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Quotes of the Day:
“Every man is guilty of all that he did not do”
- Voltaire
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
- Plato
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.”
- Arthur Conan Doyle
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 17 (Putin's War)
2. Ukraine’s Zelenskyy fires top spy chief and prosecutor general
3. Is America growing weary of the long war in Ukraine?
4. As Russia Runs Low on Drones, Iran Plans to Step In, U.S. Officials Say
5. FDD | Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump
6. Iran is testing us. So far, we are failing | Opinion
7. Biden should not pass up chance to reengage Iraq
8. Snake Island: The Start of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive?
9. HASC Moves to Replenish Munitions—But More Remains to Be Done
10. Why Do We Keep Listening to the 'TV' Generals on Ukraine?
11. US sends Syracuse-based National Guard soldiers to help train Ukrainian military
12. C.I.A. Director Issues Warning After Possible Noose Is Found Near Facility
13. The U.S. Needs a Million Talents Program to Retain Technology Leadership
14. The Case Against Security Cooperation in Fragile States
15. "Our F*ckheads Can't Even Hit Them": Russian Soldier Says He Was Sent to 'Slaughter' in Ukraine
16. The AC-130 Gunship Might Be the Ultimate Symbol of U.S. Military Dominance
17. The U.S. Navy SEALs Might Be the U.S. Military's Ultimate Weapon
18. How the United Nations Overlooks Evidence of Hamas Human Rights Violations
19. The US military just awarded a $10 million contract for what could be special operators' latest gadget: jet boots
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 17 (Putin's War)
Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-17
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 17
understandingwar.org
Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, George Barros, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
July 17, 5:00 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian forces are continuing a measured return from the operational pause and conducted limited ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast on July 17. As ISW has previously noted, the end of the Russian operational pause is unlikely to create a massive new wave of ground assaults across multiple axes of advance despite Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s public order for exactly that. Russian troops are prioritizing advances around Siversk and Bakhmut while maintaining defensive positions north of Kharkiv City and along the Southern Axis. Russian forces continued to set conditions for resumed offensives toward Slovyansk, shelled settlements along the Izyum-Slovyansk salient, and otherwise conducted artillery, missile, and air strikes throughout Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense notably did not claim any new territorial gains on July 17. ISW continues to forecast that the end of the operational pause will be characterized by a fluctuating and staggered resumption of ground offensives.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces continued a measured return from the operational pause and did not make any confirmed territorial gains on July 17.
- Russian forces continued limited ground assaults around Siversk, Bakhmut, and Donetsk City and otherwise fired at civilian and military infrastructure throughout the Donbas.
- Russian forces focused on defensive operations north of Kharkiv City and along the Southern Axis.
- The Kremlin may be setting long-term conditions for force generation efforts in anticipation of protracted hostilities in Ukraine.
- Russian occupation authorities are likely using the threat of partisan activities to justify harsher societal controls in occupied areas.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
- Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued to fire on settlements southeast of Izyum and did not make any confirmed ground attacks in this area toward Slovyansk on July 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops shelled in the vicinity of Dolyna, Dibrovne, Ivanivka, Mazanivka, Bohorodychne, and Kurulka—all near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border northwest of Slovyansk.[1]
Russian forces continued limited and unsuccessful ground attacks toward Siversk on July 17.[2] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops forced Russian units to withdraw during assaults on Hryhorivka (10km northeast of Siversk) and Verkhnokamyanka (15 km due east of Siversk).[3] Both Russian and Ukrainian sources also noted ongoing fighting around Ivano-Darivka (about 5 km southeast of Siversk) and near Berestove (15 km southeast of Siversk) and Bilohorivka (15 km northeast of Siversk).[4] Russian forces continued to set conditions for a direct assault on Siversk and shelled the city and its surroundings in addition to conducting aerial reconnaissance of the area.[5]
Russian forces continued limited and unsuccessful ground assaults around Bakhmut on July 17. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Russian troops tried but failed to advance around Yakovlivka, within 15 km northeast of Bakhmut along the T1302 highway, and around Novoluhanske, 20km south of Bakhmut.[6] Russian forces conducted artillery, air, and missile strikes on surrounding settlements including Krasna Hora and Soledar (north of Bakhmut), Vershyna, Novoluhanske, and Travneve (south of Bakhmut), and Pokrovske (east of Bakhmut).[7]
Russian forces in the Donetsk City area continued efforts to advance toward Avdiivka on July 17. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Deputy Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselyov claimed that Russian forces are fighting in Mariinka, directly on the outskirts of Donetsk City southwest of Avdiivka.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff similarly noted that Russian forces are engaged in positional battles north of Donetsk City near Mykhailivka and southwest of Donetsk City around Pavlivka and Novomykhailvka.[9] Russian forces will likely continue efforts to drive northward toward Avdiivka despite heavy Ukrainian fortifications in the area.
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces continued to focus on maintaining defensive positions in the Kharkiv City direction on July 17.[10] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched air and artillery strikes on Kharkiv City and settlements to the north, northeast, and east of Kharkiv City.[11] Russian forces also reportedly hit an unidentified target near Chuhuiv, southeast of Kharkiv City.[12]
Russian Telegram channel Rybar claimed that Russian forces launched an unspecified strike on the Khartron Express research and production enterprise in the Kyivskyi district of Kharkiv City on July 17.[13] Rybar claimed that the Khartron Express enterprise hosted Polish and British military instructors who trained Ukrainian forces in the area.[14] Rybar also claimed that the enterprise served as a hub for Ukrainian reconnaissance and planning operations.[15] ISW cannot independently verify the exact location of the strikes at this time.
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces conducted defensive operations and attempted to disrupt Ukrainian logistical support along the Southern Axis on July 17.[16] Russian forces systematically shelled civilian and military infrastructure along the Southern frontline and conducted artillery strikes in Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Mykolaiv oblasts.[17]
Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces are changing their concentration areas to densely populated areas in Kherson Oblast in an effort to deter Ukrainian strikes on Russian positions.[18] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command also reported that Russian forces modified S-300 surface-to-air missiles to strike Mykolaiv City during the night on July 16-17.[19]
The Kherson Oblast Administration stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian ammunition warehouse in Lazurne on July 16-17.[20]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
The Kremlin is likely undertaking long-term force regeneration efforts that would allow the Kremlin to rebuild the badly damaged Russian military and/or sustain a long war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that the Russian Young Army Cadets National Movement (Yunarmia) opened 500 new cadet classes and 1,000 junior army classes in Belgorod and the border region of Belgorod Oblast.[21] Yunarmia accepts volunteers from ages eight to 18, so any volunteers entering this program will not likely be ready to enter combat for quite some time.[22] The GUR additionally reported that the Russian Volunteer Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy of Russia (DOSAAF) opened an additional military training course in Belgorod for those without military experience who want to join the Russian military.[23]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
The Ukrainian Association of Reintegration of Crimea reported that the Kherson occupation authorities have enacted a new law—likely referring to the July 15 censorship decree criminalizing criticism of Russian authorities, the Russian military, and the invasion of Ukraine—that allows the authorities to deport any Ukrainians found in violation of the law.[24]
Russian-backed occupation authorities are possibly propagandizing the threat of Ukrainian partisans to justify increased societal control measures. Ukrainian Mayor of Enerhodar Dmytro Orlov stated on July 17 that Russian occupation authorities in Zaporizhia Oblast are manufacturing “non-existent partisans” as part of an effort to claim that Russian forces are successfully mitigating the threat of Ukrainian partisan activity.[25] Orlov stated that the creation of these “non-existent partisans” provides Russian forces with activity to report to their commanders, a means to justify increasingly oppressive administrative measures, and the ability to blame partisans for the occupation authorities’ and Russian forces’ offenses.[26]
Russian occupation authorities in Zaporizhia Oblast continue to face personnel shortages and the unwillingness of local Ukrainians to collaborate with occupation governments. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Ukrainians in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast are refusing to work in seized enterprises.[27] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also reported that the Zaporizhia occupation authorities are seizing the Ukrainian passports of Ukrainian citizens to compel them to apply for Russian passports, likely in an effort to expedite the occupation administration’s continued attempts to launch an annexation referendum.[28]
[21] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid024sWvYkCvKgZemGMgcj...https://gur.gov dot ua/content/v-rf-rozshyryuyut-masshtaby-viyskovoyi-pidhotovky-dlya-ditey.html
[22] https://yunarmy dot ru/headquarters/about/
[27] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/07/17/zaporizhzhya-praczivnyky-pidpryyemstva-vidmovylysya-praczyuvaty-na-okupantiv-a-v-berdyansku-zvilnyayut-kolaborantiv/
[28] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/07/17/v-seli-na-zaporizhzhi-v-meshkancziv-prymusovo-vidibraly-ukrayinski-pasporty/
understandingwar.org
2. Ukraine’s Zelenskyy fires top spy chief and prosecutor general
Excerpts:
The shake-up came three weeks after POLITICO first reported that Zelenskyy had tired of his longtime friend Bakanov and was looking to replace him with someone more suitable to serve as the wartime chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, according to four officials close to the president and a Western diplomat who has advised Kyiv on reforms needed to revamp the SBU.
After Zelenskyy won a landslide presidential vote in 2019, he set out to clean up the SBU and tapped Bakanov to lead the charge in an attempt to showcase the newly elected leader’s determination to prove to the West that Kyiv was serious about reforms.
But Bakanov’s appointment was criticized by opposition parties who said someone with his background was unfit to lead the top intelligence-gathering agency. He had been at Zelenskyy’s side since the latter rose from a scrawny comedian in the industrial, south-central city of Kryvyi Rih to a muscular, war-hardened leader famous well beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“We are highly unsatisfied with his job and are working to get rid of him,” a top Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy told POLITICO in June on the condition of anonymity to talk about sensitive personnel issues. “We are not satisfied with his managerial, you know, [skills] because now you need … anti-crisis management skills like we don’t think that he has.”
The officials and the Western diplomat all said at the time that the concern was greater than just Bakanov — it’s also about the decisions of several senior agency personnel in the first hours and days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that may have cost the country precious territory, including the strategic city of Kherson.
Kherson was occupied by the Russian army on March 3, seven days after President Vladimir Putin launched his new offensive.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy fires top spy chief and prosecutor general
Politico
POLITICO first reported in June that Ukraine's president was looking to sack Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend and head of the country’s security service, after a string of failures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with military officials during his visit the war-hit Dnipropetrovsk region. | Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP Photo
07/17/2022 04:35 PM EDT
Updated: 07/17/2022 04:46 PM EDT
KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a major shake-up on Sunday, firing the chief of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence and security agency and its prosecutor general.
Zelenskyy said in a video address published on Telegram that he had dismissed the security chief, Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend who led his presidential campaign, and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, a close ally who was his foreign affairs adviser during his presidential run, after losing faith in their abilities to run their offices.
He said hundreds of cases had been opened into officials from both offices who are accused of “high treason” for aiding Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. More than 60 employees of both offices currently work with Russia-imposed authorities in occupied territories “against our state,” he added.
The shake-up came three weeks after POLITICO first reported that Zelenskyy had tired of his longtime friend Bakanov and was looking to replace him with someone more suitable to serve as the wartime chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, according to four officials close to the president and a Western diplomat who has advised Kyiv on reforms needed to revamp the SBU.
After Zelenskyy won a landslide presidential vote in 2019, he set out to clean up the SBU and tapped Bakanov to lead the charge in an attempt to showcase the newly elected leader’s determination to prove to the West that Kyiv was serious about reforms.
But Bakanov’s appointment was criticized by opposition parties who said someone with his background was unfit to lead the top intelligence-gathering agency. He had been at Zelenskyy’s side since the latter rose from a scrawny comedian in the industrial, south-central city of Kryvyi Rih to a muscular, war-hardened leader famous well beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“We are highly unsatisfied with his job and are working to get rid of him,” a top Ukrainian official close to Zelenskyy told POLITICO in June on the condition of anonymity to talk about sensitive personnel issues. “We are not satisfied with his managerial, you know, [skills] because now you need … anti-crisis management skills like we don’t think that he has.”
The officials and the Western diplomat all said at the time that the concern was greater than just Bakanov — it’s also about the decisions of several senior agency personnel in the first hours and days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that may have cost the country precious territory, including the strategic city of Kherson.
Kherson was occupied by the Russian army on March 3, seven days after President Vladimir Putin launched his new offensive.
The Ukrainian officials said Russian troops were able to take Kherson so easily because of the failure on the part of SBU officials there to blow up the Antonovskiy Bridge spanning the Dnipro river, allowing Russian troops to cruise into the city.
Known by its Ukrainian acronym, the SBU is the successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB. With more than 30,000 employees, the SBU is more than seven times the size of Britain’s MI5 and nearly the size of the FBI — which employs 35,000 people — despite Ukraine being 16 times smaller than the U.S.
While it is tasked with traditional domestic intelligence and counterintelligence gathering, the SBU’s activities also go beyond the scope of similar agencies in Western nations; among its duties is combating economic crimes and corruption.
POLITICO
Politico
3. Is America growing weary of the long war in Ukraine?
I fear that is the case.
“America doesn’t lose wars, it loses interest.” Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S.
Is America growing weary of the long war in Ukraine?
Inflation, wayward allies and venomous politics at home are eroding support for the proxy conflict against Russia
Jul 17th 2022 (Updated Jul 18th 2022) | WASHINGTON, DC
The Economist
President joe biden pledges to support Ukraine “as long as it takes”. His administration has so far spent about $8bn on military aid alone for it. In May, Congress passed a $40bn supplemental budget—more than Mr Biden had asked for, and more than the annual defence budgets of most European allies—to assist Ukraine and deal with the global consequences of the war.
