Quotes of the Day:

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” 

- Philip K. Dick

“Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing; Ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.”

​-​ C.S. Lewis

​"The first duty of society is to give each​ of its members the possibility of fulfilling his destiny. When it becomes incapable of performing this duty it must be transformed.

- Alexis Carrel

​1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 19, 2023

2. Video - History of Army Special Operations Forces | SOF News

3. Inconvenient Truths for the Next War

4. #Reviewing The Avoidable War

5. When the Iranian or Chinese Navy Come Calling Why Not Throw Them a Curve Ball?

6. Navy's Pacific information warfare command coordinating vast capability across region

7. Military academies’ diversity efforts draw GOP concerns, Dem support

8. With eyes on Trump, Senate votes to make NATO withdrawal harder

9. Security and Defense Medicine in a New Age of Policy

​10. Britain’s MI6 chief says his spies are using AI to disrupt flow of weapons to Russia

11. In next Global Information Dominance Experiments, CDAO looking to speed allied info-sharing

​12. ​Philippines closely monitors threat of invasion of Taiwan - defence chief

​13. ​Britain’s Spy Master Says Putin Cut Deal With Wagner Mercenary Chief

14. US approves $1.3 billion package of long-term military aid for Ukraine

​15. The Pentagon is the wrong agency to lead the new U.S. deterrence strategy

​16. ​The Pivotal Mission in Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: Hunting for Mines

​17.​ Pentagon Joins Elon Musk’s War Against Plane Tracking

18. TSMC Delays Start of First Arizona Chip Factory, Citing Worker Shortage

19. The Future of Algorithmic Warfare: Fragmented Development

20. Reaching the Tipping Point: Lessons from Combining Kinetic and Information Operations

21. Why China Won’t Talk With America’s Military

22. Talking to China isn’t nearly enough

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 19, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-19-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces launched an extensive missile and drone attack against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine on July 19 likely to further emphasize Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Ukraine’s ability to export grain.
• The South African Presidential Office announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS summit in-person in Johannesburg in August 2023.
• An explosion at a Russian training ground in occupied Kirovskyi Raion (Islam Terek Raion), southeastern Crimea, disrupted the Russian use of the Tavrida highway that connects eastern Crimea to Sevastopol on July 19.
• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 19 and made gains in these areas.
• Wagner Group financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin and reportedly Wagner Commander Dmitry Utkin greeted Wagner fighters at the new Wagner base near Asipovichy, Belarus, on July 18.
• Russian sources claimed that Wagner will continue to operate abroad in African countries, although Prigozhin’s involvement in these activities remains unclear.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to display his knowledge of Russian history at odd moments, this time appearing to warn against the possibility of revolution in Russia.
• Russian authorities opened a case against an affiliate of the ultranationalist Angry Patriots Club for discrediting Russian forces, prompting the Angry Patriots Club to make explicit demands of Russian officials.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Kupyansk area, near Kreminna, in the Bakhmut area, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front and made gains near Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, and in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblast area. They made marginal gains along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front and reportedly made limited advances in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblast area.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia area and western Zaporizhia Oblast and made reportedly made gains in both sectors of the front.
• The Russian State Duma adopted on July 19 a law on the first reading and “in general” that allows the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to have heavy military equipment.
• The Ukrainian Crimean-based “Atesh” partisan group conducted another successful attack on a Russian military convoy in occupied Kherson Oblast on July 14.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 19, 2023

Jul 19, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 19, 2023

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, George Barros, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 19, 2023, 8:50pm ET 

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 2:30pm ET on July 19. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 20 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian forces launched an extensive missile and drone attack against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine on July 19 likely to further emphasize Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Ukraine’s ability to export grain. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted strikes using 16 Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles, eight Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, six Onyx cruise missiles, one Kh-59 guided air missile, and 32 Iranian-made Shahed drones.[1] Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces predominantly targeted civilian and military infrastructure in Odesa Oblast with Kh-22 and Onyx missiles and that Ukrainian forces shot down 37 air targets including 13 Kalibrs, one Kh-59 missile, and 23 Shaheds.[2] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russian forces deliberately targeted the infrastructure necessary for executing the Black Sea grain deal in Odesa, Zhytomyr, and other oblasts.[3] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces struck grain and oil terminals and damaged tanks and loading equipment.[4]  Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyi reported that Russian strikes destroyed 60,000 tons of grain in the Chornomorsk port in Odesa Oblast on the night of July 19.[5] The Southern Operational Command added that Russian strikes also targeted coastal areas in Mykolaiv Oblast and some infrastructure in Kherson City.[6] Spokesperson of the Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Captain of the First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that the Russian July 19 strikes “happened virtually simultaneously,” and that Russian forces likely attempted to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defense systems.[7] Ukrainian Air Forces Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that this attack was the most intense missile and drone attack on Odesa Oblast since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.[8]

Russian sources, apart from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), claimed that Russian strikes on south Ukraine aimed to dismantle the port infrastructure necessary for the Black Sea grain deal. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces struck Ukrainian military infrastructure and ammunition depots in Odesa Oblast and the Kanatove Air Base in Kirovohrad Oblast.[9] Kremlin-affiliated mibloggers and former proxy officials claimed that Russian strikes damaged port infrastructure, grain storage, and industrial facilities in Odesa Oblast.[10] Some Russian ultranationalists called on the Russian MoD to authorize additional strikes to destroy Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure to ensure that no grain deals can ever be renewed.[11] One milblogger who has been routinely skeptical of the Kremlin’s war effort claimed that the Russian strike campaign is more “retaliatory” than “operationally sound” and blamed the Russian General Staff for wasting Russian efforts (and likely the dwindling stock of Russian precision weapons) on striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure rather than military infrastructure.[12]

The South African Presidential Office announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS summit in-person in Johannesburg in August 2023.[13] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent Russia at the summit, and President Putin will participate by video call.[14]

An explosion at a Russian training ground in occupied Kirovskyi Raion (Islam Terek Raion), southeastern Crimea, disrupted the Russian use of the Tavrida highway that connects eastern Crimea to Sevastopol on July 19. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian ammunition depots detonated following an explosion at the Starokrymskyi Training Ground in Kirovskyi Raion.[15] Geolocated footage showed explosions at the reported Russian ammunition depot south of Aivazovske (25km northwest of Feodosia).[16] Crimean Occupation Head Sergei Aksyonov stated that the explosions caused a landfill to catch on fire and announced that the Russian occupation officials will block movement on the Tavrida highway until the consequences of the fire are managed.[17] Aksyonov also announced the evacuation of 2,000 residents.[18] Aksyonov stated that the cause of the explosion is unknown as of the time of this publication, and Russian occupation officials notably did not accuse Ukrainian forces of striking Russian military infrastructure.[19] A Representative of the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Andriy Yusov denied claims that GUR Chief Major General Kyrylo Budanov confirmed Ukraine’s involvement in the explosion.[20] Russian milbloggers, however, accused Ukrainian forces of striking a Russian ammunition depot but did not provide a consistent suggestion of the means Ukraine might have used to conduct this strike.[21] Some ultranationalist milbloggers claimed that the explosion sparked criticism of Russian military officials within the Kremlin as these officials continued to lie about the situation in Crimea.[22]

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 19 and made gains in these areas. Geolocated footage published on July 19 indicates that Ukrainian forces made gains near Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut). The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut City and forced Russian forces to retreat from positions northeast of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut).[23] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Berdyansk (Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area) and Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) directions.[24] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen stated that Ukrainian forces advanced more than a kilometer in an unspecified area of the Melitopol direction.[25] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces lack rotations and reinforcements on the Zaporizhia front and south of Bakhmut, which is preventing Russian forces from recapturing lost positions.[26] The milblogger forecasted that continued delays in resolving these rotation and reinforcement issues south of Bakhmut threaten serious consequences for the Russian grouping in the area.[27]

Wagner Group financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin and reportedly Wagner Commander Dmitry Utkin greeted Wagner fighters at the new Wagner base near Asipovichy, Belarus, on July 18. Footage posted on July 19 and likely captured on July 18 shows Prigozhin addressing Wagner fighters at the field camp near Asipovichy, Belarus.[28] Prigozhin welcomed the fighters to Belarus in a ceremony whose symbolism demonstrates that Prigozhin still controls the Wagner Group.[29] Prigozhin handed the Wagner flag that had previously flown at the Wagner Group’s main military base in Molkino, Krasnodar Krai, to the local Wagner commander – a man with a first name of Sergey and callsign “Pioneer” – who will command Wagner forces in Belarus.[30] “Pioneer” has reportedly been awarded five Orders of Courage and participated in combat in Syria, Central African Republic, Sudan, Mali, and other countries.[31] Prigozhin stated that unspecified current events in Ukraine are a “shame in which [Wagner] does not need to participate” but acknowledged that Wagner may return to Ukraine when Wagner can be sure that Wagner fighters will not be forced to “shame” themselves.[32] Prigozhin also ceremonially presented ribbons of Russian and Belarusian flags so that “no one will think that [Wagner] fights without a flag and without a Motherland as some have said.”[33] Prigozhin stated that Wagner personnel will remain in Belarus “for some time” and that they will make “make the Belarusian army the second army in the world” - an insult directed against the Russian Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin also stated that Wagner will embark on a new journey in Africa after regrouping in Belarus. An unidentified man – reportedly Dmitry Utkin (callsign “Wagner”) – also thanked the Wagner fighters for their work and for making Wagner a world-famous name. Utkin said that “this is only the beginning of the biggest job that will be carried out soon.” ISW is unable to confirm the identity of the man who was presented as Utkin. If the man is indeed Utkin, this ceremony would mark Utkin’s first public appearance since 2016.[34] Russian milbloggers reported that several thousand Wagner fighters attended this ceremony, though ISW cannot verify attendance numbers at this time.[35]

Russian sources claimed that Wagner will continue to operate abroad in African countries, although Prigozhin’s involvement in these activities remains unclear. A Russian source published on July 19 an apparent audio clip from Prigozhin, in which Prigozhin stated that he has sold part of Wagner’s “African assets” to an unspecified buyer to pay off existing liabilities – but that this will not curtail any Wagner programs in African countries.[36] Wagner-affiliated milbloggers amplified statements from Wagner Commander Alexander Ivanov on July 19, in which Ivanov claimed that Wagner is continuing to rotate Wagner instructors in the Central African Republic (CAR).[37] Ivanov reportedly stated that Wagner’s employees in CAR are not military personnel and did not sign military contracts with the Russian MoD.[38] Ivanov stated that Prigozhin intends to expand Wagner‘s presence in Africa despite unspecified change in the structure of Wagner’s business in the region and quoted Prigozhin as saying that ”concrete negotiations” are occurring on the matter.[39]

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to display his knowledge of Russian history at odd moments, this time appearing to warn against the possibility of revolution in Russia. Putin stated on July 19 that Russia already exceeded its “limit on revolutions in the last century” in response to the mention of the Mayevka tourism event that took place in May.[40] Mayevka was an illegal meeting of revolutionary-minded workers held outside of Moscow during the Tsarist period, but the word can also be associated with the arrival of spring.[41] Putin additionally stated that he hoped that the tourism Mayevka event would not “lead to a revolution.” Putin had previously made a seemingly unrelated and unprompted allusion to Russian history at a public engagement in October 2022 when he spoke about the causes of the 18th Century Pugachev Rebellion, observing that it began because the center appeared weak and because someone decided that he was tsar – an observation that has since appeared to have been apropos.[42]

Russian authorities opened a case against an affiliate of the ultranationalist Angry Patriots Club for discrediting Russian forces, prompting the Angry Patriots Club to make explicit demands of Russian officials. Russian media reported on July 18 that Russian authorities initiated a criminal case against former Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov under the article for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.[43] Angry Patriots Club member Viktor Alksnis claimed on July 18 that he talked with Kvachkov and confirmed the initiation of the case.[44] The Angry Patriots Club formally denounced the criminal case and demanded that Russian authorities end their “persecution” of Kvachkov.[45] Kvachkov recently spoke at the Angry Patriots Club’s June 25 event in Moscow aimed at espousing longstanding criticisms against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military leadership.[46] Kvachkov may have drawn the attention of Russian authorities at the event, although it is likely that authorities were aware of his activities given that Kvachkov recently left prison in 2019 after serving a six-year sentence for creating a terrorist group and plotting to overthrow the government.[47] Kvachkov called for violence “against representatives of state power” in a video message in 2017 and admitted to promoting anti-government propaganda among the military.[48] The Federal Security Service (FSB) previously reportedly attempted to censor notable Angry Patriots Club member Igor Girkin.[49]

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces launched an extensive missile and drone attack against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine on July 19 likely to further emphasize Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Ukraine’s ability to export grain.
• The South African Presidential Office announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS summit in-person in Johannesburg in August 2023.
• An explosion at a Russian training ground in occupied Kirovskyi Raion (Islam Terek Raion), southeastern Crimea, disrupted the Russian use of the Tavrida highway that connects eastern Crimea to Sevastopol on July 19.
• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 19 and made gains in these areas.
• Wagner Group financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin and reportedly Wagner Commander Dmitry Utkin greeted Wagner fighters at the new Wagner base near Asipovichy, Belarus, on July 18.
• Russian sources claimed that Wagner will continue to operate abroad in African countries, although Prigozhin’s involvement in these activities remains unclear.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to display his knowledge of Russian history at odd moments, this time appearing to warn against the possibility of revolution in Russia.
• Russian authorities opened a case against an affiliate of the ultranationalist Angry Patriots Club for discrediting Russian forces, prompting the Angry Patriots Club to make explicit demands of Russian officials.
• Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Kupyansk area, near Kreminna, in the Bakhmut area, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front and made gains near Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, and in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblast area. They made marginal gains along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front and reportedly made limited advances in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblast area.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia area and western Zaporizhia Oblast and made reportedly made gains in both sectors of the front.
• The Russian State Duma adopted on July 19 a law on the first reading and “in general” that allows the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to have heavy military equipment.
• The Ukrainian Crimean-based “Atesh” partisan group conducted another successful attack on a Russian military convoy in occupied Kherson Oblast on July 14.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)  

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line and did not make confirmed advances on July 19. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made advances northeast of Kupyansk.[50] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian units advanced more than one kilometer in depth and two kilometers in width in the Kupyansk direction and captured the Movchanove railway station near Lyman Pershyi (11km northeast of Kupyansk).[51] Other Russian sources claimed that Russian forces took control of the Movchanove railway station near Lyman Pershyi as well as positions near Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk).[52] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the 6th Combined Arms Army (Western Military District) have been assaulting Ukrainian strongholds west of Lyman Pershyi for several days and have recently advanced two kilometers in the area.[53] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims. Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselev claimed that heavy fighting continues near Synkivka.[54]

Ukrainian forces continued to defend positions in the Kupyansk area on July 19. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue to hold firm in the Kupyansk direction.[55] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on July 18 that Russian offensives in this direction have been unsuccessful.[56] Malyar and Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor claimed that Ukrainian forces in the Kupyansk direction have the initiative.[57]

Russian forces continued limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on July 19 and made no confirmed advances. Former Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated that Russian forces have repeatedly tried to advance in the Svatove-Kreminna direction and have constantly attacked Ukrainian positions in Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna) in order to establish a new defensive line to protect Lysychansk.[58] Haidai stated that the situation in the Svatove-Kreminna direction, however, has stabilized.[59] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces of the 1st Tank Regiment (2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division, 1st Guards Tank Army, Western Military District) are operating near the Svatove-Kreminna line.[60] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces made gains near Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove), although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[61] The milblogger claimed that Russian forces probed Ukrainian positions near Torske (15km west of Kreminna) and that Russian forces and Ukrainian forces engaged in low-intensity combat in the Serebryanske forest area near Dibrova (6km southwest of Kreminna).[62] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that positional battles continue in this area.[63] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked Ukrainian forces in the direction of Vesele (30km south of Kreminna).[64]

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted ground attacks in the vicinity of Kreminna and did not make any confirmed gains on July 19. The Russian MoD claimed Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces near Karmazynivka, Shepilove (9.5km southeast of Kreminna), Bilohorivka, and Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast and that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces near Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast (33km south of Kreminna).[65] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces northwest of Novovodyane (17km southwest of Svatove).[66]  

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

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks on July 19 and made gains in some areas. Geolocated footage published on July 19 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced west of Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut).[67] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut City and forced Russian forces to retreat from positions northeast of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut).[68] Russian milbloggers amplified footage on July 19 purporting to show Ukrainian forces conducting assaults on Russian trench positions near Dubovo-Vasylivka (7km northwest of Bakhmut) with non-Western armored vehicles.[69] Russian milbloggers claimed on July 18 and 19 that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) and liberated new positions at dominant heights on the western outskirts of the settlement.[70] Other milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[71] Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are attempting to reestablish control over recently lost positions on dominant heights near Klishchiivka.[72]

Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks in the Bakhmut area on July 19 and did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[73] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully counterattacked in the direction of Minkivka (16km northwest of Bakhmut), Hryhorivka (9km northwest of Bakhmut), Berkhivka (4km north of Bakhmut), and Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut).[74] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces drove Ukrainian forces out of positions at unspecified dominant heights near Klishchiivka.[75]

