Quotes of the Day:

"The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can enver appease."

- Cicero

"I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves."

- Thomas Jefferson

"They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even it were the truth. They don't want the truth, they want their traditions."

- Isaac Asimov

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment July 28, 2023

2. Australian, U.S. Leaders Say Alliance Is More Relevant Than Ever

3. Russians See Ukrainian Progress Where Others Don’t

4. Americans name China as the country posing the greatest threat to the U.S.

5. Air Force maverick who warned of war with China sticks to his guns

6. Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman on what Ukraine must do to break through Russian defences

7. Ukraine fires North Korean rockets to blast Russian positions

8. Xi’s Security Obsession

9. Putin will be gone within a year and the West MUST be ready for his terrifying replacement, warns ex-MI6 spy

10. Opinion | Army recruiting shortages will force big changes at the Pentagon

11. My Assessment of Risks and Opportunities Facing the Indo-Pacific Region in 2023 After Watching Oppenheimer by Eleanor Shiori Hughes

12.  Ukraine's Counteroffensive Needs a Plan B

13. The Pentagon didn’t refuse to pay $60,000 to fly fallen Marine Nicole Gee to Arlington

14. The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater

15. Army officially creates new offensive cyber and space program office

16. Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads

17. Getting past the nation-state of mind - Responsible Statecraft

18. Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars

19. A Russian Human-Rights Champion on Why Putin’s Soviet Propaganda Is So Dangerous

20. Deepfakes and Deception: A Framework for the Ethical and Legal Use of Machine-Manipulated Media

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment July 28, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-28-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly advanced near Bakhmut on July 28.
• Russian naval posturing in the Black Sea likely aims to impose a de facto blockade on Ukrainian ports without committing the Black Sea Fleet to the enforcement of a naval blockade.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to reassure African partner states that Russia will maintain its economic and security commitments during the second day of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg.
• The Kremlin continues to display little interest in an unspecific peace plan focused on eliminating disruptions to international trade proposed by African heads of state.
• Russian authorities may be increasingly concerned about how the Russian electorate views the war ahead of regional elections in September 2023 and the Russian presidential election in 2024.
• Politico reported that the first batch of refurbished US Abrams tanks will likely arrive in Ukraine in September.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 28 and made advances in certain areas.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 28 and have reportedly advanced along the Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, and along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border.
• The Russian Federation Council approved measures allowing the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to receive heavy military equipment and increasing the upper limit of the conscription age range from 27 years old to 30 years old.
• Russian authorities continue to deport Ukrainian teenagers to Russia under the guise of summer camp programs.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 28, 2023

Jul 28, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Christina Harward, George Barros, and Mason Clark

July 28, 2023, 7:50 pm ET 

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:30 pm ET on July 28. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 29 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly advanced near Bakhmut on July 28. Ukrainian military officials stated that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on the northern and southern flanks of Bakhmut, and Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on July 27 that Ukrainian forces continued advancing south of Bakhmut.[1] A Russian milblogger claimed on July 28 that Ukrainian forces advanced near Kurdyumivka and Andriivka.[2] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), and some milbloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces captured Staromayorske on July 27.[3] A Ukrainian source claimed that Ukrainian forces have advanced to within 10-12 kilometers of the main Russian defensive line in the Berdyansk direction.[4] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv), Verbove (17km southeast of Orikhiv), and Pyatykhatky (25km southwest of Orikhiv) in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[5] Russian “Vostok” Battalion Commander Alexander Khodakovsky stated that Ukrainian forces can conduct strikes against the full depth of defending Russian forces and that these strikes are killing Russian commanders and degrading Russian command and control.[6] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) refused to go to combat near Staromayorske due to heavy Russian losses and Ukrainian battlefield victories.[7]

Russian naval posturing in the Black Sea likely aims to impose a de facto blockade on Ukrainian ports without committing the Black Sea Fleet to the enforcement of a naval blockade. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk reported on July 28 that Ukrainian officials have intercepted radio transmissions of Russian forces warning civilian ships in the Black Sea against heading to Ukrainian ports.[8] A Russian milblogger amplified an audio recording purportedly of a Russian warship telling a civilian vessel in the Black Sea that Russian forces would consider the vessel involved in the conflict in Ukraine as a military cargo ship if it sailed towards a Ukrainian port.[9] Russian sources also claimed that Russian authorities announced a nighttime navigation ban for all small vessels near the Kerch Strait due to concerns about Ukrainian naval drones.[10] The Black Sea Fleet conducted exercises on July 27 wherein naval warships launched a missile at a target ship in the Black Sea.[11] The Russian Foreign Ministry (MFA) recently attempted to soften the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) July 19 announcement about viewing civilian ships in the Black Sea as legitimate military targets by claiming that the announcement meant that Russian forces would inspect ships.[12] The Russian MoD itself has not clarified what actions its announcement will allow the Russian military to take and even the Russian MFA’s interpretation would require Russian forces to board and possibly seize foreign civilian vessels. The Russian naval posturing in the Black Sea is likely intentionally ambiguous to generate widespread concern about possible detention by the Russian navy or outright strikes on civilian vessels. The Kremlin likely aims for this posturing to have a chilling effect on maritime activity so that Russian naval assets do not need to enforce an actual blockade of Ukrainian ports. A naval blockade is only mandatory for neutral entities to follow under international law if a belligerent declares the existence of the blockade, and Russia has yet to do so.[13]

Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to reassure African partner states that Russia will maintain its economic and security commitments during the second day of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. Putin addressed African heads of state and representatives at the summit’s plenary session on July 28 and highlighted military-technical agreements with 40 African countries and plans to expand Russia’s diplomatic presence in Africa.[14]  Putin stated that Russia aims to help train African partners‘ military and law enforcement personnel and noted that there are many African personnel at the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) academy.[15] Putin also claimed that between 2022 and 2023 Russia wrote off $23 billion of debt for African countries.[16] Putin claimed that Russia has sent almost 10 million tons of grain to African countries so far in 2023 and reiterated a pledge to send 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to six African countries in the next three to four months free of charge.[17] Putin pointedly stated that Russia will always be a responsible international supplier of agricultural products, likely aiming to reassure African partners concerned about food security following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.[18]

African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat stated at the summit that disruptions to energy and grain supplies must end, and both Mahamat and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi explicitly called for the revival of the grain deal.[19] Al-Sissi also promoted a Kremlin talking point that Russia quit the grain deal because the grain corridor was not facilitating grain shipments to the poorest of countries, even though Putin himself cited Russian producers’ losses at depressed grain prices as a primary reason for leaving the deal.[20] African countries are likely appealing to Russia without fully backing its position concerning the grain deal in hopes of retaining Russian economic and security commitments, in line with their likely primary objective to mitigate the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine affecting their economies.[21]

The Kremlin continues to display little interest in an unspecific peace plan focused on eliminating disruptions to international trade proposed by African heads of state. Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Senegalese President Macky Sall, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Mahamat all appealed to Putin to consider a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine.[22] A delegation representing seven African states proposed a generalized peace plan focused on resuming international trade to Putin on June 17.[23] Putin responded to renewed calls to engage with this peace plan at the summit by stating that Russia is respectfully and carefully considering the proposal.[24] Putin has yet to address the feasibility of the peace plan and instead reiterated boilerplate rhetoric that Ukraine and the West are preventing negotiations from taking place.[25] The Kremlin is likely trying to portray itself as considering the peace plan to promote ongoing Russian information operations that feign interest in a negotiated settlement while aiming to slow Western security assistance to Ukraine.[26] The Kremlin is also likely using the proposal to pursue strengthened bilateral and multilateral engagement with African states as part of an overall effort to present itself as a more attractive ally than the collective West.[27] The Kremlin has not demonstrated any intent to engage with any peace process meaningfully.

Russian authorities may be increasingly concerned about how the Russian electorate views the war ahead of regional elections in September 2023 and the Russian presidential election in 2024. A Russian insider source and independent Russian opposition news outlet Verstka both claimed that the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) initiative to increase the maximum conscription age from 27 to 30 years old caused a heated discussion among Kremlin officials.[28] The sources claimed that the Russian Security Council urged the Presidential Administration not to support the MoD’s initiative over concern that the initiative would cause public backlash and affect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings.[29] The sources reported that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu pushed the initiative through and maintained Putin’s support, despite the Security Council’s concerns.[30] Verstka claimed that Putin supported the MoD’s initiative after listening to Shoigu‘s arguments about the shortage of soldiers in Ukraine.[31] Verstka also reported that sources stated that United Russia officials are afraid to use the war in Ukraine in their election campaigns in upcoming regional and local elections because they are concerned about how voters will react to it.[32] Verstka‘s sources claimed that United Russia intends to highlight and appeal to local issues instead of highlighting the war in Ukraine. Verstka claimed that it has reviewed United Russia’s election materials and stated that the war is not a main theme.[33] The concern among elements of the Kremlin and United Russia indicates concern over domestic support for the war and fears that the Kremlin’s perceived electoral legitimacy could weaken in upcoming elections - though to be sure this loss of support primarily presents United Russia with a greater need to falsify election results and the possibility of local losses to other “managed opposition” parties, not a legitimate threat to its dominance of Russian politics.

Politico reported that the first batch of refurbished US Abrams tanks will likely arrive in Ukraine in September. Politico cited six US officials as saying that the US plans to deliver six to eight Abrams (two platoons) to Germany in August for refurbishment before shipping the tanks to Ukraine in September and that the US will send a total of 31 Abrams (roughly an understrength armored battalion, at most one-third of a full Ukrainian brigade) to Ukraine.[34]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and reportedly advanced near Bakhmut on July 28.
• Russian naval posturing in the Black Sea likely aims to impose a de facto blockade on Ukrainian ports without committing the Black Sea Fleet to the enforcement of a naval blockade.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to reassure African partner states that Russia will maintain its economic and security commitments during the second day of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg.
• The Kremlin continues to display little interest in an unspecific peace plan focused on eliminating disruptions to international trade proposed by African heads of state.
• Russian authorities may be increasingly concerned about how the Russian electorate views the war ahead of regional elections in September 2023 and the Russian presidential election in 2024.
• Politico reported that the first batch of refurbished US Abrams tanks will likely arrive in Ukraine in September.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on July 28 and made advances in certain areas.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on July 28 and have reportedly advanced along the Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, and along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border.
• The Russian Federation Council approved measures allowing the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to receive heavy military equipment and increasing the upper limit of the conscription age range from 27 years old to 30 years old.
• Russian authorities continue to deport Ukrainian teenagers to Russia under the guise of summer camp programs.

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 Svatove-Kreminna line on July 28 and made further advances in some areas. Geolocated footage published on July 28 shows Russian elements of the 21st Motorized Rifle Regiment (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) crossing the Zherebets River southwest of Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[35] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted an unsuccessful assault near Nadiya (15km west of Svatove).[36]  Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that some of Russia’s most professional units are constantly attacking Ukrainian positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line but that Ukrainian forces maintain all their positions in the area.[37] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment (11th Army Corps, Baltic Fleet) continued offensive operations west of Kuzemivka (15km northwest of Svatove) and made unspecified gains.[38] The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) advanced 1.5km in depth into Ukrainian defenses near Serhiivka (13km west of Svatove).[39] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are continuing offensive operations along a 12km front from Serhiivka to Novovodyane (17km southwest of Svatove) and advanced several kilometers along this front.[40] A Ukrainian source reported that Russian forces deployed their main reinforcements to offensive operations near Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove) and Novoselivske (16km northwest of Svatove) but stated that Ukrainian forces still hold their positions.[41] The Russian MoD also claimed that “Storm” detachments of the 252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments (20th Combined Arms Army, Western Military District) advanced 3km into Ukrainian defenses near Zhytlivka (2km northwest of Kreminna).[42] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces conducted assaults in the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna and near Dibrova (6km southwest of Kreminna).[43] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Russian claims of extensive advances along the Svatove-Kreminna line, and the Russian MoD may be exaggerating claims of advances to draw attention away from Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere.[44]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on July 28 and made marginal advances. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian attempts to regain lost positions in the Svatove direction and a Ukrainian assault on positions of the 228th Motorized Rifle Regiment (90th Tank Division, eastern Military District) near Dibrova.[45] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled three Ukrainian attacks along the Raihorodok-Karmazynivka line (12km west to 12km southwest of Svatove) and that Ukrainian forces regained unspecified positions in the Novoyehorivka area.[46] The Russian MoD also claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast (33km south of Kreminna).[47]

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 offensive operations near Bakhmut and reportedly advanced on July 28. A Ukrainian source claimed on July 28 that Ukrainian forces advanced over 1,200 meters in the Bakhmut direction.[48] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on July 27 that Ukrainian forces continued advancing south of Bakhmut, and the Ukrainian General Staff reported on July 28 that fighting is ongoing north of Bakhmut and south of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka, and Andriivka (all 5-11km south of Bakhmut).[49] Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Ukrainian forces are focusing on counterbattery fire against significant Russian artillery concentrations near Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka, and Andriivka.[50] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces made some advances near Kurdyumivka and Andriivka.[51] Russian milbloggers claimed that heavy fighting continues near Klishchiivka and that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[52] Geolocated footage posted on July 27 shows a Ukrainian drone striking a Russian TOS-1A thermobaric artillery system in Zaitseve (7km southeast of Bakhmut).[53]

Russian forces continued counterattacks to stymie ongoing Ukrainian offensive operations near Bakhmut and reportedly advanced on July 28. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces back from Klishchiivka and that Russian forces fully control the settlement.[54] One milblogger claimed that Klishchiivka is currently contested, however.[55] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks west and south of Klishchiivka.[56] A milblogger claimed that Russian forces also conducted an unsuccessful ground attack near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[57] A Ukrainian source assessed that Russian forces are preparing for counterattacks on the Klishchiivka-Kurdyumivka-Andriivka line in order to buy time to build additional defensive fortifications rather than withdraw to prepared defensive positions further behind the front line.[58]

Russian and Ukrainian forces continued limited offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and did not advance on July 28. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Avdiivka and Marinka (immediately southwest of Donetsk City).[59] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a counterattack near Avdiivka and two counterattacks near Marinka.[60]

Ukrainian forces continued targeting Russian military assets in rear areas in Donetsk Oblast. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) accused Ukrainian forces of using a loitering munition to strike an oil depot in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk Oblast on July 28 (50km behind the front line on the N21 highway).[61] Geolocated footage shows a large fire at the oil depot.[62] A Russian milblogger accused Ukrainian forces of striking the oil depot with HIMARS rockets.[63]

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

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border and reportedly advanced on July 28.  A Ukrainian source claimed that Ukrainian forces have advanced to within 10-12 kilometers of the main Russian defensive line in the Berdyansk direction.[64] Multiple Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces near Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), and some Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces encircled the settlement.[65]  The Russian information space largely acknowledged Ukrainian forces’ control over Staromayorske, but one prominent milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces retreated to the north and northwestern outskirts of the settlement and that most of Staromayorske is currently a “gray zone.”[66] Russian milbloggers have consistently identified settlements in areas of Ukrainian counteroffensive advances as contested “gray zones” likely to downplay Ukrainian gains, as ISW has previously assessed.[67]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and did not advance on July 28. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to recapture lost positions near Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Makarivka (7m south of Velyka Novosilka).[68] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces counterattacked against Ukrainian forces near Staromayorske but did not specify an outcome.[69] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian personnel, particularly from the 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division), refused to participate in combat missions near Staromayorske due to significant Russian casualties and Ukrainian military victories.[70] Personnel from the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment have previously publicly complained about equipment and supply shortages.[71]

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and did not make any confirmed advances on July 28. Multiple Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked Russian forces near Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv).[72] A Ukrainian source claimed that Ukrainian forces began attacking Russian positions near Verbove (20km southeast of Orikhiv) - likely referencing observed attacks from July 27.[73]

A Ukrainian official indicated that Russian forces on the Kinburn Spit struggle with morale and discipline issues. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk reported that Russian forces have mined the outskirts of settlements on the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv Oblast preventing residents from leaving.[74] Humenyuk stated that morale is low among Russian forces on the Kinburn spit and that the Russian military is not conducting rotations in the area.[75] Humenyuk reported that Ukrainian forces continue conducting precision strikes against Russian artillery positions when Russian artillery units deploy to firing positions on the Kinburn Spit.[76]

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

The Russian Federation Council approved a bill allowing the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) to receive heavy military equipment.[77] The bill changes the legal language within the existing regulations for Rosgvardia to specify that Rosgvardia elements are authorized to use military weapons and equipment.[78] The bill 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.[79] Russian news outlets reported that the new legislation brings the current legal norms “in line with reality” (as Rosgvardia forces have engaged in heavy fighting in Ukraine) and will clarify existing legal gaps.[80] The Russian State Duma adopted this bill in its first reading on July 19.[81] The Kremlin has been steadily expanding Russia’s internal security capabilities following the Wagner Group‘s armed rebellion on June 24 and ISW has observed Russian sources suggesting that recent measures expanding the authority of Rosgvardia will allow the organization to posture as an alternative Russian military formation.[82]

The Russian Federation Council also approved an amendment to previously passed legislation that will increase the upper limit of the conscription age range from 27 years old to 30 years old but will not change the lower limit of 18 years old, rather than raising the minimum to 21 as in the original bill.[83]  Russian opposition news outlet Meduza estimated that the new amendment will increase the number of eligible conscripts by more than two million men than would have been eligible under the existing legislation by 2030.[84]

Russian milbloggers continue to raise alarm over the possibility Russia may conduct a new wave of mobilization following the recent passage of legislation regarding mobilization, conscription, and martial law. A Wagner-linked Russian milblogger suggested that Russian authorities might conduct a new wave of mobilization around mid-September 2023 if Russian authorities do not recruit enough contract servicemen.[85] The milblogger suggested that Russian forces do not have enough manpower to conduct a large-scale offensive in multiple directions at this time and that a second mobilization wave could ameliorate Russia’s lack of combat power.  The milblogger also suggested that Russian authorities might conduct a new wave of mobilization to support a rotation of soldiers who were mobilized in 2022 who were never relieved.[86]

Russian authorities appear concerned about corruption within Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB). Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers conducted a search of the “Signal” defense plant, a subsidiary of Rostec that produces ammunition and pyrotechnics, on July 28 in Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia.[87] FSB officers reportedly searched the office of the plant’s General Director Lev Uvarov in association with a fraud criminal case against the company’s managers, who are accused of selling an estimated ten million rubles (approximately $108,600) worth of pyrotechnic products to affiliated legal entities at a price two times lower than the cost.[88]

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

Russian authorities continue to deport Ukrainian teenagers to Russia under the guise of summer camp programs. A Russian journalist posted footage on July 27 claiming to show teenage boys from Milove Raion (occupied Luhansk Oblast) on a “vacation” at the Russian “V Army” field training camp in Kostroma Oblast, Russia.[89] The footage showed the boys in military uniforms, carrying weapons and learning various tactical military skills.[90] ISW has previously reported on Russian occupation officials using children’s camps as a guise to deport Ukrainian children to Russia, though rarely have the camps been so blatantly depicted.[91]

Russian authorities are continuing efforts to economically integrate the occupied territories into Russia. Chair of the Kherson Oblast occupation government Andrey Alekseyenko claimed that the Russian federal law creating a free economic zone in Kherson Oblast has come into force and will remain in effect until 2050.[92] Alekseyenko claimed that the free economic zone includes preferential taxation conditions, reduced insurance rates, simplified land purchasing procedures, a ccustoms-freezone, access to investment opportunities, and long-term economic stability for development.[93]

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

Belarusian authorities may have constructed a facility to store nuclear-capable Russian Iskander ballistic missile launchers in Belarus. The Federation of American Scientists shared satellite imagery on July 27 purportedly showing a completed garage facility for Russian Iskander launchers in Asipovichy City.[94] The Federation of American Scientists reported that construction at the facility began in October 2022 and was completed in April 2023.[95] A Maxar satellite image collected on July 4, 2023, apparently shows four Iskander launchers outside the garage.[96] Belarusian authorities may upgrade a nearby Belarusian weapons depot 11 km east of Asipovichy – the 1405th Artillery Ammunition Base (military unit 42707) – to store tactical nuclear warheads. Russia has long fielded nuclear weapons that are able to strike any target that tactical nuclear weapons launched from Belarus could also hit, and ISW continues to assess that Putin is extraordinarily unlikely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or elsewhere.[97]

Wagner Group personnel continue to arrive in Belarus. Independent Belarusian monitoring organization The Hajun Project reported that a 12th and 13th Wagner convey arrived in Belarus on July 27 and 28, respectively.[98] The convoys reportedly contain more cars, trucks, and “shchuka” armored vehicles.[99] The shchuka (also known as the “Wagner wagon”) is an anti-mine-protected vehicle built on a modified Ural-4320 truck’s chassis.[100] The shchuka is not an armored fighting vehicle and does not provide the significant firepower or maneuver capabilities necessary for mechanized warfare.

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. Australian, U.S. Leaders Say Alliance Is More Relevant Than Ever

One of our 5 treaty alliances in the Asia-Indo Pacific region. And I concur. It is more relevant than ever. But so are all of our alliances. More broadly, US national security depends on the effectiveness of our alliance system more than ever.

Australian, U.S. Leaders Say Alliance Is More Relevant Than Ever

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, far left; Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles; U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III pose for a photo in Brisbane, Australia, July 29, 2023. The leaders gathered for the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations.