But nearly six months into the fight, with the prospect of a long war to come, even Mr Biden’s closest allies are asking whether America might soon tire of the burden. The president is more unpopular even than Donald Trump was at this point in his presidency. Inflation and high fuel prices are weakening Americans’ spending power. And Republicans are set to make important gains in mid-term elections in November: they are expected to take control of the House of Representatives and possibly also the Senate.
Chris Coons, a Democratic senator and close ally of Mr Biden’s—sometimes called the president’s “shadow secretary of state”—recently wrote a commentary praising nato’s show of unity at its summit in Madrid last month. It added: “I am concerned about the commitment of the American people and its elected leaders to stay the course as the invasion grinds on.” Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, “is counting on the West losing focus”, he told The Economist on July 14th.
The aid for Ukraine is intended to last until the end of the fiscal year on September 30th, but nobody is quite sure when the money will run out. Few in Congress think another large package for Ukraine can be passed before the mid-terms, and many say it could remain difficult thereafter. “It will be an uphill battle,” says a Republican Senate staffer. “The sales pitch from the last time is not good enough now, because the war has fundamentally changed and the domestic situation at home is different.”
Given the country’s acute polarisation, it is perhaps no surprise that Republicans should be sceptical of a proxy war conducted by a Democratic administration. Fewer Americans overall are prepared to pay an economic price for supporting Ukraine than were at the onset of war in March. But a recent poll for the University of Maryland finds that the gap between Democrats and Republicans is widening, too. Among Democrats, 78% would accept costlier fuel and 72% would bear more inflation to help Ukraine; among Republicans only 44% and 39% respectively would do so.
Congressional aides say three factors are likely to affect support for Ukraine. First is the complexion of Congress after the mid-terms. If Republicans retake one or both chambers, which faction in the party will have the upper hand? The establishment sort such as Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who in May took senior colleagues to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky? Or the devotees of Mr Trump and his maga (“Make America Great Again”) nativism?
Mr Trump still holds much of his party in thrall. He denounced the last aid package for Ukraine, saying: “The Democrats are sending another $40bn to Ukraine, yet America’s parents are struggling to even feed their children.” His base could be energised if, in the coming weeks, he announces his intention to run for president again in 2024. Meanwhile, unexpected trouble has come from Victoria Spartz, a Ukrainian-born Republican in the House who had once urged Mr Biden to act more decisively in Ukraine, but has recently taken to accusing some of Mr Zelensky’s aides of corruption.
“Fact is if the Republicans take over the House in 2022 us support to Ukraine will come to a halt,” tweeted Ruben Gallego, a House Democrat. Republican leaders, he predicted, would not be able to stop Trumpists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz “from dictating our Ukraine policy”. Mr Gaetz shot back: “Ruben is correct.”
Such boasting amounts to “wish-casting”, says Eric Edelman, a former senior Pentagon official under George W. Bush. maga disciples are still a minority among congressional Republicans but, he frets, could grow larger after the mid-terms. If they make up a bigger share of Republicans in the House, where spending bills originate, and particularly if they hold the balance of power, providing more aid to Ukraine will become harder. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, regards Mr Zelensky as a “modern-day Winston Churchill”. But few expect him to offer much resistance to the Trumpian right. Pressure will mount on the Senate (whether controlled by Democrats or Mr McConnell’s Republicans) to tame the excesses of maga-world. The matter of Ukraine, says Mr Edelman, “is a surrogate for the larger battle for the soul of the Republican Party”.
A second factor is the extent to which allies are willing to keep helping Ukraine confront Russia. “How much are our European partners doing? That’s literally the first question I get,” says Mr Coons. For most Americans, he notes, Ukraine is “half a world away”. European countries are closer to Russia’s military threat, and also more vulnerable to the danger of escalation, the loss of Russian energy supplies and the outflow of refugees.
Perhaps the biggest consideration is the third factor: progress on the battlefield. If the Biden administration can show that Ukraine is gaining ground, rather than being bogged down in another “forever war”, support for the country will be easier to rally. But a protracted conflict looks all too likely. Ukraine has had success of late in using American-supplied himars, a guided-missile launcher, to strike at command posts and ammunition dumps behind Russia’s front lines. But Ukrainian forces are still heavily outgunned and on the defensive, if not still retreating.
Mr Biden’s aim in the war is unclear. His administration has stopped talking about helping Ukraine to “win”, and instead speaks of preventing it from being defeated. It is delivering himars in small packages of four launchers at a time. (It claims it needs time to train Ukrainian forces.) But Mr Biden’s main concern is to avoid a direct conflict between nato and a nuclear-armed Russia. America has demanded assurances that the 84km-range gmlrs munitions provided with himars will not be fired at Russian territory; it has so far refused to provide the atacms munition which has a range of about 300km.
To some the war is unwinnable. They say the Biden administration should make haste to find a diplomatic deal. But for Ukraine’s supporters, whether Democratic or Republican, the answer is for Mr Biden to hurry up and win: give Ukraine more military help, do it faster and accept more risk. Mr Edelman has this warning for the Biden team: “If they think stalemate is the answer, or even if they are not intentionally playing for a stalemate, they’re going to lose on the battlefield, and they’re going to lose the battle for public opinion at home.”■
Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine crisis.
The Economist
4. As Russia Runs Low on Drones, Iran Plans to Step In, U.S. Officials Say
Is "Russia exhausted most of its precision guided weapons as well as many of its drones" another way of saying that Ukraine has shot down or destroyed a lot of Rusian's drone capability?
Excerpts:
Russia has exhausted most of its precision-guided weapons as well as many of the drones it has used to help long-range artillery strike targets in its monthslong bombardment of Ukraine. Meantime, the first batches of American truck-mounted, multiple-rocket launchers have destroyed more than two dozen Russian ammunition depots, air defense sites and command posts, according to two U.S. officials, making Moscow’s need to counter the new, advanced Western arms more urgent.
Enter Iran, a leading drone developer for decades.
Iran has supplied drone technology to Hezbollah in Lebanon; to Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; and to Shiite militias in Iraq, which have carried out strikes against Iraqi and American troops.
“Russia is turning to an ally that has flown drones in complex environments in large numbers,” said Samuel Bendett, a specialist on Russian drones and other weapons at CNA, a research and analysis organization in Arlington, Va. “While the Russians still have drones, they don’t have all the types they need.”
As Russia Runs Low on Drones, Iran Plans to Step In, U.S. Officials Say
By Eric Schmitt, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and John Ismay
The New York Times · by John Ismay · July 17, 2022
The potential delivery of hundreds of Iranian drones would help the Kremlin replenish a fleet that has suffered steep losses in Ukraine.
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Ukrainian police officers inspected a downed Russian drone in Kyiv, Ukraine, in March.
July 17, 2022
WASHINGTON — The White House disclosure last week that Russia is seeking hundreds of armed and unarmed surveillance drones from Iran to use in the war in Ukraine reflects Moscow’s need to both fill a critical battlefield gap and find a long-term supplier of a crucial combat technology, U.S. intelligence, military and independent analysts say.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, offered few details about the intelligence assessment he revealed to reporters last Monday, including whether the shipments had started. But other U.S. officials said Iran was preparing to provide as many as 300 remotely piloted aircraft and would start training Russian troops on how to use them as early as this month.
Russia has exhausted most of its precision-guided weapons as well as many of the drones it has used to help long-range artillery strike targets in its monthslong bombardment of Ukraine. Meantime, the first batches of American truck-mounted, multiple-rocket launchers have destroyed more than two dozen Russian ammunition depots, air defense sites and command posts, according to two U.S. officials, making Moscow’s need to counter the new, advanced Western arms more urgent.
Enter Iran, a leading drone developer for decades.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, during a press briefing last week.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Iran has supplied drone technology to Hezbollah in Lebanon; to Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; and to Shiite militias in Iraq, which have carried out strikes against Iraqi and American troops.
“Russia is turning to an ally that has flown drones in complex environments in large numbers,” said Samuel Bendett, a specialist on Russian drones and other weapons at CNA, a research and analysis organization in Arlington, Va. “While the Russians still have drones, they don’t have all the types they need.”
Russia’s deal with Iran underscores the ever-growing importance of drones to modern warfare, not just in insurgencies or counterterrorism operations but also in classic conventional-style conflicts. In a contested battlefield like Ukraine where dueling artillery barrages are the deciding factors if an offensive fails or succeeds, drones play a pivotal role.
A Russian delegation visited an airfield in central Iran at least twice in the last five weeks — June 8 and July 5 — to examine drones that can be armed, Mr. Sullivan said in a statement released by the White House and reported earlier by CNN. The Russians reviewed Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones, according to satellite imagery the White House provided with the statement to The New York Times.
Ukraine had its own drone fleet before the war started and has also used hundreds supplied by the United States and other NATO countries, like Turkey, to destroy hundreds of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers, military officials said.
But analysts said Russian counterdrone and electronic warfare equipment, including jamming devices, have blunted the early success of the American and Turkish drones.
A recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, a research organization in London, concluded that Ukraine needed more electronic warfare equipment of its own to combat advanced Russian systems. Ukrainian surveillance drones, which help target Russian troops, survive only about a week before Russian defenses force them to crash or shoot them down, the report said.
According to satellite imagery released by the White House, a Russian delegation viewed Iranian Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones at an airfield in central Iran in June.Credit...U.S. government
Ukraine and its supporters in Congress have pleaded for the United States and its allies to provide more and bigger drones that can carry more weapons and stay aloft longer, like the Gray Eagle aircraft. U.S. officials have shelved those proposals for now, fearing that the Gray Eagles would be easy targets for Russia’s air defenses and could also be viewed as escalatory by President Vladimir V. Putin.
Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine War
Russia had its own formidable arsenal of drones entering the war, but the potential delivery of hundreds of armed and unarmed Iranian drones would help the Kremlin replenish a fleet that has suffered steep losses during the nearly five-month campaign.
Russia lost dozens of reconnaissance drones to Ukrainian air defenses and to mistaken attacks and jamming in the early phase of the conflict. Surveillance drones are essential to the grinding ground battle that the war has settled into. But Russia’s defense industry has struggled to build capable armed drones in large quantities and other remotely piloted aircraft that can fly high over targets for hours at a time, analysts said.
Since invading Ukraine in February, the Russian military has honed its use of drones in what has become primarily an artillery war. The small unmanned aircraft have been a boon for quickly targeting Ukrainian forces and transmitting coordinates back to Russia’s longer-range weapons, including howitzers and mortars.
“They are surely improving their skills,” a Ukrainian Army major named Kostyantyn, who declined to provide his last name for security reasons, said this spring about the Russian military’s use of drones.
Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbas, the swath of territory in the east of the country that has become the focus of Russia’s military campaign, have said their artillery is almost immediately targeted by Russian counterfire, which they partially attribute to the use of drones.
An artillery team with the 93rd Brigade with Russian equipment captured in the Sumy region of Donbas, Ukraine, in May.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Russian drones — primarily the Orlan-10, a small fixed-wing aircraft, along with small, commercially available quadcopters — have drastically changed how Ukrainian forces move around the battlefield. They park their vehicles under trees or other cover and must conceal artillery pieces to avoid being detected by overhead surveillance.
But even with proper camouflage, pro-Russian media channels frequently post videos of Ukrainian equipment being targeted and destroyed as a drone loiters above.
In recent weeks, however, Mr. Bendett and military analysts said, Russia’s edge in the drone wars has diminished. About 50 Orlan-10s have been brought down by Ukrainian or accidental Russian fire or jamming, analysts said.
As a result, demand remains high for off-the-shelf consumer models and modified amateur drones resistant to jamming. Both sides are using crowdfunding campaigns to replace lost equipment, analysts said.
Russia and Iran have given muted responses since Mr. Sullivan’s disclosure.
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, declined on Wednesday to say if Moscow had any plans to purchase Iranian drones. He said Mr. Putin was not planning to discuss the issue during his scheduled trip to Tehran this week.
Western and even some Russian analysts say the Kremlin has seen the value of drones in various conflicts around the world for years, including in Syria. And yet Russia was not ready for the intense need in Ukraine.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, last year.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Yuri Borisov, who until last week served as Russia’s deputy prime minister, said in an interview with a Russian news organization last month that the Russian military should have deployed drones in combat zones more aggressively.
“I think that we are belatedly engaged in the serious introduction of unmanned vehicles — this is the objective,” Mr. Borisov told the organization, RBC.
The United States has not seen indications that Iran has transferred any drones to Russia, a senior military official said in a Pentagon briefing on Friday. But U.S. officials and analysts said Moscow’s apparent deal with Iran was a major role reversal for one of the largest arms purveyors on the planet.
“Russia is used to selling military gear to nations like Iran, not the other way around,” said P.W. Singer, a strategist at New America in Washington who has written extensively about drones.
Iran has issued carefully worded comments about its military cooperation with Russia that some Iranian media outlets have interpreted as a confirmation of a drone deal.
On Tuesday, Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters that “military cooperation between Iran and the Russian Federation on new technology predates Ukraine’s war and has not had a significant change in recent times.”
Exactly which types of drones Russia may seek from Iran remains unclear, although the satellite imagery released by the White House offers strong clues.
In recent years, Iran and its proxies have launched a number of attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria with armed drones that U.S. officials believe were designed and produced domestically. On Oct. 20, Iran launched five so-called suicide drones at the American base at Al Tanf in southern Syria, though only two exploded on impact as intended.
Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said his country’s military cooperation with Russia on new technology predated the war in Ukraine.Credit...Aref Taherkenareh/EPA, via Shutterstock
U.S. military leaders believed that attacks with similar drones earlier last year were carried out in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias.
In addition to drones, Iran has an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of long-range missiles it could potentially provide to Russia, such as those used in an attack on U.S. bases in Iraq two years ago that resulted in numerous American injuries.
The Pentagon has not invested heavily in suicide drones, which can be small enough to fit into a backpack, but it has purchased a short-range version called a Switchblade.