Russian forces continue to deploy elite formations and units to support Russian defensive operations around Bakhmut. The Russian MoD published footage on July 19 showing elements of the 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division defending against Ukrainian assaults on Bakhmut’s northern flanks.[76] Russian sources also amplified footage on July 19 showing elements of the 11th VDV Brigade operating in the Bakhmut direction.[77] ISW has previously observed elements of the 106th VDV Division defending north and south of Bakhmut, and Russian sources have claimed the 31st VDV Brigade and the 364th Special Forces Brigade (Russian General Staff Main Directorate) are also operating in the Bakhmut direction.[78]

Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on July 19 and did make any confirmed or claimed gains. The Russian MoD reported that Russian elements of the Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Nevelske (13km southwest of Avdiivka), and Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[79] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces also conducted probing attacks near Kamianka (5km northeast of Avdiivka) and Kurta Balka (5km east of Avdiivka).[80]

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on July 19 and made marginal gains. Geolocated footage published on July 19 indicates that Russian forces made marginal advances northwest of Marinka.[81] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Nevelske, Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka), and Marinka.[82] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen reported that Russian ”Storm-Z" assault detachments conducted unsuccessful offensive operations between Oleksandrivka (26km southwest of Avdiivka) and Marinka.[83] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also unsuccessfully attacked Ukrainian strongholds near Avdiivka.[84]

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

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and made advances in the area as of July 19. Geolocated footage published on July 18 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced north of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[85] A Russian milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified success near Staromayorske.[86] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces achieved success in the Velyka Novosilka-Staromayorske (up to 9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and Novosilka-Staromayorske (up to 10km southwest and 9km south of Velyka Novosilka) directions and have established control over new unspecified positions.[87] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen reported that Ukrainian assault units conducted a significant number of offensive actions in the Velyka Novosilka-Staromayorske direction.[88] Shershen stated that Russian forces are losing fire control in the Staromayorske area and that this is a vector of Ukrainian advance in the Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area) direction.[89] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on July 18 that Ukrainian forces also achieved unspecified success on the Velyka Novosilka-Urozhaine (up to 9km south of Velyka Novosilka) line.[90] 

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 19, and Russian sources claimed they made limited advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), Novodarivka (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), and north of Pryyutne (14km southwest of Velkya Novosilka).[91] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces recaptured unspecified positions near Rivnopil.[92] Another milblogger amplified footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 34th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (49th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) operating near Pryyutne.[93]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly made limited advances in the area on July 19. Shershen reported that Ukrainian forces advanced more than a kilometer in an unspecified area in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[94] Malyar also stated that Ukrainian forces achieved success on the Mala Tokmachka-Novopokrovka line (9-13km southeast of Orikhiv).[95] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted an unsuccessful attack near Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv).[96]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue their interdiction campaign in southern Ukraine. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian artillery stuck Russian military warehouses in Burchak (42km southwest of Orikhiv) and that Russian air defenses intercepted Ukrainian missiles targeting Molochansk (42km northeast of Melitopol) and Melitopol.[97] The milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces launched six HIMARS rockets at Tokmak and that Russian air defenses intercepted four of the six HIMARS rockets.[98] Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov also reported that residents heard explosions in Tokmak.[99]

Russian sources continue to amplify footage indicating that Ukrainian forces hold positions on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast. Several Russian milbloggers amplified footage purporting to show Ukrainian forces attempting to land boats and reinforcements near the Antonivksy Bridge, suggesting that Ukrainian forces continue to hold limited positions in the area.[100]

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

The Russian State Duma adopted on July 19 a law in the first reading and “in general” that allows the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to have heavy military equipment.[101] The law changes the legal language within the existing regulations for Rosgvardia specifying that Rosgvardia elements are authorized to use military weapons and combat equipment. The law also proposes regulations that would allow Rosgvardia to use military equipment to free hostages; protect citizens, officials, and military personnel; ensure security during riots; suppress the activities of illegal armed groups; and in other unspecified situations.[102] One of the drafters of the law, Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov, stated that the adopted bill “significantly expands the capabilities of the Rosgvardia troops.”[103] The Kremlin has been steadily expanding internal security capabilities in Russia following the Wagner Group’s rebellion on June 24, and Rosgvardia Head Viktor Zolotov later announced on June 27 that Rosgvardia would receive heavy military equipment and tanks.[104] ISW observed on July 18 that Russian sources have been suggesting that recent measures at expanding the authority of Rosgvardia will allow it to posture as an alternative Russian military formation.[105]

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

The Ukrainian Crimean-based “Atesh” partisan group launched another successful attack on a Russian military convoy in occupied Kherson Oblast on July 14.[106] “Atesh” reported on July 19 that partisans targeted two Russian fuel trucks with explosives near Knyaze-Hryhorivka, east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast.[107] “Atesh” noted that partisans destroyed one truck and damaged the other truck during the attack.

Russian officials continue to bring Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian officials brought 80 Ukrainian high school students from occupied Luhansk Oblast to Kostroma Oblast in Russia to participate in military training.[108] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Ukrainian students are currently undergoing military training at the Military Academy of Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection and Engineering Forces in Kostroma Oblast.[109] Radio Liberty uncovered over 10 facilities in Shakhtarske, Khartsyzk, Novoazovsk, and Donetsk City that sent 31 Ukrainian children from occupied Mariupol to the “Polyany” boarding school in Moscow Oblast in spring 2022.[110]

At least 25 St. Petersburg organizations are reportedly involved in construction projects in occupied Mariupol that use up to 13 billion rubles ($141 million) from the St. Petersburg city reserve fund.[111] Russian outlet Bumaga reported that private companies and individuals are also involved in funding infrastructure projects in occupied and destroyed Mariupol.

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

Belarus removed its border controls with Russia on July 18. A Belarusian official stated on July 19 that Belarus deactivated its border controls with Russia on the evening of July 18.[112]  Belarus initially restored its border control with Russia for the first time in 28 years in May 2023, ostensibly to stop Russian citizens from fleeing mobilization.[113]

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

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

2. Video - History of Army Special Operations Forces | SOF News

A timely history of US Army Special Operations Command in a 13 minute video.. It includes some subtle lessons of history concerning the drawdown of special operations forces after wars.

The message of this video is to ask for the support of the Army by showing that Army SOF is part of the Army while trying to tell the Army that Army SOF should not be downsized and that the Army should not make the mistakes of the past - Post WWI, Post WWII, Post-Vietnam, and Post-GWOT.

I have one criticism and that is the historian's office missed the opportunity to correct the record and explain that the Army refused to acknowledge that the OSS is the true lineage for Special Forces in particular, and Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs as it only glossed over the OSS contribution and instead highlighted the 1st Special Service Force which was a great unit and deserves proper recognition but frankly did not perform on a global scale and make anywhere near the same contributions to the future of Special Forces and SOF writ large than the OSS. I think that is an objective fact. The reason that the OSS is not given the respect it deserves is because the OSS was not an Army unit. It was an ad hoc organization and the Army does not recognize the OSS even though, like USSOCOM today, the fact that the dominant elements of the OSS were Army personnel. But I understand why that piece of history was not sufficiently included as it would dilute the intended message to not cut Army SOF.

Video - History of Army Special Operations Forces | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · July 20, 2023

Video – History of U.S. Army Special Operations Forces

July 20, 2023 SOF News Video

This video provides a history of Army SOF – Special Forces, Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, ARSOF aviation, and the Rangers. It covers the period of World War I to the present. The video was produced by the U.S. Army Special Operations History Office, United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) at Fort Liberty, N.C.

History of U.S. Army Special Operatons Forces, ARSOF History, YouTube, July 10, 2023, 13 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHQtj7B9UwY

• ARSOF
• Civil Affairs
• PSYOP
• Special Forces

sof.news · by SOF News · July 20, 2023

3. Inconvenient Truths for the Next War

If I recall correctly, Lt Gen Newbold is the only general officer who retired rather than support the Iraq War.  

Inconvenient Truths for the Next War

military.com · by 18 Jul 2023 Military.com | By Retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold · July 18, 2023

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.

You would think that Congress, national security policymakers, and generals and admirals would have learned by now. You would think that after our nation has burned our hands on the national security stove so often and after filling Arlington National Cemetery to near capacity, it would awaken even the most callous or politically zealous to cause and effect. Spoiler alert: It hasn't. This essay is for them.

Those who create and govern our national security should be required to take a test. The test is simple, but note that the passing grade is 100%. "Describe the significance of the following events in recent American history: Kasserine Pass, the Doolittle Board, Task Force Smith and Project 100,000." Answers to the test follow.

Kasserine Pass

Although World War II began in 1939, the American military only slowly began to prepare. The Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 shocked the nation into organizing for war, but when the first force-on-force engagement with German forces occurred 15 months later, it was a disaster.

Numerically inferior German forces attacked combined American and British forces guarding highly defensible positions in the Atlas Mountains of Tunisia. American forces were not only routed but retreated nearly 50 miles. Our Army lost 3,300 men, with another 3,000 captured, and 183 tanks were lost compared to only 20 by the Germans.

Long overdue reforms to leadership and warfighting skills began shortly afterward, but that hardly comforted families for the loss of their sons.

The Doolittle Board

In 1946, with clamor in Congress and the media for a more rapid demobilization and reforms to what was considered a caste system in the Army, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson convened the Secretary of War's Board on Officer-Enlisted Man Relationships (popularly called The Doolittle Board after its chairman, Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle).

As a result of the recommendations of this board, overdue reforms to officer and enlisted legal systems and other conditions in officer and enlisted service began to change, but then the pendulum swung too far. Unfortunately (as is often the case), the psychology and momentum of the changes gained a life of their own and led to what the advocates referred to as "democratization." Spartans became laborers. Service became a job. Discipline -- a fundamental and critical requirement in what necessarily must be grueling preparations for the horrors of war -- faltered as both officers and noncommissioned officer (NCO) leaders became timid in enforcing standards.

A general view is that things like good order and discipline were not terribly essential in future wars, because nuclear weapons had made conventional ground combat passé. Rigor gave way to comfort with entirely predictable consequences … as the next event demonstrated.

Task Force Smith

With four years of the Doolittle Board's corrosive effects in place, the Korean conflict began with North Korea's invasion of the South. A U.S. Army that (after the Kasserine Pass debacle) performed with distinction against the German Army in WWII quickly responded to delay the North Korean advance. The general estimation at the time was that the North Koreans, as a third- or fourth-rate army, could be handled by the world's great superpower.

The first U.S. Army unit on scene, Task Force Smith, confronted a North Korean Army unit near Osan and, after fighting for three hours, was routed, abandoning both its equipment and wounded (who were executed by the North Koreans).

Leadership, equipment and training failures are cited as contributing factors to the rout, but the pernicious effects of the Doolittle Board mentality were a major factor, as T. R. Fehrenbach outlined in his book "This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness."

The U.S. Army leadership's response afterward was to promise, "No more Task Force Smiths." Their predecessors might have said, "No more Kasserine Passes." The many dead didn't have a voice.

Project 100,000

In 1966, as the Vietnam War escalated and draft requirements increased, the Department of Defense instituted a social program that was broadcast as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty -- "Project 100,000." With great certainty, but nearly incomprehensible blindness to consequences, the DoD referred to these targets for recruitment as "New Standards Men."

The project ultimately enlisted more than 320,000 who otherwise would not have qualified for military service because of low mental aptitude (91% of them) or for what would ordinarily be medical disqualifiers. These were not minor waivers. A sizable number of those who tested in this lowest mental category were illiterate.

As they tested so low in aptitude, a majority were assigned to the ground combat arms. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara justified this attempt to help society by indicating that contemporary wars were now dominated by technology. Sound familiar?

The quantifiable results of the New Standards Men are that they were three times more likely to be killed in action. Project 100,000 recruits had higher disciplinary rates, twice as many were discharged before they completed their obligated service, and post-war outcomes were worse than those who did not serve. What's not quantifiable was equally certain. The higher disciplinary rates, additional supervision, higher drug use, etc., greatly frustrated their peers and first-level leaders (junior officers and NCOs). Please don't confuse the discipline and mental aptitude issues with mere inconveniences: When instant judgments and actions were required in combat, these conditions could be deadly to both their comrades in arms and innocent civilians.

A correct answer to this four-topic test, then, is that when policymakers (including generals) try to soften or "democratize" the standards of the military, there are grave consequences that are not theoretical but demonstrable: the defeat and great numbers of dead young Americans. This "butcher's bill" is, of course, paid largely by the middle and lower classes and not by the offspring of the elites -- playing poker with someone else's chips.

The Supreme Court has long appreciated the distinct requirements of military service even if Congress and successive administrations have not. Chief Justice Earl Warren, hardly a host of conservative judicial philosophy, put it this way: "[I]t is indisputable that the tradition of our country, from the time of the revolution until now, has supported the military establishment's broad power to deal with its own personnel. The most obvious reason is that Courts are ill-equipped to determine the impact upon discipline that any particular intrusion upon military authority might have."

This opinion and other rulings are broadly referred to as the Orloff rule (Orloff v. Willoughby, 1953). What the rulings signify is that what may be acceptable or even desirable in civilian society does not apply to an institution whose requirements are based on the need for illogical human response to grave danger.

There is another consequence to ignoring these inconvenient truths. When potential foes interpret softness in our armed forces (by their standards, not ours), they are encouraged to challenge us. The simple and historical truth is that if you want less war, you need to be considered the toughest presence on the global block.

American history teaches us that our admirable adherence to tenets of democratic values, coupled with either ignorance about or apathetic indifference to military bedrock requirements, causes nearly endless repetition of mistakes in preparing our armed forces for war. Said less politely, "democratizing" an institution whose often lethal duties require nothing approaching democratic processes already has caused the deaths of thousands of young Americans. Who do you want guarding the flock -- one of the sheep or a sheep dog?

Current evidence: Some lawmakers, the White House, senior Department of Defense officials, and some of the most senior officers in the military say that climate change is one of the top national security threats to the country. At the same time, I believe military officials are putting too much emphasis on "equity" rather than merit and are no longer emphasizing lethality as the overarching intent of policies as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis did, which draws more attention to ethnic distinctions in a culture that relies on cohesion. When one sees those conditions merging as they are now, start recording their sponsors' names, because they will be the authors of the next catastrophe.

So, we now have a fifth question for this military leadership test. "What are the consequences of democratizing the military during the period 2009-2023?" The correct answer is important. Our sons and daughters' lives may depend on it.

-- Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold served as a Marine infantry officer and commanded at every level from platoon through the 1st Marine Division. His last posting was as director of operations (J-3) for the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.

military.com · by 18 Jul 2023 Military.com | By Retired Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold · July 18, 2023

4. #Reviewing The Avoidable War

Excerpt:

All told, Kevin Rudd’s The Avoidable War is very much worth the time and effort. Through a series of missteps in execution, it takes Rudd a while to get the reader onboard with his topic. Once there, however, the information provided is valuable, and Rudd’s perspective from personal experience does give his words an air of authority in these matters. For those starting out on their journey to understand what is arguably the world’s most important contemporary competition, this book is a fine place to begin.

#Reviewing The Avoidable War

thestrategybridge.org · July 19, 2023

The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. Kevin Rudd. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2022.

Buy on Amazon

Reviewing a book by a current or former world leader is a delicate task—they often fall into the flawed-but-worthwhile category, and accurately representing this duality requires a demanding attention to detail. Kevin Rudd, the former foreign minister and prime minister of Australia, has created such a text with The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. Rudd’s desire to add unique value for the reader is overshadowed on numerous occasions by his writing style. Content-wise, Rudd’s work is absolutely worthwhile, due to his detailed knowledge of key events and Xi Jinping’s personality. It is not perfect, however, and suffers mildly from a misleading introduction, a failure to address Rudd’s stated audience, and a lack of explicit sourcing. In terms of its intent, The Avoidable War serves as a high-quality survey of the state of U.S.-China relations, while missing the mark on its nominal thesis that the two nations should adopt his framework of managed strategic competition to move forward. Analysts and students embarking on a more in-depth study of U.S.-China affairs should invest the time to read this book thoroughly.

Rudd writes that the purpose of The Avoidable War is threefold: “[T]o explain, for a mainly American audience, how the worldviews now dominant in China and the United States are pushing the two countries toward war; to outline how such a war could be sparked…and to consider what could be done, in realistic terms, to prevent it.”[1] He approaches the first goal by including histories of U.S.-China relations from both perspectives, as well as examining what drives Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party to act as they do. His thesis, and main contribution to the literature on the potential for war between the U.S. and China, is that war between the two countries is not inevitable, in explicit contrast to Graham Allison in Destined for War. To give peace a chance, Rudd proposes a system of “managed strategic competition” that would allow both sides to compete for ideological and systemic dominance while not actually shooting at each other. This is probably the least-impressive part of the book, because it is sketchily developed and marred by odd misunderstandings of the American foreign policy system. An entire book focused on such a system of managed strategic competition could be worthwhile, but here it is treated as an afterthought. Instead, the book’s strength lies in its summation of U.S.-China relations and Xi Jinping’s worldview, putting it in line with Chen Jian’s Mao’s China and the Cold War, which asserts that Mao—Xi’s very obvious role model—had an outsized personal impact on Chinese foreign policy. In addressing these areas, Rudd leaves his stated audience at the mercy of his opinions, but this does not significantly reduce the value of the text.

To give peace a chance, Rudd proposes a system of “managed strategic competition” that would allow both sides to compete for ideological and systemic dominance while not actually shooting at each other.