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Photo By: Chad McNeeley, DOD

VIRIN: 230729-D-TT977-1038Y

The main message of the annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations in Brisbane, Australia, is that the alliance is stronger today than it ever has been.

The consultations – commonly called AUSMIN – featured Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, who also serves as deputy prime minister; Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong; U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken; and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.

Those involved commented on the strength of what is commonly called "the unbreakable alliance."

The meeting follows the AUSMIN held in December in Washington; the defense leaders furthered their work on force posture cooperation, capability development, and effort on outreach to allies and partners in the region. "It all points in the direction of an alliance that's doing more than ever for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific," said a senior DOD official.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific

"Today, we have had a very fruitful and rich conversation about the state of the alliance — about the state of the world in which we are both operating, its complexity, its volatility, its threat," Marles said at the conclusion of the meeting. "And as we engage in that world together, all of us have felt that the alliance has never been in better shape than it is right now."

The meeting was held under the cloud of the crash of an Australian helicopter involved in Exercise Talisman Sabre, a biennial exercise designed to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific. Four Australian service members are missing, and search and rescue efforts continue. Austin told his Australian friends that U.S. forces in the exercise stand ready to help in any way.

Austin said the strategic alignment between the United States and Australia has never been greater. "We share a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and we're committed to investing further in our alliance to uphold this vision," he said.

Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right foreground; Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III; Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, left center; and Defense Minister Richard Marles participate in the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations -- known as AUSMIN -- in Brisbane, Australia, July 29, 2023.

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One concrete example of this cooperation is that the U.S. will "deepen" force posture cooperation with Australia, the secretary said. This also includes upgrading critical air bases in the Northern Territory and pursuing important infrastructure project projects at new locations. "Taken together, these initiatives will strengthen our ability to respond to crisis in the region while enhancing our interoperability," he said.

The U.S. military will increase the rotational presence of U.S. forces in Australia. This includes Navy maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft to enhance maritime domain awareness in the region. "We're also introducing new rotations of U.S. Army watercraft and expeditionary submarine visits to Australia," Austin said. "These efforts will bolster deterrence by strengthening our interoperability and enhancing our sustainment and logistics capabilities for critical missions."

Regular rotations of Army watercraft will enable the United States to determine logistics-related requirements and to facilitate rotations, officials said. "This is fundamentally about building out our combined logistics and lift capability," the senior defense official said.

The U.S. military will also establish an enduring logistics support area to further expand logistics and sustainment cooperation, Austin said at the AUSMIN press conference.

"We further agreed to expand our cooperation in space, which will improve our ability to coordinate more deeply with Australia in this new and important domain," the secretary said.

Marles also highlighted efforts in the crucial domain. "In terms of force posture initiatives, we agreed that space cooperation would now form a key part of what we do in our military and defense cooperation, and this is a critical step forward," he said.

Joint Press Conference

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, foreground, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III answer questions during a press conference after the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations in Brisbane, Australia, July 29, 2023.

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The four leaders called for advancing ties with other regional partners. "We endorsed plans for enhanced, trilateral cooperation with Japan and Australia, which will include F-35 training and cooperation," the defense secretary said.

The AUSMIN joint statement called enhancing trilateral interoperability "an important investment in credible, effective deterrence."

Spotlight: AUKUS: The Trilateral Security Partnership Between Australia, U.K. and U.S.

The example of the U.S.-Australian ties – and the security benefits realized – is seen throughout the Indo-Pacific, senior defense officials said. Nations of the region see the benefits of a free and open Indo-Pacific where goods, ideas and people can flow freely.

Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, far left; U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Australian Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese; U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III; and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles pose for photos in Brisbane, Australia, July 28, 2023. The leaders gathered for the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations.

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The United States works closely with many nations in the region including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the islands of the Pacific, and those nations see the benefits of working together.

Increasingly, the nations of the region – including U.S. treaty allies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand — are working with other like-minded nations on new ways to support the rules-based international order.

These are initial steps that may – over time – thicken the relationships among the nations of the region. "It's a really important moment," the senior defense official said. In 10 years "when the [rules-based] order is strong and has been sustained and maintained and built, I think folks are going to look back on this period and … identify some of these initiatives as the, as really the key building blocks."

50:20

VIDEO | 50:20 | Austin, Australian Counterpart Hold Briefing

defense.gov · by Jim Garamone

3. Russians See Ukrainian Progress Where Others Don’t

Excerpts:

The Hollywood-tailored excitement of the Battles of Kyiv and Kharkiv may have unduly raised the bar for what Ukraine can accomplish in short order. Yet the Battle of Kherson, begun in August 2022, was a long, hard slog, the bulk of which garnered comparatively little contemporaneous front-page coverage — until all of a sudden it did. That operation culminated four months later with an announced Russian withdrawal.

This was before the Ukrainians had U.S. or European main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, cruise missiles and cluster bombs. This was also before Putin’s regime began to cannibalize itself by downing its own helicopters, seizing military districts and exiling the vanguard of its expeditionary force to tent encampments in Belarus.

Does this mean that Ukraine will succeed in reaching the Sea of Azov and cutting off Russians west of Melitopol? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean that Ukrainian forces aren’t suffering and dying on a daily basis or that Ukrainian conscripts aren’t right to be angry in front of Western reporters about a lack of ammunition, rushed or insufficient NATO training and blunders of command? Of course not.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning former war correspondent Thomas Ricks once said something to the effect of: “Covering combat can be dangerous but is relatively easy. You just need to write down what you hear and see. But covering a war accurately is far more difficult, because it requires some understanding of strategy, logistics, morale and other things that often can’t be observed.” We find ourselves at a bizarre turning point in a crisis which has seen no shortage of them where the only ones who think Ukraine’s counter-offensive isn’t quite the let-down or failure it’s been widely portrayed as are the Russians desperate to prove otherwise.

Russians See Ukrainian Progress Where Others Don’t

Kyiv’s long-awaited counteroffensive is portrayed as more successful by enemy soldiers and their cheerleaders than by Western analysts

Michael Weiss

Michael Weiss is contributing editor at New Lines magazine

James Rushton

James Rushton is an independent security and foreign policy analyst based in the U.K.

newlinesmag.com · July 26, 2023

One of the difficulties in covering the Russo-Ukraine War as a journalist is the tendency of so many in this profession to assemble facts in favor of whatever the prevailing narrative of the day is. Sixteen months ago, it was hard to find many people in prominent Washington think tanks or at major broadsheets who did not think Kyiv would fall in three days. When it didn’t, those wedded to the notion that Russia was a near-indomitable military power still found the conventional wisdom, built up over years of diligent study and perhaps the unconscious assimilation of Russian propaganda, hard to slough off. Just because Kyiv wasn’t sacked and the Russian army was driven out of the capital region, ran this line of thinking, didn’t mean Ukraine hadn’t exhausted its inventory of miracles. It could not claw back more territory. Then Kharkiv happened. A wondrous bait-and-switch operation, to be sure, but a one-off for that very reason. The Russians were learning, adapting and preparing, and the long-shot play to retake Kherson would prove it. Then Russia withdrew from half of that region in November as a “goodwill gesture.” And so on.

Having serially outperformed expectations, Ukraine finds itself in the unenviable position of having gone from scrappy underdog to victim of its own mythologized success. Six and a half weeks into a much-anticipated counteroffensive and there are no dramatic battlefield developments. A handful of settlements have been reclaimed in the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, and that’s it. An absence of climax has begun to lead to impending anti-climax and the sort of doomcasting that characterized the preliminaries of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The counteroffensive into which Kyiv and its NATO partners have invested so much kit, manpower and money is already a busted flush, we are told. “Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes,” ran one comment piece in The Daily Telegraph. This was preceded four days earlier by an even less sunny prognosis in the same newspaper, “Ukraine and the West are facing a devastating defeat.”

Ironically, such assessments stand in marked contrast to what Russians in the field are saying about the capability of their adversary. But to understand where Ukraine is headed, it’s first necessary to explain where it is.

Ukraine launched this operation in June hoping, but not expecting, a quick breakthrough of Russian defensive lines in the south. The objective, as several Western and Ukrainian officials told New Lines, is to press through all the way to the Sea of Azov, in Ukraine’s southeast, to sever Russia’s “land bridge” to occupied Crimea and isolate Russian forces on the left bank of the Dnipro, the remaining area of Kherson oblast that is still under Moscow’s control. This was never to be an easy or quick undertaking, as was well known before the counteroffensive got underway. Russian forces have spent more than a year building up enormous fortifications known collectively as the “Surovikin Line,” named for the former commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who has not been seen or heard from since the Wagner putsch last month and who, the Wall Street Journal reports, may be detained as a willing or passive accomplice in that affair.

The Surovikin Line consists of thousands of miles of well-constructed bunkers, trenches and anti-tank traps, accompanied by vast fields of anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines. Both authors had the opportunity to query half a dozen Ukrainian military and intelligence officials in April, ranging from the defense minister to the head of military intelligence to senior commanders in the Territorial Defense Forces. None was under any illusions as to how heavily defended these positions were or how difficult dislodging the enemy would be without greater consignments of advanced Western weaponry, especially warplanes, the sine qua non of combined arms maneuver. (These interviews took place before the United States announced its decision to allow Ukrainian pilots to begin training on F-16 fighter jets, though these airframes are still months from being delivered.)

Some of these Ukrainian officials told us they were a bit queasy at the expectations being set for them in Western capitals, namely that Kyiv needed a swift return on investment lest it risk losing diplomatic and military support because electorates in donor countries would grow impatient.

“All or nothing, fast or failure” was exactly the kind of pressure the Ukrainian General Staff was afraid of.

Proof of their wariness came right away when the campaign got off to an especially rough start. An unlucky group of armored vehicles from Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, using Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard 2 tanks, drove into a minefield in Zaporizhzhia and were then punished by accurate Russian drone-corrected artillery fire and Ka-52 “Alligator” helicopter gunships firing long-range, anti-tank guided missiles.

Yet even this early Ukrainian misstep was revealing in another way. The Kremlin and its online boosters recycled footage of the same scene for weeks afterward, as shot from multiple camera angles, in an apparent attempt to inflate Ukrainian losses, show what a waste NATO security assistance was and write the premature obituary on the counteroffensive. This ambush seemed to set the tone for much of the disillusioned or dire press coverage since.

One statistic now being circulated came courtesy of The New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. and European officials. In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s campaign, the newspaper reported, as much as 20% of the military hardware it deployed to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed. That percentage was given without providing a figure for the total amount of hardware committed; nor did it take into account how much of the damaged kit has since been repaired and redeployed.

It fell to another broadsheet to be more specific. The Washington Post reported that as of July 20 — or six weeks into the counteroffensive — “about a dozen” Bradleys have been destroyed, according to an anonymous U.S. defense official. Many more Bradleys have been damaged but repaired either locally or in Poland. Yet even this newspaper leaves out a crucial bit of context. Ukraine began this operation with 143 Bradleys and has since received or is about to receive 47 new ones, making a permanent loss of 12 amount to just 6% of its stock.

Ukraine’s core interest is protecting Ukrainian lives, according to Kaimo Kuusk, Estonia’s outgoing ambassador to Kyiv. Kuusk told one of the authors that Western armored vehicles had done their job of keeping their occupants alive after being hit with explosives. Kuusk also said that based on his meetings with Ukrainian military officials, the Russians are still suffering more casualties, at a ratio of six for every one Ukrainian. It is typically assessed that an offensive army should lose at a ratio of three attacking soldiers to each defending one.

Still another factor for the slow pace of Ukraine’s progress is that it changed tactics following the 47th’s fiasco, moving away from using heavy armor to try to punch through Russian lines and toward a slower, more incremental rate of advance. Here minefields remain the most daunting obstacles.

The Russian military has scattered millions of anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines in heavy concentrations to both attrite advancing Ukrainian forces and slow their movements, allowing them to be more easily targeted by artillery and anti-tank guided missiles. Kyiv has been using a variety of methods to neutralize these lethal devices: mine-clearing line charges (long cables filed with plastic explosives fired across the battlefield to detonate the mines); individual Ukrainian sappers crawling on their bellies to collect and defuse mines by hand; and mine rollers attached to the front of tanks, which blow up the mines in front of rather than underneath the armor. Fields the Ukrainians have cleared are in some cases even re-mined within hours by Russian artillery or drones, which disburse new explosives from a distance, making progress grimly Sisyphean and sluggish.

As such, Kyiv has resorted to using long-range fires to degrade Russian logistics and artillery, a tried-and-true method of what retired Australian Gen. Mick Ryan calls “corrosion of the Russian physical, moral and intellectual capacity to fight,” principally by annihilating all the concomitants of warfare. Kyiv has spent the past several weeks directly targeting individual artillery pieces with accurate counter-battery fire and blowing up Russian ammunition depots with long-range cruise missiles and drones, including a major series of drone strikes in Oktyabrskoye in central Crimea on July 22 and a series of cruise missile and drone strikes hitting targets across the peninsula on July 24.

According to “Karl,” a pseudonymous Estonian military analyst New Lines previously interviewed, Ukraine continues to “demolish on average about 25 artillery pieces a day. This is beginning to have some effect.” The Russian military has always been heavily dependent on massed artillery to conduct both offensive and defensive operations, meaning that destroying these crucial assets has an outsize effect on all aspects of Russian battlefield performance. Don’t take Karl’s word for it.

Senior Russian military officials on the front line are experiencing the impact of Ukrainian corrosion with a ferocity understandably inaccessible to pessimistic Western pundits. Consider the high-profile sacking of Gen. Ivan Popov, who until recently was the commanding officer of the 58th Combined Arms Army. The 58th has been engaged in heavy fighting in Zaporizhzhia. Popov recorded a voice memo for private dissemination among his soldiers, but Russian parliamentarian Andrey Gurulev posted it on Telegram. The general criticized “the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations” and what he described as “the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery.” Popov also claimed that the 58th desperately needed rotating, as most of the rank and file have been at the front for months on end and have suffered disastrous losses.

Low morale is another serious liability for the Russians, whereas even Ukrainians who complain of halting progress or a dogged and entrenched enemy are somehow still optimistic. There is a great deal of social and political cohesion in Kyiv — not so in Moscow, which was nearly invaded by a disgruntled army of mercenaries under the command of catering oligarch-turned-warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. Leaving the Wagner “march” to one side, there have been a considerable number of smaller mutinies by conventional units of Russian “mobiks” (conscripts) called up in President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization wave of September 2022. The mobiks routinely complain of no ammunition, no food, no pay and their use as cannon fodder. War is as much about metaphysical elements as it is about guns and bullets. It is one thing to fire a shell in the vicinity of an exploded mine from miles away; it is another to sit derelict in a trench and wonder why you’re doing it in the first place.

Popov, it bears mentioning, may be the highest-ranking member of the Russian army to grouse about the efficacy of Ukrainian artillery, but he is not the only one. A host of pro-Russian sources on social media have attested to the damage Ukraine is doing with its Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) as instruments for counter-battery fire. These precision rockets are fired from Western-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, which made a crucial difference in the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives. Kyiv wisely stockpiled these munitions in anticipation of its current campaign.

In spite of Ukraine’s highly publicized shortfalls in ammunition, it certainly seems to have enough to make life unpleasant for the invaders.

“Enemy artillery crews do not change position for hours, shelling our front line with impunity,” moaned Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the Vostok Battalion of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” the Russian puppet regime in eastern Ukraine. “Our gun artillery does not meet modern requirements for a number of reasons, primarily in terms of range.”

Another disorienting weapon for the Russians is the U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile. Ukraine has been using the Storm Shadow to hit Russian logistics bases it would have previously hit with GMLRS but for the fact that Russia adapted to that tactic by relocating its materiel outside the 56-mile range of the artillery rockets. These cruise missiles, however, can reach any Russian target in any part of occupied Ukraine, depending upon where they are fired from the Su-24 bombers that carry them.

Again, we defer to Russian sources.

“I remember the summer when Ukrainians received HIMARS, and the warehouse began to burn like matches,” one Russian military blogger, “ALIVE Z,” lamented in response to a successful Storm Shadow strike on Novooleksiivka, on the border with Crimea in Kherson oblast, on July 11. “The appearance of the Storm Shadow missiles forces us to move the warehouses even farther [away from the front line] or to look for another solution. … In general we will have to be very scrupulous about the protection and placement of ammunition.”

British cruise missiles have also felicitously freed up more GMLRS for counter-battery purposes. The Chonhar Bridge, for example, which connects occupied regions of Kherson to Crimea, was successfully hit by at least one Storm Shadow on June 22, punching a large hole through the reinforced concrete roadway and causing “serious damage,” according to Moscow. In contrast, the Antonovsky road bridge in Kherson took dozens of GMLRS strikes during the Kherson counteroffensive last summer before it suffered the same level of damage.

The recent U.S. decision to supply Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM), or cluster munitions, will only increase the lethality of Ukrainian artillery. The DPICM shells were designed to both destroy infantry and armored vehicles in any prospective NATO war against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact armies. Ukraine has already been using a limited number of these munitions, which were supplied in secret by Turkey as early as November 2022. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, they have also been using an extensive array of older, far less effective ex-Soviet cluster munitions, inherited from the Red Army. Footage of the Ukrainian military employing DPICM shells against a column of Russian infantry, which was advancing through a tree line in eastern Ukraine, has already been released. Demonstrating the effectiveness of these shells, the Russian push was stopped in its tracks.

Ukrainian forces are “advancing every day,” according to British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace in remarks made after the recent NATO summit in Vilnius. Wallace also confirmed Ukraine had not yet committed reserves from their 12 offensive brigades, the majority of which were trained by NATO and thus recipients of the lion’s share of Western-supplied equipment. Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, told an audience in Prague days ago that “in the last month, Ukraine has liberated more territory than Russia captured in the last year,” an easily verifiable bit of perspective absent from much of the depressive commentary on the war. Even Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff — someone who would never be accused of an overabundance of optimism about Ukraine’s military prospects — has stated that “the Ukrainian counteroffensive is far from a failure, despite the fact that it is happening more slowly than expected.” The Ukrainians were “preserving their combat power and they are slowly and deliberately and steadily working their way through all these minefields,” Milley later claimed, adding that they still retain a “significant amount” of forces to deploy.

The Hollywood-tailored excitement of the Battles of Kyiv and Kharkiv may have unduly raised the bar for what Ukraine can accomplish in short order. Yet the Battle of Kherson, begun in August 2022, was a long, hard slog, the bulk of which garnered comparatively little contemporaneous front-page coverage — until all of a sudden it did. That operation culminated four months later with an announced Russian withdrawal.

This was before the Ukrainians had U.S. or European main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, cruise missiles and cluster bombs. This was also before Putin’s regime began to cannibalize itself by downing its own helicopters, seizing military districts and exiling the vanguard of its expeditionary force to tent encampments in Belarus.

Does this mean that Ukraine will succeed in reaching the Sea of Azov and cutting off Russians west of Melitopol? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean that Ukrainian forces aren’t suffering and dying on a daily basis or that Ukrainian conscripts aren’t right to be angry in front of Western reporters about a lack of ammunition, rushed or insufficient NATO training and blunders of command? Of course not.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning former war correspondent Thomas Ricks once said something to the effect of: “Covering combat can be dangerous but is relatively easy. You just need to write down what you hear and see. But covering a war accurately is far more difficult, because it requires some understanding of strategy, logistics, morale and other things that often can’t be observed.” We find ourselves at a bizarre turning point in a crisis which has seen no shortage of them where the only ones who think Ukraine’s counter-offensive isn’t quite the let-down or failure it’s been widely portrayed as are the Russians desperate to prove otherwise.

newlinesmag.com · July 26, 2023

4. Americans name China as the country posing the greatest threat to the U.S.

Graphics at the link.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/27/americans-name-china-as-the-country-posing-the-greatest-threat-to-the-us/?utm

JULY 27, 2023

Americans name China as the country posing the greatest threat to the U.S.

BY NAM LAM AND LAURA SILVER

Negative views of China have become more common in the United States in recent years, and a new Pew Research Center survey shows that Americans also widely see China as the greatest threat facing their nation.

How we did this

• In an open-ended question allowing Americans to name which country they see as the greatest threat to the U.S., 50% name China – almost three times the share who name Russia (17%).
• Another 4% say no country poses the greatest threat to the U.S.
• Only 2% of Americans name North Korea – and the same share describe the U.S. itself as the greatest threat.

No other country apart from China, Russia, North Korea or the U.S. itself is named by more than 1% of Americans as the greatest threat facing their nation. Nearly a quarter of respondents (24%) provided no response, which is not uncommon for open-ended questions.

Over time, the Center has changed the way we ask about the greatest threats to the U.S., making it difficult to compare responses from year to year. Still, Americans have not always seen China as the top threat to the United States. When we last asked a question of this sort in 2019, equal shares of Americans pointed to China and Russia as the greatest threat facing their country. In 2014, Russia was at the top of Americans’ list as the greatest threat to the U.S., while in 2007, it was Iran.

Partisan differences

Today, both Democrats and Republicans identify China as the greatest threat facing the country, but there are nonetheless significant partisan and ideological differences on this question.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more likely than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to name China as the greatest threat to the United States (63% vs. 40%). And conservative Republicans are much more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans to say this (74% vs. 47%).