Mr. Biden authorized the transfer of 100 Switchblade drones from Pentagon stockpiles to Ukraine in March, and 120 drones called Phoenix Ghost that officials said were similar to the Switchblade in April. In May, the Pentagon announced that it had committed 700 Switchblade drones to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York, and Natalia Yermak from Lviv, Ukraine.
The New York Times · by John Ismay · July 17, 2022
5. FDD | Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump
There is a very good SOF discussion in this tal among the broader discussion of the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Video here: https://www.fdd.org/events/2022/07/13/degrade-and-destroy-the-inside-story-of-the-war-against-the-islamic-state-from-barack-obama-to-donald-trump/
Transcript here: https://www.fdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Gordon-FDD-Transcript.pdf
FDD | Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump
fdd.org · July 13, 2022
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and The Center For A New American Security Host A Forum On Michael Gordon’s Book “Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against The Islamic State, From Barack Obama To Donald Trump”
July 13, 2022
Speakers: Michael Gordon, Author, “Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War Against The Islamic State, From Barack Obama To Donald Trump”
Cliff May, Founder and President, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, (U.S. Army Ret.), Former Commander of the Coalition Against ISIS in Syria and Iraq
Michèle Flournoy, Chair of the Center for a New American Security Board Of Directors, and Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of the Center on Military and Political Power, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
6. Iran is testing us. So far, we are failing | Opinion
Excerpts:
The administration should ensure the red notices are extended when they come up for review in November 2022. While Argentina has filed the paperwork for their extension, Iran's extortion practices can derail this if not kept on track.
Additionally, the Biden administration must maintain and fully enforce the sanctions already in place. Though it ultimately held firm, the administration considered lifting sanctions during its recent nuclear negotiations. And there remains the risk the administration will weaken those sanctions without technically lifting them. It has already indicated it is poised to lift sanctions on banks and companies designated for terrorism, even while they are not designated for nuclear activities.
Successive administrations have successfully urged more than 20 countries to sanction Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. To its credit, Argentina took that action on the 25-year mark of the AMIA bombing and added those with AMIA-related INTERPOL red notices to their terrorism list.
Finally, make sure there are diplomatic and political consequences when Iran promotes their terrorists to senior government positions.
Iran is challenging us to see where our limits are. Terrorism should be a red line. Countering it should have no statute of limitations. Impunity of the kind we see today will breed more terrorism. The AMIA families, all Argentinians, and those committed to justice and our national security, deserve better.
Iran is testing us. So far, we are failing | Opinion
Newsweek · July 18, 2022
TOBY DERSHOWITZ , SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
ON 7/18/22 AT 6:50 AM EDT
In February, a jet carrying Iran's minister of the interior, Ahmad Vahidi, landed at Pakistan's Nur Khan air base and he was not arrested.
He should have been.
Vahidi, and four other senior Iranians, are wanted by INTERPOL for "aggravated murder and damages," for their role in the July 18, 1994, bombing of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA in Spanish) center in Buenos Aires.
On that day, a Renault van laden with 600 pounds of ammonium nitrate rammed into the AMIA building, killing 85 Jews and non-Jews. Vahidi was then head of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The Quds Force is labeled a terror organization by the United States and is considered responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans in Iraq since the second Gulf war. Vahidi is sanctioned by the U.S. government for proliferating weapons of mass destruction. INTERPOL has issued a red notice (provisional arrest warrant) for his detention because of the 1994 bombing.
My research shows these five Iranians have flown to at least 20 countries without being apprehended since the red notices were issued in 2007.
Firemen and policemen search for wounded people after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA in Spanish) in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994. ALI BURAFI/AFP via Getty Images
The AMIA bombing, the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina's history, was not just a single crime on a single day.
Argentina's AMIA prosecutor, Alberto Nisman — who was assassinated during Cristina Kirchner's presidency likely for his investigation into the AMIA bombing — described in granular detail how Iran used embassies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Germany in the planning of the 1994 attack. Iranian ambassadors from several of these countries, including Iran's ambassador in Buenos Aires, all flew out of their respective posts just days before the bombing.
Today, another crisis is brewing in Argentina, pointing to Iran's malign activities in the region. It has seized the attention of Argentine lawmakers who are determined to prevent another Iran-backed attack on their soil.
A Boeing 747 cargo aircraft was grounded at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza airport on June 8. The suspicions are that the Venezuelan plane, recently owned by Iran's U.S.-sanctioned Mahan Air and sold to Emtrasur airlines, is not what it seems to be. The plane's crew included 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians. At the helm of this suspiciously large crew — normally no more than five people are required on such a mission — is the IRGC's Gholamreza Ghasemi, a board member, shareholder, and manager of Fars Air Qeshm, an Iranian airline sanctioned by the U.S. The reason for the sanctions? The airline ferried Iranian weapons and personnel to Syria to help crush the uprising against the Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Lawmakers are now demanding of their intelligence services to know why an Iranian official would be piloting a routine cargo flight to Argentina.
Moreover, Argentine opposition leaders have demanded a transparent investigation into what's happening and filed a series of legal complaints. Among the questions they want answered is whether the co-pilot is a collaborator with Iranian intelligence and the principal link between Venezuela and nefarious activities in Argentina. They questioned whether he had worked closely with now deceased Quds Force head Qassem Soleimani. They are insisting on knowing whether the intel agencies were aware of — and disregarded — early warnings about the plane from foreign intelligence counterparts.
Particularly noteworthy in the legal complaints filed by Parliamentarian Gerardo Milman and Ricardo Lopez Murphy is the question of whether one of the crew members is associated with Mahvash Monsef Gholamreza, an employee who was based in the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires at the time of the AMIA bombing. Argentina ordered his arrest as a suspect in the attack. Little has been heard about him in recent years until his name popped up in legal filings in recent weeks, but investigators are determined to learn if the "cargogate" crisis was a mission in progress, foiled just in time. They have grounds to believe this is the case, sources tell me.
An intelligence memo leaked by one source has indicated that Venezuela made a remarkable request through a longtime crony of Kirchner: that Argentina's national security apparatus not interfere with the plane and its crew, saying the plane was under surveillance and needed to carry out a maintenance operation in Argentina.
While questions remain about the real mission of the cargo plane sitting in a Buenos Aires airfield, this much is clear: Iran is seeking to build up its military muscle in the Western Hemisphere. In August, Venezuela is hosting war games in the form of a sniper competition, with Iran, China, and Russia participating. The exercise is reportedly meant to telegraph that these militaries can reach the United States.
Mohsen Rabbani, cultural attaché at Iran's embassy in Argentina at the time of the AMIA bombing, continued to recruit and radicalize his followers. While not charged in the case, U.S. court records state that Rabbani maintained contact with his recruit, Guyanese politician Abdul Kadir, who in 2010 was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to blow up fuel lines at New York's JFK airport. Had it not been foiled, it may have been more deadly than the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
After taking office last year, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi ensured that having an AMIA-related red notice was career-positive. Raisi appointed Rezaei and Vahidi to serve in Raisi's cabinet, poking his finger in the eyes of world. Forty percent of Raisi's cabinet is sanctioned by the U.S. or the United Nations.
Iran is testing the world to see whether the passage of time has eroded its commitment to accountability. How can we ensure that these men, and Iran itself, are punished for these acts?
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said the Biden administration believes in "bringing to justice those suspected of complicity in the [AMIA] attack," and that he discussed cooperation with Argentina to do that. The administration needs to act, beginning with a push for enforcement of the INTERPOL red notices already intended to bring the AMIA attack suspects to justice.
The administration should ensure the red notices are extended when they come up for review in November 2022. While Argentina has filed the paperwork for their extension, Iran's extortion practices can derail this if not kept on track.
Additionally, the Biden administration must maintain and fully enforce the sanctions already in place. Though it ultimately held firm, the administration considered lifting sanctions during its recent nuclear negotiations. And there remains the risk the administration will weaken those sanctions without technically lifting them. It has already indicated it is poised to lift sanctions on banks and companies designated for terrorism, even while they are not designated for nuclear activities.
Successive administrations have successfully urged more than 20 countries to sanction Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. To its credit, Argentina took that action on the 25-year mark of the AMIA bombing and added those with AMIA-related INTERPOL red notices to their terrorism list.
Finally, make sure there are diplomatic and political consequences when Iran promotes their terrorists to senior government positions.
Iran is challenging us to see where our limits are. Terrorism should be a red line. Countering it should have no statute of limitations. Impunity of the kind we see today will breed more terrorism. The AMIA families, all Argentinians, and those committed to justice and our national security, deserve better.
Toby Dershowitz is Senior Vice President for Government Relations at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC. Follow her on Twitter @tobydersh
Newsweek · July 18, 2022
7. Biden should not pass up chance to reengage Iraq
Excerpts:
The US president should also let his Iraqi counterpart and the world know that America is serious about facilitating energy production to alleviate global shortages and mitigate inflation. This includes leaning on Al-Kadhimi to end Baghdad’s bullying of Iraqi Kurdistan and to let it pump gas to Turkey and Iraq.
He can also tell his Iraqi interlocutor that, if the Iraqi government does not supply the Kurdish national guard, the Peshmerga, with adequate weapons, Washington will do so.
An acting Iraqi premier without a parliamentary bloc behind him might not be able to cut Biden any promises. But the US president can use the occasion to make it known that America is back in the region and that its comeback includes boosting allies in Iraq and helping them push back against Iran’s bullying.
Renewed American interest in Iraq should not derail the nuclear talks with Iran. If Tehran thinks it does, then the regime should be welcome to expand negotiations to include — in addition to its nuclear ambitions — its militias and its ballistic missiles, a conversation that Iran has long refused to have.
Biden should not pass up chance to reengage Iraq
arabnews.com · July 16, 2022
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
July 15, 2022 23:59
Hashed al-Shaabi supporters protest in Baghdad on Dec.10, 2021. (AFP)
Short Url
https://arab.news/zkrbg
After Iraqi politicians threw a wrench into their state, putting self before country, the trip of President Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia offers Iraqis a chance to make things right. And by the same token it offers America the opportunity to reconnect with Iraqi allies, without whom containing Iran might prove arduous.
Iraq was once the top priority of the world’s only superpower. At the US State Department, more than 100 diplomats worked at the “Iraq desk.” But as Iraq fatigue set in, the number dwindled to only a handful.
America’s nonchalance toward the strategically important Iraq is unjustifiable. The country is one of the planet’s biggest oil producers, at a time the world is desperately seeking alternatives to Russian energy supplies before winter.
Iraq can also play an instrumental role in deterring what the White House calls Iran’s threats in the region.
Facing suffocating US sanctions on its economy, Tehran has leeched off Iraqis, siphoning billions of dollars that Baghdad collects from oil revenue. In 2021, the Iraqi treasury raked in $75 billion, yet the country’s central bank was barely able to defend its local currency against depreciation. Through small exchange shops, Tehran has managed to withdraw billions in foreign currency auctioned by the Iraqi central bank to defend the dinar.
Iran has also forced the Iraqi government to bankroll pro-Tehran militias — Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian and Afghan — that fight Iran’s wars throughout the region. When the Iranian regime wanted to shore up Hezbollah’s fortunes because of Lebanon’s free-falling economy, Tehran instructed Baghdad to supply Beirut with oil shipments that have kept the lights on in Lebanon, albeit for only an hour a day.
For America to behave as if Iraq is a hornets’ nest that is best left untouched is to pretend that Washington can build a Middle East alliance to contain Iran without recruiting allies in Iraq.
So far, Washington has done a terrible job in keeping its Iraqi friends. When former President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he threw the Sunni Sahwat forces under the bus, allowing former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a Shiite, to go after them, thus contributing to the rise of Daesh.
Since the war on Daesh, the Obama team — now back in office with Biden — has let down the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which has proven to be the most reliable American ally over the past few decades. Iraq’s Kurds played a major role in checking Daesh’s expansion during the militia’s early weeks and before Washington could scramble enough forces to roll back the terrorist group.
As Washington shed its Iraqi allies and made nice with Tehran, for fear that pressure might obstruct the already-stalled nuclear talks, anti-Iran forces in Iraq laid low.
The US president can make it known that America is back in the region and that its comeback includes boosting allies in Iraq.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Thankfully, however, America’s allies — mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE — have not given up on the Iraqis. By inviting Iraq’s acting Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to attend the GCC+3 summit with Biden in Jeddah on Saturday, Riyadh has offered America another chance to reconnect with Iraqis.
Should Biden grasp this opportunity and hold a bilateral meeting with Al-Kadhimi on the sidelines of the Jeddah summit, the US president should let the Iraqi premier know that America is still invested in Iraq and that it will support its every effort to regain sovereignty by disbanding the pro-Iran militias.
Biden might also want to tell Al-Kadhimi that the world is watching and that imbecile laws, such as the one criminalizing nonexistent normalization with Israel, have no place in the world of adults and in a region that is inching closer to peace and regional integration in defense and economy.
The US president should also let his Iraqi counterpart and the world know that America is serious about facilitating energy production to alleviate global shortages and mitigate inflation. This includes leaning on Al-Kadhimi to end Baghdad’s bullying of Iraqi Kurdistan and to let it pump gas to Turkey and Iraq.
He can also tell his Iraqi interlocutor that, if the Iraqi government does not supply the Kurdish national guard, the Peshmerga, with adequate weapons, Washington will do so.
An acting Iraqi premier without a parliamentary bloc behind him might not be able to cut Biden any promises. But the US president can use the occasion to make it known that America is back in the region and that its comeback includes boosting allies in Iraq and helping them push back against Iran’s bullying.
Renewed American interest in Iraq should not derail the nuclear talks with Iran. If Tehran thinks it does, then the regime should be welcome to expand negotiations to include — in addition to its nuclear ambitions — its militias and its ballistic missiles, a conversation that Iran has long refused to have.
• Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Twitter: @hahussain
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view
arabnews.com · July 16, 2022
8. Snake Island: The Start of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive?
Excerpts:
To reduce political pressure, the Kremlin is fighting the war with non-ethnic Russians—Bashkirs, Chechens, Dagestanis, and Tuvins. Mediazona, an independent Russian news site, tallies only eight dead soldiers from Moscow and 26 from St. Petersburg.
More reliable are Ukraine’s tally of Russia’s losses of war materiel. During almost five months of war against Ukraine, Kyiv claims that Russia has lost 3,829 armored personnel carriers, almost triple the number during the Soviet Union’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Over the last five months, Russia has lost 1,649 tanks, 11 times the Afghan level; 1,086 mortars and artillery cannons, more than double the Afghan level; and 217 fighter bombers, almost double the Afghan level. Since Putin believed his attack on Ukraine would be short and decisive, it is believed that he did not crank up his armaments industry in advance.
The war is expected to grind into the winter. But, in the coming weeks, Ukraine’s counteroffensives may start to turn the tide. Russians have a superstition that August brings bad news. Think August 1914.
Snake Island: The Start of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive?
Ukraine has reclaimed the island with the help of NATO weaponry.
thedispatch.com · by James Brooke
Ukrainian forces raise their flag over Snake Island. (Photo by Odessa Military Governor/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.)
Last summer in Kyiv, I wrote an editorial for the Ukraine Business News titled: “Would NATO Fight for Snake Island?”
With Ukraine’s flag rising last week over this strategic Black Sea island near the mouth of the Danube, the answer is: NATO weapons, yes; NATO soldiers, no.
Ukraine’s constitution states that joining NATO is a national goal. But admitting Ukraine is not supported by all NATO’s member countries, soon to be 32 with the upcoming addition of Finland and Sweden. NATO’s rules require candidate countries to settle their border disputes with their neighbors. Ukraine is unlikely to achieve this as long as Vladimir Putin remains in the Kremlin.
In the face of Russia’s war against Ukraine, NATO leaders agreed at the recent summit in Madrid to sharply increase the number of forces NATO keeps at a high readiness level—from 40,000 to 300,000. But that may be more aspiration than reality anytime soon. No NATO boots are expected on the ground in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, an amazing amount of NATO weaponry, largely from the U.S., is coming to Ukraine’s troops in southeastern Ukraine.
Last week, the Pentagon posted a comprehensive list of the U.S. military aid. Highlights include 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems, 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems; 26 155mm Howitzers and 126 tactical vehicles to tow them, up to 410,000 155mm artillery rounds, 36,000 105mm artillery rounds, hundreds of armored high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, 200 M113 armored personnel carriers, more than 10,000 grenade launchers and small arms, more than 59,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, and eight HIMARS (high mobility artillery rocket systems) and ammunition.
After weeks of setbacks for Ukraine, this cornucopia of modern U.S. arms may start to turn the tide of war.
A sign of the future may have come with Russia’s hasty abandonment of Snake Island.
For 2,000 years, this 46-acre rocky island has held a strategic position in the Black Sea. The ancient Greeks raised a temple there to Achilles, the Trojan War hero celebrated in Homer’s Iliad. In more modern times, it was bombed by the Turks in World War I and by the Soviets in World War II. Then, it was transferred from Romania to the Soviet Union and, finally, to Ukraine.
Last August, I wrote: “By seizing Snake Island, Russia could create a 200 km (125 mile) east-west line, controlling shipping in and out of all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.”
Seven months later, Russia did exactly that. On February 24, the first day of the war, two Russian warships approached the island and ordered the small Ukrainian detachment of border guards to surrender. A Ukrainian soldier responded with the now epic phrase: “Russian warship: go f--k yourself.” Ultimately, the Ukrainians surrendered.
The soldier’s response went viral, prompting Ukraine’s postal service to issue a stamp depicting him raising a middle finger salute to the Moskva, the Black Sea flagship of Russia’s navy. Coincidentally, two days after the stamp came out, Ukrainian missiles sank the Moskva.
For four months, the Russians heavily reinforced their detachment on the island. Installations included S-300 anti-air and anti-cruise missiles, the kind featured in Red Square parades in Moscow.
But Ukrainian war jet and cruise missile attacks did not stop. Finally, during the night of June 30, the Russians evacuated the island in two speed boats. Seeking to save face, Russia’s Defense Ministry called it a “goodwill gesture” to restore grain exports from Ukraine. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry announced that the liberation of Snake Island had allowed 16 ships loaded with Ukrainian grain to enter the Danube through Romania’s Sulina Channel. Another 90 ships are awaiting their turn at the Romanian mouth of the Danube.
Last week, Ukraine’s military released drone photos of Ukraine’s blue and gold flag waving again over the island. Andriy Yermak, the Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, posted on Telegram: “The flag of Ukraine is on Snake Island. Ahead of us are many more such videos from Ukrainian cities that are currently under temporary occupation.”
Within hours, a Russian war jet bombed the island once again.
Rob Lee of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute told Reuters last week that abandonment of the island was “likely a tangible result of NATO arms deliveries to Ukraine.”
He said that new NATO-supplied weapons made the Russian garrison even more vulnerable. On June 17, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it had used a U.S.-made Harpoon missile to sink a Russian tugboat attempting to supply Snake Island. On Monday, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for Odesa’s Regional Administration said a bombing by a U.S.-supplied HIMARS system killed one Russian major general and 12 officers.
While Ukraine benefits from an influx of U.S., U.K., and EU weaponry, Russia is running low on guns and ammo. In recent days, Russian missiles hit a Black Sea resort apartment building and a shopping center in central Ukraine. In both cases, the missiles were Kh-class, a kind of anti-ship rocket that the Soviet Union first deployed 50 years ago. Similarly, the Russian Army is pulling out of storage T-62 tanks—a battle tank first introduced in 1961.
Estimates of deaths of Russian military personnel range from 25,000 by Britain’s Defense Ministry to 37,470 by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. By contrast, during the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union lost 14,453 soldiers. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union had double the population of today’s Russia. During the 20 years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (the first deaths of U.S. troops came in 1959), the U.S. lost 50,441 soldiers.
To reduce political pressure, the Kremlin is fighting the war with non-ethnic Russians—Bashkirs, Chechens, Dagestanis, and Tuvins. Mediazona, an independent Russian news site, tallies only eight dead soldiers from Moscow and 26 from St. Petersburg.
More reliable are Ukraine’s tally of Russia’s losses of war materiel. During almost five months of war against Ukraine, Kyiv claims that Russia has lost 3,829 armored personnel carriers, almost triple the number during the Soviet Union’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Over the last five months, Russia has lost 1,649 tanks, 11 times the Afghan level; 1,086 mortars and artillery cannons, more than double the Afghan level; and 217 fighter bombers, almost double the Afghan level. Since Putin believed his attack on Ukraine would be short and decisive, it is believed that he did not crank up his armaments industry in advance.
The war is expected to grind into the winter. But, in the coming weeks, Ukraine’s counteroffensives may start to turn the tide. Russians have a superstition that August brings bad news. Think August 1914.
James Brooke is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has traveled to about 100 countries reporting for the New York Times, Bloomberg and Voice of America.
thedispatch.com · by James Brooke
9. HASC Moves to Replenish Munitions—But More Remains to Be Done
What would we do right now if we could anticipate large scale combat operations for the US in the next 1-5years? In 1-5 years what decision would we have wished we had made in 2022? Would it be to reopen the ammunition production lines to not only replenish but build up our stockpiles and perhaps, most importantly, to have our production lines open and efficiently functioning when the large scale combat operations break out?
Has Ukraine provided uds with any insights on whether we are logistically ready for large scale combat operations?
HASC Moves to Replenish Munitions—But More Remains to Be Done
By Maiya Clark & Grace Hermanson
July 18, 2022
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/07/18/hasc_moves_to_replenish_munitionsbut_more_remains_to_be_done_843037.html?mc_cid=a05ddee6ea&mc_eid=70bf478f3
U.S. military aid to Ukraine has depleted our own stockpiles, leaving us dangerously low of some key types of munitions. Moreover, there is growing concern that the defense industry is unable to replenish them in a timely manner
Seeking to address these problems, the current House version of the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act increases funding to rebuild our supply of essential munitions. The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) proposal also directs the Defense Department to implement a “new initiative to develop and invest in technologies to reduce the cost, increase reliability, enhance lethality, and diversify the supply chain for key munitions.”
The focus on munitions is a positive sign, especially because they have often been neglected in the past. The military services prefer to buy platforms—tanks, ships, and planes—rather than the missiles and munitions that these systems launch. The assumption seems to be that, if the U.S. ever does go to war, we can quickly ramp up production of munitions to meet the military’s needs.
That assumption has now proved false. In just 135 days of conflict, we have sent about a third of our stocks of Stinger and Javelin missiles to a single country, Ukraine. And there is little hope of replenishing those stocks anytime soon.
Raytheon, the prime contractor for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, had ceased production of Stinger before the Russian invasion. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes says the company cannot ramp up production until at least 2023 because the company must “redesign some of the electronics in the missile and the seeker head.” The inability to replenish these munitions stocks anytime soon leaves us and our allies are more vulnerable in the interim.
Years of failing to take this issue seriously have set the U.S. military back at least a year and forced them to ramp up acquisitions at the least cost-efficient time.
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Meanwhile, other tools that could address this very issue are currently being misused for other purposes. The Defense Production Act (DPA), for example, allows the president to expedite and expand the supply of materials and services for the U.S. military. Instead, he is using the DPA to advance his clean energy goals.
While Washington is coming to the realization that our stocks of Stingers and Javelins were and are woefully insufficient, it is only because the Ukraine conflict dragged the problem into the spotlight. It’s safe to assume that other stocks of missiles and munitions are similarly insufficient to meet the needs of modern war. The conflict in Ukraine is a canary in the coal mine, warning us that our misguided assumption that modern warfare would not be as reliant on manufacturing capacity has left us unprepared for a great power conflict.
William LaPlante, the Undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment, hinted at the flawed assumption in May when he said, “I think the last few weeks have really highlighted the intensity of conventional conflicts now in the 21st century. And the demand for munitions and weapons platforms, it really outpaces anything we’ve seen in recent memory.”
This is why the HASC’s emphasis on munitions is so important: now, in peacetime, is the time to ensure that our munitions stocks are sufficient, and that manufacturing capacity can meet the needs of the warfighter.
These initiatives alone won’t fix the problem, however. The bill’s language includes mention of “talent exchanges with the private sector,” pilot programs to track the health and security of sub-tier suppliers, and a Federally Funded Research and Development Center to assess the department’s ability to replenish key types of munitions. These are all good moves, but what is really needed is more focus—and more spending— on munitions by the Pentagon and, ultimately, Congress.
Ukraine has shown us that a strong industrial base is still critical in warfare. The HASC has made a strong step in the right direction, but much more will be required beyond a recovery effort that aims simply to restore munitions stockpiles to inadequate pre-aid levels.
Congressional leaders should continue to push for visibility into munitions stockages and purchases, and the services should start prioritizing munitions in their annual budgets. U.S. military preparedness depends on it.
Maiya Clark is a senior research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense. Grace Hermanson is a member of the think tank’s Young Leaders Program.
10. Why Do We Keep Listening to the 'TV' Generals on Ukraine?
Where you stand depends on where you sit. A general has sat in a number of different places 9and more of them) than a Lieutenant Colonel as the TV Lieutenant Colonel describes in his own article below.
Why Do We Keep Listening to the 'TV' Generals on Ukraine?
19fortyfive.com · by ByDaniel Davis · July 18, 2022
Listening to television commentary and interviews of retired U.S. generals, one would be forgiven for believing Russia is on the ropes, and Ukraine was winning the war. Looking at on-the-ground battlefield reality in Ukraine, however, it quickly becomes apparent that the generals’ boasts continue a decade-long trend of rosy combat proclamations that all too often turn out to be disastrously wrong. American media, Congress, and the public need to start applying a little more scrutiny to what these officers say.
For example, retired Gen. Ben Hodges said last week that the “Russians are exhausted,” from four months of fighting and that if “the West sticks together through this year, then I think (the war) will be over (early 2023).” Earlier this month, retired Gen. Mark Hertling told a CNN audience that as Ukraine “gets more and more artillery” from the West, Hertling concluded that he believes “you’re going to see a gradual turn in the tide.”
On July 10th, former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. Jack Keane – echoing Generals Hodges and Hertling – told Fox News that despite Russia’s progress in the Donbas, the “Ukrainians still have a real opportunity…to take back territory and we should not underestimate them.”
And yet, there is little credible evidence to suggest that any of these claims are accurate.
Russia vs. Ukraine: The State of Play Right Now
The Russians are no doubt bloodied and have suffered significant equipment loss, but there is no evidence on the battlefield that they are anywhere near “exhausted.”
Most of the artillery promised by the West has already been delivered and it has not, to date, resulted in even slowing Russia’s advance through the Donbas, much less stopped it. The HIMARS launchers have enabled Ukraine to strike deep behind Russian lines, and they have caused severe harm in their enemy’s rear areas. Nonetheless, even that has not resulted in any observable reduction in the still-heavy daily barrage of artillery on Ukrainian positions.
Furthermore, nothing has slowed the Ukrainian casualties – reportedly up to 1,000 per day – from Russian artillery, rocket, and tank fire. Nothing has changed the dynamics in the air where Russia dominates the skies to the tune of up to 300 sorties per day to about 20 for Ukraine. And there has been no change to the fact that Ukraine is running critically short of ammunition for its howitzers while Russia can continue to manufacture almost limitless numbers for themselves.