How does a worthwhile book fail its intended audience? Within the American audience mentioned above, Rudd writes for the “intelligent general reader…who is not seeking simplistic answers to complex questions.”[2] In Rudd’s construction, this reader needs neither footnotes nor bibliography. This presents issues for the intelligent general reader as well as obvious challenges to an academic or policy-focused audience. As written, Rudd’s opinion is virtually indistinguishable from fact; without sourcing, the entire text is an exercise in trust. The general reader is not necessarily well-served by Rudd’s views of the American decision-making system. On one occasion, Rudd suggests that the national security advisor be appointed the lead figure in creating a new bilateral framework for U.S.-China relations.[3] A general reader might wonder why this hasn’t happened. An informed student of U.S. foreign policy would know that this is an odd choice, as only a handful of national security advisors have ever possessed the kind of close relationship with the president needed to expand their authority to that degree—and those have often gone on to positions like secretary of state after their time in the post. This is compounded by artifacts of style, like saying George W. Bush was Australian politician John Howard’s “best buddy,” which come across as odd, to say the least.[4] A few footnotes could have made Rudd’s arguments easier to follow and less reliant on his characterizations.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, sit topside aboard the Age Quod Agis during a tour of Sydney Harbour Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007. (Eric Draper/White House photo)

This 400-page exercise in trust is, however, redeemed by Rudd’s access to senior Chinese officials and the need to protect sources. This is where the book shines, and this is where Rudd’s decision to forego traditional sourcing is beneficial. A reader familiar with China can spot deviations from what is found in most sources—sometimes through Rudd’s explicit signposting, and other times via inference. The book thus begins to reveal its true audience: those who will engage with China issues, policy, and scholarship more deeply in the future. For these readers, Rudd’s work will likely provide valuable new perspectives and, if nothing else, an easily accessible resource from which to draw a moderately complex narrative of U.S.-China relations.

The book is well-organized. Chapter names and subheadings are clear. Even so, the introduction does not capture Rudd’s project well, offering a variety of simplistic and historiographically questionable statements that he expands upon and rectifies later in the book. Chapter 1 provides a historical overview of U.S.-China relations from the Opium Wars to the present. Chapter 2 explores the perspectives of both sets of national leaders and the reasons each mistrusts the other. Interestingly, Rudd attends to the issue of race, noting that racism is not solely an American issue. He explains that China sees foreign policy through a racial lens, both in that “white” Westerners are trying to prevent Asia’s rise, and in that non-Han ethnicities are racially inferior, with all the complexities that this entails.[5]

Chapters 3-13 are focused on Xi Jinping, his worldview, and his priorities. Rudd arranges these into ten concentric circles of value to Xi and China. After chapter 3 briefly examines Rudd’s argument that Xi’s priorities drive the CCP’s priorities, chapter 4 moves into the first of these circles: Xi’s immediate need to remain in power. From there, Chapter 5 explores the questions of territorial sovereignty on which the CCP has staked its political legitimacy: Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Hong Kong. Chapter 6 discusses the other part of the grand bargain between the Party and the populace: economic growth in exchange for giving up most freedoms. Rudd’s economic bent is on full display here, and his understanding of finance offers a novel perspective for those primarily focused on security. Chapter 7 reveals how Xi has been forced to modify this bargain to include environmental reforms and an attempt to project leadership abroad in this arena in order to maintain domestic legitimacy. Chapter 8 switches gears to discuss Xi’s efforts to modernize the Chinese military into a force capable of power projection far away from China proper. Chapter 9 explores how Chinese policymakers feel they must manage all fourteen of their neighbors to ensure security. Rudd helpfully includes general overviews on China’s relationship with the most significant of these neighbors (Bhutan, shockingly, is not included in this overview). Chapter 10 concerns the Chinese view of their maritime periphery and the drive to control as much of it as possible, complemented by Chapter 11’s examination of the western periphery and the Belt and Road Initiative. Chapter 12 seeks to explain not only China’s view of the developing world as a useful base of support, but also to caution that many in the developing world truly do see China as helpful and act accordingly. Finally, Chapter 13 warns of China’s efforts to rewrite the global rules-based order to suit itself. Taken together, this part of the book is an excellent and easily-digestible overview of the view from Zhongnanhai.

Xi Jinping (PTI)

Chapter 14 shifts back to a U.S. perspective on the last several years, noting that America could certainly stymie China’s ambitions for dominance of the international system—if the U.S. can summon the domestic political will to do so. Chapter 15 addresses the potential paths of the now-past 20th Party Congress and Xi Jinping’s prospects for retaining control of the CCP. Chapter 16 covers a variety of scenarios for the 2020s and early 2030s, ranging from optimal outcomes for each side to stalemates.

Chapter 17 addresses Rudd’s proposed framework of managed strategic competition. The whole idea can be boiled down to the concept that America and China together should bilaterally agree on what is and is not off-limits for competition in various arenas, with short shrift given to essentials like enforcement mechanisms and penalties beyond “large-scale retaliatory action.”[6] Rudd challenges detractors to come up with a better framework, which is fair, but even in the most generous reading, he does not satisfactorily address one key question: how does this end? Rudd does not account for the CCP’s relationship to historical study, with its Marxist objectivist notion that events, including military campaigns, proceed certain ways via identifiable scientific laws—and the danger posed when such laws point to CCP victory.[7] Navigating a fraught period is one thing, but Rudd never explicitly says what he thinks will happen to U.S.-China relations after Xi Jinping’s death or retirement. If this framework were truly the point of the text, an answer, as well as an evaluation of the moral costs to the US of maintaining peace with an actively genocidal and territorially aggressive regime, would greatly enhance the book’s meaning. Overall, this chapter feels tacked-on, and, unlike the rest of the book, suffers when Rudd adds detail.

This leads to a discussion of the weakness inherent to all books on current events in China: timeliness. Everyone who has studied modern China knows that books are often lagging indicators, and that the latest research is often obsolete within months of publishing. In this case, Rudd has—through no fault of his own—come on the scene after two major changes: the Shanghai lockdowns and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Much of Rudd’s assessment of China’s appeal to the broader international community is built on the apparent superiority of its system in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the eyes of the international community, this illusion was dashed on the rocks of last spring’s lockdowns in Shanghai and continued deteriorating, especially for the CCP’s domestic audience, through the end of “dynamic zero-COVID” policies. Meanwhile, China’s close relationship with Russia has become a greater liability post-Ukraine, especially in the context of Taiwan. Again, these oversights are hardly Rudd’s fault—but they alter the reader’s perspective on the text’s predictive aspects and make the historical elements seem more appealing by contrast.

All told, Kevin Rudd’s The Avoidable War is very much worth the time and effort. Through a series of missteps in execution, it takes Rudd a while to get the reader onboard with his topic. Once there, however, the information provided is valuable, and Rudd’s perspective from personal experience does give his words an air of authority in these matters. For those starting out on their journey to understand what is arguably the world’s most important contemporary competition, this book is a fine place to begin.

Ian Boley is a doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University, where he studies the nuclear strategy debates surrounding the Strategic Defense Initiative. He is a co-host of The Joint Geeks of Staff, a podcast featuring national security professionals who explore military, legal, and diplomatic lessons through the lens of science fiction. He holds an MA from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and a BA from Marietta College, in Marietta, Ohio. He currently works for a component of United States Space Command. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Space Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.

Thank you for being a part of the The Strategy Bridge community. Together, we can #BuildTheBridge.

Header Image: National Flag of China, Daliang, China 2022 (Arthur Wang).

Notes:

[1] Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2022), 398.

[2] Rudd, The Avoidable War, 17.

[3] Rudd, The Avoidable War, 15.

[4] Rudd, The Avoidable War, 44.

[5] Rudd, The Avoidable War, 62.

[6] Rudd, The Avoidable War, 365.

[7] See for example the China Aerospace Studies Institute’s translation of the PLA’s Science of Campaigns. Microsoft Word - 2020-11-23 Chinese Military Thoughts- In their own words Science of Campaigns (2006) ebook.docx (af.edu)

thestrategybridge.org · July 19, 2023

5. When the Iranian or Chinese Navy Come Calling Why Not Throw Them a Curve Ball?

Excerpts:

What is the curve ball?

A highly maneuverable, high speed when needed, high-g capable autonomous asset that can operate up to sea state five and operate 24/7.

I am talking about a maritime autonomous vessel or as it is referred to as unmanned surface vessel (USV) operating today and not in the distant ghost fleet future.

When the Iranian or Chinese Navy Come Calling Why Not Throw Them a Curve Ball? - Second Line of Defense

sldinfo.com · by Robbin Laird · July 19, 2023

By Robbin Laird

We have heard a lot about A2D2 and about the authoritarian powers and their asymmetric threats,

Well two can play this game.

The U.S. Navy has within reach a new capability to throw curve balls into the con-ops of an Iranian or Chinese navy approach to challenging the U.S. Navy.

And a recent example comes from an event in the Arabian Gulf which has been relayed to me by a reliable Middle Eastern source, an advantage coming from my years of visiting the UAE and Bahrain.

What is the curve ball?

A highly maneuverable, high speed when needed, high-g capable autonomous asset that can operate up to sea state five and operate 24/7.

I am talking about a maritime autonomous vessel or as it is referred to as unmanned surface vessel (USV) operating today and not in the distant ghost fleet future.

This particular USV operates autonomously for significant periods of its operational time with control of the vessel able to be executed in multiple ways.

According to this source, a slow-moving U.S. Navy ship – not a high value capital ship – was being escorted by this USV in the Straits of Hormuz.

The Iranians sent a drone then a second drone to see what they could see.

Then they sent the kind of fast attack vessel which causes significant challenges to U.S. Navy capital ships. The problem which the fast attack boats cause is precisely around rules of engagement and when is the U.S. capital ship authorized to respond with lethal response.

The Iranians reportedly requested that the U.S. Navy withdraw the USV. Not having gotten the result they wanted they sent more fast attack boats in waves to try to disrupt the USV from its escort mission. Aided by the intervention of a USCG vessel, the USV continued its mission. Later the Iranians sent a warship.

With current capabilities, the USV can provide single ship escort. With further software and C2 development USVs can provide a defensive perimeter for U.S. Navy capital ships and to provide the picket fence for ROE enhancement – you attack my picket ship, and I can sink you.

This is something the Iranians need to experience from my point of view.

Take this capability to the waters west of Taiwan and the Chinese navy now faces a threat to their sea control.

The U.S. Navy does not have to have sea control of the waters west of Taiwan; it simply has to have sea denial.

With the acquisition of USVs and working their wolfpack con ops the Taiwanese and any allied navies who would operate these systems would be delivering a curve ball to Chinese plans for sea control of the waters off of Taiwan.

In other words, it is about time that the bad guys start worrying about our ability to mess with their con-ops.

There is no gray zone if you don’t accept it.

Credit Picture: Shutterstock

sldinfo.com · by Robbin Laird · July 19, 2023

6. Navy's Pacific information warfare command coordinating vast capability across region

​Where is the influence or psychological element​ within these organizations? Isn't influence still a part of information warfare?

Excerpts:

“As an Echelon III command, FIWCPAC provides the fleet with the ability to synchronize, align, and integrate information related capabilities across the joint force, to include U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM), U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) service components, and others, to enable joint force speed, action, and maneuver across the competition continuum,” the spokesperson said. “FIWCPAC is able to coordinate on our tactical commanders’ behalf to provide these wide-ranging capabilities in support of tactical and operational actions.”

Across the joint force, as these types of information warfare capabilities are gaining in importance, it is becoming more evident that higher-level coordinating organizations are necessary. Historically, these capabilities have not been well understood or have been an afterthought, leading to their neglect, or the authorities needed reside at a higher level — leading to confusion over what can be done.

Navy's Pacific information warfare command coordinating vast capability across region

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 19, 2023

The Navy’s recently created Fleet Information Warfare Command Pacific is proving invaluable to the region, particularly when it comes to coordinating and integrating the capabilities of various tactical entities, according to officials.

One of the reasons for the FIWCPAC‘s standup in 2022 was to help coordinate effects across the vast information space, including through interservice and allied partners.

Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Samuel Paparo requested the organization “to be stood up to focus specifically on the integration of information operations and his whole campaign in the Pacific,” Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, commander of Naval Information Forces, said during an event Tuesday hosted by Navy Memorial.

While there are tactically oriented information warfare entities, they lack authority and responsibility to integrate capabilities at the operational level and across other Department of Defense capabilities.

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“The O-6 Information Warfare Commanders on our Carrier Strike Group staffs provide outstanding capability at the tactical level, but lack the position, authority, and scope of responsibility to integrate at the operational level and across the breadth of DoD capabilities,” a Pacific Fleet spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

Several years ago, the Navy created O-6 level information warfare commanders as permanent fixtures within carrier strike groups and is currently piloting a similar effort within its submarines.

“As an Echelon III command, FIWCPAC provides the fleet with the ability to synchronize, align, and integrate information related capabilities across the joint force, to include U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM), U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) service components, and others, to enable joint force speed, action, and maneuver across the competition continuum,” the spokesperson said. “FIWCPAC is able to coordinate on our tactical commanders’ behalf to provide these wide-ranging capabilities in support of tactical and operational actions.”

Across the joint force, as these types of information warfare capabilities are gaining in importance, it is becoming more evident that higher-level coordinating organizations are necessary. Historically, these capabilities have not been well understood or have been an afterthought, leading to their neglect, or the authorities needed reside at a higher level — leading to confusion over what can be done.

As a result, more and more entities are being created to help integrate at the theater level, to include the Marine Corps Information Command and the Army’s Theater Information Advantage Detachment.

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When it comes to integration, the Pacific Fleet spokesperson said there have been several “grassroots” efforts across the other services, to include the TIAD, the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups and others. While these relationships are in their early stages, they will be essential for rapid and cohesive joint effects, the official added.

Additionally, during a recent exercise, Pacific Sentry, FIWCPAC strengthened its relationship with the Army’s 8th Psychological Operations Group, receiving planning augmentation from them to bolster influence efforts. This resulted in “unprecedented levels of success, planning and executing” joint information operations in support of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, during the exercise, according to the spokesperson.

The Naval Information Warfighting Development Center, the Navy’s “top gun” school for information warfare, is providing direct support to FIWCPAC with personnel for additional planning capacity. Both organizations are developing information operations tactics, techniques and procedures as well as concepts of operations to support Indo-Pacom.

FIWCPAC also co-hosted a first of its kind conference in December 2022 focused on operations in the information environment. The event brought in partners from the joint force across Indo-Pacom to improve synchronization, coordination and integration of these capabilities for the combatant command.

FIWCPAC is also working with foreign partners in the region in a variety of aspects, including exposing malign activity. Other efforts have involved leadership meetings with Japanese and Australian counterparts to discuss common approaches to executing the information effects cycle. These efforts have improved Indo-Pacom’s ability to integrate these information capabilities with allies, the spokesperson said.

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Despite FIWPAC’s success, there aren’t any immediate plans to create similar organizations across the Navy.

“The decision to establish another FIWC would be at the Fleet Commander level,” Aeschbach told DefenseScoop in a statement.

“Information Warfare is integral to Fleet and joint operations, and there is a growing demand for IW capabilities at the Fleet Commander level. Fleet Information Warfare Command Pacific’s efforts over the last year have been impactful to operating and maneuvering in the information space, and the Navy is garnering lessons learned from FIWC PAC to inform how IW can best be integrated with fleet operations and delivered to fleet commanders,” she added.

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 19, 2023

7. Military academies’ diversity efforts draw GOP concerns, Dem support

Military academies’ diversity efforts draw GOP concerns, Dem support

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · July 19, 2023

Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday took aim at the military service academies’ diversity and inclusion efforts as a potential distraction from war fighting prowess, and pledged to force changes in the future to end those practices.

But military leaders and Democratic representatives defended the work as critical to force readiness and national security, and accused Republicans of inflating how much time and focus is spent on the effort.

The scene at the House Armed Services Committee mirrored hearings in recent months where GOP lawmakers have decried what they see as “destructive, political ideology” permeating the armed forces. That has prompted growing tensions among members of the panel, with each side accusing the other of damaging the non-partisan nature of the military.

Wednesday’s hearing was prompted in part by the Supreme Court decision last month striking down affirmative action in college admissions but exempting the military education institutions “in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

RELATED

Service academies exempt from Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

"The potentially distinct interests" of service academies was a reason Chief Justice John Roberts cited as to not yet address their admissions practices.

Several Republican lawmakers voiced concerns about the ruling, saying that it allows unfair racial divisions to persist at the academies.

“I believe race-based admissions in any form violate the Constitution,” said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind. and chairman of the committee’s personnel panel. “The military service academies must ensure immutable characteristics like race and color have no bearing on a candidate’s ability to tackle the rigors of military life.”

Democrats also voiced concerns but for the opposite reason, arguing that only allowing the military to develop a diverse officer corps hurts higher education as a whole.

“It’s advantageous for us to embrace diversity,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas. “It makes us stronger, to embrace diversity. Our country is diverse, so we should reflect that diversity.”

While Republicans on the panel peppered academy leaders with questions about terms like “non-binary” and “demi-gender,” Democrats offered support for classes on equality and programs to boost minority enrollment in the services.

RELATED

House narrowly passes defense bill after Dems defect over abortion

The House passed the NDAA over Democratic objections after the GOP passed amendments on abortion policy and transgender troops.

For their part, the service academy leaders defended their practices as critical to shaping the fighting force and allowing young officers to challenge themselves with unfamiliar and unconventional viewpoints as part of their learning experience.

“We must embrace diversity as a strength,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, superintendent of the Air Force Academy. “Our military is comprised of people from every congressional district, every community and every demographic in America. Our cadets will have to lead people who don’t look like them, don’t think like them, don’t talk like them.”