The opposite pattern appears when it comes to Russia: Liberal Democrats are the ideological group most likely to see Russia as the greatest threat to the U.S., while conservative Republicans are the least likely to say this.

Age, gender differences

Some 61% of Americans ages 65 and older name China as the greatest threat facing the U.S., compared with 36% of those 18 to 29. Men are also more likely than women to name China (59% vs. 42%).

In the case of Russia, there are no significant age differences: Americans ages 18 to 29 are about as likely as those 65 and older to see Russia as the greatest threat to the U.S. (18% vs. 15%). When it comes to gender, women are slightly more likely than men to name Russia (19% vs. 15%).

Perceptions of China and Russia as an economic and security threat

After asking respondents to name the country they see as the biggest threat to the U.S., the survey asked Americans two follow-up questions. These questions explore how much Americans see each country as a threat to the U.S. economy and as a threat to U.S. national security, respectively.

Among those who name China as the greatest threat facing the U.S., nearly all see China as posing at least a fair amount of threat to both America’s economy and its national security. In fact, around three-quarters say China poses a great deal of threat to both.

In contrast, while many Americans see Russia as posing at least a fair amount of threat to the U.S. economy and national security, fewer say it poses a great deal of threat, particularly when it comes to the U.S. economy. Only 36% of Americans who consider Russia to be America’s primary international threat say it poses a great deal of threat to the U.S. economy. Around two-thirds of Americans who see Russia as the top threat (66%) say it poses a great deal of threat to U.S. national security.

Which country is the top ally of the U.S.?

The survey also asked Americans in a separate open-ended question which country is the most important ally to the United States. Around half of respondents (48%) did not provide a substantive answer.

Among those who offered a substantive response, one “special relationship” stands out: Around a fifth of Americans (22%) name the United Kingdom as their country’s most important ally. This is nearly four times the share who name America’s northern neighbor, Canada (6%). Fewer name Israel (4%), Germany (3%), China (2%), Japan (2%), the EU (1%), France (1%), Mexico (1%) or Russia (1%).

Due to changes in the way we ask this question, we’re unable to make direct comparisons to past surveys. But, when we’ve asked Americans about national allies in the past, the public has consistently named the UK above all other countries. Canada and Israel have also been frequently mentioned since 2007, and the EU has also ranked highly.

Partisan, age differences

Partisan differences over which country is the greatest ally of the U.S. are relatively muted. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more likely than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to name the UK (26% vs. 21%) and Israel (8% vs. 1%). Over three-quarters of respondents who named Israel are conservative Republicans (79%). Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to name Canada (9% vs. 5%) and Germany (4% vs. 1%).

Older Americans are much more likely than younger Americans to see both the UK and Israel as America’s top ally. Younger Americans are somewhat more likely than their older counterparts to say the U.S. has no allies; they are also significantly less likely to offer a response on this question.

Perceptions of what makes for a strong alliance

The survey also asked Americans how important each of the following are for America’s relationship with its allies: security and defense ties, economic ties and shared values.

For each named country, defense ties are seen as key. For example, 94% of those who name Israel as America’s top ally say defense ties are very important to the U.S.-Israel relationship. At least three-quarters of respondents say the same for each of the other countries commonly named as America’s top ally.

The public also sees economic ties as relatively important. For most countries named, at least seven-in-ten Americans say economic ties are very important for the United States’ relationship with that country. In the cases of Japan and Canada, Americans say economic ties are about as important as defense ties.

For three of the most-named countries, Americans see shared values as less important than defense or economic ties. For example, fewer than half of those who name Japan as America’s top ally (46%) say shared values are very important for the U.S.-Japan relationship. Israel, however, is a notable exception: More Americans see shared values as very important to the U.S.-Israel relationship than say the same about economic ties (79% vs. 68%).

Note: Here are the questions used for the analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.

Topics International AffairsDefense & National SecurityGlobal Economy & Trade

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Nam Lam  is an intern focusing on global attitudes and trends at Pew Research Center.

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Laura Silver  is an associate director focusing on global attitudes at Pew Research Center.

5. Air Force maverick who warned of war with China sticks to his guns

​Military planners always plan for the worst case: What is the most likely enemy course of action and wait is the most dangerous enemy course of action?

​General Minihan is offering his best military assessment and advice.

Air Force maverick who warned of war with China sticks to his guns

Gen. Michael A. Minihan, lauded by hawks in Congress, has disturbed some in the Pentagon with his fiery prognostications of a looming conflict

By Dan Lamothe

July 29, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Dan Lamothe · July 29, 2023

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. — He’s been called a “big teddy bear,” a gruff “football coach” and a “cowboy” who needs to be put out to pasture. But one thing Gen. Michael A. Minihan is not: shy.

Here, where the suburbs of St. Louis meet the cornfields of southern Illinois, resides the four-star commander who, in uncommonly confrontational language for such a senior military officer, has ordered the 110,000 troops under his command to prepare for war.

With China.

Two years from now, maybe.

“I hope I am wrong,” he informed them in a January memo that went viral after one of its recipients leaked the document online. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

Minihan’s combustible rhetoric, including a directive for personnel to sharpen their marksmanship skills and “aim for the head,” is red meat for the China hawks in Congress who fear the United States is woefully underprepared should a conflict erupt in that part of the world. It has disturbed some in the Pentagon, however, as the general’s assertiveness has felt startlingly at odds with the Biden administration’s carefully calibrated attempt to reset relations with Beijing. Senior officials nonetheless have stuck by him — and he has pressed forward with an ambitious plan to “explode” into the Pacific in the event of a war.

This profile of Minihan, 56, is based on interviews with the general and 11 others, including members of his staff and Pentagon officials. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer frank assessments of how Minihan’s candor has affected views of him.

At his headquarters in Illinois, Minihan said he “wasn’t being cutesy” with his bellicose memo but stressed that it was meant for an internal Air Force audience, not public consumption.

“There can be no ambiguity on what my expectations are,” Minihan said. “I’m not trying to be somebody that I’m not, nor am I trying to use theater or a pedestal. I’m simply trying to make sure that my command is ready to win if called upon.”

‘Lima Foxtrot Golf’

At 6-foot-5, the silver-haired Minihan cuts an imposing figure. But away from a microphone, he often seems more like a quirky father figure, associates say. The general fires off dad jokes, drives a dented 1966 Chevrolet pickup truck to work, and enthusiastically brags about his wife, Ashley, and their three adult children.

“Mini has a heart of gold,” Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Air Force chief of staff, said as Minihan was promoted two years ago and assigned to lead Air Force Mobility Command, which oversees the service’s fleet of cargo and tanker planes and the personnel who fly and maintain them. “He’s kind of like a big teddy bear for those that know him.”

Minihan was selected for the job after 10 years in the Pacific, a tenure that included a posting as the No. 2 officer at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which coordinates military operations spanning thousands of miles from the Aleutian Islands to Australia. Brown, since nominated to be Biden’s next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled taking an interest in Minihan’s elevation after watching how he led a sensitive mission into North Korea to recover the remains of American troops who’d gone missing during the war decades ago.

Upon arriving in Illinois, Minihan leveled with his staff about who he was, staff members said. In a one-page handout, the general told his subordinates that he loved surfing and checklists, considered himself a “natural disrupter,” and had learned “the air is thin and there are no parachutes at this level” once you become a general. He concluded with the phrase, “LIMA FOXTROT GOLF,” meaning let’s f---ing go.

The general took charge of Air Mobility Command two months after the haphazard U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan, in which the Air Force’s fleet of C-17 jets and the airmen who flew them were pushed to the brink of exhaustion. While they saved 124,000 people from Taliban subjugation, 13 U.S. troops and 170 Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing just outside the international airport in Kabul. Bearing witness to the carnage and desperation left some of his airmen struggling, he said.

Minihan resolved that he needed to set an example, that it was okay to seek help. He reached out to a mental health professional and shared the decision widely. “Warrior heart. No stigma,” he tweeted in January 2022, along with an image of a calendar showing his appointment. It led to the three most uncomfortable days of his career, as he processed some of the challenging moments he has experienced, Minihan said.

“What I discovered is that when you pack a body on ice in the back of C-130 and it smells horrific, and you can’t wash it off you, that’s something to deal with,” he said, misty-eyed. “When you’re in the Pentagon on 9/11, that’s something to deal with. When your squadron is supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2003 to 2006, and your squadron moves hundreds of angels [deceased U.S. troops] … there’s something to talk about.”

Minihan told The Washington Post that one of the most frequent observations he heard from airmen who participated in the evacuation of Afghanistan is that they wish they had known how difficult the conditions would be so they could have better prepared. He feels obligated to make sure they know now “what it’s really going to be” if a conflict breaks out.

“When you are put in situations where you are facing the realities of the gap of what you have versus what you wish you had, that gap is filled with courage and tenacity,” Minihan said in the interview. “And preparing our team to fill that gap on enormous scale is critically important.”

‘If this comes across as harsh, good’

It is this mind-set that appears to have influenced the general’s grab-you-by-the-lapels style.

Speaking last fall at an Air Force conference, Minihan told a crowd of hundreds of airmen, defense contractors, and civilian officials that he wants his team to “fly it like we stole it.” He went on to deliver a rousing speech and said that “nobody is going to care” what the U.S. military’s plans are for 10 years from now if it loses a war tomorrow.

“Lethality matters most!” he told the crowd. “When you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better! Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger.”

Minihan followed up by releasing a 20-page “Mobility Manifesto” that was both urgent and irreverent. “If you are easily offended by intentional crass, please stop reading now,” he wrote in the opening. The document goes on to criticize “excuse-laden admiration for the status quo” and declare that air mobility forces were in “crisis.” While U.S. airmen are the best in the world, he wrote, there is “significant risk” in inaction that requires “revolutionary” moves to ensure that the Air Force can continue to do its part.

“If this comes across as harsh, good,” Minihan wrote. “We are not looking for blue skies or smooth air. We are looking to deliver.”

Weeks later, Minihan’s memo predicting war within China drew international attention. He ordered airmen to get their personal affairs in order and to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most.”

“Aim for the head” when doing so, he directed.

The Pentagon distanced itself from the remarks, while China’s state-run Global Times cited analysts decrying what they called the U.S. military’s prevalence of “super-hawkish war maniacs.”

One influential retired general, Barry McCaffrey, tweeted that Minihan needed “to be placed on terminal leave,” effectively fired, after showing bad judgment and “cowboy aggression.” Lawmakers hawkish toward Beijing defended the general, with Rep. Michael Gallagher (R.-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, saying Minihan should be “commended for directing his Airmen to take the threat seriously and preparing with the urgency that the situation demands.”

One senior U.S. defense official said that he was incredulous upon learning about the memo and wondered whether Beijing would see it as escalatory. Another defense official said Minihan retains the confidence of senior leaders, adding that “when we lose trust in leaders, we remove them from command.”

Brown, now awaiting confirmation to become the Joint Chiefs chairman, told Military.com that he was “disappointed” in aspects of Minihan’s memorandum, but agreed with his sense of urgency.

Minihan’s approach has had impact within an organization that spent the last 20 years flying cargo planes to and from war zones where the airspace was largely uncontested, the general’s staff said. Minihan often makes the point that in any conflict with China, which has developed a sophisticated arsenal of missiles, those lumbering planes would be at much greater risk of coming under attack.

Brig. Gen. Corey Simmons, Minihan’s former chief of staff, compared the general to a “football coach” insisting on holding difficult practices so that game days are easier. Minihan, he said, has directed airmen to prepare for a potential conflict with China with “specificity,” and is “insatiable” in looking for improvement.

“He made the news, right? Not a secret,” said Simmons, the commander of the 618th Air Operations Center at Scott. “That’s internal communication to his team. That was the coach telling his team the expectations for what he wanted to do and that this was real.”

Col. James Young, vice commander of the 618th, said that Minihan also has pressed the Air Force to more fully incorporate cargo aircraft and aerial refuelers in combat exercises. Historically, Young said, there has been a metaphorical “fairy-dusting” of mobility forces in large training missions, with assumptions made they would be safe in a conflict so they could get out of the way and let fighter jets train.

“It was almost like he lit a firecracker and said, ‘Hey, did you read the NDS?’ ” Young said, referring to the U.S. national defense strategy, which identified military competition with China as a primary concern.

Maj. Gen. Darren Cole, a senior officer on Minihan’s staff, said that the two-year timeline for war with China that the general laid out “never” comes up internally. But the sense of urgency, Cole said, does all the time.

“He is way out of ahead of where a lot of people are,” Cole said. “Getting people to realize the world has changed and our operational environment has changed has, I think, been a big undertaking.”

Minihan, for his part, bubbles with enthusiasm when describing experiments his airmen are undertaking. For two weeks in July, thousands fanned out across the Pacific as part of the exercise Mobility Guardian, delivering troops, fuel and supplies while stress-testing the limits on what the aircraft and personnel can do. The idea, he said, was to make sure the Air Force can forcefully and rapidly project power if needed.

Minihan spent eight days circulating the region, including four overnights in a C-17 as it made long flights across the pretend battle space. U.S. personnel used Kadena Air Base in Japan, Clark Air Base in the Philippines, Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, adding extra external fuel tanks on some aircraft and wearing electronics to assess human performance in the face of exhaustion.

“We’re looking at everything we can do to buy down the risk of coping with fatigue,” Minihan said.

Flat maps of the Pacific do not do justice to the “tyrannies of distance” there, Minihan said. He wants his organization assessing where they can accept additional risk, what equipment already is available that might help, and whether any new technology needs to be developed.

“I, like everybody else, don’t think this war is inevitable,” Minihan said. “ … But, you know, the deterrent factor is born from readiness — as is the decisive victory.”

The Washington Post · by Dan Lamothe · July 29, 2023

6. Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman on what Ukraine must do to break through Russian defences

Excerpts:

Having recently returned from a field study in Ukraine, we are convinced that although Ukrainian forces can fight in a combined-arms fashion, they cannot yet do it at scale. The premise of Ukraine’s counter-offensive was that a combined-arms assault could breach Russian lines and enable a breakthrough to the Sea of Azov. Western-trained and -equipped brigades, with others, could engage in manoeuvre warfare—using forces to break through the enemy’s lines, disorienting them, rather than just wearing them down with attrition. If successful, this would allow Ukrainian units to move deep into the Russian rear, penetrate supporting areas and cause the front line to collapse.

​My standing advice:

Understand the indigenous way of war and adapt to it. Do not force the US way of war upon indigenous forces if it is counter to their history, customs, traditions, and abilities. https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html

Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman on what Ukraine must do to break through Russian defences

The West should embrace Ukraine’s way of war rather than trying to change it, say the military experts

Jul 28th 2023

The Economist

COMBINED-ARMS WARFARE is a deadly ballet choreographed to overwhelm the defender by integrating different combat arms, such as infantry and artillery, and services, such as ground and air forces. Its origins lie in the last two years of the first world war. After years of stalemate, the German Imperial Army adopted innovative tactics to break through the layered Allied defences of the western front and thus out of the attritional deadlock.

This novel approach was not enough to win the war, but it changed the course of warfare. Before 1917 most operations were sequential. Days of artillery fire on a trench gave advance warning of an attack. When the fire paused and infantry went over the top, soldiers would be mown down. The same attack in combined-arms fashion would involve brief artillery fire on the enemy position, combat engineers clearing obstacles such as mines and barbed wire, and soldiers advancing under covering fire immediately afterwards.

Having recently returned from a field study in Ukraine, we are convinced that although Ukrainian forces can fight in a combined-arms fashion, they cannot yet do it at scale. The premise of Ukraine’s counter-offensive was that a combined-arms assault could breach Russian lines and enable a breakthrough to the Sea of Azov. Western-trained and -equipped brigades, with others, could engage in manoeuvre warfare—using forces to break through the enemy’s lines, disorienting them, rather than just wearing them down with attrition. If successful, this would allow Ukrainian units to move deep into the Russian rear, penetrate supporting areas and cause the front line to collapse.

Previous battles in Ukraine had given grounds for caution. Ukrainian forces struggled to co-ordinate attacks on a large scale or to synchronise use of forces, often resorting to long phases of attrition, as in Kherson last year. The initial breaching attempt during Ukraine’s summer offensive showed that many of these problems remain.

The offensive quickly resorted to extensive use of artillery and small-scale assaults by infantry units, fighting from tree line to tree line. Progress is slow because much of the battlefield is densely mined, with anti-tank guided missiles, attack drones and aircraft posing further problems. In the south Ukraine has been drawn into an artillery-dominated war of attrition. The situation around Bakhmut, farther north, is better, largely because the Russian forces there are not as entrenched and the geography of the battlefield is more favourable to Ukraine. Still, there, too, progress has been slow and costly.

Ukraine is struggling to conduct effective combined-arms operations largely because of deficiencies in two areas: training and experience.

Start with training. The problem is both a lack of it and the wrong sort. Over the course of the war Ukrainian forces have lost a large number of their best personnel, with many units on the line unable to rotate out. Combined-arms warfare requires significant time for training, not only to learn how to use equipment but also how to operate effectively as a unit. New units with a few months of training in the West may perform well in individual combat tasks but still lack cohesion.

The new brigades have been unsuccessful not only because they had little time to develop this cohesion, but also because they have not been trained the way they need to fight. Ukrainian soldiers’ ability to master Western tech quickly led to misplaced optimism that the time it takes to develop cohesive fighting units could be short-circuited. Putting these units in the vanguard of a difficult assault, instead of more experienced formations, now looks like a mistake that reflected the prioritisation of Western kit over time in the field.

This war also reinforces the importance of experience. Ukraine’s army is now one of the most experienced in the world, but it still lacks experience co-ordinating offensive action on a large scale. What on paper is an attacking brigade of several thousand men is, in practice, a couple of reinforced companies of no more than a few hundred men each—a smaller force that struggles to establish superiority over entrenched defenders. Although Ukraine can conduct combined-arms assaults at the level of a platoon, this begins to come apart when attempting to scale up to the level of a company or battalion.

Ukraine’s armed forces remain uneven because of losses and several waves of mobilisation. Experienced brigades can correct artillery fire and conduct reconnaissance and suppress enemy positions in advance of an attack. Newer units are unable to put those pieces together even when provided with the best Western equipment.

Even if Ukraine were able to fix all these tactical issues, it would still struggle to overcome Russian defences without more mine-clearing equipment, short-range air defence, air power and a significant advantage over Russia in stocks of artillery ammunition. Ukraine’s forces are highly motivated but face a daunting task against minefields, entrenchments and competent Russian defenders.

A Ukrainian force that has struggled to co-ordinate the different parts of its ground force will find it even harder to integrate them with air power, which Ukraine currently lacks. Integrating Western air power—Ukraine hopes to get American F-16 fighters soon—and using it effectively is likely to take years. It would be rash to pin too much hope on it when it arrives: having air power does not guarantee air superiority, which is not easily gained or maintained on a battlefield where advanced air defences are plentiful and the opponent’s air force outnumbers yours.

Working to improve Ukraine’s ability to employ combined arms in offensives will take time, too. Ukraine’s victory will not be secured by any single capability or weapon, but by effective use of force, better training and sustained Western support.

Ukraine’s offensive is far from over and attrition has served it well in the past. A new wave of attacks by second-echelon forces is now testing the Russian defence to see if attrition has had the desired effects. The West is best served by backing Ukraine’s way of war, by exploiting its advantages in defence-industrial capacity (including ammunition production) and the quality of its weapons. Help Ukraine to fight the way it fights best. ■

Franz-Stefan Gady is the founder and CEO of Gady Consulting and a consulting senior fellow with the Institute for International Strategic Studies. Michael Kofman is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.

The Economist

7. Ukraine fires North Korean rockets to blast Russian positions

Irony?

Most north Korea weapons come from the fundamental design of former Soviet and Russian weapons systems (though north Korea revverses engineers and adapts them).

Excerpt:

The origins of Ukraine’s armoury highlight how Europe’s biggest land conflict since the second world war has become a mixed-up cauldron for generations of the world’s military equipment, ranging from ageing Soviet kit to modern precision weapons.

Ukraine fires North Korean rockets to blast Russian positions

Financial Times · by Christopher Miller · July 28, 2023

Ukrainian artillery crews have been firing rockets made in North Korea against Russian positions, turning Pyongyang’s munitions against the invasion forces of its ally President Vladimir Putin.

The North Korean arms, whose use by Ukraine has not been previously reported, were shown to the Financial Times by troops operating Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) near the devastated city of Bakhmut.

The origins of Ukraine’s armoury highlight how Europe’s biggest land conflict since the second world war has become a mixed-up cauldron for generations of the world’s military equipment, ranging from ageing Soviet kit to modern precision weapons.

Ruslan, a Ukrainian artillery commander, said the North Korean munitions were not favoured by his troops because of their relatively high dud rate, with many known to misfire or fail to explode. Most were manufactured in the 1980s and 1990s, according to their markings.

One Ukrainian Grad unit member warned the FT not to get too close to the rocket launcher when the crew fired the North Korean munitions because “they are very unreliable and do crazy things sometimes”.

Ruslan, Ukrainian artillery commander, said they needed every rocket they could get © Chris Miller/FT

The gunners were among artillery units supporting Ukraine’s assault on Russian forces on the northern and southern flanks of Bakhmut, which is in the eastern region of Donetsk.