Why Russia – Sadly – Has the Advantage Against Ukraine
The most important fundamentals of war, the basics of combat operations, almost all reside on the Russian side. Since the G7, G20, and NATO Summits, there have been no additional large-scale contributions of modern weaponry promised to Ukraine. The amount of equipment to date has been a couple of hundred artillery tubes, about 250 Soviet-era tanks, and a few hundred Vietnam-era personnel carriers. Cumulatively, all of this gear – including the HIMARS – are not a fraction of the type of kit Ukraine would need to launch a counteroffensive.
The idea, then, that Ukraine could stop Russia’s current offensive and then transition to a counter-offensive to drive Putin’s troops back – as Hodges said he believed would happen before the end of this year – have no valid basis on the ground in Ukraine. But such optimistic, rosy proclamations that are disconnected from battlefield realities are not new for America’s active and retired generals for the past two decades. Take these examples from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The Generals Keep Missing on The Predictions
In March 2003, the United States invaded the country of Iraq. The initial phase of the war was an unqualified success, as the U.S. deposed the Iraqi army and its leader Saddam Hussein in little more than a month. Things started going south shortly thereafter, as almost immediately upon completion of the conventional phase, American authorities disbanded the surviving elements of the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Army. Within months a Sunni-fueled insurgency was born.
Over the following three years, the insurgency continued to grow, and violence against both Iraqi civilians and U.S. military personnel exploded. In January 2007, President George W. Bush ordered a troop surge to try and quell the violence.
Bush tapped Gen. David Petraeus to lead the surge, and over about 18 months, Petraeus’ new tactics – combined with a brutal crackdown by al-Qaeda in Iraq repression against their Sunni co-religionists – worked to bring down violence in the country. Bush then ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops to be accomplished by December 2011, ordering the U.S. military to train the ISF so they could provide security for their country without U.S. military personnel.
Early in that process, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, then-commander of 1st Armored Division and Multi-National Division-North, said in February 2008 that “the Iraqi government is beginning to become more capable,” and that it was “a great honor” to work with “the great Iraqi security forces.” By June of that year, Maj. Gen. Hertling said that all “the cities that we have in the northern part of Iraq, I think have been secured.”
Hertling was so confident of success, in fact, that he said his U.S. forces were “literally in the post-Gettysburg phase of this” war, adding that “(w)e have defeated (al Qaeda)” in the cities and were now pursuing them in “small villages and towns.” The fight in Mosul, Hertling specified, was an Iraqi-led operation and that the ISF “are growing in capability, Iraqis are stepping forward.” By 2014, however, “post-Gettysburg” Mosul would become ground-zero for the rise of the Sunni-dominated, anti-government Islamic State.
One year after Gen. Hertling left Iraq, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of all U.S. Forces in Iraq, boasted that the ISF “are in charge everywhere in Iraq.” Odierno specifically credited young Iraqi military leaders “who have adapted over time” and made dramatic improvements. Since 2008 the ISF had “gotten much better”, the general claimed, “and that is what has helped to drive us towards a more stable Iraq.”
About a year later, then-commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin said that as the mission concluded, “the stage has been set for Iraq’s young democracy to emerge as a leader in what has been and what will continue to be a very dynamic region.” But had it?
My Own Experience
I worked with a military training team in part of 2009 providing coaching and mentoring to an Iraqi battalion astride the Iran/Iraq border. What I observed there over a period of months was that the Iraqi troops did not genuinely desire to be trained, put very little effort into it, and showed no appreciable improvement by the time we departed. I later spoke with dozens of other U.S. officers who likewise trained Iraqi battalions during the same timeframe, and not one of them had a different experience than I did.
Less than three years after the last American military troop left Iraq, the world discovered just how incapable the ISF had indeed been when in June 2014, a comparatively small band of Islamic State militants stormed into Mosul and put to flight entire Iraqi army divisions. As a War on the Rocks analysis of the debacle later discovered, the “stunningly weak performances” of the Iraqi army wasn’t due to intense ISIS military pressure, but the ISF “had been failing for over a year before they finally crumbled on June 10.”
During the years that general after general continued to tell the American people that the ISF was improving, was taking the lead, and providing adequate security for their country, the truth was something very different. The first time the ISF came under any internal pressure, they folded like a house of cards. Iraq’s collapse wasn’t the fault of the American troops – responsibility for the failure rests entirely on Iraq’s corrupt leaders – but the U.S. senior leaders gave inaccurate public assessments and led the American people to believe that the ISF was capable when they were not.
That dynamic of unfounded optimistic claims is being repeated in Ukraine. There is no valid basis upon which to claim the Ukrainian army will go on the offensive within months from now and drive Russia out by the end of the year, as Gen. Hodges has claimed.
The danger in these types of statements is that they give false hope to the people of Ukraine, give an inaccurate picture to the American people of what’s possible, and encourages Congress to continue funding a strategy that almost certainly will fail. At the very least, it is time to start viewing routinely optimistic claims by some of our active and retired generals with more skepticism.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.
11. US sends Syracuse-based National Guard soldiers to help train Ukrainian military
US sends Syracuse-based National Guard soldiers to help train Ukrainian military
Stars and Stripes · by Fernando Alba · July 16, 2022
New York Army National Guard Soldiers of the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, who are deploying to Germany as part of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine, stand at attention during a farewell ceremony at the Thompson Road Armory in Syracuse, New York on July 15, 2022. (Avery Schneider/U.S. Army)
Syracuse, N.Y. (Tribune News Service) — More than 100 Syracuse-based National Guard soldiers are headed to Germany to help train the Ukrainian military.
One-hundred-forty soldiers from the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team left Friday for Fort Bliss, Texas, to prepare for a trip to Europe, according to a news release by the New York State Division of Military & Naval Affairs.
The soldiers from Syracuse’s 27th Infantry Brigade will replace 160 soldiers from Florida, who have been training Ukrainian military personnel since November — first in western Ukraine and then in Germany in February after Russia began signaling it would invade.
The Syracuse-based soldiers are expected to replace their predecessors in September, after they’ve completed training in Texas, officials for the Division of Military & Naval Affairs said.
The teams from New York and Florida are a part of a multinational training group that formed in 2015, the DMNA said.
The U.S. has been sending troops overseas to help train Ukrainians in waves that have also included teams from Oklahoma and Tennessee, according to the DMNA. Canada, Lithuania, Denmark, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom have also helped in the training, officials said.
“United States military units support the training to strengthen relationships and affirm the United States’ commitment to European partners,” officials said in the release.
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Stars and Stripes · by Fernando Alba · July 16, 2022
12. C.I.A. Director Issues Warning After Possible Noose Is Found Near Facility
C.I.A. Director Issues Warning After Possible Noose Is Found Near Facility
By Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman
The New York Times · by Adam Goldman · July 18, 2022
An object was discovered near a secret location in Virginia, in a building that houses businesses and other organizations.
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William J. Burns, right, the C.I.A. director, told agency officers that racism and racist symbols would not be tolerated.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times
By Julian E. Barnes and
July 18, 2022, 6:51 p.m. ET
The C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, issued a warning to the agency’s work force last week after what appeared to be a noose was found outside a secret facility used by the agency in Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter.
In the message, Mr. Burns said that racism and racist symbols would not be tolerated in the agency.
Questions surround the incident. The object was found near a small agency facility located in a building that houses businesses and other organizations. Some people briefed on the incident said it was not entirely clear that the object was even meant to be a noose, or if whoever placed it there knew that the C.I.A. secretly operated in the building.
The incident did not occur at the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., which is closely guarded. The people familiar with the incident would not identify the location of the secret facility where the object was found.
People interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal C.I.A. communications and an ongoing investigation.
The C.I.A. does not currently have evidence suggesting that an agency employee left the item, or that a foreign intelligence service was involved, according to some of those people briefed on the incident.
Still, the object was disturbing enough that an agency official reported it, prompting the investigation and Mr. Burns’s note.
“C.I.A. has zero tolerance for actions or symbols of hatred and treats any such incidents with the utmost seriousness,” said Susan Miller, a spokeswoman for the agency, who declined to comment further on Mr. Burns’s message. “Our values and our vital national security mission demand that we uphold nothing less than the highest standards of inclusiveness and safety.”
The C.I.A. has been working to diversify in recent years. During the Obama administration, John O. Brennan, then the director, made public a company diversity report and stepped-up recruiting at historically Black colleges and universities. Gina Haspel, the director during the Trump administration, started an advertising campaign meant to help diversify the agency.
Last year, Fox News and other conservative news outlets began attacking the agency for what they called its woke recruiting videos.
A report on diversity released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last year found that 12.3 percent of civilian employees in the various intelligence agencies were Black. Overall, the percentage of minorities increased between 2019 and 2020, according to the report, but at the most senior pay levels, Black representation was far lower, making up just 6.5 percent of the ranks.
Former C.I.A. officials said that Mr. Burns had made efforts to give Black employees prominent roles in senior jobs, but work is left to be done.
Darrell Blocker, a former senior C.I.A. official who worked at the agency for nearly 30 years, commended the agency’s recent diversity efforts. Nevertheless, as with anywhere else, racism can be found at the agency, he said.
“The C.I.A. is a microcosm of the populace from which it draws its work force, so it should not surprise anyone who understands the deep-seated racism that has permeated all institutions throughout our history,” said Mr. Blocker, who is Black.
Mr. Blocker praised the C.I.A. officer who reported seeing the noose, saying it was vital for employees to report possible racial incidents so they can be investigated and addressed.
While most of what goes on in the C.I.A. remains shrouded in secrecy, some hate incidents have come to light. In 2015, a C.I.A. paramilitary contractor who is gay spoke to ABC News about a pattern of harassment by his teammates.
Preston Golson, a former C.I.A. analyst who also worked on initiatives to diversify the organization, said that while Black employees at the agency experienced the same unconscious bias that is present in every American workplace, he had not seen signs of overt racial hate.
“I never experienced anything like that in my almost 17 years there,” said Mr. Golson, who is Black. “There is always the typical things African Americans experience in any workplace, whether it is microaggressions or not being able to express your full self culturally. But it is nothing out of the ordinary from any organization in America.”
Mr. Golson, who is now a director at the Brunswick Group, an advisory firm, said the agency must still work on diversifying its leadership, as well as some of its most central jobs, including in operations and analysis.
“We need more representation in the traditionally higher-profile positions, jobs in analysis, operations,” Mr. Golson said. “But there have been some strides there too.”
The New York Times · by Adam Goldman · July 18, 2022
13. The U.S. Needs a Million Talents Program to Retain Technology Leadership
Why do we have to copy China (or at least use its named program as a reference)? Are they really that much better? Will they really be over time? Or is it that the grass is always greener? Or do we just have dictator envy?
The U.S. Needs a Million Talents Program to Retain Technology Leadership
Foreign Policy · by Graham Allison, Eric Schmidt · July 16, 2022
By Graham Allison, a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Eric Schmidt, a former CEO and executive chairman of Google.
What is the single most significant step the United States can take to sustain the technological predominance it has enjoyed since World War II? The answer should be obvious: to actively recruit the most talented minds in the world and welcome them into a society where they have the opportunity to realize their dreams. From physicist Albert Einstein and the other European scientists who helped the United States win World War II and land on the moon to the founders of Intel, Google, eBay, Uber, and the many technology companies that have powered economic growth, smart and ambitious immigrants have been the country’s secret sauce.
To sustain the United States’ technology leadership in the face of China’s formidable economic and military challenge, U.S. President Joe Biden should launch an urgent drive to recruit and retain 1 million tech superstars from around the world by the end of his first term in office.
It’s not just a matter of enticing new immigrants but of retaining bright minds already in the country. In 2009, a Turkish graduate of the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Erdal Arikan, published a paper that solved a fundamental problem in information theory, allowing for much faster and more accurate data transfers. Unable to get an academic appointment or funding to work on this seemingly esoteric problem in the United States, he returned to his home country. As a foreign citizen, he would have had to find a U.S. employer interested in his project to be able to stay.
Back in Turkey, Arikan turned to China. It turned out that Arikan’s insight was the breakthrough needed to leap from 4G telecommunications networks to much faster 5G mobile internet services. Four years later, China’s national telecommunications champion, Huawei, was using Arikan’s discovery to invent some of the first 5G technologies. Today, Huawei holds over two-thirds of the patents related to Arikan’s solution—10 times more than its nearest competitor. And while Huawei has produced one-third of the 5G infrastructure now operating around the world, the United States does not have a single major company competing in this race. Had the United States been able to retain Arikan—simply by allowing him to stay in the country instead of making his visa contingent on immediately finding a sponsor for his work—this history might well have been different.
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A metal fence limits access to the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Nogales, Arizona, on Feb. 9, 2019.
Buried in the budget bill is the detritus of 20 years of attempted overhauls.
AT&T executive Randall Stephenson, right, explains 5G cellular network deployment to U.S. President Donald Trump on June 22, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images)
Washington needs to do more to foster and protect the country’s innovation ecosystem.
Similar stories are far too common. The founders of China’s leading companies in semiconductors, smartphones, and app-based deliveries—the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Xiaomi, and Meituan—were all educated at U.S. universities.
As we all know, today’s globalized world allows talented individuals to vote with their feet and pursue their ambitions wherever they choose. With a population four times larger than the United States’, China has a much bigger pool of home-grown talent. But in a world where English has become the international language and as a country that takes pride in being a nation of immigrants, the United States has the great advantage of being able to attract the world’s most talented technical minds.
To leverage the United States’ greatest advantage, Biden should immediately announce a commitment to recruit 1 million of the world’s most technically talented individuals by the end of his first term in January 2025. To this end, the U.S. Congress should streamline the country’s immigration rules and establish programs to recruit and retain established tech superstars and the world’s best students researching advanced technologies. And if Congress will not act, then Biden should use his ample executive authority to create a million talents program and promote the United States’ leadership in the technology of the future.
