
The New York Times · by Richard Goldstein · July 11, 2021
He helped tell the story of the 320th Battalion, gaining recognition only late in his life. “I did what I was supposed to do as an American,” he said.

Henry Parham, a veteran of the only all-Black combat unit to land on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 2013. “I managed to survive with God’s strength and help,” he said.Credit...Nate Guidry/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via Associated Press
By
July 11, 2021
The story of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, has been told and retold through books, movies and the recollections of soldiers, sailors and airmen.
But the role played by some 2,000 African American servicemen who were among the troops in the segregated Army landing on the invasion beaches code-name Omaha and Utah on that day remained largely untold for decades.
Then came June 2009, when President Barack Obama, participating in ceremonies at Omaha Beach marking the 65th anniversary of the World War II invasion, paid tribute to D-Day’s only Black combat unit, a battalion of about 700 men who hoisted barrage balloons designed to destroy German planes on low-level strafing missions. The other Black soldiers of D-Day were assigned to support roles though they, like the balloonists, faced enemy fire.
Henry Parham, a private in the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion of D-Day, died on July 4 at a veterans hospital in Pittsburgh at 99.
Recognizing Mr. Parham’s service in remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives in June 2019, when the 75th anniversary of D-Day was commemorated, his congressman, Mike Doyle, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said, “He is believed to be the last surviving African American combat veteran from D-Day.”
There has been no official determination as to whether Mr. Parham in fact held that distinction, but he had done everything in his power to tell the story of his unit.
A White House commission that organizes services at American war memorials invited William G. Dabney, a former corporal in the balloon outfit, to meet Mr. Obama at the D-Day anniversary ceremony in 2009. The commission said he was the only still living veteran of the 320th that it had been able to locate.
It knew nothing of Henry Parham.
In the years that followed Mr. Obama’s gesture to honor the 320th, Mr. Parham began speaking about his war experiences in talks to audiences in western Pennsylvania and on national television.
His battalion hoisted large balloons to heights of up to 2,000 feet over Omaha and Utah beaches between D-Day and August 1944, carrying out the mission during the night hours so the balloons would not be spotted by incoming German planes. The balloons were tethered to the ground by cables fitted with small packets of explosive charges. German planes that became entangled in them were likely to be severely damaged or downed.
Mr. Parham’s section of the balloon battalion had reached Omaha Beach in the hours after the arrival of the first waves of infantrymen. (The other section was assigned to Utah Beach.) When the balloonists stepped off small boats, they witnessed a scene of carnage. The American forces, raked by German fire from high ground, had taken heavy casualties.
“We landed in water up to our necks,” Mr. Parham once told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Once we got there we were walking over dead Germans and Americans on the beach. Bullets were falling all around us.”
Mr. Parham told CNN in 2019: “I prayed to the Good Lord to save me. I did my duty. I did what I was supposed to do as an American.”
In his more than two months at Omaha Beach, when troops and supplies continued arriving en route to the battlefields, his battalion was sometimes the target of German snipers, and he slept in a foxhole.
“Staying in your trench was the hardest thing,” he once told The Tribune-Review of Pittsburgh. “It was two months of ducking and dodging and hiding. I was fortunate that I didn’t get hit. I managed to survive with God’s strength and help.”
Henry Parham was born in Emporia, Va., in November 1921, the son of a sharecropper. He was raised mostly by an aunt since his mother worked largely outside the home and his father was busy attending to fieldwork.
Since schooling for Black children was limited in his hometown, he moved to Richmond at 17 and worked as a porter for Trailways buses. He was drafted at 21, trained with the 320th in Tennessee and shipped out with it to England in 1943 for the buildup to D-Day.
His balloon battalion returned to the United States in November 1944, six months before Germany’s surrender, and trained in Hawaii for deployment to the Pacific. The unit was still there when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945, bringing Japan’s surrender and ending the war.
In 2013, Mr. Parham became a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, a gesture accorded by France to many American servicemen who fought the Germans on French soil.
Mr. Parham, who lived in Wilkinsburg, Pa., a few miles from Pittsburgh, worked for many years as a heavy equipment operator before retiring at 65, then joined his wife, Ethel Perry Parham, as volunteers at local Veterans Administration hospitals.
She confirmed his death.
Apart from his wife, Mr. Parham had no immediate survivors. His brother, Timothy, and his sister, Mary, died before him.
“We were just plain, simple people; we weren’t looking for awards,” Ethel Parham told The Post-Gazette upon her husband’s death. “Then all of a sudden, people got interested when they heard his story. After the 65th anniversary, people’s eyes were really opened.”
The New York Times · by Richard Goldstein · July 11, 2021



V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

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