House Republican lawmakers have already included several legislative provisions to roll back diversity and inclusion training in the military as part of the annual defense authorization bill. That includes language that would end affirmative action in academy admissions.

Democrats in the chamber largely opposed those efforts, and Democratic senators have vowed to strike the provisions during negotiations later this year.

About Leo Shane III

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

8. With eyes on Trump, Senate votes to make NATO withdrawal harder

With eyes on Trump, Senate votes to make NATO withdrawal harder

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · July 19, 2023

WASHINGTON ― The Senate on Wednesday passed a provision to the annual defense bill that would make it more difficult for a U.S. president to withdraw from NATO, a precautionary measure against former President Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House.

The bipartisan amendment to the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act would not allow the president to withdraw from NATO without congressional approval, requiring two-thirds of senators to vote for withdrawal. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., introduced the amendment alongside Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, which senators adopted in a 65-28 vote.

Trump said on Fox News this week he told NATO leaders when he was president that “I will not protect you from Russia” if they were “delinquent“ on NATO contributions.

He also said at a 2018 rally he had told U.S. allies he would withdraw from NATO if all countries do not spend 2% of their GDP on defense. The alliance has agreed on the 2% goal, but many member states have yet to meet it. Polls show Trump is the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican primary.

“The last administration, a question came up about whether a president could withdraw from NATO unilaterally,” Kaine said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “Our allies — who worry about different presidents — should the policy change depending upon every four years who is president, they would take this statement of congressional support in a very, very powerful way.”

If the president tries to withdraw from NATO without Senate approval, the Kaine and Rubio amendment would limit funding for withdrawal until a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate vote to approve the decision. The legislation also authorizes Congress to establish its own legal counsel to represent the legislature before federal courts in any dispute with the White House over NATO withdrawal.

Eighteen Republicans joined Senate Democrats in voting for the amendment, including Sens. Rubio, Susan Collins of Maine, Ted Cruz of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Mitt Romney of Utah.

The legislation is expected to pass the Senate next week, but the NATO amendment will need to survive negotiations over a final defense bill with the Republican-held House.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, opposed the amendment, calling it “absolutely unnecessary” and arguing Trump is “fully committed to” NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause.

“I cannot think of any currently serving elected official of significance who’s calling for suspending or withdrawing from NATO,” Wicker said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that this amendment might be aimed as a slap at former President Trump.”

Wicker noted Armed Services Committee included a provision in the base bill requiring the defense secretary to prioritize NATO members who already meet or exceed the 2% spending requirement.

Following that vote, the Senate rejected 16-83 a separate amendment from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that stipulated Congress would still need to authorize military force for the president to come to the defense of NATO allies, even if an attack on another ally triggered Article 5.

Ukraine accounting

Additionally, the Senate voted down 39-60 an amendment from Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Ky., and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, that would have required the Pentagon to change the way it calculates the cost of weapons sent to other countries under presidential drawdown authority — the mechanism President Joe Biden has used to arm Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles.

Hawley and Vance introduced their amendment after the Pentagon announced last month an accounting error overestimated the cost of weapons it has sent to Ukraine. The error means the Biden administration had more cash on hand than it previously thought to send Ukraine weapons under the authority.

The Hawley-Vance amendment would have required the Pentagon to determine the acquisition and modification costs of weapons sent under presidential authority in addition to the cost of replacing those items. It would have then required the Pentagon to use whichever value is greater to determine the drawdown cost.

“The accurate cost of equipment that we send to Ukraine is how much it costs to replace it for the American taxpayer; it’s not what it originally cost minus some measure of depreciation,” Vance told Defense News ahead of the vote. “It’s important to have an accurate accounting of what we’re spending because how do we compare ourselves against Europe and how we’re carrying the relative burden within NATO?”

About Bryant Harris

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

9. Security and Defense Medicine in a New Age of Policy

​For all our 1st Special Forces Group brothers, SGM (R) Michael Hetzler is the son of the late SGM Walt Hetzler.

Wed, 07/19/2023 - 10:43am

Security and Defense Medicine in a New Age of Policy

By Michael R. Hetzler

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/security-and-defense-medicine-new-age-policy

Security and defense medicine is about to shift into high gear, or instead, it should. Two new and identified security policies are now past the conceptual phase and are being implemented across Western nations, democracies, and alliances.1 Strategic competition (SC) and irregular warfare (IW) will now shape international affairs, diplomatic engagement, and crisis management for at least two decades. Both policies are based on principles of competition, influence, and deterrence below the threshold of war while still preparing for war.

With these policies, guidance has been directed to change our fundamental perspectives of engagement. These approaches are employed as “an enduring condition to be managed, not a problem to be solved.”2 To be successful, these policies require integration of all actors on the world stage, national, allied, partner, and even non-state actors such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and even multi-national corporations.3,4

So what? Operational medicine requires an identical change in its approach, application, and execution. All traditional and doctrinal military norms are being upended, not just by peer or near-peer adversaries but by the technology that can now be used as tools of warfare. The ‘Age of Technology’ has changed every aspect and environment of diplomacy, warfare, and social interaction. While those disciplines redesign and reconstruct to remain instruments of value, so must the support services to them.

The value of medicine and the mitigation of death and loss in our recent low-intensity conflict against terrorism and counterinsurgency is unequaled in history. That success is also likely to be unequaled in the future. Every analysis, every perspective, and every realistic conclusion finds that the support structure, resources, and reactivity of medical care in the last twenty years will likely never be replicated again. Future control of the battlefield, superiority, risk balance, and tolerance will be unfeasible and unrealistic in comparison. Ukraine, although an enigma, has proven that assessment beyond doubt.5

History repeats itself. After another transitional period of stability and security, the dynamics and contest have changed “in the great game.”6 Just as peace was won in 1945, another struggle emerged. Moving past our relative victories over extremism, we now find consequences on the world stage after being so narrowly focused for so long. Strategies of competition and irregular warfare, or irregular activities, will now mirror the Cold War policies of nuclear deterrence and containment of communism. The duration of this global struggle in values and norms may very well replicate the five decades of the Cold War.

With the re-emergence of geopolitics and the age of technology, the conflict continuum can be traversed and undermined, with the present nature of warfare remaining under the threshold of conflict. Our adversaries already see themselves in conflict with the West and are waging campaigns to achieve their national goals.

Strategic competition is the most recent, and likely the primary, policy to be educated and directed. Late in evolution, compared to IW, its primacy for execution and potential in intent demands its priority in consideration. A “persistent and long-term struggle that occurs between two or more adversaries seeking to pursue incompatible interests without necessarily engaging in armed conflict with each other.”

In strategic competition, medicine must begin considering new and novel health service support approaches, such as applying near abroad medical strategy instead of expeditionary medicine. Coordinating and advocating for medical development in nations and partners of benefit and potential and utilizing assets outside of governmental control for a community benefit of effect. We must do this while the global healthcare working force is decreasing and confidence in medicine is challenged. In fact, medicine is actually identified as a sub-arena of strategic competition, although further buildout for our professional function has yet to be achieved.

Irregular warfare requires the legitimate impact of relevant actors through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities.7 Other international organizations, such as NATO, maybe describe this more accurately as irregular activities. Arguably a natural platform for hard power such as military activities or the employment of special operations.8 For medicine, we must look at the policy verbiage for the potential medical impact.

In irregular warfare, begin considering the potential, and not our presumption of, medical relationships with international and nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit efforts, and even non-state actors to find efficiency, economy, and synergy of effect. Using all tools in collaboration and coordination to the best potential reduces the workload and waste of all. Allied interaction and learning, the creation of new associations and avenues of partnerships, is where medicine finds its most significant economic and efficient potential.9

To remain entrenched in our comfort zone while gripping the crown of recent casualty success negates our value to policymakers, diplomats, commanders, and ultimately, to our citizens and their future. The scope, scale, and depth of medicine must meet the scope, scale, and depth of security and defense. To provide medicine in pace with strategy and policy instead of keeping up with operations. Otherwise, civilians and the military may suffer and perish due to idleness and disregard.

We must look at more than just the concept of medical operations in security and defense. We must consider, evolve, and embrace an idea of strategic medicine to support strategic goals. We must be able to think and campaign strategically to effectively deploy medical force multipliers in support of established strategic objectives. Educate yourself and the force in this scope and at this level for these concepts – inarguably uncommon for our profession.10 Understand the strategic environment and begin to develop and add structure for the future. Engage with every medical actor on the global scale and change how you see them both in their efforts and how combined efforts can find synergy and effect. Contract medicine, allied medicine, nongovernmental medicine, host nation medicine, and offset medicine all must be assessed and developed for needed battlefield effects. Force multipliers in civil-military relationships and partner nation development must all work to provide more accessible options and solutions to the greater cause.

These new security policies, ultimately, can be described as the human domain. For most nations on earth medicine is part of their social structure; for most nations on earth, medicine is in deficit, and the new generation of most nations sees medicine as a fundamental human right. These all may sound like, but are opportunities for universal security and civil benefit. Medicine is a celebrated soft power; let’s yield it with strategic and human effects.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense, NATO, or the views of the University College Cork.

1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-american-grand-strategy-to-counter-russia-and-china-asian-nato-aukus-collective-defense-taiwan-da555cf
2. https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-joint-chiefs-new-strategy-paper-joint-concept-competing
3. Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action (2nd Edition) > National Defense University Press > News Article View
4. https://www.ndu.edu/News/Article-View/Article/3338157/priorities-for-nato-partnerships-in-an-era-of-strategic-competition/
5. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/31/ukraine-military-medicine-russia-war/
6. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/%E2%80%98great-game%E2%80%99-back-are-americans-ready-great-power-competition-184920
7. https://www.jcs.mil/portals/36/documents/doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v2.pdf?ver=2017-12-28-162021-510
8. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3928259-maximizing-the-potential-of-american-irregular-warfare-in-strategic-competition/
9. https://www.justsecurity.org/85752/congress-should-limit-not-expand-irregular-warfare-authority/
10. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3837521-preparing-for-strategic-competition-the-need-for-irregular-warfare-professional-military-education/

About the Author(s)

Michael R. Hetzler

SGM (R) Michael R. Hetzler served honorably for over thirty years in the United States Army, retiring in 2016. He presently lectures for the University College Cork, Security and Defense Medicine department in Ireland and serves as the program manager for NSHQ medical education efforts. 

10. Britain’s MI6 chief says his spies are using AI to disrupt flow of weapons to Russia

Britain’s MI6 chief says his spies are using AI to disrupt flow of weapons to Russia

AP · July 19, 2023

PRAGUE (AP) — British spies are already using artificial intelligence to hamper the supply of weapons to Russia, the head of Britain’s MI6 agency said Wednesday, predicting that Western intelligence agencies will increasingly have to focus on tracking the malign use of AI by hostile states.

In a rare public speech, Richard Moore also urged Russians who oppose the invasion of Ukraine to spy for Britain, saying others had already done so since the war began.

“Our door is always open,” he said.

In a speech that depicted artificial intelligence as both a huge potential asset and a major threat, Moore said his staff at Britain’s foreign intelligence agency “are combining their skills with AI and bulk data to identify and disrupt the flow of weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.”

Moore called China the “single most important strategic focus” for his agency and said, “we will increasingly be tasked with obtaining intelligence on how hostile states are using AI in damaging, reckless and unethical ways.”

Moore, who has previously warned that the West was falling behind rivals in the AI race, said his service “together with our allies, intends to win the race to master the ethical and safe use of AI.”

But he said AI would not replace the need for human spies, arguing that the “human factor” will remain crucial in an era of rapidly evolving machine learning.

“As AI trawls the ocean of open source, there will be even greater value in landing, with a well-cast fly, the secrets that lie beyond the reach of its nets,” he said.

He argued that “the unique characteristics of human agents in the right places will become still more significant,” highlighting spies’ ability to “influence decisions inside a government or terrorist group.”

Moore also told an audience at the British ambassador’s residence in Prague that Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine had run out of steam and “there appears to be little prospect of the Russian forces regaining momentum.”

He said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was proving “a hard grind” against strong Russian defenses, but he was optimistic it would succeed.

Moore said the government of President Vladimir Putin was beset by “venality, infighting and callous incompetence” and the mutiny by Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had “exposed the inexorable decay of the unstable autocracy over which Putin presides.”

He said Putin was “under pressure” after the brief rebellion and the “humiliating” deal he struck with the help of Belarus to end it. The Kremlin says Prigozhin attended a military meeting in Moscow with Putin after the mutiny.

“He really didn’t fight back against Prigozhin. He cut a deal to save his skin,” Moore told the audience.

“Prigozhin started off as a traitor at breakfast, he had been pardoned by supper, and then two days later he was invited for tea,” Moore said. “So there are some things that even the chief of MI6 finds a little bit difficult to interpret, in terms of who’s in and who’s out.”

He accused Russia of using Wagner as a tool of imperialism in Africa, offering leaders in the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries a “Faustian pact” of protection in return for handing over mineral wealth to Russia.

Moore also called out Iran for fueling further conflict in Ukraine by supplying Russia with drones and other weapons — a policy he said “has provoked internal quarrels at the highest level of the regime in Tehran.”

Speaking publicly about spycraft is still something of a novelty for Britain’s intelligence services. The government refused even to confirm the existence of MI6 until 1992, and public speeches by its leaders are infrequent.

Moore chose to give Wednesday’s address in the Czech capital, home of the 1968 “Prague Spring” freedom movement that was crushed by Soviet tanks.

Evoking that moment, he said many Russians now felt “the same tugs of conscience as their predecessors did in 1968.” The crushing of the Prague Spring spurred a wave of defections from the USSR to the West.

“I invite them to do what others have already done this past 18 months and join hands with us,” he said, assuring prospective defectors that “their secrets will always be safe with us.”

Most intelligence defectors’ names are never known — unless something goes wrong. Former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned and seriously sickened with a Soviet-made nerve agent in 2018 in the English city of Salisbury, where he had been living quietly for years.

Moore recounted how an agent codenamed Ecclesiastic, who penetrated German intelligence for MI6 in 1944, was looked after by the service until her death at age 100. He said MI6 agents then gathered to scatter her ashes in the English Channel.

“Our loyalty to our agents is lifelong, and our gratitude eternal,” he said.

AP · July 19, 2023

11. In next Global Information Dominance Experiments, CDAO looking to speed allied info-sharing

​Excerpts:

Speaking at the NDIA conference, Rear Adm. Susan Bryer-Joyner, head of the JADC2 cross-functional team, said the experiments should allow the Pentagon to improve its metrics.

“This is about how we maintain that competitive advantage,” she said. “And so we know that the more degraded the environment, the more challenging it’s going to be making access to credible and secure [information]… Not only do we need to bring the systems, but we need to figure out how to better train our workforce in a contested, degraded environment.”

​

In next Global Information Dominance Experiments, CDAO looking to speed allied info-sharing - Breaking Defense

Through the reinvigorated GIDEs, the Pentagon is “for the first time” taking a “speed and quality approach,” Pentagon Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office chief Greg Little said.

breakingdefense.com Jaspreet Gill

Members of the 56th Air and Space Communications Squadronoperate cyber systems using a Enhanced communications flyaway kit during the Global Information Dominance Experiment 3 and Architect Demonstration Evaluation 5 at Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, Alpena, Michigan, July, 12, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Amy Picard)

WASHINGTON — In the next iteration of the recently relaunched  Global Information Dominance Experiments Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office

“So if there’s a policy issue with sharing data with the Five Eyes, how do we actually measure how quickly we can resolve the policy issue so we can get the muscle memory in a crisis to actually figure that out,” Greg Little, CDAO for enterprise platforms and business optimization, said today at the National Defense Industrial Association’s  Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2)

The high-tech, data-sharing exercises were  relaunched after a year-plus hiatus and are designed to inform the Pentagon’s sprawling Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort. The experiments are led by the CDAO and will include “increasingly complex demonstrations” using both commercial and military technologies — including, an official said previously, the use of  some artificial intelligence. Four iterations of GIDE are planned for this year.

“We want to rapidly improve access to data across the Joint force from the strategic level to our tactical warfighters,” Craig Martell, CDAO said  in January when  announcing the experiments. “The intended outcome of these experiments is two-fold. First, we want to identify where we may have barriers in policy, security, connectivity, user-interface, or other areas that prohibit data sharing across the Joint force. Second, we want to show how data, analytics, and AI can improve Joint workflows in a variety of missions from global integrated deterrence through targeting and fires.”

Now, through the reinvigorated GIDEs, the Pentagon is “for the first time” taking a “speed and quality approach,”  said departing

“We’re making the workflow better. … So an example is our operational planning, in terms of the GIDE 3, GIDE 4, was about 15 hours,” he added. “We’ve gotten that down to almost an hour and a half by just looking at how to do it differently.”

Earlier this month, Margaret Palmieri, deputy CDAO,  saidJuly, . She didn’t go into specifics, but said five different models were tested to see how they work and if they can be trained on DoD data.

Speaking at the NDIA conference, Rear Adm. Susan Bryer-Joyner, head of the JADC2 cross-functional team, said the experiments should allow the Pentagon to improve its metrics.

“This is about how we maintain that competitive advantage,” she said. “And so we know that the more degraded the environment, the more challenging it’s going to be making access to credible and secure [information]… Not only do we need to bring the systems, but we need to figure out how to better train our workforce in a contested, degraded environment.”

breakingdefense.com Jaspreet Gill

12. Philippines closely monitors threat of invasion of Taiwan - defence chief

Remember at the turn of the 19th/20th century when we thought the Philippines would be necessary as a coaling station for US operations in Asia? Perhaps it will be important in the future (despite official denials).