U.S. President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an executive order on the economy at the White House in Washington on Feb. 24, 2021.Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images
CIA director William Burns has identified the technology race as the “main arena for competition and rivalry” with China. So has Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who said last year that “technological innovation has become the main battleground of the global playing field, and competition for tech dominance will grow unprecedentedly fierce.” Whoever wins the race for tech talent will develop breakthrough technologies that will deliver decisive economic and military advantages.
A December 2021 report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center on the “Great Tech Rivalry” (which one of us co-authored) finds that in the technology Olympics, China—which was so far behind at the beginning of the millennium that the United States could not find it in its rearview mirror—has sped ahead in many arenas, including green technology, 5G telecommunication, facial recognition, voice recognition, and fintech. The United States still has significant advantages in semiconductor design, biotechnology, aerospace technology, and quantum sensing.
China has a significant edge in its education pipeline, producing four times more bachelor’s students and two times more graduate and Ph.D. students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) than the United States each year. By contrast, as the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence reported, the number of U.S.-born students participating in artificial intelligence (AI) doctoral programs has not increased since 1990. As part of its effort to close the gap with China, the United States should double spending on STEM education and employment programs at home to support Americans who have the ability to become next-generation inventors and entrepreneurs.
China’s great weakness is its spectacular inability to attract talent from other countries. While the United States can recruit from all 7.9 billion people on Earth, China has essentially limited itself to its own population of 1.4 billion people. China naturalizes fewer than 100 citizens each year, while the United States naturalizes nearly 1 million people annually. Barriers to China competing in this arena include an insular culture, engrained habits of being unwelcoming to foreigners, and a difficult-to-learn language spoken by few people outside of China. Although the Chinese government recognizes that it has serious talent shortages—for example, it has 1.7 million fewer algorithmic engineers and 300,000 fewer semiconductor specialists than the market demands—it has been unable to overcome the obstacles to recruiting people who are not Chinese.
Since 2000, half of all U.S. unicorns—start-ups valued at $1 billion or more—have been founded or co-founded by immigrants. The flow of talent is essentially a one-way street: The United States has 15 times as many immigrant inventors as there are American inventors living abroad. Although Britain, Canada, and Germany are by no means as insular as China, they all have more inventors emigrating than settling in their countries.
German-born physicist Albert Einstein; his secretary, Helen Dukas (left), and his daughter Margaret Einstein take the oath of U.S. citizenship in 1940. American Stock/Getty Images
It’s time for the United States to poach with purpose. To start, Washington should grant an additional 250,000 green cards each year. The current backlog of green cards—which entitle their holders to permanent residency and unrestricted work—is well over 1 million for high-skilled immigrants and is projected to grow to nearly 2.5 million by 2030. Right now, the U.S. government is hopelessly behind, approving two applications for every green card it actually issues. The United States also requires that no more than 7 percent of employment- and family-based green cards be issued to citizens from any single country, disadvantaging scientists and engineers from India and China. Congress should eliminate this cap and create new green card categories for experts in frontier technologies.
Another factor holding the United States back is its failure to digitize its immigration system, making it one of the few developed countries that relies almost entirely on paper forms in its immigration procedures. The green card process, which takes an average of six years, includes lengthy applications for labor certification, employment authorization, and permanent residency. More than 300,000 green cards have been lost due to bureaucratic error alone. Biden has the authority to order the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to recoup these green cards, and he should exercise it.
Next, the United States should recruit more geniuses. Granting 100,000 additional visas each year to extraordinary tech talents would go a long way toward strengthening the U.S. technology workforce. Admissions criteria for employment-based (EB) visas—such as EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 visas—reflect history, not an urgent purpose. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should adjust its criteria for these visas so that technology researchers and entrepreneurs qualify based on their uniquely important and hard-to-obtain expertise. Right now, only physical therapists and nurses are able to bypass a yearslong recruitment process due to labor shortages in those fields. Adding AI professionals and semiconductor engineers to this list would jump-start the careers of thousands of future entrepreneurs.
To his credit, Biden has made a good start on this agenda. In January, he used an executive action to broaden the scientific fields that can qualify for an O-1 visa for extraordinary talents. But there is still much more to be done. He can, for example, direct the Labor Department and other agencies to make the recruitment of STEM talent a top priority to outcompete China.
Regrettably, the White House has not rolled back the Trump administration’s rules aimed at slashing legal immigration to the United States. As a result, the standard for what qualifies as a “specialized job” for work visa purposes is extremely restrictive, with the government routinely denying visa applications for graduates in computer science on the grounds that they do not possess unique knowledge. This prevents companies from transferring their overseas workers to the United States using L-1 intracompany transfer visas or hiring foreign talent with H-1B work visas. The Biden administration should adopt new regulations that recognize that tech jobs are highly specialized and key to the country’s national security.
The United States can also boost retention of tech talent by granting immediate permanent residency to every foreign-born doctoral graduate in the STEM subjects. The majority of recent graduates from AI Ph.D. programs in the United States who left the country have cited the cumbersome immigration process as a critical factor in their decision to leave. Congress should also increase the capacity of immigration bureaucracy by doubling the budget of the USCIS and increasing funding for other federal agencies, such as the State Department, that play a significant role in the visa approval process. The USCIS has suffered significant budget shortfalls, resulting in a 2021 plea to Congress for a billion-dollar bailout.
Although the U.S. government played a key role in attracting and welcoming scientists like Einstein in the years preceding World War II and others who contributed to U.S. defense during the Cold War, in recent decades, it has left this job to private companies and universities. Advanced technology companies—including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many others—are now the drivers in recruiting superstars. In the AI race, it is estimated that half of the top 100 recognized geniuses advancing the frontier already work for top technology companies in the United States. Google’s acquisition of DeepMind, the company that built the first AI machine capable of beating the world champion in Go, is a case in point. To become recognized as pillars of a million talents program, major U.S. technology companies should be challenged to double their recruitment of foreign talent over the next two years with the promise of direct support from the federal government.
In the past decade, when members of Congress have thought of U.S. tech champions, they most often focus on their transmission of disinformation or violations of privacy. Although these are important issues that deserve attention, they should be considered in context. Care must be taken to find ways to address these concerns without hindering large companies’ roles as talent magnets.
America’s greatness has been powered not only by homegrown talent but by successive generations of immigrants. People from every part of the Earth have left their native countries to join Team USA. A million talents program could sustain this source of strength for what will, in the decades ahead, be the fiercest technology rivalry the world has ever seen.
Foreign Policy · by Graham Allison, Eric Schmidt · July 16, 2022
14. The Case Against Security Cooperation in Fragile States
An interesting argument from a professor who teaches at the Defense Security Cooperation University should.
Excerpts:
Rather than being a key foreign policy tool, the United States should carefully consider the ramifications of increasing security cooperation in fragile states. For one, the partner nation will likely be unable to sustain this newfound military capacity. Second, miliary assistance is likely to lead to an increase in political instability, corruption, human-rights abuses, and incidences of political oppression. This is because, at its core, the U.S. approach to security cooperation is contradictory and anachronistic. It is based on faulty assumptions about conditions in partner nations, often designed to defeat an enemy the partner nation does not have, and rooted in American models of defense institutions that do not exist. Even during the era of great-power competition, it is not clear that U.S. interests are best served by sending millions of dollars in defense articles and training to fragile states under the guise of “regional stability,” with the primary purpose of keeping Russia and China out.
Inherent in the definition of security cooperation are explicit goals to “build capacity,” which often translate to ensuring that foreign countries can use, maintain, and sustain the equipment that the United States has transferred to them, either through grant assistance or by foreign military sales. Given the internal instability of fragile states, most military capabilities that the United States is seeking to foster are for the purposes of internal defense, counter-insurgency, or counter-terrorism. The suite of programs used to transfer training and equipment are referred to as “building partner capacity” or “train and equip programs.” Often recipients of these programs are states that cannot or will not provide basic services for their population or control their own territory, because the government lacks either the resources, the authority, or the trust of many of its citizens. While the state exists de jure, there is no state de facto. The idea of transferring millions of dollars of state-of-the-art American equipment to a country that cannot provide the most basic services to its population seems counter-intuitive. How is the recipient country expected to maintain it?
The Case Against Security Cooperation in Fragile States - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Barbara Salera · July 18, 2022
A dark cloud hangs over the Department of Defense. After the “strategic failure” that was Afghanistan, the department is struggling to figure out how not to repeat it. In particular, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the lead agency for advising, training, and equipping foreign governments, has taken a number of key steps to prevent this from reoccurring. My fellow colleagues in the agency, whose key mission is to build the military capacity of foreign partners, took the collapse in Afghanistan particularly hard. After the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act the agency established certification programs for its workforce and introduced new concepts such as “building capacity” and “full-spectrum capability.” This is in addition to various other initiatives, such as changing security cooperation planning methods and requiring the assessment, monitoring, and evaluation of outcomes. Though these initiatives predate the recent events in Afghanistan, they symbolize a widespread recognition of a problem with how the United States conducts military assistance, a recognition grimly underscored by the collapse of the Afghan security forces in August 2021 and the failures of Iraqi reconstruction.
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For years, the United States has struggled with how best to build foreign militaries, with minor successes here and there but nothing substantial over the long term. These noted difficulties have led to what Jahara Matisek has called the “Faberge Egg army problem, an expensively built military … easily broken by insurgents.” Some have argued that to address these poor outcomes the United States should consolidate and simplify the complicated domestic processes used to execute security cooperation, in addition to augmenting programs by building the capacity of formal defense institutions. However, military assistance outcomes will not improve simply by making the foreign military sales process faster or by improving a country’s defense institutions, as argued by Jeremy Gwinn. Many past articles on security cooperation focused on the minutiae of how to improve the process as opposed to asking whether security cooperation is the best means by which to accomplish national security objectives. Security cooperation analyses have a tendency to focus on the “tactical” level of security cooperation and concentrate on how to get the equipment to countries faster, or what other augmentations or incentives the United States should add to make it work. My argument focuses on the strategic use of security cooperation to accomplish wider American interests in fragile states. By fragile states, I specifically reference those countries that are dealing with
“extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay.”
Rather than being a key foreign policy tool, the United States should carefully consider the ramifications of increasing security cooperation in fragile states. For one, the partner nation will likely be unable to sustain this newfound military capacity. Second, miliary assistance is likely to lead to an increase in political instability, corruption, human-rights abuses, and incidences of political oppression. This is because, at its core, the U.S. approach to security cooperation is contradictory and anachronistic. It is based on faulty assumptions about conditions in partner nations, often designed to defeat an enemy the partner nation does not have, and rooted in American models of defense institutions that do not exist. Even during the era of great-power competition, it is not clear that U.S. interests are best served by sending millions of dollars in defense articles and training to fragile states under the guise of “regional stability,” with the primary purpose of keeping Russia and China out.
Inherent in the definition of security cooperation are explicit goals to “build capacity,” which often translate to ensuring that foreign countries can use, maintain, and sustain the equipment that the United States has transferred to them, either through grant assistance or by foreign military sales. Given the internal instability of fragile states, most military capabilities that the United States is seeking to foster are for the purposes of internal defense, counter-insurgency, or counter-terrorism. The suite of programs used to transfer training and equipment are referred to as “building partner capacity” or “train and equip programs.” Often recipients of these programs are states that cannot or will not provide basic services for their population or control their own territory, because the government lacks either the resources, the authority, or the trust of many of its citizens. While the state exists de jure, there is no state de facto. The idea of transferring millions of dollars of state-of-the-art American equipment to a country that cannot provide the most basic services to its population seems counter-intuitive. How is the recipient country expected to maintain it?
While the issue of sustainment is important, let’s sidestep it and focus on what happens after the equipment is delivered and the training has been completed. There may be anecdotal evidence of how security cooperation programs have been “successful” in building military capacity, but numerous commentaries and studies argue that the outcomes of this newfound capacity have been less than ideal. According to these studies, an increase in security cooperation and security assistance correlated with an increased incidence of military coups, political oppression, human-rights violations, and other forms of political instability. For example, a 2020 study conducted by Patricia Sullivan, Leo Blanken, and Ian Rice analyzing post-conflict countries between 1956 and 2012 found a statistically significant increase in incidences of torture, extra-judicial killings, disappearances, political imprisonment and executions, and incidents of genocide among recipients of military assistance. A second study, analyzing U.S. security assistance to 150 countries, found a similar result: An increase in military assistance (security cooperation) correlated with worse performance on human rights. Both of these studies include years in which United States security cooperation programs were tied to Leahy Amendment conditions concerning human rights that barred sending material to units on a human-rights watch list and having every recipient of training vetted. Regardless, the results of these studies should not be surprising. Fragile states in which leaders lack resources to provide basic services for their population often turn to well-resourced (thanks to military assistance) militaries to repress restless populations and target political opponents. Political leaders in fragile states often use newfound military capacity to shore up power. Moreover, if political leaders can depend on an outside donor, like the United States, to resource their military, as opposed to taxes or some other internal resources, it further severs the tie between the government and its citizens.
Regardless of these outcomes, the primary purpose of security cooperation is “to build partner nation capacity consistent with [American] defense objectives.” While the National Defense Strategy outlines numerous defense objectives, in regions with fragile states these objectives often include promoting regional stability, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and even policing (countering human trafficking and drug trafficking). Therefore, the purpose of building military capacity in weak and failed states is mostly to ensure the internal security of that state. However, the American military, by law and tradition, is not designed to play an internal security role. When the United States has engaged in building foreign militaries, it has tended to reflect the American way of war centered around playing its economic strength and technological advantage into a tactical advantage on the battlefield. From doctrine to defense institutions and logistics systems, the entire Department of Defense is built around this American way of war. In fact, for U.S. forces counter-insurgency was a subset of total war until the late 2000s. Through building partner capacity programs, especially those under Department of Defense authorities, the approach to security cooperation has been to mirror American ways of war, doctrine, logistics systems, and training by asking American military members and institutions to help to build the capacity of defense institutions. In Afghanistan in particular, the Department of Defense sought to build a military “that was modeled on the centralized command structures and complex bureaucracy of the Defense Department” rather than build a military to defeat the specific threat(s) that Afghanistan faces rooted in defense institutions that Afghanistan could support. The U.S. implementers drew on what they knew, which resulted in Afghan forces not being able to function without American support operationally and logistically. Ultimately, once the United States withdrew, the Afghan forces fell quickly.