Journalists for Getty Images and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty photographed Ukrainian forces in possession of North Korean munitions in the southern Zaporizhzhia region in late June and earlier this month but did not identify them as being from North Korea.

The Ukrainian soldiers said the rockets had been “seized” from a ship by a “friendly” country before being delivered to Ukraine. They declined to provide further details.

Ukraine’s defence ministry suggested the rockets were taken from Russian forces. “We capture their tanks, we capture their equipment and it is very possible that this is also the result of the Ukrainian army successfully conducting a military operation,” said Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister.

“Russia has been shopping around for different types of munitions in all kinds of tyrannies, including North Korea and Iran,” he added.

It is highly unlikely North Korea would provide Ukraine directly with the munitions, as Pyongyang has been supportive of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu flew to Pyongyang this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Korean war armistice and “strengthen co-operation” with its military.

The White House in March claimed to have evidence that Moscow was negotiating with Pyongyang to exchange weapons for food. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has also alleged Pyongyang sold rockets and missiles to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group at the height of the battle of Bakhmut, the longest and bloodiest of the Russian invasion. Prigozhin dismissed the accusation as “gossip and speculation”.

Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems fire on Russian positions in Donetsk. North Korean munitions have been used in such attacks near Bakhmut in the eastern region © Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters

The Grad — its name translates as “hail” — is a self-propelled 122mm MLRS designed by the Soviet Union. Up to 40 rockets can be fired by one system in less than 20 seconds from tubes mounted on its Ural truck chassis.

Both sides have employed Grad rocket launchers since Moscow first invaded eastern Ukraine using regular and local proxy forces under the guise of a separatist uprising in 2014. Human Rights Watch has described Grad rockets as being “notoriously indiscriminate”.

Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described Grads as “the AK-47 of MLRS”, used by dozens of military forces around the world.

Their ubiquity has encouraged many countries to make munitions for the system, including North Korea.

Despite reliability issues, the Ukrainians are happy to use them. “We need every rocket we can get,” said Ruslan.

Additional reporting by Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv

Video: Ukraine tech sector goes to war | FT Film

Financial Times · by Christopher Miller · July 28, 2023

8. Xi’s Security Obsession

Isn't this obsession in the DNA of all dictators and authoritarian rulers?

GSI = Global Security Initiative

Excerpts:

China’s efforts to externalize the comprehensive national security concept through the GSI pose serious challenges for the United States. Policymakers should not underestimate the potential for Beijing’s approach to gain traction, both because of the strenuous efforts of Chinese officials and because many world leaders perceive a lack of good alternatives. Too often, the United States has portrayed itself as the chief defender of an international security order that others see as either excluding them or simply failing to solve their most pressing problems. Washington has scolded countries for entertaining Beijing’s solutions while failing to put forward viable alternatives of its own. Yet countries care primarily about solving their own security challenges. They will not reject an initiative that benefits them simply because it also benefits the CCP.

But the fact that Beijing is concentrating on building new forums and networks in areas where existing international order is weak or absent, such as nontraditional security threats like crime, terrorism, and domestic unrest, also presents an opportunity for the United States. Washington has a chance to identify areas of cooperation with countries that are dissatisfied with the current global security architecture and offer them an alternative to China’s revisionist approach. For example, U.S. security assistance in Asia, which is largely focused on the military realm, leaves a gap in addressing the region’s many nontraditional security challenges—one that China’s Ministry of Public Security and the GSI have offered to fill.

Xi is willing to accept higher economic costs to tighten control at home.

In offering alternatives, the United States should manage expectations. In the short term, Beijing will likely succeed in marketing itself as a “security partner of choice” to repressive leaders whose primary perceived security threats come from their own people and who find the authoritarian elements of China’s model appealing. But as the United States learned during the Cold War, security partnerships without broad popular support can be precarious and sometimes backfire. A positive alternative to China’s plan to address nontraditional security challenges wouldn’t win over everyone, but it could have a far-reaching impact on the institutions and norms of the international system—if the United States acts quickly.

The Biden administration has thus far focused its coalition-building efforts mainly on strengthening its existing network of allies and partners. It should complement this approach by seeking to shore up relationships with countries that have not always had close ties with Washington, demonstrating that there is an American vision for a new and inclusive security architecture that meets the needs of a changing world—on crime, on climate security, on migration, and on public safety. Unless the United States adopts a more proactive strategy, it will miss key windows of opportunity—and necessity—to build that architecture, even as Beijing pushes for a new security order aimed first and foremost at cementing long-term CCP control.

Xi’s Security Obsession

Why China Is Digging In at Home and Asserting Itself Abroad

By Sheena Chestnut Greitens

July 28, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Sheena Chestnut Greitens · July 28, 2023

Since he came to power in 2012, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been laser-focused on ensuring the security of his regime. He has purged potential political rivals, restructured the military and internal security apparatus, built an Orwellian surveillance state, and pushed through repressive new laws in the name of national security. Undergirding all these initiatives is what Xi calls the “comprehensive national security concept,” a framework for protecting China’s socialist system and the governing authority of the Chinese Communist Party, including that of Xi himself.

In an article in Foreign Affairs last October, I wrote that China’s leadership had begun to project that concept abroad through foreign policy, pursuing a grand strategy centered on regime security. In an effort to ward off external threats to China’s domestic stability and head off any possible challenges to CCP rule, Beijing seeks to weaken U.S. alliances and partnerships and promote its own model of internal security abroad.

Much has changed since last October. The CCP abruptly unwound its harsh “zero COVID” policies after a wave of unusual public opposition. China’s post–pandemic economic recovery has faltered, with slow growth, a troubled property sector, and slumping foreign investment—in part because Beijing’s drive for security has led it to clamp down on foreign businesses. And as the war in Ukraine has continued, Beijing’s stance on the conflict has heightened tensions with Europe, one of China’s largest trading partners.

But none of this has dented China’s commitment to security, either at home or abroad. Early clues from Xi’s third term as the country’s leader suggest that regime security concerns will continue to drive Chinese foreign policy, heightening tensions with Western countries and with some of China’s neighbors. The paradox at the heart of Xi’s quest to neutralize all threats to CCP rule is that an ostensibly defensive goal at home, protecting regime security, demands that China take increasingly assertive actions abroad. These actions, in turn, invite responses from other countries that only heighten Beijing’s fears—an escalatory cycle with no obvious off-ramp.

STRONGER ON ALL FRONTS

In his “work report” to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, Xi reminded listeners that before he became China’s preeminent leader, the country’s ability to safeguard its national security had been “inadequate” and “insufficient.” A decade after adopting his comprehensive national security concept, however, he said that national security had been “strengthened on all fronts.” He called national security “the bedrock of national rejuvenation” and indicated that China would continue to strengthen its “legal, strategy, and policy systems” for national security. Although much of what Xi said in this address repeated what he or other party leaders had said before, giving these remarks a dedicated section in the party work report for the first time codified them at an authoritative institutional level. In so doing, Xi suggested that his approach will shape Chinese security policy for at least the next five years and probably longer.

In May 2023, China’s top leaders affirmed their commitment to comprehensive national security at a meeting of the Central National Security Commission, a body tasked with implementing Xi’s concept. Xi called on those present to grasp China’s “complex and severe” national security environment and to speed modernization of the country’s national security system. At the meeting, the CNSC approved documents related to risk-monitoring and early warning as well as public communication and education on national security.

These themes have appeared regularly in Chinese documents and speeches on national security throughout the Xi era. China has, for example, celebrated a “national security education day” on April 15 every year since 2015, the first anniversary of the launching of the comprehensive national security concept. That Xi highlighted these issues in his October 2022 report and the CNSC has since approved related documents suggests that the CCP is now pushing forward with implementation of policies around them.

Xi now talks about security as a precondition for development.

Xi’s recent personnel appointments also indicate that the CCP intends to stay the course it has staked out on national security. Experience with internal security has become an important requirement for promotion to the top echelons of China’s political system. Cai Qi and Ding Xuexiang, both new members of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, previously ran the CNSC’s General Office, a key role for pushing through Xi’s national security priorities. Other top leaders, including Zhao Leji and Li Qiang, who were named vice chairs of the CNSC alongside Cai at the May 2023 meeting, have worked either within China’s political-legal apparatus or in the party’s discipline and supervision system, which Xi reorganized and empowered to ensure that China’s security forces are responsive to party control. Xi has long seen efforts to root out corruption and strengthen party control over the military and coercive apparatus as important to regime security. A national security leadership team that blends experience in public security, party discipline, and Xi’s particular approach to national security suggests that these forces will operate in increasingly tight lockstep to uphold CCP rule.

Other senior appointments also hint at Xi’s priorities for his third term. Chen Wenqing, the new chair of the Central Political-Legal Commission, is a member of the Politburo and a former minister of state security—and the first state security official in decades to fill this role. The new minister of state security, Chen Yixin, was the point person for Xi’s recent anticorruption and “education and rectification” campaigns within the internal security apparatus. Their appointments, in October, were followed in April by the passage of a revised Counterespionage Law that significantly broadened the scope of the law’s potential targets, rendering everything from market research to academic inquiry potentially suspect.

SECURITY ABOVE ALL

Xi’s fixation on state security should not come as a surprise. Shortly before he came to power, the Chinese authorities discovered and disrupted a network of CIA informants in China, news outlets including Reuters and The New York Times have reported. One of the first official documents circulated during Xi’s tenure—the infamous Document No. 9—warned that an infiltration of Western values and ideology could destabilize China. And in a resolution on party history in 2021, the CCP Central Committee highlighted the risks of “encirclement, suppression, disruption, and subversion.” As the China scholars Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil have written, Xi’s rule has been marked by an extended anti-spy campaign and continued exhortations to be vigilant about foreign infiltration.

That is in part because Xi sees internal and external security as interconnected: in his view, many of the threats to China’s internal stability come from beyond the country’s borders. Even security initiatives that could seem purely domestic, such as the party’s mass repression of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, have been motivated at least in part by Xi’s fear that external forces might infiltrate China and threaten internal stability. As a result, Xi has methodically tightened control over any organizations that could transmit foreign influence, including religious groups, nongovernmental organizations, and most recently, foreign businesses.

But more than fear of foreign infiltration is driving the securitization of China’s economy and society. During Xi’s tenure, the CCP has also fundamentally rethought the relationship between economics and security. Whereas Chinese leaders once elevated economic growth above all else, Xi and other senior officials now talk about security as a precondition for development. In the October 2022 party work report, for instance, Xi mentioned using a “new security pattern” to safeguard China’s “new development pattern,” phrasing that he repeated at the CNSC meeting in May.

Former Chinese president Hu Jintao leaving the 20th National CCP Congress in Beijing, October 2022

Tingshu Wang / Reuters

This rhetoric holds important clues to where China’s foreign policy is headed. The “new development pattern” refers in part to what the CCP sees as a necessary shift toward greater economic self-sufficiency to insulate the country from external “headwinds”—part of an attempt by Xi and other senior party leaders to ensure that foreign powers cannot cripple China’s economic security and stunt its progress toward “national rejuvenation.” Efforts to boost domestic demand, secure supply chains, and bolster scientific and technological innovation all fall under this heading, as does the 2021 Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.

Beijing has said less about its new security pattern than its new development pattern, but officials have hinted at both its importance and its reach. In April, Minister of State Security Chen Yixin called it “the main task of national security work in the present and the future.” At the CNSC meeting in May 2023, Xi called on party officials to “take the initiative to shape a favorable external security environment for China.”

Like previous iterations of China’s national security discourse, this one recycles phrases used in the past. In 2017, Xi called on officials to adopt a “global vision” for national security work and stated that China should proactively shape its external security environment. One feature of Xi’s governance is that official concepts sometimes start as vague phrases, with policy details filled in later. (Other times, buzzwords appear and then fade into irrelevance, but the centrality of national security to Xi’s agenda suggests that it is not likely to disappear.)

Despite the vagueness of Xi’s directive, China is seeking to strengthen its position abroad even as it justifies its more assertive behavior on defensive grounds. To protect his regime from outside forces, Xi believes, China must make the international realm more favorable to CCP rule. This is the central paradox of Xi’s preventive theory of regime security and of his view of where threats originate: ostensibly defensive ends at home require increasingly assertive means abroad.

XI’S GAMBLE

Xi’s favored vehicle for externalizing the comprehensive national security concept is the Global Security Initiative, announced in April 2022. Early writing on the GSI by Chinese analysts portrayed it as an effort to harmonize China’s “domestic security and the common security of the world.” A GSI concept paper released by China’s Foreign Ministry in February 2023 begins by referring to “Xi’s new vision of security announced in 2014,” a seemingly veiled reference to the comprehensive national security concept. Xi’s October 2022 work report also described political security—that is, the security of the CCP, its leaders, and the system it runs—as “the fundamental task” while referring to international security as “a support.” The goal of the GSI, in other words, is to use foreign policy to bolster regime security.

How exactly this will work probably won’t be clear for several years. The concept paper is vague in places, likely to give the Chinese political system time to flesh out specific initiatives. But it echoes some of the core principles of the comprehensive national security concept—the indivisibility of security and development, and of domestic security and common international security, for instance—and then outlines a long list of well-known regional and global security challenges.

In a speech marking the concept paper’s release, Qin Gang, then the foreign minister, was more pointed. He emphasized that “external suppression and containment against China keep escalating,” criticized “Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation,” and warned that just as China could not develop without a peaceful international environment, the world could not be secure “without the security of China.” His remarks echoed previous official statements, including China’s February 2022 announcement of a “no limits” partnership with Russia, that highlighted threats posed by the United States’ network of alliances on China’s periphery—threats that Beijing sees not just as traditional external military challenges but also as fundamental threats to China’s internal security and the stability of CCP authority over Chinese society.

Through the GSI, Beijing aims to create new forms of global security governance that bypass or reduce the importance of the U.S. alliance system, thereby blunting Washington’s ability to contain China or foment “color revolutions” inside it—something Chinese leaders fear. This new security architecture does not completely jettison the old; the GSI affirms the importance of the United Nations, for example. But it also seeks to construct new regional and global security orders that advance the priorities and interests of the CCP.

For Beijing, ostensibly defensive ends at home require increasingly assertive means abroad.

China has already called for changes to regional security arrangements in the Middle East, such as a reconciliation agreement that it brokered between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023, publicized on the first anniversary of the GSI’s announcement. Beijing has also begun to build new forums and networks to address nontraditional security challenges (such as terrorism and domestic unrest) that are highlighted in the comprehensive national security concept. In November 2022, for instance, China hosted the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum, a gathering of law enforcement officials from around the world.

Beijing is also promoting its model of domestic security and social stability to other countries. In 2021, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Public Security hosted representatives from 108 countries at a “Peaceful China” summit to show off Beijing’s approach to policing and surveillance. Such events seek to portray China as a paragon of domestic security and normalize its approach abroad while the GSI works in parallel to offer police and law enforcement training to those who might wish to emulate China’s example.

To support these efforts, China’s internal security officials have increasingly become international diplomats. In 2021, for instance, Chen Wenqing, then the minister of state security and now the chair of the Central Political-Legal Commission, participated in a meeting of regional intelligence officials hosted by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. In May 2023, he met with the head of the Russia’s National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, suggesting that China is making good on its February 2022 promise to increase cooperation to oppose so-called color revolutions and “attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability.” Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong has been even more visible. Since the 20th Party Congress, he has held a videoconference with counterparts from the Pacific Islands, hosted the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum, welcomed the secretary-general of Interpol to Beijing, spoken at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, promoted the GSI at the Islamabad Security Dialogue forum, and met with a half-dozen bilateral counterparts.

Conventional wisdom suggests that economic headwinds might prompt China to look to the outside world to stimulate growth. And indeed, Chinese authorities have at times tried to portray the new development pattern as compatible with continued economic openness. But because Xi sees securitization, not economic growth, as the guarantor of regime security, he is willing to accept higher economic costs in order to continue tightening control at home and improving China’s security environment abroad. This is a gamble, given that economic woes can themselves pose problems for regime stability, but Xi’s course appears to be set.

WINDOW OF NECESSITY

China’s efforts to externalize the comprehensive national security concept through the GSI pose serious challenges for the United States. Policymakers should not underestimate the potential for Beijing’s approach to gain traction, both because of the strenuous efforts of Chinese officials and because many world leaders perceive a lack of good alternatives. Too often, the United States has portrayed itself as the chief defender of an international security order that others see as either excluding them or simply failing to solve their most pressing problems. Washington has scolded countries for entertaining Beijing’s solutions while failing to put forward viable alternatives of its own. Yet countries care primarily about solving their own security challenges. They will not reject an initiative that benefits them simply because it also benefits the CCP.

But the fact that Beijing is concentrating on building new forums and networks in areas where existing international order is weak or absent, such as nontraditional security threats like crime, terrorism, and domestic unrest, also presents an opportunity for the United States. Washington has a chance to identify areas of cooperation with countries that are dissatisfied with the current global security architecture and offer them an alternative to China’s revisionist approach. For example, U.S. security assistance in Asia, which is largely focused on the military realm, leaves a gap in addressing the region’s many nontraditional security challenges—one that China’s Ministry of Public Security and the GSI have offered to fill.

Xi is willing to accept higher economic costs to tighten control at home.

In offering alternatives, the United States should manage expectations. In the short term, Beijing will likely succeed in marketing itself as a “security partner of choice” to repressive leaders whose primary perceived security threats come from their own people and who find the authoritarian elements of China’s model appealing. But as the United States learned during the Cold War, security partnerships without broad popular support can be precarious and sometimes backfire. A positive alternative to China’s plan to address nontraditional security challenges wouldn’t win over everyone, but it could have a far-reaching impact on the institutions and norms of the international system—if the United States acts quickly.

The Biden administration has thus far focused its coalition-building efforts mainly on strengthening its existing network of allies and partners. It should complement this approach by seeking to shore up relationships with countries that have not always had close ties with Washington, demonstrating that there is an American vision for a new and inclusive security architecture that meets the needs of a changing world—on crime, on climate security, on migration, and on public safety. Unless the United States adopts a more proactive strategy, it will miss key windows of opportunity—and necessity—to build that architecture, even as Beijing pushes for a new security order aimed first and foremost at cementing long-term CCP control.

• SHEENA CHESTNUT GREITENS is Associate Professor and Director of the Asia Policy Program at the University of Texas at Austin and a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Foreign Affairs · by Sheena Chestnut Greitens · July 28, 2023

9. Putin will be gone within a year and the West MUST be ready for his terrifying replacement, warns ex-MI6 spy

Somehow I do not think Christopher Steele will be considered a credible analyst. I think he was an operator or intelligence officer (e.g., a case officer) and not an analyst. Does he have the background, education, and experience to make credible "predictions?" Of course professional analysts do not make predictions.

Putin will be gone within a year and the West MUST be ready for his terrifying replacement, warns ex-MI6 spy

By Imogen Braddick the-sun.com4 min

July 28, 2023

View Original

VLADIMIR Putin's 20-year iron fist reign will be over within a year, a former MI6 spy claimed.

Christopher Steele, who ran MI6's Russia desk between 2006 and 2009, said the West needs to "prepare for the end of the Putin era".

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Vladimir Putin and and Russia’s FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov (right)Credit: Reuters

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Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele said Putin will be gone within a yearCredit: AFP

After two decades in power, Putin's once unquestionable control of Russia appears to be over following the Wagner rebellion and the disastrous Ukraine war.

After the extraordinary mutiny from Yevgeny Prigozhin, experts have warned that the Kremlin's "poisonous spiders" were out for blood.

Laying out possible scenarios, Steele suggested the tyrant could be assassinated by internal rebels - or by a plot from outside of Russia.

He told Sky News this would be the worst scenario for the West as "all bets would be off" - with likely "bloodshed".

But Steele also pointed to "very credible sources telling us he's been ill for some time" - suggesting Putin could die suddenly from illness.

The leader could be ousted by an armed rebellion, or even decide it's time to go and step down at the next election in March 2024, Steele added.

But he explained that the most likely ending for Putin will be "violent" move to kill or topple him.

"A move is made violently, if necessary, to kill or topple Putin in favour of another securocrat or regime oligarch," Steele said.

"But [it will be] one who has distanced themselves from the war and is prepared to negotiate on ending it genuinely with the West."

And the former spy revealed FSB director Alexander Bortnikov could be one of the frontrunners to take power from Putin, Steele said.

He said "rising star" Aleksey Dyumin, the governor of Tula oblast, is another potential successor, along with oligarch Igor Sechin and former Russian prime minister Viktor Zubkov.

Bortnikov is the current director of Russia’s FSB - making him one of the most powerful people in Russia and as an influential member of Putin’s inner circle.

Like Putin, he is a former officer of the KGB and first met Putin while the pair were stationed together in Leningrad - now Saint Petersburg - in the 1970s.

Since stepping into the mighty role in 2008, the terrifying spymaster is said to have turned the FSB into the “punishing sword” of Putin’s regime.

The organisation is both the brain and the heart of Putin's government and behaves like a “state within the state", according to the Dossier Center.

Not long after Putin was appointed acting president, Bortnikov was first made head of Russia's Economic Security Service, wielding huge power and leverage.

He is also one of a small handful of people in Russia to earn the rank of Army General.

And in 2006, it was claimed that Bortnikov was involved in the operation to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko.