Excerpts:

The Philippines has been a key defence partner for former colonial power the United States for decades, but moves this year to expand U.S. access to its bases have angered China, which has called that "stoking the fire" of regional tension.

The Philippines has granted access to four additional bases this year, some facing north towards Taiwan. The Philippines has repeatedly stressed it is not taking sides in the U.S.-China rivalry.

Philippines closely monitors threat of invasion of Taiwan - defence chief

Reuters · by Reuters

MANILA, July 20 (Reuters) - The threat of China invading Taiwan is something U.S. military ally the Philippines is monitoring on a daily basis as part of Manila's contingency plans for possible conflict in the region, its defence chief said on Thursday.

"We really have to make an assessment whether such is likely or not," Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro told reporters.

"Nonetheless, we continue to plan on all contingencies not merely any flashpoint between China and Taiwan, but any contingency within the theatre," he added.

Of the five U.S. treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific - Australia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand - the Philippines is closest to Taiwan, with its northernmost islands just 190 km (118 miles) away.

A priority for the Philippines is the safety of the more than 100,000 of its nationals living and working in Taiwan.

Without providing specifics, Teodoro, said the contingency measures being discussed were "a multi-agency effort and not only a defence effort".

The Philippines has been a key defence partner for former colonial power the United States for decades, but moves this year to expand U.S. access to its bases have angered China, which has called that "stoking the fire" of regional tension.

The Philippines has granted access to four additional bases this year, some facing north towards Taiwan. The Philippines has repeatedly stressed it is not taking sides in the U.S.-China rivalry.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who has sought closer ties with Washington, has said the U.S. access to those bases would be "useful" defensively if China attacked democratically governed Taiwan.

Washington and Beijing have sought to manage their differences lately to get strained ties on the right track, including keeping communication channels open.

"Hopefully, the engagements bilaterally between the United States and China leads to the diffusion of tensions in that theatre," said Teodoro.

Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

13. Britain’s Spy Master Says Putin Cut Deal With Wagner Mercenary Chief

Britain’s Spy Master Says Putin Cut Deal With Wagner Mercenary Chief

By Megan Specia and Julian E. Barnes

reporting from London and Aspen, Colo.

• July 19, 2023

The New York Times · by Megan Specia · July 19, 2023

LIVE See more updates: Russia-Ukraine War

July 19, 2023, 1:23 p.m. ET

Richard Moore, the head of MI6, said the Russian leader acted “to save his skin,” offering rare insights into the events surrounding the sudden end of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s march on Moscow.

Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, speaking in London in November 2022. On Wednesday in Prague, he offered rare insights into the brief mercenary rebellion against Russia’s military leadership last month. Credit...Matt Dunham/Associated Press

• July 19, 2023, 1:20 p.m. ET

The head of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI6, said on Wednesday that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had “cut a deal” with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, during Mr. Prigozhin’s failed rebellion last month.

The comments from Richard Moore, the head of MI6, in a rare speech in Prague at an event hosted by Politico, offer insights from a Western intelligence official into the stunning but short-lived revolt by Mr. Prigozhin last month.

The Wagner leader staged a mutiny against Russia’s military last month, which saw his mercenary forces marching toward the capital before abruptly halting. More than two weeks later, the Kremlin disclosed that Mr. Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders had met with Mr. Putin for three hours in the days after the rebellion ended.

“I think he probably feels under some pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin, speaking at the British ambassador’s residence in the Czech capital. “Prigozhin was his creature, utterly created by Putin, and yet he turned on him. He really didn’t fight back against Prigozhin; he cut a deal to save his skin using the good offices of the leader of Belarus.”

Mr. Moore also reflected on the head-spinning nature of the Wagner forces’ sudden march toward Moscow, the swiftness with which they stopped, and Mr. Prigozhin’s seeming escape — so far — from the grim fate of many Kremlin critics.

“Prigozhin started off that day as a traitor at breakfast, he had been pardoned by supper, and then a few days later, he was invited for tea,” Mr. Moore told the audience. “So, there are some things that even the chief of MI6 finds a little bit difficult to try and interpret, in terms of who’s in and who’s out.”

Last week, Mr. Putin said that Wagner troops could continue fighting alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine, but without their leader.

“He is clearly under pressure,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Putin. “You don’t have a group of mercenaries advance up the motorway toward Rostov and get to within 125 kilometers of Moscow unless you have not quite predicted that was going to happen.”

Mr. Moore was not the only British official weighing in on the situation on Wednesday. James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign minister, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, said that no matter “how Putin attempts to spin it, an attempted coup is never a good look.”

Julian Barnes contributed reporting from Aspen, Colorado.

Megan Specia is an international correspondent for The Times, based in London, covering the United Kingdom and Ireland. Since early 2022, she has also covered the war in Ukraine. She joined The Times in 2016. More about Megan Specia

The New York Times · by Megan Specia · July 19, 2023

14. US approves $1.3 billion package of long-term military aid for Ukraine

We keep paying. A senior mentor of mine asked me yesterday what is the theory of victory in Ukraine?  

US approves $1.3 billion package of long-term military aid for Ukraine

militarytimes.com · by Lolita Baldor · July 19, 2023

The Pentagon announced a new $1.3 billion package of long-term military aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, including four air defense systems and an undisclosed number of drones.

The new assistance comes on the heels of a meeting Tuesday by defense and military leaders from around the globe to discuss ongoing efforts to give Ukraine the weapons it needs in its battle to retake territory seized by Russian forces.

Included in the aid, which is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, will be funding for four National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, and munitions for them, as well as Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade drones.

Unlike the presidential drawdown authority that the Pentagon has used repeatedly over the past 17 months to pull weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, the USAI-funded equipment could take a year or two to get to the battlefront. As a result, this new package will do little to help Ukraine in its current offensive, but will help in future defense of its country.

The aid package included funding for artillery, mine-clearing equipment, a variety of missiles and munitions, trucks and other vehicles, port security equipment and systems to counter drones.

Overall the U.S. has provided more than $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in Feb. 2022. Of that, about $18 billion has been in longer term USAI funding, including the latest announcement.

15. The Pentagon is the wrong agency to lead the new U.S. deterrence strategy

Excerpts:

To be sure, any deterrence strategy must include the hammer that the Defense Department can wield. But, beyond questions of its effectiveness in deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, over-reliance on the military and securitization generally is likely to have broader deleterious effects on U.S. relations in the Indo-Pacific. Americans risk becoming the “Hessians of Asia” by taking a security-first approach in the region.

To prevent this, integrated deterrence must give more equal weight to nonmilitary and non-U.S. components. In a recent report, my colleagues and I proposed that this be done by tying integrated deterrence to our notion of formal bilateral influence capacity, whereby the U.S. capacity to compel and deter others is the product of an array of economic, political, and security-based policymaking instruments that can be leveraged bilaterally as well as through a network of allies and partners. If successful, such an approach would provide the United States and its partners a “collective resilience.”

Even if a U.S. deterrence-by-denial strategy with respect to Taiwan is not convincing to Xi, the U.S. and partner capacity for deterrence by resilience ought to be, especially given China’s heavy dependence on the U.S. and several of its allies for hundreds of key goods. Relatedly, substantial, sustained decreases in imports from China to the U.S. and Europe would force Chinese leadership to make hard choices: “a further increase in infrastructure investment (and in the country’s debt burden) or it will have to allow unemployment to rise.”

The Pentagon is the wrong agency to lead the new U.S. deterrence strategy

If integrated deterrence is to succeed, the hammer must not be the tool of first resort.

defenseone.com · by Collin Meisel

BY COLLIN MEISEL

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS, FREDERICK S. PARDEE CENTER

JULY 19, 2023 10:04 PM ET

The United States faces a fundamental deterrence problem in Taiwan. In a recent poll of more than 2,500 U.S. adults, fewer than half said they would support a direct U.S. military intervention if China invades the self-governing island. Yet to be successful, deterrence requires one’s adversary to perceive that one has both the capability and the will to carry out their threats.

There are already questions about whether U.S. forces are equipped to defend and, if necessary, take back Taiwan. Recent well-publicized wargames have found that a U.S. victory would cost tens of lost ships, hundreds of lost aircraft, and thousands of lost U.S. servicemember lives in a matter of weeks. This may give Chinese President Xi Jinping reason to believe that America's will to come to Taiwan’s defense may be lacking—if not during the tenure of President Joe Biden, who has on multiple occasions said the U.S. would intervene militarily on Taiwan’s behalf, then perhaps as soon as his successor comes to office.

The U.S. has a variety of instruments of power available for deterrence, including expansive diplomatic connections, alliance networks, and economic and financial carrots and sticks. As such, the apparent solution to the U.S. credibility problem is the Defense Department-led concept of integrated deterrence: “the seamless combination of capabilities to convince potential adversaries that the costs of their hostile activities outweigh their benefits” via integration of efforts “across domains,” “across regions,” “across the spectrum of conflict,” “across the U.S. government,” and “with allies and partners.”

But if deterrence requires coordination across the governments of allies and partners—many of which are not interested in a fight with China—then placing the organization tasked primarily with preparing for a fight with China in the lead sends the wrong message. It also casts U.S.-China competition in a more antagonistic light than may be necessary and underemphasizes critical non-military instruments of power.

Hammer time

That the Defense Department is in the lead of the U.S. integrated deterrence mission is no surprise. Modern deterrence theory originated as a martial concept. Even if it didn’t, in recent years many traditionally nonmilitary activities have become martial ones as “the military became everything”—a recent case in point being its lead role in the emergency airlift of baby formula.

This militarization of traditionally nonmilitary activities has consequences. As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

For strategic deterrence, military threats alone appear to have worked quite well. Happily, few leaders seem to be keen on global thermonuclear war. But strategic deterrence successes do not always translate well to the local, conventional level. U.S. military threats across great distances in defense of non-allied states often lack the credibility required for effective deterrence.

The phrase "integrated deterrence" provides a useful cognitive distance from earlier notions of deterrence. It makes clear that to be most effective, deterrence requires the purposeful use of non-U.S. and nonmilitary resources. Unfortunately, the Defense Department's lead role in integrated deterrence illustrates that this cognitive distance hasn’t translated from U.S. minds to U.S. actions.

U(S) can’t touch this

For Xi Jinping, the stakes for Taiwan involve his legacy and his party’s promise of national rejuvenation. Meanwhile, the U.S. commitment to Taiwan, as communicated to Xi, is ostensibly about democracy—except that Taipei enjoyed Washington’s support for four decades before it shook off authoritarianism with its first fully free parliamentary elections in 1992. Less idealistically, others have made the case for defending Taiwan based on the importance of free and open shipping lanes and air routes—except that, once in control of the island, China would have ample reasons to allowing shipping and air travel to resume as normal given its economy’s heavy reliance on trade for growth.

Control of microchip manufacturing is a more well-founded concern, at least in the short term. But the United States and its European allies are investing heavily in the development of more robust microchip industries to reduce their reliance on the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. What happens to Taiwan’s TSMC-comprised “silicon shield” when these U.S. and European efforts are successful?

China has also been working to wean itself off its dependence on Taiwanese microchips since at least 2020, when TSMC was banned from shipping semiconductors to Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Sooner or later, Taiwan’s “silicon shield” will begin to show cracks.

Meanwhile, Xi has other options beyond invasion. What of a blockade? Would a Berlin Airlift-style response be possible? Some flights during Operation Vittles were as short as 110 miles. The distance from Taiwan to the nearest non-Chinese-controlled airfield is about ten times that. More likely would be a non-military response—one that will be hard to communicate in advance as part of the U.S. integrated deterrence package if the Pentagon is in the lead.

Stop hammer time

To be sure, any deterrence strategy must include the hammer that the Defense Department can wield. But, beyond questions of its effectiveness in deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, over-reliance on the military and securitization generally is likely to have broader deleterious effects on U.S. relations in the Indo-Pacific. Americans risk becoming the “Hessians of Asia” by taking a security-first approach in the region.

To prevent this, integrated deterrence must give more equal weight to nonmilitary and non-U.S. components. In a recent report, my colleagues and I proposed that this be done by tying integrated deterrence to our notion of formal bilateral influence capacity, whereby the U.S. capacity to compel and deter others is the product of an array of economic, political, and security-based policymaking instruments that can be leveraged bilaterally as well as through a network of allies and partners. If successful, such an approach would provide the United States and its partners a “collective resilience.”

Even if a U.S. deterrence-by-denial strategy with respect to Taiwan is not convincing to Xi, the U.S. and partner capacity for deterrence by resilience ought to be, especially given China’s heavy dependence on the U.S. and several of its allies for hundreds of key goods. Relatedly, substantial, sustained decreases in imports from China to the U.S. and Europe would force Chinese leadership to make hard choices: “a further increase in infrastructure investment (and in the country’s debt burden) or it will have to allow unemployment to rise.”

China’s debt is already quite high, and many of the major debt holders—local governments wrapped up in real estate—have little ability to repay their debts. China is also in the middle of a youth unemployment crisis. As such, neither an increase in debt nor an increase in unemployment is a good option for Chinese leadership, which could face a legitimacy crisis—and even threaten Xi’s survival—if it were to face major post-invasion economic blowback.

Convincing partners and allies to join the U.S. in a coordinated response to deter an invasion of Taiwan will be difficult. A recent survey from the European Council on Foreign Relations showed that the majority of the more than 16,000 respondents across 11 European countries thought their respective countries should remain neutral in the event of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. It will take substantial diplomatic efforts to turn the tide of European public opinion—efforts ill-suited for the Defense Department.

The National Security Council is an obvious candidate to lead U.S. integrated deterrence efforts given its primary mission of managing the interagency. The NSC would of course need to task organizations such as the Pentagon with implementation, but NSC coordination would allow for a larger role for the State Department as well as Treasury. Military options would remain available, just not as the tool of first resort.

2 legit 2 quit

Deterrence is an imperfect art, and any approach to integrated deterrence may fail. By deemphasizing the Defense Department’s role in integrated deterrence, it increases the chances of success by substantially increasing the credibility of U.S. threats. And if it fails to deter China—after all, economic and diplomatic threats did not stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—it offers a softer landing on the other side of the “brink,” should the United States, China, and Taiwan slip past it.

Meanwhile, calls have been made, and apparently heeded, to boost Taiwan’s defensive capabilities and U.S. capabilities to respond to potential hostilities across the Taiwan Strait. These are important and necessary steps. But questions around the will to use these capabilities are likely to remain. By taking the Defense Department out of the lead for the U.S. integrated deterrence strategy and instead treating its metaphorical hammer as one tool among many, the U.S. will to act—and ability to act in a coordinated fashion that uses its suite of national power instruments—will be much less in question.

Collin Meisel is associate director of geopolitical analysis at the University of Denver’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is also a geopolitics and modeling expert at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, and a nonresident fellow with The Henry L. Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub.

defenseone.com · by Collin Meisel

16. The Pivotal Mission in Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: Hunting for Mines

There are photos and graphics at the inik.

The Pivotal Mission in Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: Hunting for Mines

Mines are proving one of the biggest challenges for Kyiv’s slow-moving counteroffensive

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pivotal-mission-in-ukraines-counteroffensive-hunting-for-mines-78197558?mod=hp_lead_pos8

By Isabel ColesFollow

 and Ievgeniia Sivorka | Photographs by Emanuele Satolli for The Wall Street Journal

Updated July 20, 2023 12:05 am ET

BAHATYR, Ukraine—The Ukrainian soldiers set off in pitch black, stealing through shell-cratered fields to carry out one of the most important tasks of the counteroffensive—and one of the most dangerous.

Armed with a metal detector, a shovel and a grappling hook, the combat engineers—known as sappers—hunt for mines along the front line with Russian forces, while trying to remain undetected by the enemy nearby.

“You can’t afford to be nervous,” said a 49-year-old sapper with the call sign Fisherman who leads a group of 50 within Ukraine’s 68th Jaeger Brigade.

After an initial thrust using Western-donated tanks and other armored vehicles foundered in a Russian minefield in early June, Ukrainian forces turned to men like Fisherman to clear a way forward.

Russia built some of the most extensive battlefield fortifications seen since the World Wars during the months that Western forces were training and equipping Kyiv’s forces to go on the offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lamented that Western allies didn’t move faster, giving Russia time to mine an area larger than California.

‘You can’t afford to be nervous,’ says Fisherman, a 49-year-old sapper.

Despite the challenge, Ukraine has clawed back more territory since the start of the counteroffensive more than six weeks ago than Russia seized over the same number of months. And Kyiv has yet to throw all its forces into battle, keeping back some Western-trained units to exploit any breach in Russia’s defenses.

But progress has been slower than Ukrainian and Western officials had hoped for, and Russia’s main line of defenses still lies ahead—beyond fields studded with both antitank and antipersonnel mines, concrete reinforced trenches, wire entanglements, dragon’s teeth and antitank ditches.

Engineering has proved to be one of the stronger branches of the Russian military, the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute think tank said in a report earlier this year. Obstacles including mines are designed to slow Ukrainian forces down and channel advancing infantry into positions where Russian attack helicopters, artillery and drones can pick them off.

A Russian manual dated 2023 and obtained by a Ukrainian military officer set out guidelines for using mines to thwart Ukrainian mechanized columns. Some antitank mines are to be laid without camouflage to divert Ukrainian forces into areas where hidden mines are placed. Others should be planted in clusters beside obstacles such as disabled vehicles and destroyed tracts of road to ensnare Ukrainian forces attempting to bypass them.