U.S. security practitioners specializing in institutional capacity-building point to Afghanistan as an example of not taking institutional capacity-building seriously, therefore dooming the rebuilding of the Afghan military, and not necessarily of broader security cooperation failure. Congress listened, and required frequently used security cooperation programs to address institutional capacity-building, which advocates argue can even help to prevent human rights abuses, mostly through education or some sort of subject-matter expert or military advisor exchanges. However, institutional capacity-building is not the panacea to the security cooperation dilemma that many within the Department of Defense think it is. Institutional capacity-building programs still focus on the technical aspects of institutions, or give cursory education on issues such as the law of armed conflict. But these programs fail to consider the politics of how authority within states emerges, develops, or changes in order to institutionalize these newly introduced practices. To be clear, I am not arguing that security cooperation planners do not consider politics at all. In fact, U.S. law requires the Department of Defense to “jointly consider political, social, economic, diplomatic, and historical factors, if any, of the foreign country that may impact the effectiveness of the program.” However, assessments of these factors are often shallow and concentrate on the politics of formal institutions, overlooking the importance of informal institutions and how power and authority is actually wielded in fragile states.
In order to understand the deep politics of fragile states, it is crucial to have an understanding of what a state is. The noted sociologist Max Weber defined the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The key for the Weberian conception of the state is the term legitimate use of force. Weber argued that even states that appear to be authoritarian will seek to root their claim of legitimacy in one of three “pure” types of authority: legal, traditional, or charismatic. Authority in the American state most closely aligns itself with legal legitimation, meaning that U.S. citizens see the American state and government as legitimate because a leader’s power is derived from written laws, procedures, and regulations. Leaders in fragile states often try to legitimize their rule not through legal means, but in a sub-categorization of traditional authority: the neo-patrimonial system. Leaders in neo-patrimonial states, while having a veneer of bureaucracy, also seek to remain in power through clientelism, or the exchange of goods and services for political support. Neo-patrimonial governments also prefer to keep state institutions weak by stacking bureaucracies, like defense institutions, with supporters and encouraging competition amongst individuals to keep them divided and therefore not a threat to their rule. This allows key military leaders to be dependent on the ruler for their wealth while also keeping “national armies divided and faction-ridden.” U.S. military assistance is especially prone to contribute to corruption as often this assistance accounts for a large portion of defense budgets. “Ghost soldiers” (nonexistent military personnel manufactured by corrupt officials to pocket their salary) in Iraq and Uganda are two well-known examples of how easy it can be for military institutions to engage in corruption. Clientelism is not considered corruption, but just the way governance is done in states in which the central government competes with local actors for legitimacy. The Taliban understood this and struck deals “with low-level representatives of the standing Afghan government through bribes or safety guarantees” in order to quickly seize control of various regions.
With this understanding of the state, a deeper look into the approach to institutional capacity-building still shows the failures of security cooperation. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, institutional capacity-building initiatives are to be “driven by U.S. interests and values” but at the same time avoid “the projection or imposition of United States’ models, which may not fit an ally or partner’s specific context.” How can institutional capacity-building be driven by U.S. values while also not be driven by U.S. models? Often Americans sent to help build institutions are subject-matter experts in developing and running logistics systems, human resource institutions, and other formal defense institutions in the United States, not state-building or political development scholars with a deep understanding of the informal politics of the state. These gaps in knowledge are then filled in by their experience in running institutions in the United States, resulting in foreign defense institutions modeled on the complex American bureaucratic system, a system rooted in rational legitimacy. Additionally, institutional capacity programs are often aimed at improving the skills of functionaries and/or rewriting laws, processes, or regulations that improve the veneer of the neo-patrimonial system without necessarily shifting governance style further down the legal continuum. This veneer serves to further enhance a leader’s international legitimacy while doing nothing to improve their domestic legitimacy, to say nothing of the standard of living of the country’s citizens.
Security cooperation observers may point to Ukraine as an example of successful security cooperation, with the United States providing military assistance to deny Russia an easy win, and so far it seems to be working. Observers did not expect Ukraine to do so well against Russia. However, this is the exception that proves the rule. Ukraine by most measures is not a deeply fragile state. In fact, according to the fragile state index, where a lower number indicates less fragility, it has ranked anywhere from 86 to as low as 117 out of 179 countries. Currently, about 88 out of 179 countries are deemed more fragile than Ukraine. Compared to countries like the Philippines, Nigeria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and many African countries, it was relatively more stable. Second, American defense articles and services are being used to fight off an external threat. Third, government legitimacy is not in question. The reason that security cooperation is “working” is that Ukrainian citizens see the government as trying to provide them with protection against the Russian invasion: They see an arrangement in which they (the Ukrainians) are giving their blood, with much of the treasure being provided by the United States. After the war, Ukraine may come out with a stronger nation-state identity and perhaps a less corrupt government. In addition, following the path identified by Charles Tilly, becoming efficient and effective at war contributes to moving states further down the legal legitimacy continuum. The issue with many fragile states, especially in African countries, is that their citizens see a variety of actors as legitimate governors, not the central government. In turn, often, governments of fragile states see their own citizens and groups as potential political rivals, not communities to be served. Some fragile states are only states because international society says so, not because their citizens believe them to be, unlike in Ukraine.
Engaging in security cooperation in fragile countries is a wicked problem, in that any approach the United States takes will invariably not be good enough to achieve the lofty goals outlined in the National Security Strategy. When the United States helps to build foreign militaries it cannot help but use an American model, one that also assumes an objective control of civil-military relations, which neo-patrimonial regimes do not follow. Political leaders in fragile states will gladly take whatever military training and equipment that the United States is willing to give while also ensuring they can still hold on to power, through various forms of patronage and/or coup-proofing. In addition, Chinese and Russian military and economic assistance is waiting in the wings to supplement or even supplant American assistance. Suggestions to tie continued U.S. security cooperation to improvement in domestic conditions may not work, as fragile states often use the threat of going to Russia or China to gain concessions. U.S. policymakers need to rethink their approach to security cooperation by first deciding whether keeping Russia and China out is enough of a national interest to justify providing support to specific fragile states.
Despite great-power competition, U.S. interests may be best served by abandoning security-cooperation efforts in fragile states. Arguments to improve the foreign military sales process or incentivize a country’s behavior are largely irrelevant and will not lead to better security cooperation outcomes, at least not within the timelines imposed by U.S. government programs. It is very difficult to build a sustainable military capacity in fragile countries whose governments lack resources, both monetary and human, and to do so against the desires of political leaders who may see keeping institutions weak as a way to stay in power. The United States should only choose to conduct security cooperation, especially if paid for by taxpayer dollars — because not all programs are, and some are funded by the foreign governments themselves — in very specific cases that truly serve national interests. U.S. policymakers should also be prepared for the fallout that comes with increasing military capacity in states that cannot provide basic needs for their own population or have governments that lack legitimacy, namely human-rights abuses, corruption, and general regional instability. When the United States does choose to pour millions of taxpayer dollars into the security sector of a fragile state, it should be ready to make a long-term commitment and embed any approach in both the formal and informal political structures of the state.
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Barbara Salera is currently an associate professor of security cooperation management at the Defense Security Cooperation University, School of Security Cooperation Studies. She has previously published articles on the pedagogy of teaching political science, humanitarian assistance, and security cooperation in sub-Saharan Africa.
Any opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect official policy of the Defense Security Cooperation University, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or the Department of Defense.
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Barbara Salera · July 18, 2022
15. "Our F*ckheads Can't Even Hit Them": Russian Soldier Says He Was Sent to 'Slaughter' in Ukraine
Quite a title!
"Our F*ckheads Can't Even Hit Them": Russian Soldier Says He Was Sent to 'Slaughter' in Ukraine
19fortyfive.com · by BySinead Baker · July 18, 2022
More evidence that all is not well with Putin’s war against Ukraine and the toll it is having on many members of the Russian military: Ukrainian authorities published audio they say shows a Russian soldier complaining to his partner that he had been sent “to slaughter” during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Security Service of Ukraine shared audio of a conversation between a man and woman on Friday, and said it was a conversation between an “occupier” and his wife.
“Here, you know, they just send us to slaughter. It’s not a smart way at all,” the man’s voice says in the audio. It is not clear where in Ukraine the man was, or when the conversation took place.
He said that as he moves, Ukrainian soldiers are “waiting for you, watching, expecting you. They’ve adjusted guns to these fucking trenches. You reach there, some point, and they’re fucking watching you!”
He said that Ukraine’s ability to fire from far away meant he and his fellow soldiers could not respond in kind.
“They just sit drinking coffee and press buttons — and just throw shells on you.”
“Where do you shoot? Whom do you shoot? There’s f*cking no one. F*ck knows. And here you’re rushing around like an a*shole.
“So many of our tanks have been burned here, so many pieces of equipment, damn it.
“And our f*ckheads can’t even hit them. They can’t fucking locate them. Our fucking brainless brigade. Our army. These fucking asshole commanders . Every day, people die here. Just for fucking nothing.”
The woman then responded, saying he needs to fire back with a tank. But he said that the Ukrainians are too far away.
“What the hell. They start firing at you from three to four kilometers away. Where are you going to shoot from a tank?”
The woman then asked: “Don’t you have such equipment?”
He responded: “We don’t have specialists, damn it,” and she replied “Fuck.”
“No specialists. They fucking fire,” the man continues. “They’ve probably thrown 20 carriages of projectiles into fucking nothing.”
The audio shared by Ukraine then ended.
Ukraine’s long-range weapons
Ukraine has been intercepting some Russian audio since Russia began its invasion in February. Some Russian soldiers have been using unencrypted communications.
It is not clear what Ukrainian weapons the Russian soldier was describing, but western allies have in recent weeks sent long-range weapons to Ukraine after repeated requests from Kyiv, saying they would greatly aid its fight against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that weapons from Western countries were allowing Ukraine to push back against Russian assaults.
The weapons included High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles sent by the US, which Ukraine said last week was used to kill a Russian general.
The US Department of Defense said HIMARS is “making an impact” in helping Ukraine’s military.
Despite Western help, Russia appears to have a bigger weapons supply than Ukraine.
Sinéad Baker is a News Reporter based in Business Insider’s (where this first appeared) London bureau. Sinéad most often covers breaking news, US politics, and global censorship. She has covered developments within the Trump administration, written about terrorist attacks in real-time worldwide, and delved into the aftermath of aviation disasters.
19fortyfive.com · by BySinead Baker · July 18, 2022
16. The AC-130 Gunship Might Be the Ultimate Symbol of U.S. Military Dominance
As long as the airspace is not contested and we have air superiority. But I do love the AC-130. It is the best of its kind at what it does. (or perhaps there is nothing else like it). I also like the name Spectre better than SpookyStinger II. Did they have to change it because of the enemy organziation inthe James Bond films?
The AC-130 Gunship Might Be the Ultimate Symbol of U.S. Military Dominance
19fortyfive.com · by ByChristian Orr · July 18, 2022
Sure, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, and even submarines are powerhouse weapons for the U.S. military. But the AC-130 gunship is one truly powerful weapon that many times gets overlooked. That is a massive mistake for sure: To fans of the James Bond/Agent 007 film and literary franchises alike (Yours Truly is a lifelong member of both categories), the name “SPECTRE” equates to the villainous Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion, headed up by the nefarious Ernst Stavro Blofeld. To enemies of the United States, however, the word “Spectre” conjures up an even more ominous, and the very real prospect of “Death From Above”: the AC-130 gunship.
Spectre: Slaughterous Sequel to Spooky
Before the AC-130 gunship, aka Spectre, came along there was “Spooky,” i.e. the AC-47 gunship used with terrifying effect during the Vietnam War under the callsign “Puff the Magic Dragon,” as immortalized in the John Wayne movie The Green Berets. The original Spooky could do plenty of damage with her 7.62mm mini-guns, but Spooky II, aka Spectre, went a step beyond. Actually, leaps and bounds beyond.
The AC-130 is a heavily-armed version of the ubiquitous C-130 Hercules, a member of the exclusive pantheon of U.S. military aircraft that have been in service for over 50 years. First deployed in 1966, it was able to join its older Spooky sister in inflicting havoc upon the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars alike. The two gunship systems combined to destroy more than 10,000 enemy trucks and Lord only knows how many enemy troops.
By 1969, most AC-47s were transferred to the South Vietnamese Air Force, which kept using them until the fall of Saigon to Communist forces in 1975. Amazingly, the Colombian Air Force still has some of the old Spookies in service. Meanwhile, Spooky II has continuously stayed on duty with the U.S. Air Force.
The far bigger AC-130 was able to take advantage of her larger size by accommodating much larger guns, such as 20mm Vulcan cannons, 25mm GAU-12 Equalizer cannons, and 40mm Bofors guns. Ever more impressively – and even more distressingly to enemy combatants on the receiving end – starting with the AC-130H variant, the warbird’s arsenal included an M137 105mm howitzer!
This latter weapon is not only highly destructive but also eminently cost-effective. As noted by War Is Boring columnist Joseph Trevithick, “The standard explosive round could blast through up to 10 inches of reinforced concrete, and a specially designed fragmenting shell could shred a target area more than 150 feet in diameter with thousands of metal fragments. Perhaps most important of all — a howitzer is cheap to fire. A $400 artillery round is a tremendous bargain compared to a $100,000 Hellfire.”