But Steele said Putin could choose to back Dmitry Patrushev, son of the Russian Security Council secretary, or Aleksey Dyumin as the next leader of Russia.

And he warned that this would mean "little or no change to the war in Ukraine".

"But at least the West would be facing a Russian leader who has not proven to be untrustworthy, a liar, and is not indicted for war crimes," Steele added.

Steele said: "I think there is real disquiet amongst key people in the leadership now.

"Not just in the armed forces where the generals have been openly criticising Putin and the Kremlin for its support for the war - which is unheard of - but more generally the idea of the trajectory of Russia now: led by a president who's been indicted for war crimes, who's leading the Russian economy down a certain path."

Steven L. Hall, a former Russian CIA intelligence lead, said the Russian military elite pose a "real threat" to Putin.

"Men like Patrushev and Bortnikov not only possess hard power, but they know how to use it and are inclined to do so,” he told The Washington Post last year.

"The siloviki are willing to use this deadly mixture of hard power and secrecy when a serious threat to the Russian kleptocratic system emerges."

Russian siloviki translates to "people of force" or "strong men" - the term given to former military personnel who are now in political positions. 

Mr Hall added: "They have weapons and the personnel to threaten Putin.

“They know how to operate under Putin’s radar, because they are the ones in charge of the radar itself.

"And while it is reasonable to assume Putin has some means to monitor the siloviki, he will not be able to follow their actions constantly and with great precision, given all the other issues on his plate."

10. Opinion | Army recruiting shortages will force big changes at the Pentagon

One of the differences between Army and Marine recruiting is culture. The Marines hand pick their officers, among the best and brightest, to lead recruiting units. Years ago in the Army post company command captains dreaded being assigned to the "Three R's" duty: recruiting, reserve advisor, or ROTC and senior leaders would try to influence assignments for their mentees so they could remain in operational/tactical assignments or obtain advanced civil school to go teach at West Point. 

Excerpts:

These are prudent steps for an Army that has never been quick to change. The service is right to consider whether its active-duty strength can be trimmed and its structure improved by greater reliance on technology while turning to reserve units to fill in gaps. Earlier this month, the president okayed the activation of up to 3,000 Army reservists in Europe to do just that.

Much as the Pentagon might hope that increased numbers of young Americans will soon turn up at recruiting centers longing to serve the country, it is usually the professional and educational benefits of military service that persuade recruits to sign up. Those are worth reemphasizing. The Army should also, as the Marines have done for years, place a premium on the time younger officers spend on recruiting while moving up the chain of command. Those moves would help allay the Army’s recruiting problem while the service takes modest steps to right-size its force.

Opinion | Army recruiting shortages will force big changes at the Pentagon

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · July 26, 2023

It has been a tough season for U.S. military recruiters. In June, the Navy issued and then rescinded an order requiring its recruiters to work six days a week. The Air Force lifted a long-standing ban on neck and hand tattoos in March to help more recruits qualify for military service. The Army secretary said more recently that she was contemplating reductions in the service’s size, in part to modernize the force but also to avoid “hollow formations.” The soldier shortage has left Army brass with few alternatives.

The services’ recruiting problems have tangled roots and won’t disappear soon. The percentage of Americans ages 19 through 25 is at a 15-year low, which means the services — and many other employers — are all drawing from the same shrunken pool. The economy clicks along at near-full employment and offers young people who might otherwise go into uniform attractive alternatives and rising wages. Less than a quarter of Americans ages 17 to 24 qualify for service, the Pentagon said, because of poor test scores, criminal records and physical and mental fitness issues; less than 10 percent of possible candidates now say they would even consider military service.

Some of the challenges are cultural. The all-volunteer force, now marking its 50th year, draws a disproportionate share of its recruits from a shrinking number of states and communities; about 80 percent of men and women in uniform already come from military families. “Propensity to serve,” as the military marketers put it, is down across the board; the appeal of military service has waned in the aftermath of punishing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even in places where it was once robust. These trends mirror the generally fading allure of public service among young people: The nation faces critical shortages of police officers, firefighters and schoolteachers. Military recruiters report they don’t see the numbers at the top of the funnel that they once did — and say it is harder to close the deal when would-be recruits get to the end of the process.

Political skirmishing has made the cultural problem worse. Some Republicans imagine the military has become a training ground for “wokeness” and have broadcast that fear so widely for political gain that it might have repelled some of the candidates the Pentagon would have hoped to attract. Some on the left, meanwhile, fear a U.S. military disproportionately composed of right-wing nationalists. Neither threat, to the extent they exist, is something the military cannot handle. But civilians on both the left and the right deserve blame for demonizing the overwhelming majority of those who provide for the common defense.

Also on the Editorial Board’s agenda

• D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good.
• Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group.
• Vietnam sentences another democracy activist.
• Biden has a new border plan.

The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC.

In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam.

The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.

1/5

End of carousel

Though the recruiting shortfalls will also leave the Navy and Air Force short of their goals this year, they have hit hardest at the Army, the nation’s largest force. But its sheer size — nearly a half-million active-duty troops and an even larger number of National Guard and reserve soldiers — makes the service ripe for restructuring. A force that tilted heavily toward armor, artillery, infantry and aviation at the end of the Vietnam War has in the half-century since become lighter, quicker and oriented more toward Special Operations forces. But today, the Army has, if anything, too many special warfare units. The war in Ukraine has the service eyeing ways to reorganize some of its combat teams into smaller, more lethal units that make smarter use of advances in drones and other uncrewed systems while investing more in missile defenses. “I would much rather, frankly, see us be leaner and meaner,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told the Aspen Security Forum last week, “than keep force structure that I can’t fully man.”

These are prudent steps for an Army that has never been quick to change. The service is right to consider whether its active-duty strength can be trimmed and its structure improved by greater reliance on technology while turning to reserve units to fill in gaps. Earlier this month, the president okayed the activation of up to 3,000 Army reservists in Europe to do just that.

Much as the Pentagon might hope that increased numbers of young Americans will soon turn up at recruiting centers longing to serve the country, it is usually the professional and educational benefits of military service that persuade recruits to sign up. Those are worth reemphasizing. The Army should also, as the Marines have done for years, place a premium on the time younger officers spend on recruiting while moving up the chain of command. Those moves would help allay the Army’s recruiting problem while the service takes modest steps to right-size its force.

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · July 26, 2023

11. My Assessment of Risks and Opportunities Facing the Indo-Pacific Region in 2023 After Watching Oppenheimer by Eleanor Shiori Hughes

Excerpts:

The world is ripe with many known unknowns, but there are indications that other geopolitical trend lines will prove themselves to be prevalent for the rest of 2023 and beyond - at least here in the U.S. While these are just best guesses, I’ve flagged two trends that are worth keeping tabs on. First, election season is officially underway, and my sense is that the de-risking debate will confront a major stress test on the campaign trail (if it hasn’t happened already). President Biden, his opponents and other candidates running for public office will welcome opportunities to share their thoughts on the virtues or the pitfalls of adopting a de-risking strategy towards China. Second, since I am writing this report from the Midwest, I wonder to what extent the resurrection of an industrial policy will win the hearts and minds of Americans who live in or around fertile manufacturing grounds. Just a few weeks ago, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced that General Motors will construct an EV battery plant in partnership with Samsung just a few miles away from my hometown of South Bend, IN. There are more questions than answers for this ambitious endeavor including workforce capacity, which is another hot topic these days.

To bring things back to my experience watching Oppenheimer, I wonder to what extent the thematic elements of Christopher Nolan’s latest movie and Oppenheimer’s legacy will continue to offer lessons regarding the risks and opportunities that we’re facing today in the Indo-Pacific and the digital revolution more broadly. I won't share any spoliers for those who haven’t seen it, but my hope is that Nolan continues to participate in the social discourse surrounding AI and the unintended consequences that it and other frontier technologies may have that we can’t collectively conceive at this moment in time.

My Assessment of Risks and Opportunities Facing the Indo-Pacific Region in 2023 After Watching Oppenheimer

posted by Eleanor Shiori Hughes on July 28, 2023 - 12:35pm

econvue.com · July 28, 2023

Hi everyone - it’s been a quite a while since I last penned my thoughts into a piece for EconVue. Last weekend, I went to see Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan in Chicago (for those who have yet to see it, I would highly recommend seeing the IMAX version). Christopher Nolan’s tour de force about the pioneering father of the Atomic Bomb is illuminating beyond words. At the moment, I’m still trying to internalize the astonishing complexities of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life; the ineffable visual and auditory features of the film that caught me off guard; and the grave human consequences of Oppenheimer’s own invention.

The next morning while I was sipping my morning coffee, I stumbled upon an interview that Financial Times (FT) reporter Christopher Grimes had with the acclaimed director just a few weeks before Oppenheimer was released in theaters. Before I found this article, I couldn't help but think about how the movie subtly conjures a correlation between the advent of the nuclear weapons era and the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) frenzy. Coincidentally enough, in the printed version of the FT sitting right in front of me, I noticed that Nolan labeled his latest cinematic creation as a “cautionary tale” because of AI - and rightfully so. AI is a technological and economic engine that’s unlocking its transformative effects on modern society at lightning speed, but technologists and other experts are also raising the alarm about how it's also a peculiar domain where challenges await. Nolan briefly touched on AI during his interview with the FT, and he made it clear that he’s a proponent of implementing a risk management framework via regulations in order to mitigate privacy loss and disinformation campaigns.

After I finished reading the interview, I realized that Nolan's comments about AI track with how many industries are employing risk management in order to manage vulnerabilities and anticipate future disruptions. Given the evolving geopolitical environment, especially in the Indo-Pacific theater, it can be a herculean task to identify areas of risk and opportunity for governance, commerce, technological advances, etc. Thanks to watching Oppenheimer, I was inspired to write up a report that identifies a few challenges and opportunities relating to the Indo-Pacific that has captured my attention so far in 2023.

Anxieties about the U.S. - China tensions and a dearth of senior-level communications aroused goosebumps. Rest assured, they aren’t non-existent.

The Biden administration continues to encounter difficulties to diplomatically engage with their Chinese counterparts, particularly on mil-to-mil issues. While Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin briefly exchanged niceties and a handshake with Chinese defense Minister Li Shangfu during the annual Shangri-la Dialogue last month, the Pentagon confirmed that Beijing repeatedly dismissed requests to conduct high-stake defense talks - one of which included after President Biden ordered a balloon that traversed across the U.S. to be shot down in February. Secretary Austin expressed his concerns about the PRC expanding its military footprint throughout the Indo-Pacific and reinforced the necessity for the two capitals to resume high-level dialogues on matters of mutual concern. A few weeks ago, Dr. Ely Ratner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs, met the new Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng at the Pentagon. For Washington, the point of this dialogue was not to immediately generate deliverables but rather ensure that mil-to-mil dialogues with China do not hit another standstill.

Meanwhile, Beijing and Washington appear to be more open to discussing the economic dimensions of their relationship. While mistrust is undergirding the current state of U.S.-China relations, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, trade between the two countries increased for the third consecutive year. With that in mind, a few cabinet members from the Biden administration including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Yellen, and Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry managed to secure high-level meetings with Chinese leaders over the past six months. The purpose of these engagements were two-fold. First, this gave the opportunity for U.S. officials to air grievances with the PRC about the murky waters of China’s regulatory landscape, Americans detained in the mainland, and Beijing widening the scope of its anti-espionage law. Second, the Biden administration also wanted to lay down guardrails to convey to Beijing that the priority is to make earnest efforts towards fostering a “healthy economic relationship” with the hopes that this can generate substantive progress.

But at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. In theory, dialogues create important venues by which the U.S. and Chinese leadership can lay out concerns and pave a pathway towards reconciling challenges, but they should hardly be the only metric to use to calculate the trajectory of the bilateral relationship.

After all, even with these senior-level meetings, these strategic pressure points will not evaporate any time soon. And with rising concerns about potential supply chain ruptures and dangerous flash points in the East and South China Seas, both capitals will continue to be oriented towards hardening their competitive posture in every realm.

For many corporate executives, China is too big of a market to undergo a full-throated decoupling. Enter de-risking - a buzzword that’s slowly manifesting itself into the beating heart of multilateral and whole-of-government strategies.

Given the rising concerns about PRC’s flexing of its muscles and its refusal to rule out a military assault on Taiwan, many industry executives are hastily embracing a more nuanced view about what it means to have commercial operations in China other markets where risk is palpable. Companies and investors are hedging their bets by adopting strategies to ensure that their equities are not at risk should an unforeseen disruption (manmade or otherwise) catalyze economic volatility. But for many firms, despite the storm clouds brewing from strategic competition, having a business presence in China continues to yield dividends.

With China’s zero-COVID policy out of the picture, Chinese officials have been rolling out the red carpet for a myriad of c-suite executives this year - many of whom traveled to the mainland for the first time since COVID. Below is a list of some high-profile corporate executives who embarked to China over the past few months:

• David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs (March 2023)
• Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone (March 2023)
• Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. (March 2023)
• Patrick Gelsinger, CEO of Intel (April and July 2023)
• Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors Co. (May 2023)
• Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Starbucks (May 2023)
• Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (May 2023)
• Elon Musk, Founder of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI (May 2023)
• Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft (June 2023)
• Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH (June 2023)

Now it’s time for me to flesh out de-risking – a word that’s making media headwinds and appearing in multilateral and government-level strategies. As opposed to decoupling, de-risking rests on the idea that the U.S. and like-minded countries do not hold fundamental ambitions to completely sever its economic dependence on China but prefer to limit their exposure to the Chinese market. The word first garnered public attention when Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, spoke at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in March. She stressed that diplomacy with China still has its merits, and the Europe needs to “leave space for a discussion on a more ambitious partnership and on how [Europe and China] can make competition fairer and more disciplined.” Since then, de-risking morphed into a buzzword in the foreign policy lexicon. As highlighted earlier, with many corporate executives making it clear that China remains too indispensable of a market, political elites have embraced de-risking to accommodate this reality. Perhaps this is unsurprising to some of you, but if you ask Chinese officials, this change in tone is not reassuring by any means, because to them, decoupling and de-risking are cut from the same cloth.

In recent weeks, de-risking has been featured in the G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communique and Germany’s inaugural China strategy.

With some countries’ apprehension about potentially falling victim to Beijing’s coercive economic and diplomatic tactics, clarity is still needed on how the West plans to collectively employ de-risking in practical terms. Furthermore, the extent to which industry will be receptive to a cacophony of policy leaders pressing for more government oversight versus having to shoulder the responsibility to de-risk on their own is another gray area worth monitoring.

In any case, many businesses and governments are on the move to take preemptive action against unanticipated risks by creating blueprints on how to gradually diversify investments, safeguard their technological crown jewels, and other assets that are matters of national security away from China.

The Atlantic and Indo-Pacific arena’s strategic well-being are increasingly tethered to each other, but fissures can limit cooperation.

The inception of the Ukraine war was a watershed moment for the Transatlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions. It provided a sobering lesson that the ramifications of Russia’s unjust invasion can be acutely felt well beyond the European periphery. With mounting concerns over closer ties between Russia and China and the possibility that the status quo might be altered through use of force in the East or South China Seas, many countries in the Indo-Pacific are taking purposeful action to sharpen their defense capabilities and elevate cooperation with regional neighbors. Against this backdrop, many European powers recognize that should a war materialize in Asia, it will have cataclysmic spillover effects in Europe. This is why the minilateral infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific is also cementing European presence in Asia as evidenced by the AUKUS defense partnership and the U.K’s accession into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), among others.

It’s also important to note that some Indo-Pacific countries have also been upping their outreach to Europe, as the cause to preserve a rules-based liberal international order transcends geographical boundaries. Japan has been simultaneously forging stronger security and economic ties with like-minded European and Indo-Pacific partners, including the U.S. While this trend is not new, Russia invading Ukraine compelled Tokyo to quickly reevaluate its calculus on how to coordinate more closely with Europe to address the deteriorating global security environment. As such, Prime Minister Kishida embraced a new mantra: what’s transpiring in Ukraine today could manifest itself in East Asia tomorrow. The Japanese Diet also recently passed the two Reciprocal Access Agreements signed with the U.K. and Australia, reinforcing Tokyo’s desire to accelerate closer security ties.

Australia and South Korea have also boosted their activism with Europe. For Australia, one of the more obvious achievements is the announcement of the optimal plan by which Australia will acquire submarines via AUKUS. Canberra also just finalized a historical defense agreement with Germany to export over 100 Boxers vehicles that will be produced in Brisbane, Australia. Meanwhile, South Korea under the leadership of President Yoon Suk Yeol is playing a major role to plug the gaps in the global arms exports industry by becoming a major provider of defense ammunitions to democracies who support Ukraine’s war efforts, namely Poland. South Korea is also making strides to bolster ties with the European Union by pledging to create a new strategic dialogue and working more closely on climate change and public health.

Perhaps what is most noteworthy are the increased strategic linkages between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners. The leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea participated in the annual NATO summit for a second year in a row and each country is creating an Individually Tailored Partnership Program (ITPP) with NATO.

Many are rightfully sanguine about the growing strategic linkages between the Transatlantic and the Indo-Pacific, but not everyone is in sync with each other about the extent to which Europe should deploy a forward diplomatic and military presence in Asia.

This was especially made evident through French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about Taiwan and resisting the idea that Europe should entangle itself into another geopolitical conflict should a military contingency take place in the Taiwan Strait. In May, news broke that NATO plans to open a liaison office in Tokyo sometime next year, but it became a political hot potato because Macron objected to the proposition, as the Indo-Pacific is not a part of NATO’s jurisdiction. In order to mollify these divergences, this liaison office was not mentioned in the joint statement from this year’s NATO summit. That said, the creation of a liaison office in Japan has allegedly not been ruled out. Nevertheless, the alignment between the Transatlantic and the Indo-Pacific is becoming more sophisticated, and it will play a bigger role in shaping the global geopolitical dynamics going forward.

The Next Five Months: How to Look Ahead With Known Unknowns

The world is ripe with many known unknowns, but there are indications that other geopolitical trend lines will prove themselves to be prevalent for the rest of 2023 and beyond - at least here in the U.S. While these are just best guesses, I’ve flagged two trends that are worth keeping tabs on. First, election season is officially underway, and my sense is that the de-risking debate will confront a major stress test on the campaign trail (if it hasn’t happened already). President Biden, his opponents and other candidates running for public office will welcome opportunities to share their thoughts on the virtues or the pitfalls of adopting a de-risking strategy towards China. Second, since I am writing this report from the Midwest, I wonder to what extent the resurrection of an industrial policy will win the hearts and minds of Americans who live in or around fertile manufacturing grounds. Just a few weeks ago, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced that General Motors will construct an EV battery plant in partnership with Samsung just a few miles away from my hometown of South Bend, IN. There are more questions than answers for this ambitious endeavor including workforce capacity, which is another hot topic these days.

To bring things back to my experience watching Oppenheimer, I wonder to what extent the thematic elements of Christopher Nolan’s latest movie and Oppenheimer’s legacy will continue to offer lessons regarding the risks and opportunities that we’re facing today in the Indo-Pacific and the digital revolution more broadly. I won't share any spoliers for those who haven’t seen it, but my hope is that Nolan continues to participate in the social discourse surrounding AI and the unintended consequences that it and other frontier technologies may have that we can’t collectively conceive at this moment in time.

Eleanor Shiori Hughes is a Non-Resident Fellow at EconVue, a think tank based in Chicago.

econvue.com · July 28, 2023

12. Ukraine's Counteroffensive Needs a Plan B

Excerpts:

In fact, Ukraine has a better option. By shifting their focus from offense to defense while shortening and reinforcing their defensive lines, the Ukrainians could force the Russian military to leave the security of its defensive network. With less territory for Ukraine to defend, it could mass troops at critical points across the battlespace, enabling its commanders to maximize the effect of its armor and artillery while preserving critical supplies of ammunition. Making this shift now could enable Ukraine to hold onto areas of the Donbass region that Russia has officially annexed but has yet to seize, putting Kyiv in a stronger bargaining position than its failing counteroffensive is likely to produce.

Playing defense is inherently easier than mounting a large offensive, and Ukraine’s odds of military success in such a shift would be high. Today’s Russian army is not the Red Army of 1943, and it is far from clear that the Russians have the logistical and organizational capacity to reach Kyiv. The Ukrainian military has shown for nearly a year and a half that it is capable of stymying Russia’s offensive operations, particularly with continued Western support and encouragement.

Admittedly, a Ukrainian shift to defense would not, by itself, drive Russia to the bargaining table. But, if coupled with a diplomatic approach that incentivizes Russia to end the fighting rather than prolong it to keep Ukraine out of NATO, it could well prompt Russia to aim to secure its still quite limited gains through a negotiated end to the war. It is time to try.

Ukraine's Counteroffensive Needs a Plan B

IDEAS

BY GEORGE BEEBE AND JAMES WEBB JULY 27, 2023 3:04 PM EDT

Beebe is director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA. Webb is an advocacy associate at Quincy and a former Marine Corps infantryman with combat service in Iraq

TIME · by George Beebe and James Webb · July 27, 2023

America’s “Plan A” in Ukraine is on life support.