Mine-clearing equipment was included in a $60 million package of military aid the U.S. provided to Ukraine last year.

A wounded Ukrainian soldier is carried on a stretcher after stepping on a landmine near Pokrovske, Ukraine.

Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journa​l

Among the solutions are the Mine Clearing Line Charge, which launches a small rocket with a line of explosive charges across a minefield and is detonated to trigger any mines nearby. Ukraine already has a Soviet-developed equivalent.

One of the six Leopard 2R armored mine-clearing vehicles provided to Ukraine by Finland was destroyed in the early days of the counteroffensive and two were damaged, according to Oryx, an independent team of analysts tracking both sides’ losses in the war.

A satellite image on Fisherman’s phone illustrates what Ukrainian forces are up against: It shows a belt of antitank mines, five rows deep, in front of a Russian position. But before clearing a path through enemy mines, the sappers had to open a gap in their own.

An avid fisherman, Fisherman compares his hobby to his job, in the sense that both involve laying bait and waiting for a catch. He fought against Russia during an earlier phase of the conflict in 2015 but went back to work in the construction industry until the full-blown invasion last year.

The Mine Clearing Line Charge, or Miclic, can clear a corridor of up to 328 feet long through minefields, and wide enough to safely accommodate tanks or personnel carriers. It works by launching a hydraulic rocket carrying a line of C-4 explosive charges behind. As they detonate, they also trigger mines within range, including antipersonnel mines and magnetically activated mines.

The Miclic is easily towed wherever it’s needed.

Hydraulic launcher

The launcher is ready to be used again in 20 minutes.

350 feet of rope with

small C-4 bundles

The Miclic can clear

a corridor 26 feet wide

—enough for troops and vehicles to follow behind.

Its crew needs to take cover away from the blast area.

Sources: Federation of American Scientists; U.S. Marines

Adrienne Tong/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

After arriving on the front line near Vuhledar last year, his men, who call themselves the Fishermen, set about planting some 25,000 mines across an area roughly a quarter the size of Manhattan. It sometimes involved trudging several miles carrying multiple antitank mines, weighing 22 pounds each.

The mines the Fishermen laid tore up Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, thwarting repeated assaults around the village of Vuhledar during a failed winter offensive. A video on Fisherman’s phone shows three unsuspecting Russian tanks advancing in single file along a track etched through snowy fields. Enemy sappers had previously cleared the route, Fisherman said, but his men went out under cover of night and mined it again. The footage shows the first tank rolling over a mine, triggering an explosion that prompts the rest of the convoy to turn tail.

As the offensive loomed, the Fishermen were tasked with clearing a path through their own defenses without revealing where Ukrainian forces intended to attack. To keep the enemy guessing, the sappers removed explosives from mines they had laid while leaving the outer shell as a decoy.

The so-called Fishermen are tasked with hunting for mines along the front line.

A sapper shows how he detects and removes a mine from the ground.

Ukrainian forces achieved some early tactical successes on the Fishermen’s front, retaking the eastern village of Blahodatne. But, like everywhere else, mines have proved a big problem. In one instance, Ukrainian forces overran a Russian position only to come under heavy artillery fire. While attempting to retreat with the wounded, they triggered an antipersonnel mine, said a sapper with a goatee with the call sign Buba.

“When we go into occupied territory, we are blind,” said Buba.

Wearing night-vision goggles, the sappers scan the ground in front of them with a metal detector. At times they get so close to Russian positions they can hear the voices of their enemies. When the metal detector picks up a signal, they probe the earth to establish what lies beneath. There is no room for nerves. “Your hands can’t shake,” said Fisherman, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Good evening, we are from Ukraine.”

Landmine activity

Anti-personnel landmine

Civilian accident

Anti-tank landmine

Demining accident

Unknown landmine

RUSSIAN-CONTROLLED

Kyiv

Kharkiv

UKRAINE

Luhansk

Zaporizhzhia

Donetsk

Mariupol

Kherson

Odesa

Note: Data compiled through open-source research and ground operations and can underrepresent the total number of accidents and casualties. Area of control as of July 17.

Sources: HALO Trust (landmine activity); Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project (area of control)

Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Often the metal detected is harmless shrapnel that litters fields along the front line in southern Ukraine. But if it is a mine, the sappers uncover it using a spade with a short handle before attaching a grappling hook with a cord.

From a safe distance, they tug at the cord to dislodge the antitank mine. Russian forces often place an antipersonnel mine underneath, which is triggered when the antitank mine is removed. “There is always a risk,” said Buba.

Tripwires aren’t visible in the dark, so the sappers sometimes wait until dawn to go out and search for them. For that, Fisherman said, the best tool is a reed: taut but yielding enough not to trigger a trip wire. “Nobody has come up with a tool better than this,” he said, plucking a reed from the bank of a river flowing past. The men were on a break from front-line duties and were staying in a vacant house while awaiting further orders.

Sappers have a short life expectancy, Fisherman said. Despite that, he said he hasn’t lost a single man to a mine so far. That, he considers his greatest achievement.

“I didn’t come here to be a hero,” he said. “I just came here to do my job: to win the war.”

Sappers prepare and pack their equipment before moving to another location.

Fisherman says not losing a single man to a mine is his greatest achievement.

Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

17. Pentagon Joins Elon Musk’s War Against Plane Tracking

We can learn so much from unclassified open source contracting information. So can our enemies.

Pentagon Joins Elon Musk’s War Against Plane Tracking

The U.S. military’s elite special operations command doesn’t want its planes tracked, according to a procurement document.

Sam Biddle

July 18 2023, 10:49 a.m.

The Intercept · by Sam Biddle · July 18, 2023

A technology wish list circulated by the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command suggests the country’s most secretive war-fighting component shares an anxiety with the world’s richest man: Too many people can see where they’re flying their planes.

The Joint Special Operations Air Component, responsible for ferrying commandos and their gear around the world, is seeking help keeping these flights out of the public eye through a “‘Big Data’ Analysis & Feedback Tool,” according to a procurement document obtained by The Intercept. The document is one of a series of periodic releases of lists of technologies that special operations units would like to see created by the private sector.

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The listing specifically calls out the risk of social media “tail watchers” and other online observers who might identify a mystery plane as a military flight. According to the document, the Joint Special Operations Air Component needs software to “leverage historical and real-time data, such as the travel histories and details of specific aircraft with correlation to open-source information, social media, and flight reporting.”

Armed with this data, the tool would help the special operations gauge how much scrutiny a given plane has received in the past and how likely it is to be connected to them by prying eyes online.

“It just gives them better information on how to blend in. It’s like the police deciding to use the most common make of local car as an undercover car.”

Rather than providing the ability to fake or anonymize flight data, the tool seems to be aimed at letting sensitive military flights hide in plain sight. “It just gives them better information on how to blend in,” Scott Lowe, a longtime tail watcher and aviation photographer told The Intercept. “It’s like the police deciding to use the most common make of local car as an undercover car.”

While plane tracking has long been a niche hobby among aviation enthusiasts who enjoy cataloging the comings and goings of aircraft, the public availability of midair transponder data also affords journalists, researchers, and other observers an effective means of tracking the movements and activities of the world’s richest and most powerful. The aggregation and analysis of public flight data has shed light on CIA torture flights, movements of Russian oligarchs, and Google’s chummy relationship with NASA.

More recently, these sleuthing techniques gained international attention after they drew the ire of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. After he purchased the social media giant Twitter, Musk banned an account that shared the movements of his private jet. Despite repeated promises to protect free speech — and a specific pledge to not ban the @ElonJet account — on the platform, Musk proceeded to censor anyone sharing his plane’s whereabouts, claiming the entirely legally obtained and fully public data amounted to “assassination coordinates.”

The Joint Special Operations Air Component’s desire for more discreet air travel, published six months after Musk’s jet data meltdown, is likely more firmly grounded in reality.

The Joint Special Operations Air Component provides a hypothetical scenario in which special forces need to travel with a “reduced profile” — that is to say, quietly — and use this tool.

“When determining if the planned movement is suitable and appropriate,” the procurement document says, “the ‘Aircraft Flight Profile Management Database Tool’ reveals that the aircraft is primarily associated with a distinctly different geographic area” — a frequent tip-off to civilian plane trackers that something interesting is afoot. “Additionally, ‘tail watchers’ have posted on social media pictures of the aircraft at various airfields. Based on the information available, the commander decides to utilize a different airframe for the mission. With the aircraft in flight, the tool is monitored for any indication of increased scrutiny or mission compromise.”

The request is part of a broad-ranging list of technologies sought by the Joint Special Operations Command, from advanced radios and portable blood pumps to drones that can fly months at a time. The 85-page list essentially advertises these technologies for private-sector contractors, who may be able to sell them to the Pentagon in the near future.

“What will be interesting is seeing how they change their operations after having this information.”

The document — marked unclassified but for “Further dissemination only as directed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Joint Capability and Technology Expo (JCTE) Team” — is part of an annual effort by Joint Special Operations Command to “inform and influence industry’s internal investment decisions in areas that address SOF’s most sensitive and urgent interest areas.”

The anti-plane-tracking tool fits into a broader pattern of the military attempting to minimize the visibility of its flights, according to Ian Servin, a pilot and plane-tracking enthusiast. In March, the military removed tail numbers and other identifying marks from its planes.

“What will be interesting is seeing how they change their operations after having this information,” Servin said. From a transparency standpoint, he added, “Those changes could be problematic or concerning.”

Contact the author:

Sam Biddle sam.biddle@​theintercept.com @samfbiddle

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The Intercept · by Sam Biddle · July 18, 2023

18. TSMC Delays Start of First Arizona Chip Factory, Citing Worker Shortage

This is a national security issue just as recruiting qualified Americans for the military is. Korean companies operating in the US are having a similar challenge. The bottom line is we have a shortage of Americans qualified for military service and qualified for skilled labor and high tech manufacturing jobs. What does this say about America?

Excerpt:

TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said that construction in Arizona is hampered by a shortage of skilled workers, and that the company might have to bring in experienced technicians temporarily from Taiwan. He said this would delay the start of mass production of 4-nanometer chips in the first factory until 2025.

TSMC Delays Start of First Arizona Chip Factory, Citing Worker Shortage

Taiwanese semiconductor maker forecasts sales drop this year but predicts boom in AI-related business

By Yang Jie

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July 20, 2023 7:04 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tsmc-delays-start-of-first-arizona-chip-factory-citing-worker-shortage-4a9344e5?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

TSMC said it expect big benefits from the blossoming artificial-intelligence business, which relies on advanced chips often made by the company. PHOTO: CFOTO/ZUMA PRESS

The world’s top contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., said sales are likely to decline 10% this year and a planned Arizona factory would miss its target of starting mass production next year. 

TSMC’s TSM -0.09%decrease; red down pointing triangle statements Thursday reflected industry challenges including soft consumer demand, rising costs and a shortage of various types of skilled worker. The company said people with expertise erecting semiconductor facilities were in short supply in the U.S. 

But it offered a more bullish midterm forecast, saying it expects big benefits from the blossoming artificial-intelligence business, which relies on advanced chips often made by TSMC. 

The company said it expects revenue in 2023 to be down 10%, a larger percentage drop than the low-to-mid single digits it forecast three months ago. Revenue in 2022 was about $76 billion.

Chief Executive C.C. Wei said a sluggish economic recovery in key markets, particularly China, led to subdued demand for chips in smartphones, servers and cars. He said TSMC customers are exercising caution in managing their inventories to avoid getting overstocked. 

TSMC said its capital expenditures this year would come in at the lower end of its previous forecast of $32 billion to $36 billion, compared with last year’s record $36.3 billion. Some 70% to 80% of the investment will go to building up capacity for the most advanced semiconductors, the company said.

Wei said the company witnessed surging demand from AI firms. TSMC, a contract manufacturer, makes chips designed by companies like Nvidia that train chatbots such as ChatGPT to answer questions drawing on vast databases of information.

Wei said chips used for AI functions now account for 6% of TSMC’s revenue, expected to rise above 10% in coming years. TSMC is likely to grab a big chunk of AI-related chip demand, he said, reprising its current role dominating the market for advanced chips. 

TSMC is pushing to finish its first factory in Arizona, a project supported by the Biden administration as part of its plan to make the U.S. a top chip-manufacturing hub again. Against the backdrop of worsening relations with China, Washington has been trying to build a chip supply chain centered around the U.S. and allies such as South Korea and Japan.

TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said that construction in Arizona is hampered by a shortage of skilled workers, and that the company might have to bring in experienced technicians temporarily from Taiwan. He said this would delay the start of mass production of 4-nanometer chips in the first factory until 2025.

Previously TSMC described the 4-nanometer chip as the leading product of the first Arizona factory and said production would start in 2024. Overall, it expects to invest $40 billion in Arizona. 

Liu said TSMC is still awaiting the U.S. government’s final offer of subsidies and tax credits. The company is counting on that money to cover the cost gap between building in the U.S. and building in Taiwan, at least for the first five years. 

TSMC makes the main processors inside Apple’s iPhones. It has about 60% of the third-party chip manufacturing business, followed by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics at 12%, according to research firm TrendForce.

The company said demand for AI-enabling chips is outpacing its ability to supply them. It said it is working as quickly as it can to build its capabilities in advanced chip packaging, in which chips are stacked like Lego blocks to make more-powerful products.Write to Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com

19. The Future of Algorithmic Warfare: Fragmented Development

Excerpts:

The historical precedent to the future scenario above is the U.S. Army of the 1990s. Visionary leaders like Sullivan imagined new concepts and capabilities for an information-age military. Sullivan pushed to change the bureaucracy and accelerate that change but struggled to overcome deep-seated interests and balance the demands of generating rapidly deployable forces for contingencies in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans and designing new unit types. His vision of war in the information age, while prescient, failed to change the army at the speed and scale he had hoped for. Change did come, but it took another generation.

It is too soon to say whether the latest efforts to usher in a new era of algorithmic warfare will face a similar fate. There are reasons to be optimistic. The chief digital and artificial intelligence effort is creating a diverse network of military professionals, civilian officials, and private sector firms ready to change warfare. Service level initiatives like Scarlet Dragon are similarly pushing ahead. At the same time, the fate of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control could cause the whole wave of experimentation to fizzle out, with different services backing different solutions creating a bureaucratic coordination challenge and limiting the likelihood of real military revolution.

The true test of whether the latest push for innovation will succeed is whether or not military organizations start to build new command and control constructs and entirely new formations. If the readers of War on the Rocks start to see articles along these lines turned into field experiments and entirely new units, the possibility of change starts to emerge. If they find glossy think tank reports and LinkedIn posts about new code injected into old bureaucracies, they should not lose hope. Change will come. It will just be slow, uneven, and prone to more half-steps and missteps than real success.

The Future of Algorithmic Warfare: Fragmented Development - War on the Rocks

BENJAMIN JENSEN, CHRISTOPHER WHYTE, AND SCOTT CUOMO

warontherocks.com · by Benjamin Jensen · July 20, 2023

Editor’s Note: What follows is an excerpt from the authors’ forthcoming book, Information in War: Military Innovation, Battle Networks, and the Future of Artificial Intelligence.

The current promise that artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities will revolutionize warfare stands in contrast to the historical record of high hopes and stalled progress of algorithmic warfare in the profession of arms. Despite the novelty of new chat bots and battlefield proliferation of AI/ML in Ukraine, the extent to which large, legacy military organizations — read the U.S. armed services — will prove adept at cultivating change is still uncertain.

To that end, we wrote a book — Information in War: Military Innovation, Battle Networks, and the Future of Artificial Intelligence — about how military organizations adapt new information technologies, which includes modern battle networks and AI/ML. We did so because as scholars and military professionals we have witnessed stalled progress up close. In the book, we offer four alternative futures about the prospects for AI/ML in the U.S. military. Each is written as a slice-of-time scenario following the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff on their morning commute. The logic of each scenario maps the findings from historical case studies in the book exploring how and why the military profession has struggled to integrate new information technologies to build battle networks over the last one hundred years.

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In this first scenario we show that bold innovators can find their path blocked by bad bureaucracy. Even when ideas about change are in the air — like today with the excitement around AI/ML including generative approaches and large-language models — progress can still be stalled by antiquated organizations and old routines. No amount of technology can substitute for an unwillingness to experiment and adapt legacy force design to take advantage of new information technology, including AI/ML. New gadgets die in the iron cage of outdated bureaucracy.

* * *

The year is 2040. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rides to the Pentagon in her unmanned car, browsing a roundup of defense news, while listening to a historical podcast on the politics of the Army in the 1990s. As the narrator talks about Gen. Gordon Sullivan and efforts to digitize the Cold War Army, three headlines catch her eye and pause her news scrolling:

“Air Force Colonel Questioned over Swarm Experiment Challenging the Current Design of Fighter Squadrons.”

“New Report: Chinese AI-Driven Simulators Rely on Scraping Social Media to Train Models on U.S. Military Doctrine, Decision-Making.”

“Army Surgeon General Joins American Medical Association Lawsuit Against Hippocrates Application and Other Digital Physician Services.”

She asks her digital assistant to summarize a recent Congressional Research Services report on the status of AI/ML integration across the U.S. military. The bottom line hadn’t changed: Legacy organizational structures and bureaucracies larger than they are nimble limited the ability of the U.S. military to truly harness the power of AI/ML to revolutionize warfare. There were innovators who both shaped and used policy directives to run local experiments. New accounting lines were even being created to fund it all. But, just like the Air Force colonel, innovators were often being held back by arbitrary rules and a cadre of institutionalized souls. This older generation of retired colonels turned federal employees seemed more interested in preserving the status quo than changing it. Why question a bureaucracy and career paths that made you successful?