To date, there have been six variants of the AC-130: AC-130A, AC-130E, AC-130H, AC-130U, AC130W, and AC-130J. The AC-130J, nicknamed “Ghostrider” (cue the Top Gun, Johnny Cash, and Nicolas Cage jokes alike … ), is the most current iteration, modified with the Precision Strike Package, which includes a mission management console, robust communications suite, two electro-optical/infrared sensors, advanced fire control equipment, precision-guided munitions delivery capability. The mission management system fuses sensor, communication, environment, order of battle, and threat information into a common operating picture (COP).
Beyond Vietnam: Grenada to GWOT
The first significant post-Vietnam combat usage of the Spectre occurred during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada in 1983, whereupon their crews provided suppression of enemy air defenses (SEADs) and attacked enemy troop formations. These actions enabled the successful assault of the Point Salines Airfield via airdrop and air land of friendly forces. For these efforts, the AC-130 aircrew earned the Lt. Gen. William H. Tunner Award for the mission.
From there, it was onto 1989’s Operation Just Cause in Panama, the mission to overthrow Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. Herein, these gargantuan gunships destroyed Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) Headquarters and numerous command and control facilities, thus earning not only an additional Tunner Award for their troubles but a Mackay Trophy to boot.
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, AC-130s provided close air support (CAS) and force protection (air base defense) for ground forces; among Spooky II’s key contributions to this victory was helping to stop a southbound Iraqi armored column during the Battle of Khafji on 29 January 1991. Tragically, the Spectre crews suffered a combat loss during the campaign when, on 31 January 1991, an AC-130H bearing callsign Sprit 03 was shot down by a lone Iraqi soldier with a Strela-2 MAENADS, killing all 14 crew members aboard.
Since then, Spectre/Spooky II/Ghostrider has continued to provide invaluable service to the nation’s military efforts, from Somalia to the Balkans to the Global War on Terror. And if the aforementioned AC-130J variant is any indication, this devastating behemoth will continue to serve for years to come.
Specifications
19fortyfive.com · by ByChristian Orr · July 18, 2022
17. The U.S. Navy SEALs Might Be the U.S. Military's Ultimate Weapon
The U.S. Navy SEALs Might Be the U.S. Military's Ultimate Weapon
19fortyfive.com · by ByBrent M. Eastwood · July 17, 2022
While there is always talk of what ‘super weapons’ the U.S. military has in its arsenal – things like stealth fighters, nuclear weapons, and aircraft carriers – special operations forces need a mention for sure. Those so-called special forces are vital to how the U.S. military wins armed conflicts. And that means we have to talk about the U.S. Navy SEALs: Of all the units in the U.S. Special Operations community, you probably know the most about the U.S. Navy SEALs. There are countless books, documentaries, and several movies about SEALs. There is something about these operators that has seized the general public’s imagination. It must be the allure and mystery of the sea and the tremendously difficult training that stirs up so much interest.
Let’s take a look at the SEALs and see if we can shine a light on these maritime and land warfare operators:
Short History of the SEALs
The Navy SEALs were hatched from the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) or “frogmen” from World War Two who operated secretly for the Office of Strategic Services. UDTs mainly prepped beaches for amphibious missions during the war in the Pacific and on D-Day. They conducted reconnaissance and blew up hazards and obstacles. This kept the enemy from stopping landings from the main element of troops attacking from landing craft. Other types of “frogmen” in World War Two units were “Scouts and Raiders” and “Naval Combat Demolition Units.” In 1962, President John F. Kennedy specially acknowledged the existence of SEALs – an acronym that stands for Navy Sea, Air, and Land Teams.
What Are the Missions?
The main aspect of SEAL warfare is unique infiltration and exfiltration in and out of combat zones. The Navy can insert SEALs by many different means – whether it’s a free-fall HALO jump out of an airplane or being deployed by boat or submarine – the SEALs can get to the battlefield in a number of ways.
The maritime mission is the main effort for SEALs. They can swim underwater to blow up ships or board them to rescue hostages and eliminate terrorists. SEAL snipers have killed pirates who threatened shipping lanes. Sometimes the mission is to collect intelligence or kick doors down in direct-action raids. They still have the UDT mission of working to prep for amphibious landings. It’s not just maritime environments – the SEALs can operate in deserts, mountains, and extreme Arctic weather.
How Do You Become a SEAL?
The usual route to becoming a SEAL is to directly enlist in the Navy and complete boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. At that point, trainees can attend BUD/S or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL School. It used to be that trainees would first acquire a rating and be required to serve in the regular Navy to gain experience and then later apply to BUD/S. Now the path is more direct for new enlistees, but fleet sailors can still attend BUD/S.
What Is BUD/S?
BUD/S is probably what you are most familiar with when it comes to SEAL training. Trainees start with an 11-week indoctrination phase consisting of Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School and Basic Orientation. The next stage of BUD/S lasts six months. Trainees first show their physical skills with endless calisthenics, timed runs, “log PT,” and obstacle courses. Teamwork is sharpened with small boat seamanship. They also spend a substantial amount of time in the cold Pacific waters off Coronado, California. It’s best to master the combat side stroke before BUD/S.
Long Training Pipeline
This first phase is seven weeks of basic conditioning that includes the infamous “Hell Week” when trainees are pushed to their physical and mental limits. Trainees can quit the course by ringing a bell – about 75-percent of each class does this. Then the SEALs get to the bread and butter training of combat diving. This lasts seven weeks.
Once trainees make it past this period, they progress to land warfare training for seven weeks of instruction on weapons and tactics. After these three phases, SEAL trainees attend basic parachute school for three weeks. Training does not stop there. It’s on to SEAL qualification training for 26-weeks before trainees receive their Trident, nicknamed the “Budweiser.” This is time to celebrate, however training seems to never end. Next is “18 months of pre-deployment training and intensive specialized training,” according to the Navy.
Global Service
There are eight SEAL teams one can be assigned to. SEALs served in Vietnam, Panama, Somalia, and Afghanistan, and those are just the known missions. You can bet a SEAL will have served all over the world during his career.
There are constant debates and arguments over which branch of the special operations community trains the hardest and attracts the most elite operators. You can’t escape that the SEALs have so many different missions, so they may require the most extensive and diverse amount of training that attracts an individual who is what psychologists call a “high sensation seeker.” They definitely seek the most dangerous jobs.
Now serving as 1945’s Defense and National Security Editor, Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood.
19fortyfive.com · by ByBrent M. Eastwood · July 17, 2022
18. How the United Nations Overlooks Evidence of Hamas Human Rights Violations
How the United Nations Overlooks Evidence of Hamas Human Rights Violations
19fortyfive.com · by ByJoe Truzman · July 15, 2022
Last month, a new United Nations Commission of Inquiry released its first report on human rights violations committed by Israelis and Palestinians. While the report condemns Israel for having “no intention of ending the occupation” and “having clear policies for ensuring complete control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the authors make no serious attempt to document war crimes committed by Hamas-led militant organizations, such as the use of human shields and child soldiers.
This is not just an oversight. I know from experience that UN investigators have difficulty processing information that points toward misconduct by Palestinian armed factions.
Four years ago, a UN team investigating the violent 2018-2019 Gaza protests interviewed me to discuss my research. The team was looking at the role of Palestinian militant organizations in fomenting the unrest, commonly known as the Great March of Return.
The lead investigator questioned me on a range of subjects related to the riots, such as how I obtained evidence of terrorist activity at the Gaza border and my opinion on how Palestinian militant organizations were involved in the Gaza protests. My evidence was derived from various open-source channels, and it was compelling: Hamas and like-minded militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were orchestrating attacks at the security fence between Israel and Gaza under the guise of civilian protest.
The UN investigators conducted interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict, as well as independent analysts. They obtained thousands of documents. Yet their final report in 2019 said almost nothing about the role of Hamas and other militants in orchestrating riots that targeted Israeli troops and installations. Instead, the report focused on Israel’s responses without explaining that Hamas-led militant activity was largely responsible spurring the clashes.
The UN is now investigating again, and it is reverting to form. Last month’s report from the new Commission of Inquiry once again omits clear evidence of war crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian organizations during last year’s conflict in Gaza.
For example, Hamas admitted to using Palestinian civilians as human shields. In an interview conducted in December 2021, Abu Khaled, an English-speaking member of Hamas, acknowledged that the organization used tunnels built under civilian infrastructure to launch rockets against Israel. Khaled justified this illegal practice as the only way to “ensure a better future for our children.”
Furthermore, Hamas and other militant groups have been careful to edit out civilian infrastructure that might otherwise be visible in their propaganda videos. Generally, these type of publications show rockets hurtling towards their target without revealing the site of the launch. However, other publications recorded by Gaza residents clearly demonstrate that Palestinian militant groups built and used rocket sites adjacent to civilian infrastructure. In one case during the 2021 conflict, the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) discovered a tunnel shaft used by Palestinian militants under one of its facilities.
The UN report also makes no mention of Palestinian militant groups’ employment of minors as foot soldiers. During the 2021 conflict, Khaled al-Qanoua, a 17-year-old member of Mujahideen Brigades, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, was killed fighting against Israeli forces. According to a statement by Mujahideen Brigades, Qanoua died while “performing the duty of jihad.”
The lack of reporting on Qanuoa is not an isolated incident. On May 11, 2021, thirteen-year-old Muhammed Suleiman and his father, Ibrahim Suleiman, a Hamas commander, were killed during the Israel-Gaza conflict. A report by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center published evidence showing Muhammed was a member of Hamas’s military wing.
The UN’s 2019 report made similar omissions. It listed Palestinian minors who lost their lives but failed to mention their membership in terrorist organizations. For example, Ahmed al-Shaar, a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was listed on that organization’s website as one of its members killed by Israel during the violence in 2018, but the UN’s report did not note his membership in a militant group.
The Committee of Inquiry established by the UN’s Human Rights Council must do a better job of including key facts that are publicly available on Hamas-led militant organizations. Adding a recognized expert on Palestinian militancy could mitigate potential oversights and would further add credibility to the UN’s reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The UN cannot be expected to publish a complete report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if specific information about major actors in the conflict, in this case, Hamas-led militant groups, is lacking detail.
Joe Truzman is a research analyst at the Long War Journal, a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute. Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeTruzman.
19fortyfive.com · by ByJoe Truzman · July 15, 2022
19. The US military just awarded a $10 million contract for what could be special operators' latest gadget: jet boots
The US military just awarded a $10 million contract for what could be special operators' latest gadget: jet boots
Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou
A US Army Special Forces combat diver off the coast of Washington, August 14, 2014.
US Army
- US special operators are investing in tech to give it an advantage against highly capable adversaries.
- US Special Operations Command recently awarded a $10 million contract for jet boots to give its divers that edge.
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With the US military reorienting itself for a potential conflict with a highly capable adversary, the US special-operations community is investing in capabilities and technology that would give it an advantage in such a conflict.
A recent investment is in a futuristic piece of technology that would have a lot of benefits for one of that community's toughest job: combat diver.
Jet boots
—Patriot3, Inc. (@Patriot3Inc) May 26, 2022
In April, US Special Operations Command awarded a $10 million contract to the Virginia-based company Patriot3 for the purchase and maintenance of the Jet Boots Diver Propulsion System. The contract is a "firm-fixed-price" agreement for the delivery of an indefinite number of jets boots up to 2027.
Jet boots use a battery pack and a brushless motor system to propel the diver. The boots have two thrusters on the side of each leg that the operator can maneuver with their body, freeing up their hands for other tasks.
Jet boots are primarily used by the Army Special Forces combat-diver teams and Navy SEALs, and versions currently in use can move a diver at speeds up to 4 knots while allowing them to be "completely relaxed" and conserve energy.
The consensus among special operators who have used jet boots is that once you get used to them they are very easy to use and operate. For example, special operators using jet boots during visit, board, search, and seizure missions or maritime counterterrorism operations could get on target faster and be more rested once they arrive.
US Navy SEALs navigate murky waters during a combat swimmer training dive, May 18, 2006.
US Navy/CPO Andrew McKaskle
The boots have benefits and drawbacks, according to John Black, a retired Green Beret warrant officer.
"Combat divers are known to and expected to be able to dive for very long periods of time and to swim for hours on end. Depending on the current of the water and the pace of the dive, this could leave the diver exhausted by the time he reaches the beach. Then the diver is expected to conduct a mission," Black told Insider.
"Diving is a means of infiltration. The combat diver cannot be exhausted just from the infiltration," Black added.
Moving through the water with such ease would be a great help to combat divers, but in some cases, there is a downside to minimizing exertion.
"In colder waters, using jet boots must be carefully planned," Black said. "A diver being motionless for an hour in cold water, while constantly breaking new water, could leave the diver hypothermic. So it must be remembered that it is a tool, not a vehicle."
An asset if used right
—Patriot3, Inc. (@Patriot3Inc) February 4, 2022
Being able to go farther faster and arriving less fatigued — and thus better prepared — would be an asset to a combat diver team and could make a difference between success and failure.
"They come with a hefty price tag, but you get amazing results. You have guys doing 5-[kilometer swims] and using barely any oxygen and more importantly being completely rested and ready to go upon hitting the beach," a retired Green Beret with extensive experience in combat diver operations told Insider.
The Army Special Forces operator spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing work with the government.
A primary tenet of US special operations is that "people — not equipment — make the critical difference," and special operators familiar with the jet boots caution against relying too much on technology, as a poorly selected and trained commando won't be as effective regardless of equipment.
US special-operations forces will continue to evolve along with their mission set, Black told Insider.
"If we expect our best fighters to go anywhere and do anything, they must be equipped with the most up-to-date technology and equipment," Black said. "I do see SOF teams using these [boots] more often, however keeping their core tasks and fitness at the base of everything they do."
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou
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