For months, U.S. officials had looked ahead to the Zelensky government’s long-planned counteroffensive as the best hope for turning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into a decisive failure, forcing Putin to sue for peace. They posited that even if Ukraine ultimately proved incapable of driving Russian forces off all of Ukraine’s territory, the counteroffensive would give Kyiv significant leverage at the diplomatic table. At a minimum, Ukraine would emerge from the war as a strong and independent nation, boasting a Western-backed military more than capable of blocking any new Russian aggression for years to come.

Some six weeks into the Ukrainian counteroffensive, things are not going as planned. Although damage estimates vary, Ukraine has lost significant numbers of men and weapons, while making negligible progress against formidable Russian defenses.

Despite vigorous recruiting and conscription efforts, Ukraine has too few soldiers to muster the three-to-one manpower advantage generally considered necessary for a successful offensive. Its supplies of artillery shells and anti-aircraft missiles, vital to battlefield success, are dwindling. As a result, Russia’s air force—which was sparingly used last year in the face of effective Ukrainian air defenses—is now operating more actively near the front lines, devastating Ukraine’s attacking forces.

Finger-pointing for this failure is already underway. Increasingly, Ukrainian officials openly blame the West for not providing enough armor, aircraft, artillery, missiles, and ammunition. Anonymous American officials blame the Ukrainians for not conducting Western-style combined arms operations to outmaneuver and outpace their plodding Russian opponents.

Regardless of who is at fault, there are no fast or easy solutions to the problems besetting the counteroffensive. Even if the United States and NATO had sufficient volumes of weapons and ammunition to provide Ukraine, the fundamental issue cannot be resolved simply by supplying Ukraine with advanced weaponry. Combined arms operations are among the most sophisticated endeavors in conventional warfare, and not learned on the fly.

The U.S. military, for example, has long relied on the tactical flexibility, judgment, and initiative of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and junior officers. This concept, called “Mission Command,” is a critical component of U.S. combined arms operations. It enables even the most junior Marine or soldier adeptly to adjust on the battlefield to build or maintain momentum, especially during combined arms operations, which are highly dynamic and fluid. This approach has been refined over the course of nearly 100 years of continuous development and training.

By contrast, Ukraine has little experience in Western-style combined arms operations and insufficient time to train a large force in this approach to war. While it has begun slowly to adapt, Ukraine’s military is still deeply rooted in Soviet-era offensive tactics and culture, centralizing decision-making at the top while penalizing subordinate soldiers who dare to deviate from the plan. In essence, Ukraine needs to reconstitute its military and install a new philosophy to conduct effective combined arms warfare.

But even such an extensive transformation would still not resolve Ukraine’s critical gap in this war: air power. According to the Congressional Research Service, Ukraine’s air force has 132 aircrafts, compared to 1,391 in Russia’s. Providing Ukraine with a couple of dozen F-16 fighters, whose complex maintenance requirements make the aircraft ill-suited for conditions in Ukraine, will hardly bridge that gap. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told Politico in May, “There are no magic weapons in war, F-16s are not, and neither is anything else.”

Given such difficult circumstances, what are Kyiv’s choices? One option would be to maintain its current course, betting that recent squabbling might cause the Russian military—and ultimately the Putin regime—to crumble from within. However, the risks of such a gamble would be significant. If Ukraine continues its under-manned and under-supported assaults on entrenched Russian defenses, it could exhaust its resources and leave itself dangerously vulnerable to a Russian counterattack. This has happened before—in 1943, the Battle of Kursk depleted the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and allowed the Soviets to counterattack across a front line too long for the Nazis to manage. The result was a massacre that did not stop until the Red Army was in Berlin.

In fact, Ukraine has a better option. By shifting their focus from offense to defense while shortening and reinforcing their defensive lines, the Ukrainians could force the Russian military to leave the security of its defensive network. With less territory for Ukraine to defend, it could mass troops at critical points across the battlespace, enabling its commanders to maximize the effect of its armor and artillery while preserving critical supplies of ammunition. Making this shift now could enable Ukraine to hold onto areas of the Donbass region that Russia has officially annexed but has yet to seize, putting Kyiv in a stronger bargaining position than its failing counteroffensive is likely to produce.

Playing defense is inherently easier than mounting a large offensive, and Ukraine’s odds of military success in such a shift would be high. Today’s Russian army is not the Red Army of 1943, and it is far from clear that the Russians have the logistical and organizational capacity to reach Kyiv. The Ukrainian military has shown for nearly a year and a half that it is capable of stymying Russia’s offensive operations, particularly with continued Western support and encouragement.

Admittedly, a Ukrainian shift to defense would not, by itself, drive Russia to the bargaining table. But, if coupled with a diplomatic approach that incentivizes Russia to end the fighting rather than prolong it to keep Ukraine out of NATO, it could well prompt Russia to aim to secure its still quite limited gains through a negotiated end to the war. It is time to try.

TIME · by George Beebe and James Webb · July 27, 2023

13. The Pentagon didn’t refuse to pay $60,000 to fly fallen Marine Nicole Gee to Arlington

Thank you Jeff Scholgol for correcting the Fox News record.

The Pentagon didn’t refuse to pay $60,000 to fly fallen Marine Nicole Gee to Arlington

Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee was killed on Aug. 26, 2021 in Kabul.

BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED JUL 26, 2023 4:18 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · July 26, 2023

A recent Fox News story incorrectly reported that the Defense Department stuck the family of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was killed in Afghanistan, with a $60,000 bill to transfer her from California to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, according to the fallen Marine’s family and the Pentagon.

Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee was one of 13 U.S. service members killed on Aug. 26, 2021, when a suicide bomber attacked Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate.

Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) told Fox News that a non-profit organization helped Gee’s family pay a $60,000 bill after the Defense Department refused to pay to fly the fallen Marine from California to Arlington National Cemetery.

“It is an egregious injustice that grieving families were burdened to shoulder the financial strain of honoring their loved ones,” Mills told Fox News.

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However, Christy Shamblin, Gee’s mother-in-law, told Task & Purpose on Wednesday that the Defense Department did not tell Gee’s family that it would not pay the costs of moving her to Arlington National Cemetery.

“That never happened,” Shamblin said.

Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee calms an infant during the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Sgt. Isaiah Campbell/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

At the time, Gee’s family was working with the non-profit group Honoring Our Fallen, Shamblin said. When the group learned that it would cost $60,000 to fly Gee from Sacramento to Arlington National Cemetery, the group flew her in a private plane to the cemetery, she said.

Shamblin said she does not think Gee’s family ever asked the Defense Department to pay for the costs of moving Gee to Virginia to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

“I think that we got the information that that’s how much it was going to cost, and the private non-profit just stepped in and took over from there,” Shamblin. “I’m not even sure that it went to the point where they said ‘no.’ That may have been the next step in the process, but we just never got to that point.”

Laura Herzog, founder and CEO of Honoring Our Fallen Inc, told Task & Purpose that she personally secured an in-kind donation of a flight in a private aircraft to transport Gee to Arlington National Cemetery so that the fallen Marine would not have to be transported on a commercial airline.

“No monies were exchanged or expected to be paid by our organization or the family,” Herzog said on Wednesday. “This was a donation made by a veteran who donated this service to us to assist us in honoring Sgt. Gee. We are proud of our support to Sgt. Gee and her family. It takes a village and I am proud of our communities that came together to honor and support her sacrifice.”

Under DOD policy, when the remains of fallen military members are returned home, they are delivered to an initial location designated by family members, often a hometown. There, families, friends and communities often hold memorial services. If family members wish to see their service member buried elsewhere, such as in a national cemetery like Arlington, the family must pay to transport the members to that location. They can then request to be reimbursed for those expenses along with the rest of the funeral bill under a Defense Department policy.

Throughout the transfer of remains process for Gee, Marine Corps casualty assistance officers kept in direct communication with Gee’s family, and they continue to do so today, a Pentagon spokesperson told Task & Purpose.

“In the case of Sgt. Gee, the Marine Corps stayed consistent with its policy that all costs associated with internment be borne by the government,” the spokesperson said. “At this time, we have no record of any incurred charges or any pending requests for reimbursement associated with the transportation of Sgt. Gee’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery. The Marine Corps takes very seriously the transfer of remains of our Marines – they never leave a Marine behind, and they care for the families of their fallen Marines.”

Still, Shamblin said she believes the Defense Department could have done more during the process of bringing Gee back from Afghanistan to California, noting that U.S. government agencies were slow to respond to her family at the time.

U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command, assist with security at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint (ECC) during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26., 2021. (Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps)

The Aug. 26, 2021 attack on Abbey Gate was one of the final tragedies of the U.S. military’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. The bomb went off as thousands of desperate people were trying to get into the airport to escape the Taliban. One hundred and seventy Afghans were killed.

The 82nd Airborne Division’s command sergeant major later told investigators that U.S. troops at Abbey Gate were in an exposed position, in part because so many other countries were using the gate for their own evacuation efforts without any sort of coordination.

In fact, a Marine one-star general wanted to close Abbey Gate on the night of Aug. 25, but the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division decided to keep it open until the morning of Aug. 27 so that the British could continue evacuating people, an investigation into the incident found.

Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who served as a Scout Sniper during the Afghanistan withdrawal, told lawmakers in March that he believes his team spotted the suicide bomber prior to the attack, but the Marines never received authorization to shoot the man, even after he appealed directly to his battalion commander.

“Plain and simple: We were ignored,” said Vargas-Andrews, who lost his right arm and left leg in the suicide bomber attack. “Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety.”

In April, the Defense Department announced that the Islamic State group leader believed responsible for the Abbey Gate attack had been killed by the Taliban.

Gee’s fellow Marines described her as someone devoted to helping others. In September 2021, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Christopher Duncan McClain, who was assigned to the same battalion as Gee, eulogized her in an emotional speech that was shared on social media.

“God needed an angel for his war, and he took the best goddamn one,” McClain said.

During the Kabul evacuation, she worked multiple shifts so that she could be around Afghan families and children, Sgt. Landon Workman, of Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, said in an Aug. 30, 2021 Marine Corps news release.

Shortly before her death, Gee posted a picture on Instagram of her cradling a young baby. For the picture’s caption, she wrote, “I love my job.”

14. The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater

The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater

Selling subs to Australia is a good plan, but the U.S. needs to build more.

By The Editorial Board

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July 28, 2023 6:17 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-submarines-aukus-australia-defense-military-pentagon-china-e492d9b?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s

Here’s an ominous illustration of America’s growing security problems: U.S. Navy attack submarines are excellent weapons for devastating America’s enemies, but the fleet doesn’t have enough boats and is in serious disrepair. Republicans in Congress are right to ask President Biden to address this crisis as part of a deal to sell subs to the Aussies.

The Senate passed an annual defense policy bill on Thursday night, and one debate this week has been the Aukus deal with the U.K. to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. Mr. Biden’s plan is to transfer three, and perhaps as many as five, Virginia-class boats, which are a big upgrade over diesel-powered subs. It’s great that an ally wants the subs to deter the Chinese Communist Party in the Pacific. The Aussies are also willing to chip in for the industrial base production and maintenance.

But the U.S. Navy is already short on attack subs. The Navy’s goal is 66 hulls, but the current inventory is 49, which may shrink as older models age out of service. Congress has been trying to buy two new boats a year, but the industrial base is churning out only 1.2. No one in the Biden Pentagon has the faintest proposal to scale up in short order. The Navy’s shipbuilding plan this year featured three options for a future fleet, and in only one does the sea service ever reach 66 attack subs—in 2049.

It gets worse. Only 31 U.S. attack subs were operationally ready in 2023, according to recent data from the Congressional Research Service. Some 37% of the fleet is either in maintenance or collecting rust awaiting repairs. That’s nearly double the Navy’s 20% maintenance goal, and it’s up from 19% in fiscal 2015.

The threat from Beijing is rising as President Xi Jinping wants the return of Taiwan by 2027. Attack submarines offer a competitive edge in that they could sink the Chinese fleet in the Taiwan Strait. The Communist Party knows that the more U.S. subs there are lurking under the waves, the harder an assault on Taiwan would be.

The Aukus deal has bipartisan support, and the Biden Team wants Congress to approve the sale of subs to Canberra. But Sen. Roger Wicker was right to suggest recently on these pages that the President needs to propose supplemental funding to help the U.S. submarine industrial base increase production.

None of this is a knock on the Australians, who understand that the big stick to deter China is a powerful U.S. military. Australian sailors are still learning the ropes at nuclear-power school, which means Mr. Biden has the time to put forth new investment.

The problems in the U.S. submarine force are the product of decades of political and institutional neglect: buying too few hulls in peacetime and shrinking maintenance capacity. They can't be fixed quickly or on the cheap, and one priority is building more yards.

“If the Administration is serious about making Aukus a success,” Sen. Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor on Thursday, “it should work with Congress this fall to make urgent supplemental investments in meeting military requirements in the Indo-Pacific.” Expanding the U.S. attack submarine fleet would be a national achievement that would make the oceans and the U.S. homeland safer.

WSJ Opinion: The Debate Over the House Defense Bill

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House Republicans passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on July 14, after a debate that highlighted military priorities versus cultural issues. Images: Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Appeared in the July 29, 2023, print edition as 'The U.S. Submarine Fleet Is Underwater'.

15.  Army officially creates new offensive cyber and space program office

Army officially creates new offensive cyber and space program office

Christopher Green assumed the role for project management for cyber and space within the program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors.

BY

MARK POMERLEAU

JULY 28, 2023

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 28, 2023

The Army has officially created an offensive cyber and space program office to manage the portfolio of capabilities it provides for soldiers as well as the joint force.

In a ceremony on July 25, Christopher Green assumed the role for project management for cyber and space within the program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors.

Officials have previously discussed the creation of such a program office, but it was officially stood up this week. The new portfolio was necessary to carve out from IEW&S due to the amount of joint work the Army is doing on behalf of U.S. Cyber Command to deliver capabilities and programs for the cyber mission force across all the services, which grew too big to continue to manage out of the electronic warfare and cyber program office.

The services, as executive agents, have historically been responsible for procurement for larger acquisition programs on behalf of Cybercom for the entire joint cyber mission force as part of the Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture (JCWA). The JCWA was designed in 2019 to get a better handle on the capabilities, platforms and programs Cyerbcom was designing, and set priorities for the Department of Defense as well as the industry partners that would be building them.

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While Cybercom will inherit new budgeting authorities in October that will put it in charge of all aspects of the cyber force and capabilities, it is still maturing and thus will still look to the services and their expertise to continue building these platforms for them on a reimbursable basis.

The new program office will handle work on the Joint Common Access Platform for executing offensive operations and the Joint Development Environment, a space to rapidly develop and test cyber tools.

The new office also follows a larger consolidation within the Army that will take place this fall in which all cyber capabilities, offensive and defensive, will be managed by IEW&S. Previously, the defensive portfolio was managed by the program executive for enterprise information systems.

According to an Army release, the move to establish the new office is a recognition of the Army’s contribution to joint cyber ops.

“The days of the Army being a kinetic-only force are gone. Our ability to operate in multiple arenas has become paramount with none more important than mastering the cyber warfare arena … The speed in which you must operate in this environment [cyberspace] is crucial,” Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, PEO for IEW&S, said at the ceremony this week, according to the Army. “That’s why we felt that the emphasis on this domain is important and to stand-up a dedicated organization based on that. An organization that has the agility, the mechanisms, the processes in place, the workforce, the culture to be able to respond quickly. The traditional acquisition cycles no longer apply in this space.”

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On the space front, the office will manage much of the national space assets the Army has been handling in recent years under product manager for tactical exploitation of national capabilities.

The Army said the new PM C&S will focus on recruiting new talent and supporting its stakeholders over the next six months to a year. In the future, it will also include the migration of tactical space capabilities and new offices to support emerging cyber requirements.

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · July 28, 2023

​16. Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads

Excerpts:

Threads’ long-term success is not assured. Weeks after its July 5 launch, analytics firms estimated that the app’s usage dropped by more than half from its early peak. And Meta has a long history of copycat products or features that have failed to gain traction (along with a few, like Instagram Stories, that have thrived).

Still, its promising start has reinvigorated a company battered by layoffs, scandals and competition from TikTok for younger users. And the story of Threads’ creation, as recounted to The Washington Post by Mosseri and six other current and former employees, is being hailed by Meta leaders as a new path forward at a time when its ambitious, expensive push to build a virtual-reality-powered “metaverse” is sputtering and employee morale is flagging.

With a mandate from Zuckerberg to take a big risk, Mosseri assembled a lean, engineer-heavy team of fewer than 60 people to hack together a bare-bones app on a breakneck timetable more reminiscent of a start-up than an entrenched tech giant. Speaking to investors this week after Meta reported strong earnings, Zuckerberg held up Threads as vindication of his “year of efficiency,” in which he sheared tens of thousands of jobs in a bid for more agile teams that would ship products quickly.

Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads

A company in crisis went back to basics to deliver a viral hit. But can Adam Mosseri’s bare-bones Twitter clone reinvigorate an aging tech giant?

By Naomi Nix and Will Oremus

July 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Naomi Nix · July 29, 2023

Exclusive

A company in crisis went back to basics to deliver a viral hit. But can Adam Mosseri’s bare-bones Twitter clone reinvigorate an aging tech giant?

July 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Adam Mosseri was on a family vacation in Italy last November when he learned he’d have to go toe-to-toe with Elon Musk. The mercurial Musk had just taken over Twitter. Amid the ensuing chaos, Mosseri’s boss at rival Meta smelled opportunity.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives wanted to woo creators from Twitter to their social networks. Mosseri, who runs Instagram, paused his holiday to take Zuckerberg’s call.

It was nighttime in Italy, and Mosseri spoke softly to avoid waking his sleeping wife. The group discussed Twitter-like features they could add to existing apps, including Instagram.

Zuckerberg, however, had a different idea: “What if we went bigger?”

By the time the call ended well after midnight, Mosseri had a mandate to build a stand-alone app to compete with Twitter — and a knot in his stomach.

“Oh God, we’ve got to figure this out, because [Zuckerberg is] very excited about this,” Mosseri recalled thinking. “Sometimes you can tell when he kind of gets his teeth into something.”

Just seven months later, Meta unveiled Threads, a project that has shocked even its creators with its instant success. Launched a week early to capitalize on Twitter’s high-profile stumbles, including Musk’s decision to cap the number of tweets users could view each day, Threads drew more than 100 million users in its first five days — making it, by some estimations, the most successful social media app launch of all time.

Threads’ long-term success is not assured. Weeks after its July 5 launch, analytics firms estimated that the app’s usage dropped by more than half from its early peak. And Meta has a long history of copycat products or features that have failed to gain traction (along with a few, like Instagram Stories, that have thrived).

Still, its promising start has reinvigorated a company battered by layoffs, scandals and competition from TikTok for younger users. And the story of Threads’ creation, as recounted to The Washington Post by Mosseri and six other current and former employees, is being hailed by Meta leaders as a new path forward at a time when its ambitious, expensive push to build a virtual-reality-powered “metaverse” is sputtering and employee morale is flagging.

With a mandate from Zuckerberg to take a big risk, Mosseri assembled a lean, engineer-heavy team of fewer than 60 people to hack together a bare-bones app on a breakneck timetable more reminiscent of a start-up than an entrenched tech giant. Speaking to investors this week after Meta reported strong earnings, Zuckerberg held up Threads as vindication of his “year of efficiency,” in which he sheared tens of thousands of jobs in a bid for more agile teams that would ship products quickly.

That Threads was created by such a small group in such a short amount of time has become something of a marvel inside Meta, according to current and former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, as well as private messages viewed by The Post. Many see its quick rise as a reminder that well-executed product launches might not need all the bureaucratic trappings that a company with some 66,000 employees had grown accustomed to.

“Quick execution. Nothing fancy,” one person wrote on Blind, an anonymous workplace app. “Just solid engineering that most of our ICs [individual contributors] can do but unfortunately are shackled.”

Now that Threads’ daily users have plummeted, the team behind it faces a new test: turning a bare-bones Twitter clone into a thriving social network with its own identity and staying power.

‘Do the simple thing first’

Meta has long viewed Twitter as a competitor: Zuckerberg reportedly tried to buy the platform in 2008 for $500 million. But while Twitter captured the cultural and political zeitgeist, its business — with 237.8 million daily users and $5 billion in annual revenue — remained a fraction of Zuckerberg’s empire, and never posed a serious threat.

“They haven’t been the business we thought they might,” Mosseri said.

But once Musk took over Twitter, embarking on what Mosseri called “high-risk” decisions like limiting the reach of posts for users who hadn’t paid for verification, company executives inside Meta pounced.

Zuckerberg wanted Threads up and running by January, less than two months after greenlighting it. Mosseri, who oversaw the work along with longtime product leader Connor Hayes, tempered the CEO’s expectations, saying they first needed to assemble the right team.

Over the next few months, the pair recruited an engineer-focused group, prioritizing people “willing to be scrappy, and sort of just crank through a bunch [of tasks] really quickly,” Mosseri said. He drew workers from Messenger, Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter attorney Alex Spiro earlier this month accused Meta of poaching Twitter employees to help create its “copycat” app so rapidly. But no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee, according to Meta spokesman Andy Stone.

Initially, the team carried just two product managers and one or two designers alongside dozens of engineers — a flatter and more coder-dominated group than most Meta product teams, Mosseri said. (At launch, it had grown to three product managers, three designers and 50 coders.) Instead of 30-minute presentations on a single design decision, typical at Facebook and Instagram, “It would be like, ‘Here are six things we need to go through this week.’”