The services were willing to experiment or at least put on grand plays about it, innovation theater at its finest. Hell, there was money on the table! But the deeply-rooted structures — the staffs, corps, the divisions, the battalions and squadrons, the very nature of the rank structure — remained little changed since Napoleon. The military was an antique iron cage.

More traditional senior leaders, who tended to populate service leadership, claimed there was an enduring essence to combat that made corps, air wings, and other large staff structures vital to coordinating effects in warfare. They saw the benefits of increased precision and lethality but preserved a view of judgment as hierarchal and human, often in a pre-Copernican manner revolving around themselves — “the Commander” — as opposed to data aggregated and analyzed across a larger battle network. Machines could help to filter information and even propose courses of action, but the old men on horseback still preferred “green tab to green tab,” commander-to-commander interactions and delegating to staff absent the watchful eye of AI applications. It was an almost romantic view of a tragic enterprise: killing in the name of politics.

The general reflected on her own career. She remembered being detailed to the Joint AI Center as a young captain during the 2020 pandemic, working alongside vendors and scientists to try to predict how the virus would spread and what likely logistical backlogs would emerge. She remembered turning down lucrative offers to leave the U.S. Army to work for a firm that trained visual classification programs that used social media posts to facilitate romantic matchmaking. She loved the coding but found most of the commercial applications trivial.

She was at the front end of a generational shift. Her peers were a mix of digital natives who either understood basic computing principles or just lived unaware in an endless stream of the interactions they facilitated. This produced a mix of skepticism and trust entirely based on an individual officer’s knowledge. Those who understood basic coding, statistics, and computing concepts understood the promise and peril of AI/ML, even its limits in solving military problems. Those that lived online simply tended to trust technology, from their data to their choices, and assumed that someone or something else would make it all work.

She was younger than the generals who still controlled the major combat commands and upper echelons of the services. Fast-tracked ahead of her peers on four occasions, she was also the first non-combat arms chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In hindsight, her career was a series of occupational dead ends that always seemed to open new doors. After the pandemic she was pulled into the Chief Data and AI Office and the Global Information Dominance Experiments to develop algorithms supporting dynamic targeting. Her work propelled ideas about scalable battle networks and data at the edge. She was an intelligence officer who ended up spending more time building programming infrastructure and leading coding teams than advising the old school commanders on what the enemy was going to do. She spent more time fighting against entrenched notions about intuition and trying to explain Big Data and things like Bayes’ theorem to fellow officers than she did on building old-fashioned military combined obstacle overlays and collection plans little changed since Desert Storm.

The general was jolted from her memories as the unmanned car hit the curb as it swerved to avoid a homeless man wandering onto Army-Navy Drive in Arlington, Virginia. She remembered the shock of most Americans when they discovered that no amount of automation would end all traffic fatalities, much less theft or murder. Over the last twenty years, amazing strides in AI applications altered daily life and even how the military fought but it didn’t remove the greed, grievances, or emotions of people. It didn’t stop bureaucracies and legacy institutions from resisting change.

It did change the art of war. Despite the survival of large, legacy commands, war was now often conducted by small groups in the shadows supported by swarms of unmanned systems and networks of analysts around the world combing through data and debating insights from models. Data became the new key terrain. Those that had data and could replicate patterns, even possible decisions, gained a position of advantage. Those that didn’t usually reacted based on outdated priors. Those that had data and nimble force structures could simultaneously swarm targets and collapse enemy systems. Those that had large, legacy footprints maneuvered more like hoplites and tank armies of old, set piece and deliberate. Modern war was less climatic and more a series of violent, punctuated equilibriums as one side thought they had a data advantage and could act. Only AI/ML applications could filter the mass amounts of information, but the military often strained to act, slowed by legacy force structure and staff processes.

As the unmanned car pulled into the Pentagon parking lot, staff greeted her and escorted the general to her office while her digital assistant began her classified brief. After her biometric scan entering the building, her feed — a neural implant — began telling her the latest classified updates prioritized based on an analysis of her prior reading and trending material across the national security enterprise. The system only activated once she was in the building and biometrically matched to ensure operational security.

She experienced the last battlefield update from ongoing counterterror operations in Africa. The 101st Airborne Division Headquarters was forward, command and controlling a train and assist mission and providing support to a task force tracking down a fringe group believed to be backed by the Russian GRU and the latest in a series of shadowy private military contractors. She remembered using AI/ML to scrape Telegram posts after the Wagner Group’s failed mutiny in 2023. Looking at the new mission, the chairman wondered why the mission needed a division headquarters at all. She had done the same mission with just a few CIA operatives and special operators in the Middle East over twenty years ago, crunching data and coding on the fly. Sure, her kit was nothing like what they had access to today, but the effect was the same: scalable battle networks.

As she entered her office, a new feed emerged in her neural link. It was a message from the commandant of the Marine Corps. It was another swan song about the importance of large, manned infantry formations to preserve flexibility in future war. The chairman remembered how the optimism around force design in the U.S. Marine Corps was overcome by a network of retirees and zealots who saw themselves as Spartans. She knew a warning shot when she saw one. The general was really telling her that he had access to an almost cult-like constituency ready to overwhelm congressional offices with bot-assisted calls for her resignation if she pressed AI-force structure shifts that would reduce the size of large infantry organizations any further.

She thought again back to Sullivan and his efforts to digitize the post-Cold War Army. She had to balance the speed of change against the counter-mobilization of a network of officials and vested interests. The fact that her generation — now starting to take senior commands — only partially understood technology made this task all the harder. Digital natives tended to compromise where information technology and data were concerned. They assumed technology always worked, even if there were hiccups along the way, and could be added to any institution or process to make it fast, stronger… whatever the quality de jure may be. They tended to push for keeping things like divisions and large staffs in place — hell, that’s how they got promoted! — and just add new algorithms to old processes to achieve new efficiencies. Sullivan’s fate, she thought — that of a stalled change — was more likely than not her own.

* * *

As the scenario implies, there are reasons to be concerned that the current wave of enthusiasm around AI/ML will collide with legacy bureaucratic structures. The result: Old ways of waging new wars could produce diminishing marginal returns in a defense bureaucracy already strained by rising personnel costs, inflation, and challenges in passing even a basic audit. Successful states don’t waste blood and treasure.

Military innovation does not emerge from a vacuum. It requires a diverse network of people, career pathways, and institutional antecedents. Technology can catalyze but not create change absent open institutional pathways for experimentation and change. As the scenario implies, there is a future on the horizon in which no amount of private sector AI/ML innovation can overcome the inability of the military to rethink its structure to take advantage of new way of war. Without structural change, new technology at best produces diminishing marginal returns. Like in the cautionary tale of tanks in the interwar period, new equipment gets added to infantry platoons as opposed to creating new armored formations.

The historical precedent to the future scenario above is the U.S. Army of the 1990s. Visionary leaders like Sullivan imagined new concepts and capabilities for an information-age military. Sullivan pushed to change the bureaucracy and accelerate that change but struggled to overcome deep-seated interests and balance the demands of generating rapidly deployable forces for contingencies in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans and designing new unit types. His vision of war in the information age, while prescient, failed to change the army at the speed and scale he had hoped for. Change did come, but it took another generation.

It is too soon to say whether the latest efforts to usher in a new era of algorithmic warfare will face a similar fate. There are reasons to be optimistic. The chief digital and artificial intelligence effort is creating a diverse network of military professionals, civilian officials, and private sector firms ready to change warfare. Service level initiatives like Scarlet Dragon are similarly pushing ahead. At the same time, the fate of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control could cause the whole wave of experimentation to fizzle out, with different services backing different solutions creating a bureaucratic coordination challenge and limiting the likelihood of real military revolution.

The true test of whether the latest push for innovation will succeed is whether or not military organizations start to build new command and control constructs and entirely new formations. If the readers of War on the Rocks start to see articles along these lines turned into field experiments and entirely new units, the possibility of change starts to emerge. If they find glossy think tank reports and LinkedIn posts about new code injected into old bureaucracies, they should not lose hope. Change will come. It will just be slow, uneven, and prone to more half-steps and missteps than real success.

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Benjamin Jensen, Ph.D., is a professor of strategic studies at the School of Advanced Warfighting in the Marine Corps University and a senior fellow for future war, gaming, and strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Christopher Whyte, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Colonel Scott Cuomo, Ph.D., currently serves as a senior U.S. Marine Corps advisor within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He helped co-author these essays while participating in the Commandant of the Marine Corps Strategist Program and also serving as the service’s representative on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

Image: AI Generated by Dr. Ben Jensen

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Benjamin Jensen · July 20, 2023

20. Reaching the Tipping Point: Lessons from Combining Kinetic and Information Operations

Excerpts:

Lesson 1: If there’s no picture, it didn’t happen.

Lesson 2: There’s a method to the social media madness.

The third lesson in combining informational and kinetic effects in warfare is that an information operation cannot rely on the persuasiveness or morality (it’s relative, after all) of its message.

Lesson 4: The tipping point

Dominance in future warfare

Reaching the Tipping Point: Lessons from Combining Kinetic and Information Operations - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Iain Cruickshank, Kirk Windmueller, Matt Benigni · July 19, 2023

Iain Cruickshank, Kirk Windmueller, and Matt Benigni

This article is part of a series hosted by Maj. Iain Cruickshank, Ph.D., that explores the idea of combining cyber operations with information operations to produce effects well beyond what each capability can accomplish alone.

One dark night in a far-off country, a circling drone launches a Hellfire missile. The missile strikes its target, destroying a vehicle carrying an insurgent leader who was attempting to move from one safe house to another. At roughly the same time, a military public affairs team releases a series of messages, giving a detailed description of the successful strike and tagging several key media outlets and local social media influencers. Later, as the sun rises, the insurgent group starts posting its own messages, calling the strike “a targeted attack on innocent civilians,” while remaining silent about the death of the group’s leader.

But the insurgents’ messages fall flat and fail to generate significant online engagement or to inflame the local population. Instead, social media chatter remains focused on the insurgent leader’s death and the precision strike that killed him. The military public affairs team’s intentional pairing of kinetic and information operations, in the physical and information dimensions, has served its purpose: to deny the insurgent group the effects they typically generate when they have uncontested control of the narrative. As a result, support for the counterinsurgency effort is untarnished by the kinetic strike, and the insurgency suffers a serious setback with the loss of a key leader.

Today, militaries are integrating information and kinetic operations more than ever before, and everyone is talking about multidomain operations (MDO). Formations are learning how a well-timed information operation can amplify the effects of a kinetic strike, deny an adversary first-mover status in the information dimension, or be used to seed psychological effects in an adversarial target audience. Moreover, timely and well-planned information operations can be used to complement a broad range of military operations and, when employed routinely, can be a force multiplier in MDO. While many of the operational details of combined kinetic and information operations remain classified, their effects are often visible in open-source reporting and are largely undeniable. we illustrate how lessons learned from combining kinetic and information operations are applicable to other domains, like cyberspace.

Lesson 1: If there’s no picture, it didn’t happen.

The first lesson from combining kinetic and information operations is that any strike should have an accompanying information operation to maximize effects. Information operations should be integrated into the kinetic strike plan, to include support before, during, and after the operation or, during the preparation phase, actions on the objective, and any post-mission and consequence management. The reason kinetic planners should learn to account for the information dimension in their operations is because the information dimension affects all five warfighting domains, including cyberspace. Like land, air, sea, space and cyberspace, the information dimension is its own battleground. But, unlike the five warfare domains, the information dimension has made the human dimension of warfare (e.g., the ability to directly affect human cognitive processes and behavior) accessible at a scale never seen before in human history – we can see war happening in real time from our computer screens or smart phones. Thus, because the information environment is ubiquitous, it is persistently contested, making it an essential element of operational planning in modern warfare.

There are several examples of successful information operations designed to support kinetic effects. During the War in Donbas, Russian forces used information operations on Ukrainian soldiers’ families in an effort to compel the use of digital communications among Ukrainian soldiers. Using digital communications, such as a cell phone, on the battlefield creates an electromagnetic signature that an opposing force can use for targeting purposes. Soldiers become quickly exposed to that target the sources of the electromagnetic radiation created with a digital communication device.

Another example of integrated operations can be seen in this article’s opening vignette. Conducting an information operation in the wake of a kinetic strike is a way to mitigate any potential informational counterattacks by an adversary. Additionally, information operations that follow a kinetic strike can help generate a greater psychological effect on an adversary, as Russian forces also did in the Donbas by sending texts immediately following artillery strikes. Of course, there are many ways to integrate information operations with kinetic operations. However, effective engagement of the psychological (e.g., popular support for a conflict or combatant) requires timely and well-planed information operations that are integrated effectively.

We assert the same variety and criticality likely holds true for cyber operations. A cyber operation, like the hack of a computer containing e-mails or personal documents, can produce a major psychological impact when those same documents are leaked and spread as part of an information operation. Thus, by having an information plan incorporated into a cyber operation, the cyber operation can create a greater effect on an adversary and may even impact an entire population. As with kinetic strikes, having an information plan as part of a cyber operation can accentuate and enhance the overall effects of that operation.

Lesson 2: There’s a method to the social media madness.

The second major lesson drawn from the combination of kinetic and information operations is that successful information operations use the social media space. Over the past 15 years, the way the average person ingests information has changed drastically – we’ve gone from flipping through the pages of a daily newspaper with our breakfast coffee to scrolling through social media on our phones as we wait to pick up a coffee ordered in advance with the Starbucks app. Moreover, the utility and user base of any social media platform is never static. Take, for example, the latest migration of Twitter users to Meta’s Threads as the latest instance of a population and network shift that will result in changes to how many people use social media. In short, information moves faster and reaches more people than ever before. Well over half of the world (and this figure is growing all the time) uses social media as a critical information source, and the result is that social media has become the primary means of spreading information and misinformation to the modern public. Social media provides any user a window through which they can observe a conflict, learn about it, and develop opinions on it, making the human dimension of warfare – such as population beliefs and social connections – accessible at scale, with ease, and for a low cost. As such, any information plan needs to address the medium, because social media Will (almost without exception) have an impact on any information operation.

To use social media successfully, however, it’s important to understand that it is a contested space, and it is . On any social media platform, tensions flare, LOLs and likes accumulate, and nearly every social media user has posted something they regret and been sucked into a thread defending an opinion or attacking one. At their most basic level, social media platforms monetize user engagement by using algorithms to present the most engaging content for a specific user’s historical profile. Increased engagement drives better understanding of the user and allows for precise and targeted advertising. To successfully accomplish this goal at scale, social media platforms also use algorithms to promote engagement from users, and prioritize sensational, emotionally triggering content to stimulate more engagement. Social media users are prone to cognitive biases, especially Anchoring Bias, which refers to the human tendency to place greater emphasis on initial observations. These two characteristics define a competition for early user engagement that drove the rise of ‘social media influencers’ as a cottage industry and turned “influencer” into a recognized career field.

We assert that a similar competition will define who ultimately drives public perception within cyberspace. Any information operation is thus in a race to gain a critical mass of engagement so that its message can gain viral effects and defeat any adversary messaging. A recent example of this was the airport hack by the Russian hacking group Killnet. While the actual hack of airport sites was ultimately unsuccessful (i.e., they only knocked out some public-facing websites at some U.S. airports for a few hours), the group was quickly able to leverage social media to spread news about their hack. That information operation garnered international media coverage and seemed to have an outsized psychological impact on the U.S. population. Thus, controlling the information space in social media can have powerful impacts on a cyber operation – to include turning an operational failure into a strategic success.

The third lesson in combining informational and kinetic effects in warfare is that an information operation cannot rely on the persuasiveness or morality (it’s relative, after all) of its message. Rather, an information operation may need to prioritize the speed of the message over its content – at least initially – to compete successfully for attention on social media. Most importantly, messaging needs to stimulate activity among social media users to leverage a platform’s content promotion algorithms and thus make it more likely that a message will reach a critical mass of engagement. The basic tenets – speed, interaction, and placement – of an information operation’s messaging and the requirement that the content reaches a critical mass of engagement should be thought of both offensively and defensively.

In the scenario given at the beginning of this article, the joint task force went on the defensive and was able to preempt the emotional triggers needed to drive the adversary’s misinformation operation through a multidomain operation that delivered information effects in a timely manner. The pre-positioned messaging prevented the adversary from generating enough angst among its target population and failed to trigger the platform’s algorithmically emphasized content. Before the insurgents had time to respond to the kinetic strike, the joint task force provided a plausible explanation which essentially ‘vaccinated’ the target population against the insurgents’ emotional triggers. From an offensive perspective, information operations may be used to seed social media with emotionally triggering content connected to the effects of a kinetic strike or the brutality of an adversary’s actions somewhere on the battlefield. The main point is that offensive operations likely require an emotional trigger; defensive operations seek to preempt that emotional trigger; and both are characterized by an anchoring bias-driven race for the attention of a target online population.

As with the previous lesson, having a fast and engaging information plan as part of cyber operation can have far reaching effects on that cyber operation. In the Killnet example, the hackers’ information operations were able to create engagement on social media before officials were able to respond, which allowed them to control the narrative and create doubt in the minds of the U.S. populace for weeks afterward. Being first to control engagement in the information space, especially on social media, can have far-reaching impacts on the success of a cyber operation.