The process was a manifestation of what has been a divisive era at Meta, as it shed more than 20,000 workers in layoffs designed to return the business to what Zuckerberg has called “a more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”

To keep things moving, the Threads team punted thorny decisions and eschewed difficult features, including private messages and the ability to search for content or view the feeds of people you don’t follow. The company also opted not to launch in the European Union, where regulators are preparing to enforce new rules next year requiring tech companies to provide more information to regulators about their algorithms.

“You do the simple thing first,” Mosseri said. “And I think that also helps reduce the scope, because often what happens is scope creep and you want to add all these things because they’re all great.”

Threads isn’t the first product Meta has hustled to market for competitive reasons.

In 2020, it spun up a short-form video product, Instagram Reels, to vie with TikTok, said Sam Saliba, a former global brand marketing lead for Instagram. Meta launched its rival service at a moment when TikTok was politically vulnerable: President Donald Trump was seeking to ban the app or force a sale, citing national security concerns about the company’s Chinese ownership.

“They saw that as an opportunity to kind of launch quickly and get out the door and then build and iterate,” Saliba said. “When it launched it was like a barely minimal product, like really thin.” (Meta spokeswoman Seine Kim said the company worked on Reels for over a year.)

Meta hopes Threads can steer clear of the political quagmires that have made Twitter and other social media platforms so controversial. Mosseri stirred debate earlier this month when he said Threads would not actively “encourage” politics and “hard news,” because the extra engagement is not worth the scrutiny.

Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg later elaborated in an interview that the company would likely not add specific news-focused product features, but would give more users control over what they see. Zuckerberg, for his part, has proudly welcomed some of his favorite mixed martial arts athletes to the platform.

But if Threads takes off, the company might find it impossible to avoid the sort of politically charged decisions that have made operating Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp so challenging.

Some of Threads’ most influential early adopters were journalists and media organizations sharing the kind of breaking news that generates partisan reactions. Politicians such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and several Republican presidential hopefuls, including Mike Pence, were also quick to join the platform.

Meta can’t just “wish away” political discourse if it hopes to serve users fleeing from Twitter, said Yael Eisenstat, vice president at the Anti-Defamation League and a former senior Facebook policy official. She criticized the company’s approach of prioritizing a rapid launch over careful consideration of the ways Threads could be exploited for hate speech, harassment or political misinformation.

“I really at some point thought that we had finally moved on from this whole ‘move fast and break things’ mentality,” Eisenstat said, referring to a famous internal motto from Facebook’s earlier days. “If there’s any company that should have learned the lessons of the real damage that can be done by not building in the proper safety mechanisms, privacy assurances, and integrity products, it should be Meta.”

Meta’s Kim responded, “Our industry leading integrity enforcement tools and human review are wired into Threads.”

‘Are we sure about these numbers?’

When Musk announced July 1 that Twitter would temporarily limit the number of tweets users can read per day to combat an influx spam and bots, Meta took notice. Whereas new apps often face launch delays as the team works out kinks, Mosseri and company decided to move up Threads’ launch date by about a week. (Two weeks later, Mosseri would announce a measure to fight an influx of spam attacks on his own platform.)

After realizing the app would drop into some international app stores before it was live, Meta pivoted again, shaving another few hours off its launch.

That night, a “core group” worked together at Meta headquarters while Mosseri and other team members chatted on an internal messaging forum, watching the sign-ups pour in. Mosseri recalled astonished team members asking, “Are we sure about these numbers? Can someone double-check that the logging isn’t messed up?”

As the number of sign-ups blew past the team’s expectations, they started throwing out predictions of how high it might go, Mosseri said. Their giddiness was tempered when the avalanche of users triggered roughly a dozen severe technical glitches on the first day.

Still, the aggressive timeline seemed to pay off: The next morning, Zuckerberg publicly touted the apps’ early success, saying it “feels like the beginning of something special.”

For the first time in years, Meta had a viral hit on its hands — the first one built internally since the original Facebook app.

Inside the firm, there was jubilation and perhaps relief, current and former employees said. Rank and file workers flooded Blind with analyses of the app’s initial success in messages viewed by The Post.

Still, getting users to log in to a Twitter alternative is one thing. Getting them to stick around is another — as Mastodon, Bluesky and any number of start-ups can attest.

By the end of last week, third-party analytics services began reporting steep drops in Threads’ engagement. On Google’s Android platform, it was down from a high of 49 million daily users on July 7 — nearly half that of Twitter — to just 12.6 million on July 23, according to estimates from Similarweb.

While Mosseri didn’t confirm those numbers, he said it’s normal to see a “novelty spike’” when a buzzy social experience launches. “I think things weren’t as amazing as people were saying when we were at the peak, and it’s certainly not as bad as people are saying now that we’re stabilizing.”

Threads’ unexpected popularity prompted Mosseri to cut short another Italian vacation last week to handle a deluge of requests and concerns from other Meta teams, such as communications and policy. He said he wants to keep the core Threads team insulated so they can focus on adding the features users expect from a full-service social app.

Asked what he sees as the key to Threads’ long-term success, Mosseri didn’t offer the sort of big-picture vision he has become known for at Meta. Instead, he pointed to four short-term priorities: helping users build their lists of people to follow, improving the algorithms that decide what users see, giving users a way to see posts only from people they follow, and figuring out how to let people message each other.

“Lots of basics like that really need to get fixed — and fixed quickly,” he said.

Five days after Mosseri spoke with The Post, Threads rolled out numerous new features, including a feed that shows users posts only from the people they follow.

Meanwhile, the internal excitement about Threads has validated advice Mosseri said he received from Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom soon after Mosseri replaced him in 2018: Often, the best way to boost morale — even in a company battered by missteps and layoffs — is simply to deliver functional products.

“You’re focusing a lot on talking to everyone,” Mosseri recalled Systrom telling him. “Just make sure you ship things that work and then everything will be easier, I promise.”

Gerrit De Vynck contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Naomi Nix · July 29, 2023

​17.​ Getting past the nation-state of mind - Responsible Statecraft

I just do not have the imagination or the intellectual capacity to see what comes next after the nation state system. It would seem to be either to be a one world government (NOT!) or devolving into some kind of corporate city state arrangement (also seems unlikely to me), The problem is who gains the monopoly of violence after the nation state and will nation states give up their legitimate state monopoly over the means of violence (which they are unlikely to give up)?

Excerpts:

The World After the Weberian State

The erosion of the gunpowder state and the state-centric system doesn’t necessarily sentence the future to chaos. The dispersal of power and the expanding frontiers of communication have benefits as well. New networks of transnational sympathy already shape human imagination and capabilities in disaster relief, human rights campaigns, environmental activism, and health initiatives.

Humans have reinvented social forms multiple times over the past millennia and our inability to imagine alternatives to the present system doesn’t mean they won’t emerge. Just a short two centuries ago genocidal eradication of inconvenient populations went unquestioned by the powerful, humans controlled other humans as property, and the right to devastate landscapes through exploitation was undisputed. Perhaps in the future we will look back at today’s disdain for distant lives with the same disbelief we reserve for those who practiced human sacrifice in the past.

Getting past the nation-state of mind - Responsible Statecraft

responsiblestatecraft.org · by Janice Jayes · July 29, 2023

Getting past the nation-state of mind

It’s time to face facts: The clean-cut world of inter-state geopolitics is over.

July 29, 2023

Written by

Janice Jayes

Print

Getting past the nation-state of mind

Syria, Libya, Yemen . . . and now Sudan. Sudan has the unhappy potential to become the next of the intractable conflicts that have unfolded over the past decade. These multisided struggles involving a cocktail of militaries, militias, and mercenaries drag on year after year, producing destabilizing waves of refugees, flourishing criminal cohorts, and a plague of outside meddling. Explanations abound: neglect from the outside world, interference by the outside world, weak states, overpowered states, a need for military training, an excess of military training, and the perennial favorite of West-centric analysts: the historic legacy of . . . something. It doesn’t matter what is demonized: culture, religion, colonialism, or some other trait—the key is that chaos is attributed to vestiges of an undead past.

But what if the foreign policy imagination has been looking at these wars the wrong way? What if these wars can tell us more about the future than the past? Transformations emerge at the margins of systems, but are seldom recognized by those invested in existing paradigms. 19th-century leaders in Vienna, for example, dismissed nationalist movements as delusional, yet the nation-state replaced empire as the political norm within a few decades.

The frozen conflicts of today are similarly misunderstood. These wars aren’t vestiges of the past but portents of transformation.

The State is No Longer the Prize it Once Was

Negotiations repeatedly fail to end these conflicts because they remain fixed in 20th-century assumptions of power. Negotiators proceed by rounding up “principals” who are bribed or bullied into political compromise with opposing “sides,” and who are then expected to enforce the agreement within their “base” in return for a share in state access.

Every piece of this model is broken today. The assumptions that control of the state is the prize, that principals control subordinates, and that there are “sides” and not a constantly changing constellation of armed factions are all based on yesterday’s Weberian model of the state (centralized, with a monopoly on violence).

Let’s start with the reductionist portraits of “sides” and “principals” in the wishful thinking that passes for analyses. What appear on maps as political blocs (Islamists versus democrats, government versus opposition, national armies versus paramilitaries . . .) in reality are constellations of occasionally cooperating, more often competing, micro-militia warlords making better fortunes amidst the collapse of the state than they could realistically access with its return. Human trafficking, antiquities smuggling, kidnapping, and other illicit business thrives amidst the chaos. Humanitarian aid intended for civilians feeds conflict as well: roadblocks function like cash machines. The few marketing themselves as “principals” to the outside world pursue their own variety of graft. They score travel to peace conference venues, diplomatic swag like immunity for past crimes, and a façade of decorum that bolsters their political stock, yet these principals ultimately lack the ability to restrain their supposed subordinates. The problem is the radical collapse of hierarchical control.

For the last several centuries those who controlled territory had resources non-state challengers lacked that allowed them to fund, arm, and field militaries. This idea of the “gunpowder state” evolved over the centuries to include navies, air power, missiles, and the satellite technology that tied it all together across the planet. Weaker actors who couldn’t produce these tools themselves allied themselves with state sponsors who did.

That era officially ended on September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden was the first to act on the realization that the new communications revolution freed small groups from the need to capture or ally with a state to act globally. He could raise and move funds, recruit cohorts with proselytizing videos and free media coverage of Al Qaeda attacks, and shop the black market to acquire the kinds of tools once reserved for states. Bin Laden’s model had its parallel in evolving criminal enterprises like drug cartels, piracy, or human trafficking, which had also once been dependent on state allies to coordinate and protect their enterprises. Emerging weapons like digital surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, and cyber and germ warfare will change the picture even more radically in the years ahead, as none require traditional bases of state power.

But what these actors also have in common is the tendency to fracture. Just as extremist or criminal organizations were freed from reliance on state sponsors, subordinates have been liberated as well. Confronted with criticism from Al Qaeda for his brand of violence, bin Laden ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi chose not to conform but to launch his own brand, Al Qaeda in Iraq, precursor to ISIS. And beneath the apparent success of the ISIS “state” were a multiplicity of franchise militias. Criminal enterprises have also lost control over subordinates, driving ferocious competition and violence in places like Mexico, Haiti or Central America. These too are the frontiers of political innovation.

Peace negotiations of today fail because they are locked into assumptions of power hierarchies based on outdated visions of the centrality of the state and the belief that key actors control the landscape of violence by controlling access to resources. This strategy will be no more successful than the Global War on Terror’s repetitive drone strikes atomizing leader after leader even as terror organizations proliferate. The 21st century is a landscape of dispersed empowerment which will require new strategies for peacemaking.

Warlords and Corporate Raiders

Modern warlords are often depicted as the antithesis of the contemporary state ideal, but they can also be understood as the bastard offspring of the neoliberal mindset that has remade the state and security industry in recent decades. Why should we be surprised that warlords pursue profit with military tools theoretically reserved for the defense of public interests within the state? How different are they from the private military and security industries which have pivoted from providing extra military muscle for their own states to behaving like any other market-seeking business? They hire talent and pursue clients based on profit potential, not national interests.

Likewise, the weapons industry prioritizes its own bottom line when it lobbies for programs and policies that grow its own business, but maybe not the public good. The state hasn’t fared much better as a role model during the last thirty years as privatization in obeisance to capitalist efficiency gutted the idea of social good. Only the pieces of the state that can aid profits, such as the judiciary which can criminalize opponents, the laws that protect property and investment over local land and water rights, and trade and investment regulations that benefit distant investors over local production, survive.

Warlords, are the corporate raiders of conflict zones. They strip off the easy lucre and eschew the expense of public service. Why should we expect anything different?

The World After the Weberian State

The erosion of the gunpowder state and the state-centric system doesn’t necessarily sentence the future to chaos. The dispersal of power and the expanding frontiers of communication have benefits as well. New networks of transnational sympathy already shape human imagination and capabilities in disaster relief, human rights campaigns, environmental activism, and health initiatives.

Humans have reinvented social forms multiple times over the past millennia and our inability to imagine alternatives to the present system doesn’t mean they won’t emerge. Just a short two centuries ago genocidal eradication of inconvenient populations went unquestioned by the powerful, humans controlled other humans as property, and the right to devastate landscapes through exploitation was undisputed. Perhaps in the future we will look back at today’s disdain for distant lives with the same disbelief we reserve for those who practiced human sacrifice in the past.

This article has been republished with permission from Public i.

18. Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars

So the Responsible Statecraft article ( https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/07/29/getting-past-the-nation-state-of-mind/)on the end of the nation state had me thinking about the legitimate monopoly over the means of violence. What about an individual who is gaining control over large portions of the information domain. Is that going to undermine the nation state?

On the other hand, notice what a threat Starlink is to dictators and authoritarian states. I subscribe to the belief that more information is better and that information will help set people free.

Interactive graphics at the link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/28/business/starlink.html

Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars

By Adam Satariano, Scott Reinhard, Cade Metz, Sheera Frenkel and Malika Khurana July 28, 2023

The New York Times · by Malika Khurana · July 28, 2023

The tech billionaire has become the dominant power in satellite internet technology. The ways he is wielding that influence are raising global alarms.

July 28, 2023

On March 17, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the leader of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, dialed into a call to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the secure line, the two military leaders conferred on air defense systems, real-time battlefield assessments and shared intelligence on Russia’s military losses.

They also talked about Elon Musk.

General Zaluzhnyi raised the topic of Starlink, the satellite internet technology made by Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, three people with knowledge of the conversation said. Ukraine’s battlefield decisions depended on the continued use of Starlink for communications, General Zaluzhnyi said, and his country wanted to ensure access and discuss how to cover the cost of the service.

General Zaluzhnyi also asked if the United States had an assessment of Mr. Musk, who has sprawling business interests and murky politics — to which American officials gave no answer.

Mr. Musk, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, has become the most dominant player in space as he has steadily amassed power over the strategically significant field of satellite internet. Yet faced with little regulation and oversight, his erratic and personality-driven style has increasingly worried militaries and political leaders around the world, with the tech billionaire sometimes wielding his authority in unpredictable ways.

Since 2019, Mr. Musk has sent SpaceX rockets into space nearly every week that deliver dozens of sofa-size satellites into orbit. The satellites communicate with terminals on Earth, so they can beam high-speed internet to nearly every corner of the planet. Today, more than 4,500 Starlink satellites are in the skies, accounting for more than 50 percent of all active satellites. They have already started changing the complexion of the night sky, even before accounting for Mr. Musk’s plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.

A global satellite network

There are over 4,500 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth. What appear to be long lines here are recently launched satellites approaching their place in orbit.

An animation showing circles that represent Starlink satellites orbiting Earth as it rotates. Most of the satellites are spaced out and move in a gridlike formation between Earth’s poles, while a few are closely clustered and move together in lines.

Source: CelesTrak

Notes: Data includes Starlink satellites launched through July 10. Animation shows approximately 10 minutes of orbiting Starlink satellites. Earth rotation is for display purposes only.

The power of the technology, which has helped push the value of closely held SpaceX to nearly $140 billion, is just beginning to be felt.

Starlink is often the only way to get internet access in war zones, remote areas and places hit by natural disasters. It is used in Ukraine for coordinating drone strikes and intelligence gathering. Activists in Iran and Turkey have sought to use the service as a hedge against government controls. The U.S. Defense Department is a big Starlink customer, while other militaries, such as in Japan, are testing the technology.

But Mr. Musk’s near total control of satellite internet has raised alarms.

A combustible personality, the 52-year-old’s allegiances are fuzzy. While Mr. Musk is hailed as a genius innovator, he alone can decide to shut down Starlink internet access for a customer or country, and he has the ability to leverage sensitive information that the service gathers. Such concerns have been heightened because no companies or governments have come close to matching what he has built.

In Ukraine, some fears have been realized. Mr. Musk has restricted Starlink access multiple times during the war, people familiar with the situation said. At one point, he denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, affecting battlefield strategy. Last year, he publicly floated a “peace plan” for the war that seemed aligned with Russian interests.

At times, Mr. Musk has openly flaunted Starlink’s capabilities. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” he tweeted in April.

Starlinks are a majority of active satellites orbiting Earth

Starlink satellites operate approximately 300 miles above Earth in what is known as “low-Earth orbit.” That's more than 60 times closer than traditional satellite internet services that operate at higher altitudes in “geosynchronous orbit.”

Animated circles that represent satellites move around the Earth. Some are near Earth in low-Earth orbit, and others are farther away in geosynchronous orbit, forming a wide ring. Text in the graphic reads, “There are over 10,300 satellites orbiting the Earth. Over 80% of those satellites are currently active. 53% of active satellites are Starlink.” The Starlink satellites are highlighted and are all operating in low-Earth orbit.

Source: CelesTrak

Note: Data is as of July 25. The animation shows approximately one hour of orbiting satellites.

Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment. SpaceX declined to comment.

Worried about over-dependence on Mr. Musk’s technology, Ukrainian officials have talked with other satellite internet providers, though they acknowledged none rival Starlink’s reach.

“Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, said in an interview.

At least nine countries — including in Europe and the Middle East — have also brought up Starlink with American officials over the past 18 months, with some questioning Mr. Musk’s power over the technology, two U.S. intelligence officials briefed on the discussions said. Few nations will speak publicly about their concerns, for fear of alienating Mr. Musk, said intelligence and cybersecurity officials briefed on the conversations.

U.S. officials have said little publicly about Starlink as they balance domestic and geopolitical priorities related to Mr. Musk, who has criticized President Biden but whose technology is unavoidable.

The federal government is one of SpaceX’s biggest customers, using its rockets for NASA missions and launching military surveillance satellites. Senior Pentagon officials have tried mediating issues involving Starlink, particularly Ukraine, a person familiar with the discussions said.

The Defense Department confirmed it contracts with Starlink, but it declined to elaborate, citing “the critical nature of these systems.”

Other governments are wary. Taiwan, which has an internet infrastructure that could be vulnerable in the event of a Chinese invasion, is reluctant to use the service partly because of Mr. Musk’s business links to China, Taiwanese and American officials said.

China has its own concerns. Mr. Musk said last year that Beijing sought assurances that he would not turn Starlink on inside the country, where the internet is controlled and censored by the state. In 2020, China registered with an international body to launch 13,000 internet satellites of its own.

The European Union, partly driven by misgivings about Starlink and Mr. Musk, also earmarked 2.4 billion euros, or $2.6 billion, last year to build a satellite constellation for civilian and military use.

“This is not just one company, but one person,” Dmitri Alperovitch, a cybersecurity expert who co-founded the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank and has advised governments on satellite internet. “You are completely beholden to his whims and desires.”

Reaching for the skies

Sir Martin Sweeting, a British engineer who founded the satellite design and manufacturing company Surrey Satellite Technology, was encouraged by a business associate in 2001 to meet with a “chap who wants to put a greenhouse on Mars.” It turned out to be Mr. Musk.

Mr. Sweeting and Mr. Musk met soon after for breakfast at a space conference in Colorado, where the tech entrepreneur criticized NASA and talked about building a private space fleet.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, during a test flight of a Falcon 9 rocket in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2019.

Mike Blake/ Reuters

“He was very focused,” said Mr. Sweeting, whose company later received an investment from Mr. Musk and had him on its board of directors before it sold to Airbus in 2009.

Mr. Musk was also interested in an emerging field of research where small satellites are placed in the sky several hundred miles above sea level, an area known as “low-Earth orbit,” Mr. Sweeting said.

Footage of a launch of a SpaceX rocket, of a stack of Starlink satellites being released in space, and of a rocket landing back on Earth.

Video footage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 spaceship on its first launch of Starlink satellites in May 2019, of the Falcon 9 deploying 60 Starlink satellites into space in June 2020, and of the spaceship returning to Earth in June 2023.

SpaceX and Getty Images

Their work together was one of the earliest examples of Mr. Musk’s focus on a technology that would help underpin Starlink. Satellites dating to the 1960s are typically bigger — often the size of school buses — and located higher in space, in what is known as “geosynchronous orbit,” limiting their communication capabilities. Smaller satellites can orbit at a lower altitude, allowing them to link up with terminals on Earth to beam high-speed internet service to far-flung locations.

Many small satellites are necessary for this to work. That’s because as one satellite moves above a Starlink terminal on land, it hands the internet signal to another satellite behind it to keep up a single, uninterrupted flow to users below.