Lesson 4: The tipping point

The final lesson for integrating kinetic and information operations is centered around the target audience. From the experiences of the authors, i when they are focused on relatively small, identity-focused, and active online population segments. The idea of using small but active groups to cause a viral spread of something is not new; in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, the idea of appealing to relatively small groups of specific people is highlighted as one of the central ways to make something go viral. Furthermore, the tactic is not new to state-sponsored disinformation spreaders either. Russian state-sponsored information operations targeted specific online communities in the 2016 U.S. election to spread disinformation and sow general distrust in the electoral process. It is also likely that the content mechanisms used by social media platforms relies on the same targeted messaging virality strategy – if your content is stimulating to a given population, then the platform’s algorithm will probably show it to a broader population. The approach tricks users into thinking that there is ‘consensus’ on the topic, reinforcing confirmation bias. The main point is that successful information operations should appeal to highly active, identity-focused groups – especially on social media – rather than trying to create a generic message that appeals to a larger population.

Cyberspace offers distinct opportunities to enable the kind of population segmentation that makes information operations successfultargeted advertising are particularly effective. Modern advertising breaks a population down into distinct segments, based on individual characteristics or behaviors, to find influenceable groups and gearing the message to those populations are a hallmark of targeted advertising and a good set of techniques to stimulate activity among social media users. The use of cyber operations could be fruitful to helping better target the right segments of a populace for successful information operations.

Dominance in future warfare

As the wider military and security communities grapple with the potential of using information operations in conjunction with cyber operations as well as the dangers of our adversaries combining cyber and information operations, we believe it is beneficial to inform those discussions with experiences from combining kinetic and information operations. The use of information operations comes with many challenges, and those challenges become compounded when they are combined with other types of operations. However, combining non-lethal effects and kinetic operations also presents some distinct advantages and contributes to integrated deterrence. In particular, as we consider future conflict concepts, like system of systems warfare, multidomain operations, and Project Convergence, combining cyber and information operations presents some distinct opportunities to disintegrate enemy systems by directly attacking the cognitive underpinnings of any system. Looking to the future, a combined triad of information, kinetic, and cyber operations may be necessary for dominance in the future operating environment. By combining the capabilities from these domains, global commanders will have formidable campaign options to effectively deter both peer and hybrid threats.

Maj. Iain Cruickshank is an Operations Research/Systems Analysis Officer at the Army Cyber Institute. He has previous assignments at the 101st Airborne Division, throughout the Cyber Force, and at Army Futures Command.

Kirk Windmueller is a retired Army Special Forces officer with deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans. He was a former Army Research Fellow at the RAND Arroyo Center and an analyst & technologist for JSOC, and he currently works as a Senior Manager at QinetiQ, an engineering company focused on defense and intelligence capabilities.

Col. Matthew Benigni is the Chief Data Officer at Army Futures Command and previously served as the Chief Data Scientist for the Joint Special Operations Command. He holds a doctorate in Societal Computing from the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science and focuses his research on online extremism and propaganda.

Main image: U.S. Marines of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), set up a loudspeaker on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va, March 18, 2018. (Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jerrod Moore)

21. Why China Won’t Talk With America’s Military

​Excerpts:

The United States simply has no good options for prompting a conversation with China’s military. But there are still a few ways that U.S. policymakers can work with their Chinese counterparts to make military relations more predictable, if not more cordial. Instead of criticizing each other, the two sides could focus on specific concerns where they might be able to come to a more constructive understanding. If China and the United States cannot agree on what “safe” maneuvers are in air and sea military encounters, perhaps they can at least discuss and agree on what kind of military behavior should be defined as “unsafe.”

And U.S. policymakers should remember that China’s risk tolerance may not remain so elevated forever. In fact, Chinese officials could grow warier as soon as next year, especially depending on what happens in the planned Taiwanese elections. Polling suggests that the current Vice President William Lai has a strong chance to win in the election, a victory that would start the third consecutive term in office of the Democratic Progressive Party, a party that Beijing sees as wanting to formalize Taiwan’s de facto independence. A triumph for Lai could prompt punitive military actions from China, which would inevitably incur a response from the United States. As China seeks to manage the escalation of this conflict and appeal to the United States to rein in Taiwan, it might then see the utility of military-to-military talks and to a new round of dialogue with U.S. counterparts about crisis management.

In the interim, however, the United States will have to understand that China has a higher tolerance for risk. Some lines of communication remain open. Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, had an unusual meeting with U.S. defense officials at the Pentagon in July. In advance of Biden’s meeting with Xi in November, China might see the resumption of military-to-military talks as one way to pave the way for a smooth summit. None of this engagement, however, fundamentally changes China’s goal, which is to limit U.S. military activities in the Chinese periphery. Until the United States backs away from the region, Beijing will keep pushing the envelope.​

Why China Won’t Talk With America’s Military

Beijing Sees Silence as Leverage

By Yun Sun

July 20, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Yun Sun · July 20, 2023

This past spring, the United States requested a meeting between Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The two were both going to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue—an annual security conference hosted in Singapore in June—where the United States’ and China’s defense chiefs traditionally speak with each other. This year’s gathering was an especially important opportunity for these officials to talk directly, given the growing frequency and intensity of China’s unsafe and provocative behavior in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. At the end of May, for example, China flew a fighter jet right in front of a U.S. reconnaissance plane. The two sides needed (and need) a way to lower tensions and create mechanisms that could diffuse any crisis.

But China turned down the United States’ request. Washington, the Chinese government pointed out, had sanctioned Li over China’s procurement of Russian weapons systems in 2018. Li would not meet with U.S. officials until those restrictions were lifted.

The decision was disappointing, but it was not a surprise. Since August 2022, China has suspended a series of talks with the United States among major military commanders and defense policy coordinators. The freeze was announced after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, a trip that outraged China’s leadership. But the reason this rift has endured goes deeper. China has refused to have its military communicate with the United States’ because it believes that silence is a form of leverage. It knows that Washington is concerned about the lack of contact, and it likes that the U.S. military feels uneasy. Beijing wants Washington to worry about China’s provocative military acts, to ask for reassurance, and then not receive it. By depriving U.S. officials of security and certainty, Beijing hopes that it can pressure them to decrease the United States’ military footprint in the waters and airspace near China.

Despite its propensity for aggression in its neighborhood, China does not want to start a war. But Beijing does not seem to be worried that its brinksmanship will provoke one at this time. In China’s view, the risk of a military conflict is low, primarily because the United States is preoccupied with Ukraine and therefore unwilling to open another front in the western Pacific. And although it does not want actual conflict, Beijing appears willing to court the possibility of war. In fact, some Chinese policymakers believe that a military crisis could help them establish ground rules the United States will follow when operating in China’s periphery.

The fact that Beijing is more willing to take such risks makes it hard for Washington to restart military-to-military conversations. The United States could try to force the Chinese military to talk by becoming more belligerent itself—for example, carrying out more patrols or conducting more drills in the western Pacific. But such moves would make the region more unstable, and they still might fail to persuade the Chinese military to have meaningful conversations with its U.S. counterpart. Washington could instead give in to some of Beijing’s demands in exchange for better lines of communication, but that would reward China’s dangerous posturing. For now, then, the best the United States can do is to clarify what military behavior both countries believe is unsafe, work to make ties more predictable, and wait for Beijing’s calculus to change ahead of a major summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden later this year.

SILENT TREATMENT

China’s military policies are not borne of ignorance. Like Washington, Beijing knows that military-to-military relations can lower tensions and prevent the outbreak of conflicts. That is why, during the last six months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, China frequently reached out to the United States in the hope of discussing crisis management. The Chinese feared that Trump would launch a war over Taiwan to secure reelection, and so top People’s Liberation Army officials repeatedly spoke with their U.S. counterparts. In fact, China was so worried that PLA chief Li Zuocheng had two phone calls with U.S. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both times, Milley assured Zuocheng that the United States would not suddenly launch an attack.

Although Beijing wants to prevent unwanted crises, it does not always see such risky scenarios as intrinsically bad. Chinese officials believe they can use certain crises to advance China’s interests. At a time when China does not believe the United States will start a hot conflict, it sees brinksmanship as a good way to extract concessions, including meaningful changes to U.S. military activities in the Chinese periphery.

Some Chinese officials want to leave their U.S. counterparts in the dark.

Beijing has reason to think it might get them. When China insisted that the United States lift sanctions on Li, the defense minister, as a condition for him meeting with Austin, Biden said his administration was mulling it over. The State Department walked back his comments, and Beijing then quickly rejected the meeting.

Beijing’s goal, however, is not always to accumulate more negotiating power. Sometimes, Chinese officials simply want to avoid military-to-military relations altogether and leave their U.S. counterparts in the dark. Beijing thinks that such dialogue serves as a guardrail or a safety net that allows the United States to keep conducting military activity in the western Pacific without fear of repercussions. In China’s view, then, an open line of communication on military matters actively abets Washington’s behavior, allowing the United States a greater freedom of action. Preventing dialogue, by contrast, might keep the United States on its toes, depriving U.S. officials of knowledge about what China’s red lines are—and therefore making them more cautious.

Ultimately, to manage crises and prevent conflicts, China believes the United States must stop talking and start eliminating what Beijing sees as the source of tension: Washington’s presence in the western Pacific. As Li said at Shangri-La, when asked about China’s provocative behavior, “Why are the foreign warships and warplanes always circling around China’s territorial waters and airspace to begin with?”

LIVING ON THE EDGE

For U.S. policymakers—and anyone else concerned with global security—China’s diminishing aversion to risk is alarming. Beijing may see its strategy as low-risk and high-reward, but if the United States does not back down, the result could be skirmishes and unintended escalation. China and the United States, for instance, might experience a more dangerous version of the 2001 EP-3 incident, when two Chinese military planes collided with a U.S. spy plane over the South China Sea. At the time, Beijing and Washington had better relations, and they resolved the crash peacefully. But if a similar incident happened today, and the two militaries were not on speaking terms, they might stumble into conflict.

Beijing and Washington do have a dedicated hotline for crisis communications, and if another EP-3 incident occurred, the United States would likely try to use it. But when U.S. officials attempted to reach Chinese officials via the hotline this past February after finding a Chinese spy balloon in U.S. airspace, Beijing did not pick up. China, it seems, views answering the hotline the same way it views military-to-military conversations: as a sign of weaknesses and an indication that it is willing to deescalate, which defeats the entire purpose of brinkmanship.

And Chinese policymakers are getting quite comfortable with sitting on the precipice. Indeed, within China, there is an increasingly popular (if fatalistic) view that a military crisis may be inevitable, and perhaps even desirable. With all the competition in the western Pacific, more and more Chinese strategists are convinced that Beijing and Washington need to reach an impasse akin to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962—an event that could bring the two powers to the brink of a war—before they can sit down and negotiate the terms of their coexistence.

Chinese policymakers are comfortable sitting on the precipice.

The United States simply has no good options for prompting a conversation with China’s military. But there are still a few ways that U.S. policymakers can work with their Chinese counterparts to make military relations more predictable, if not more cordial. Instead of criticizing each other, the two sides could focus on specific concerns where they might be able to come to a more constructive understanding. If China and the United States cannot agree on what “safe” maneuvers are in air and sea military encounters, perhaps they can at least discuss and agree on what kind of military behavior should be defined as “unsafe.”

And U.S. policymakers should remember that China’s risk tolerance may not remain so elevated forever. In fact, Chinese officials could grow warier as soon as next year, especially depending on what happens in the planned Taiwanese elections. Polling suggests that the current Vice President William Lai has a strong chance to win in the election, a victory that would start the third consecutive term in office of the Democratic Progressive Party, a party that Beijing sees as wanting to formalize Taiwan’s de facto independence. A triumph for Lai could prompt punitive military actions from China, which would inevitably incur a response from the United States. As China seeks to manage the escalation of this conflict and appeal to the United States to rein in Taiwan, it might then see the utility of military-to-military talks and to a new round of dialogue with U.S. counterparts about crisis management.

In the interim, however, the United States will have to understand that China has a higher tolerance for risk. Some lines of communication remain open. Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, had an unusual meeting with U.S. defense officials at the Pentagon in July. In advance of Biden’s meeting with Xi in November, China might see the resumption of military-to-military talks as one way to pave the way for a smooth summit. None of this engagement, however, fundamentally changes China’s goal, which is to limit U.S. military activities in the Chinese periphery. Until the United States backs away from the region, Beijing will keep pushing the envelope.

• YUN SUN is Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

Foreign Affairs · by Yun Sun · July 20, 2023

22. Talking to China isn’t nearly enough

Talking to China isn’t nearly enough

US officials need to take a hard look at the differences between dialogue and diplomacy and quickly up their game

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · July 20, 2023

There’s talk and there’s productive talk. You would sometimes think US officials are paid by the word and are content with the former sort of talk.

Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen went to China. Now, Climate Czar John Kerry is visiting the country. These trips and attendant dialogues are invariably described as “candid and constructive.”

Other popular adjectives for them are “direct, substantive, and productive” and vital to “maintain open channels of communications,” “responsibly manage competition,” “reduce risk of misperception and miscalculation” and “learn more about each other.”

And the subtext is that if the Americans stop talking, then war with China is just around the corner.

The idea seems to be that enough talking and the right words or incantations will bring Beijing to its senses. Exactly how isn’t clear. It’s not as if the Chinese didn’t understand what the Americans are saying.

Maybe they’ll just get fed up with blabby Americans and concede? Or maybe it’s Blinken’s, Yellen’s and Kerry’s sheer animal magnetism that Washington counts on to win over the Chinese communists?

Add in a visit by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Beijing and the animal magnetism will be overwhelming.

Chinesse Defense Minister Li Shangfu and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a tentative embrace at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore. Image: Weibo

That said, suggest to our foreign policy elite and even our military top brass that talking for talking’s sake is unproductive, and you’ll get eye-rolling ridicule.

Thirty years of talks, and the results?

However, we’ve been talking non-stop to the People’s Republic of China for 30 plus years. How well is dialogue and engagement working to modify Chinese behavior? You can make your own scorecard.

Does the PRC do any of the following?

• Back off of Taiwan. Stop the military harassment and intimidation; let Taiwan into international organizations.
• Back off of Japan. Lay off the Senkakus and no more hints that Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands are Chinese. Stop demonizing the Japanese.
• Back off the Philippines – and recognize the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling that repudiated PRC claims to the South China Sea. Stay out of Philippine maritime territory.
• End cyberattacks on the United States.
• Stop stealing intellectual property from US companies. And no longer demand handing over sensitive technology as the price of foreign companies’ admission to the China market.
• Allow foreign companies to conduct due diligence in China.
• End the requirement for Chinese Communist Party party cells in foreign companies operating in China.
• Open the concentration camps and also stop eradicating Uyghur culture.
• End organ harvesting from prisoners, religionists, dissidents – or anyone else.
• Allow religious groups to operate freely.
• Free Jimmy Lai and other Hong Kong freedom advocates. And live up to the terms of the 1984 Hong Kong handover agreement.
• Stop fentanyl exports from China (that killed 70,000 Americans in 2022 alone).

China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The list continues

Additionally, will Beijing do the following?

• Change the tone of public discourse so the Chinese media and official spokespersons no longer exhibit non-stop contempt and vitriol towards the United States.
• Enforce sanctions on North Korea (that Beijing has already agreed to). And also stop interfering with aircraft and ships that are enforcing the sanctions.
• Rein in the Chinese fishing fleet. Make sure it follows the rules rather than vacuuming the oceans – both high seas and in other countries territories.
• Stop interfering with US military operations in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
• Make the RMB (Chinese yuan) freely convertible – as Beijing promised to do years ago and more than once.
• Pull Chinese intelligence collection assets out of Cuba.
• Cooperate in an open inquiry into determining Covid’s origins.
• Close Chinese overseas police stations or “service centers,” and stop intimidating the overseas Chinese diaspora.
• Stop taking hostages and release the ones Beijing is holding.

There’s a few dozen others at least. But you get the idea. Don’t get your hopes up, however.

Everything described above that needs improvement happened during the previous 30-plus years of talking, engagement and accommodation of the PRC. That’s the talking that was supposed to moderate communist Chinese behavior and turn China into a “responsible stakeholder.”

One is skeptical that more talking will improve things.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: Leah Millis / Pool

Dialogue vs diplomacy

Dialogue and diplomacy are not the same thing. One observer recently described dialogue as being to diplomacy what “hyper-inflation is to money.”

Talk when you have something to talk about and you are in a position to defend and enforce your interests.

The American statesman George Shultz aptly stated: “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”

Mr Shultz is gone. But one imagines what he would have said about talking for talking’s sake.

He might have agreed with an astute scholar of diplomatic history who recently noted that “diplomacy is not psycho-babble or social work.”

Changing the game plan

The US has been talking to China for a long time. Without results, for the US at least. But the PRC has done quite well.

Putting it in baseball terms, the US is batting .000.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are batting about .950. Having tolerated American dialoguing over the last 50 years while using American, Western and Japanese investment and access to markets in the democracies, they turned a dirt-poor nation into a superpower aiming for global domination.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, right, shakes hands with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, left, during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Friday, July 7, 2023. Photo: / Mark Schiefelbein / Pool

The only exception was the Trump administration – where certain officials who understood China were finally putting some wood on the ball. And that was despite fierce opposition from the engagers and the “don’t provoke China” crowd inside and outside the administration.

But in 2021 they were sent to the showers and a team of .000 hitters replaced them in the line-up.

So the next time you hear that talk and more talk is good, get out the above list. And see for yourself whether the PRC is doing anything differently.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America. This article was first published by JAPAN Forward. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.

Related

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · July 20, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com