How Starlink customers connect to the internet

Starlink satellites orbit at much lower altitudes than traditional satellite internet services. As a result, the area that each Starlink satellite covers is smaller, requiring terminals on the ground to continually connect with the nearest passing satellite.

Diagram illustrating a Starlink satellite in low-Earth orbit. Text reads “A constellation of small satellites blankets the globe, providing sweeping coverage in countries Starlink is permitted to operate.” Satellites link to one another using lasers, and connect to a Starlink terminal, known as a dishy, which constantly scans the sky to connect with the nearest satellite above. Using the dishy, customers can connect to the internet with their devices.

Mr. Musk launched his first Starlink satellites into orbit in 2019. At the time, satellite internet was viewed as a fool’s errand. In the 1990s and 2000s, other companies had pursued low-orbit communication satellites with little success because of the expense and technical difficulties of getting them into space.

But Mr. Musk had an advantage. SpaceX’s rockets return to Earth after a trip to space and are partially reusable. This effectively gave him control of an express train to constantly deliver satellites to space, sometimes dozens at a time.

Satellite launches per year

A bar chart of all satellite launches per year, from 1960 through 2023, showing a spike in the number of launches in recent years. Over half the launches in each of the past three years are highlighted as Starlink launches.

Source: CelesTrak

Note: Data includes Starlink launches through July 10.

Now nearly every week, a SpaceX rocket loaded with Starlink satellites takes off from a site in California or Florida. Each satellite is designed to work for about three and half years. There are so many in orbit that they are often mistaken for shooting stars. Astronomers have documented how the devices have interfered with research telescopes and warned about the risk of collisions.

The Starlink network grows

This animation shows how the satellite network expanded with each launch, over four years. Launches happen nearly every week, and about 60 satellites are released into orbit each time.

Animated circles that represent 59 Starlink satellites move around Earth. A progress bar starts in 2019 with a Starlink launch. Every few seconds, the animation shows a snapshot of satellites after the next Starlink launch, with launches increasing in frequency and with more Starlink satellites orbiting Earth over time. At the end of the animation, the progress bar is in 2023 and reads: 4,491 Starlinks.

Source: CelesTrak

Note: Data is as of July 26, which includes Starlink launches through July 16.

“The night sky is one of the most glorious shows that nature puts on and humans are changing it forever,” said Patrick Seitzer, an astronomer at the University of Michigan who studies orbital debris.

Starlink provides internet download speeds typically around 100 megabits per second, comparable to many landline services. SpaceX generally charges individual customers about $600 for each terminal that receives a connection from space, plus a monthly service fee of about $75, with costs higher for businesses and governments. The company knows the location, movement and altitude of each Starlink terminal, experts said.

A long exposure image showing the double star Albireo visually obstructed by Starlink satellites moving across the sky.

Rafael Schmall/NOIRLab/National Science Foundation

The service, which officially debuted in 2021 in a handful of countries, is now available in more than 50 countries and territories, including the United States, Japan, much of Europe and parts of Latin America. In Africa, where internet access lags the rest of the world, Starlink is available in Nigeria, Mozambique and Rwanda, with more than a dozen other countries following by the end of 2024, according to Starlink’s website.

“Everywhere on earth will have high bandwidth, low latency internet,” Mr. Musk predicted on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2020.

Militaries, telecom companies, airlines, cruise lines and maritime shippers have flocked to Starlink, which has said it has more than 1.5 million subscribers.

Rivals have struggled, though competition is growing. OneWeb, a British company, was so plagued by financial difficulties that it had to be bailed out by the British government and sold to a group of investors. Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns the rocket company Blue Origin, plans a Starlink competitor, Project Kuiper, but it has yet to get a satellite into space.

Lifeline on the battlefield

No event has demonstrated Starlink’s power — and Mr. Musk’s influence — more than the war in Ukraine.

More than 42,000 Starlink terminals are now used in Ukraine by the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organizations. During Russian bombing campaigns last year that caused widespread blackouts, Ukraine’s public agencies turned to Starlink to stay online.

Simulated Starlink speeds since the Russian invasion

Simulations of internet speeds suggest improved service in Ukraine, based on changes in satellite parameters, the number of satellites and ground station locations.

Side-by-side heat maps of simulated Starlink internet speeds in Ukraine on Feb. 25, 2022, and May 19, 2023, show that speeds have increased across the country.

Source: Starlink coverage tracker

“Without Starlink, we cannot fly, we cannot communicate,” said one Ukrainian deputy commander who goes by the nickname Zub, or Tooth, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Starlink entered Ukraine in February 2022, when Russia invaded and a cyberattack — later attributed to Russia — took down a satellite system run by the high-speed communications company Viasat that was being used by the Ukrainian military. With troops and commanders knocked offline, Mr. Fedorov, the digital minister, posted a plea to Mr. Musk for help.

Within hours, Mr. Musk contacted Mr. Fedorov to say that Starlink had been activated in Ukraine. Days later, Starlink terminals arrived.

The technology — found in forests, fields, villages and mounted on the roofs of military vehicles — has given Ukraine’s army a major advantage over Russian forces. It has enabled artillery teams, commanders and pilots to watch drone footage simultaneously while chatting online. The response times from finding a target to hitting it have been cut to about a minute from nearly 20 minutes, soldiers said.

“The huge number of lives that Starlink has helped save can be measured in the thousands,” Mr. Fedorov said. “This is one of the fundamental components of our success.”

A Ukrainian soldier with a Starlink satellite link on the front lines in Kreminna, Ukraine, in January.

Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

But concerns among Ukrainian and Western officials about Mr. Musk’s hold over the technology have grown, coming to a head last fall when he repeatedly made comments about the war that raised questions about his commitment to Starlink’s service in Ukraine.

In September, at a private event on world and business affairs in Aspen, Colo., which was attended by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others, Mr. Musk proposed a peace plan for Ukraine that included Russia annexing Ukrainian land. The proposal outraged many attendees.

Around this time, questions arose about who would pay for Starlink’s service in Ukraine. SpaceX had initially covered some of the costs, with the United States and other allies also providing funding.

That same month, SpaceX told the U.S. Defense Department that it could not continue the arrangement and asked the Pentagon to take over funding. The company estimated the cost at nearly $400 million over 12 months, according to a SpaceX letter reported by CNN, which was verified by The New York Times.

The Biden administration directed a top Pentagon official, Colin H. Kahl, to mediate. On Oct. 7, Mr. Kahl called Mr. Musk, who expressed fears that Ukraine would use Starlink to not just defend itself, but also conduct offensive operations to regain territory seized by Russia, which could cause significant Russian military casualties, a former administration official said. Mr. Kahl told Mr. Musk more people in Ukraine would suffer if Starlink was shut down.

Mr. Musk nonetheless turned off access for some Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Late last year, about 1,300 Starlink terminals purchased through a British supplier stopped working in the country after the Ukrainian government could not pay the $2,500 monthly fee for each, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Ukrainians lined up for internet access from a Starlink connection in Kherson's main square in November after Russians blew up the communications tower and access to electricity and water on the way out of town.

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Starlink access also fluctuated depending on the movements of the war as Russia won territory and Ukraine fought to take it back. As the battle lines shifted, Mr. Musk used a process called geofencing to restrict where Starlink was available on the front lines. SpaceX uses location data gathered by its service to enforce geofencing limits.

This caused problems. When Ukrainian troops tried retaking cities like Kherson in Russian-controlled areas in the fall, they needed internet access to communicate. Mr. Fedorov and members of the armed forces messaged Mr. Musk and SpaceX employees requests to restore service in areas where the army was advancing.

Mr. Fedorov said SpaceX responded “very promptly.”

Starlink controls which areas receive service

Starlink does not operate in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine. The Ukrainian military was at times without service in the fall as troops recaptured Russia-held territory.

A map of Ukraine including the Dnipro River shows that the area where Starlink worked was limited to territory held by Ukraine, while in territories that the Ukrainian military was recapturing from Russia, Starlink was deactivated.

Mr. Musk had other red lines that he would not cross. He refused Ukraine’s request last year to provide Starlink access near Crimea, the Russian-controlled peninsula, so it could send an explosive-filled maritime drone into Russian ships docked in the Black Sea, two people familiar with the discussions said. Mr. Musk later said that Starlink could not be used for long-range drone strikes.

Other U.S. officials have weighed in. In June, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved a Pentagon deal to buy 400 to 500 new Starlink terminals and services. The deal gives the Pentagon control of setting where Starlink’s internet signal works inside Ukraine for those new devices to carry out “key capabilities and certain missions,” two people familiar with the deal said. This appeared intended to provide Ukraine with dedicated terminals and services to conduct sensitive functions without fear of interruption.

Unlike traditional defense contractors, whose weapon sales to foreign countries are typically done through the federal government, Starlink is a commercial product. That allows Mr. Musk to act in ways that sometimes do not align with U.S. interests, such as when SpaceX said it could not continue funding Starlink in Ukraine, said Gregory C. Allen, a former Defense Department official who worked at Blue Origin.

“It has certainly been a long time since we’ve seen a company and an individual like this go pretty openly against U.S. foreign policy in the middle of a war,” said Mr. Allen, who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Musk’s behavior has divided Ukrainian officials. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Twitter in February that SpaceX needed to pick a side.

But Mr. Fedorov said questions about Mr. Musk’s commitment were unfair. When Ukraine was under heavy bombardment and facing major power outages in November, Mr. Musk helped expedite the delivery of about 10,000 Starlink terminals, he said.

“SpaceX and Elon Musk have shown through their deeds whose side they are actually on,” Mr. Fedorov said.

From Taiwan to Europe

In February, two undersea internet cables running between Taiwan’s main island and the outlying islands of Matsu were severed by Chinese shipping vessels. The incident interrupted online access across Matsu, intensifying concerns that Taiwan’s communications infrastructure was vulnerable.

Taiwan, which China has claimed as its own territory, would seem to be an ideal place to bring in Starlink. But Taiwan was reluctant — a concern increasingly echoed elsewhere as governments weigh the power of satellite internet against the risks of working with Mr. Musk.

Taiwanese officials had spoken with SpaceX about Starlink, said Jason Hsu, a former Taiwan legislator who advises the government on digital infrastructure. But talks slowed partly because of “tremendous concerns” about Mr. Musk, whose financial interests are tied to China, he said. With roughly 50 percent of new Tesla cars estimated to be manufactured in Shanghai, Taiwan did not trust Mr. Musk to provide Starlink access if Beijing applied pressure to turn off the service, he added.

“We worry that if we order devices from Starlink, we’ll fall into some sort of trap,” said Mr. Hsu, now a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in Taipei. “Elon has huge commercial interests in China.”

When a U.S. congressional delegation visited Taiwan in April, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, a Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, during a lunch about potentially using Starlink, according to committee staff on the trip. Ms. Tsai was noncommittal. Congressional aides concluded soon after that the service was not a viable option for Taiwan because of Mr. Musk’s links to China, the committee staff said.

Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister, said the country struck a deal with OneWeb in June and had not ruled out working with any satellite provider. “We want to test as many constellations as possible,” she said.

A train of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites passed over the town Capilla del Sauce in central Uruguay in 2021.

Mariana Suarez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Musk’s influence has been debated elsewhere. In the European Union, concerns about Starlink’s dominance influenced the 27-nation bloc to set aside 2.4 billion euros last year for a “sovereign” satellite constellation, to launch as soon as 2027.

“Space has become a highly contested domain where the European Union must safeguard its vital interests,” said Thierry Breton, the European commissioner overseeing the project. “The E.U. cannot afford to be reliant on others.”

To address government needs, SpaceX last year introduced a Starlink-related service, Starshield, that offered stronger security for handling classified material and processing sensitive data.

Starlink also faces criticism from more authoritarian governments.

When anti-government protests broke out in Iran last year, Mr. Musk made Starlink available there to help activists stay online. The Iranian government accused SpaceX of violating its sovereignty.

China complained this year to a United Nations panel that SpaceX was putting so many satellites into orbit that it would prevent others from accessing space. In February, Turkey refused Mr. Musk’s offer to provide Starlink access after a major earthquake, which civil society groups viewed as an effort to prevent unfavorable news from spreading online.

“The government was afraid that Starlink is not under its control, and could represent a threat,” said Chérif El Kadhi, a policy analyst tracking Turkey for Access Now, a digital rights organization.

Mr. Musk’s dominance in space is unlikely to be equaled any time soon. In May, Amazon prepared to put its first two satellites into orbit, but the launch was put on hold after a problem was discovered in rocket testing.

Since then, Mr. Musk has sent at least 595 more Starlink satellites into space.

A potential future of low-Earth orbit satellites

Starlink is not the only company working in low-Earth orbit. This simulation shows the combined plans of seven companies that filed with the International Telecommunication Union to launch close to 71,000 satellites in coming years, nearly 42,000 of which are from Starlink.

An animation showing circles that represent 71,000 future low-Earth orbit satellites moving around Earth, partially obscuring the view of Earth’s surface.

Source: René Schulze

Note: The simulation data is based on filings from Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, Telesat, Guowang, Astra and Globalstar, which have not yet been fully authorized.

The New York Times · by Malika Khurana · July 28, 2023

19. A Russian Human-Rights Champion on Why Putin’s Soviet Propaganda Is So Dangerous

Excerpts:

All of which is why the trio of human rights leaders made the trek to Washington to meet with think tanks, administration officials, and journalists to make the case that helping to land a decisive win against Russia could reset not just Ukraine’s future, but could force a rethinking of what Russia looks like after Putin—a question the West is hesitant to reckon with. (TIME’s Brian Bennett has an assessment of the Nobel Laureates’ visit here.)

“Without justice, we have never sustained peace,” Matviichuk told us.

Left unsaid, of course was this: without truth, there can be no meaningful justice. And, at the moment, Soviet-style spin has gummed up the gears of that churn of accurate information to the point of evading accountability. We all think Putin is building a scaffolding to build and defend political power; he may actually be designing a system to evade any comeuppance at all. After all, if no one can agree to the facts of an offense, did the crime even take place? That’s a problem with big stakes not just for Russians, but for the whole Western world seeking stability in the region. As Cherkasov said in our conference room here in D.C.: “Houston, we all have a problem.”

A Russian Human-Rights Champion on Why Putin’s Soviet Propaganda Is So Dangerous

TIME · by Philip Elliott · July 28, 2023

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

To appreciate the power of a myth, let’s take a quick visit to post-Soviet Russia.

In the weeks after Vladimir Putin came to power in early 2000, the new Russian president was enjoying a 77% job approval rating, a definite improvement from his 31% outlook just a few months earlier while he was biding time as then-President Boris Yeltsen’s prime minister inside a fast-unspooling regime. Putin had grand designs for his country, and his new constituents seemed to want to help him build his proverbial temple to Soviet nostalgia. Putin had watched in horror through the 1990s as democratic ideals came in fits and twitches after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He professed to be an agent of change, a steadying hand, a steward of the rebooted nation’s deep history. But Russia was coming out of an inflation tailspin of 85%, unemployment was stuck in the double digits, and the promises of reform were not making life much better. He didn’t have much room for error, and he knew it.

The answer? Putin basically promised to Make Russia Great Again, and launched a concerted effort to invoke the nostalgia of the Soviet empire.

Putin has made no secret that he sees the end of the Soviet system as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” one that has been an animating tragedy that he’s been trying to undo over almost a quarter century leading that petrostate. To accomplish this, however, he needed to inspire—not his strongest suit as a stiff former KGB spook who famously has little time for pleasantries. But Russia’s grand history? That was something Putin could work with. So over the last two-plus decades, Putin has enmeshed Russia’s glory days, including its cruel Soviet era, with the present. As TIME’s then-editor Richard Stengel explained in an essay announcing Putin as our Person of the Year in 2007: “Russia lives in history—and history lives in Russia.”

The result has been a crude re-Stalinization of sorts, or a systematic rehabilitation of the brutal Soviet figure who led his colossus for 30 years until his death in 1953. The last time Russia’s most respected independent pollsters, Levada, asked about Joseph Stalin, a stunning 51% of respondents had positive views of him. That 2019 survey found just 15% of Russians offering negative views of the man who created the Gulag system that operated until 1987. An eye-popping 70% of Russians said Stalin’s contributions to the country’s history were a net positive. By contrast, Mikail Gorbachev, the first and last President of the Soviet Union who set in motion democratic reforms, enjoyed a 15% positive reaction when Russians were last asked about him in 2017.

Much of that is thanks to Putin’s decades-long propaganda project, which has taken on new geopolitical urgency during the war in Ukraine, and now matters more than ever.

“The majority of Russians still see their glory in the forcible restoration of the Russian Empire,” Oleksandra Matviichuk, who runs a major human rights group in Ukraine, the Center for Civil Liberties, tells TIME. “The success of Ukraine will provide a chance for the democratic future of Russia, because it will provide the push for people to reflect that maybe it’s not OK in the 21st Century to invade other countries and kill people to erode their identity. Maybe it’s better to find our glory in something else.”

Matviichuk visited TIME’s Washington Bureau this week, sitting alongside two other representatives of groups co-honored with a Nobel Peace Prize last year. One was Aleksandr Cherkasov, chairman-in-exile of Russian human rights organization Memorial, which researched Stalin’s systems, organized sites of remembrance for his victims, and documented the sins of the Soviet era as a warning against repetition. It was shut down by the state in 2021, right before the country invaded Ukraine. Cherkasov says that the lessons he learned from ferreting out the truth should be applied now to try to dismantle Putin’s powerful propaganda effort to help Ukraine win the war. “Right now, we have a tremendous task ahead of us,” he says. “We understand that we need to work on the Soviet past, and it’s a very complex past. But we also have 35 years—which is half of the 70 years of the Soviet period—in the post-Soviet period, which is no less complicated.”

Adds Matviichuk, whose organization has documented 45,000 examples of war crimes Russia has committed in Ukraine—and counting: “Now, we are in the situation where Russia wants to return us to the past. But the future plays against Russia. That is why Russia will lose, sooner or later.”

She is right, at least when it comes to invented legends. Myths are fickle beasts. In a parallel reality of his creation, Putin is a popular and decisive leader determined to restore glory to Russia. In another reality—one closer attuned to the real world—Putin is presiding over a fragile autocracy that survives only because his pact with oligarchs allows them to share the spoils of a kleptocracy. (Oh, and nukes.)

“The propaganda has roots in the imperialistic culture of Russia,” says Matviichuk. “People in Russia still need to provide a reflection of their imperialistic culture.”

Thanks to an unmatched propaganda machine—described in detail by TIME’s Vera Bergengruen here—Putin has mostly prevailed in sparking that invented and often perverted memory, at least at home. (After his invasion of Georgia in 2008 fell flat, Putin learned the lesson of trying to spin on the cheap and he almost tripled the propaganda budget over the three years that followed. RT, a broadcasting effort masquerading as a news station, now spends $300 million annually for Russian-language pro-Kremlin programming.)

But Putin’s war in Ukraine may be testing that perceived glory more than at any time in living memory. New polling from Levada reveals the most pessimistic Russian population in 15 years; 58% believe that “hard times are yet to come,” and another quarter think they’re already there, according to polling released this month. Among the naysayers, almost half point to the invasion of Ukraine and the attenuating death tolls. One independent analysis puts the Russian death toll at almost 50,000.

Still, 76% of Russians in the same poll said they trusted Putin. And when asked if the fighting in Ukraine was heading toward eventually ensnaring NATO, 60% answered in the affirmative last month, up 12 points from a year earlier.

All of which is why the trio of human rights leaders made the trek to Washington to meet with think tanks, administration officials, and journalists to make the case that helping to land a decisive win against Russia could reset not just Ukraine’s future, but could force a rethinking of what Russia looks like after Putin—a question the West is hesitant to reckon with. (TIME’s Brian Bennett has an assessment of the Nobel Laureates’ visit here.)

“Without justice, we have never sustained peace,” Matviichuk told us.

Left unsaid, of course was this: without truth, there can be no meaningful justice. And, at the moment, Soviet-style spin has gummed up the gears of that churn of accurate information to the point of evading accountability. We all think Putin is building a scaffolding to build and defend political power; he may actually be designing a system to evade any comeuppance at all. After all, if no one can agree to the facts of an offense, did the crime even take place? That’s a problem with big stakes not just for Russians, but for the whole Western world seeking stability in the region. As Cherkasov said in our conference room here in D.C.: “Houston, we all have a problem.”

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.

Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.

TIME · by Philip Elliott · July 28, 2023

20. Deepfakes and Deception: A Framework for the Ethical and Legal Use of Machine-Manipulated Media

Excerpts:

The US military must decide now whether it will continue to explore deepfake technology for operational use or whether it should focus its investments in deepfake detection technology alone. It must also acknowledge the fundamental distinction between employing deepfakes in armed conflict scenarios like the use cases described above and doing so in competition short of conflict. The potential utility of these technologies is significant, yet leaders must also recognize that the US military’s embrace of deepfakes could contribute to information chaos. In the context of competition, that risk outweighs any benefits, and the US military should continue to do what General Laura Richardson vowed to do in the US Southern Command area of operations: tell the truth. Credibility is currency in the world, and the use of deepfakes below the threshold of armed conflict will threaten US credibility.

However, the United States must not forgo the opportunity to develop a deepfake capability as a tool for deception in armed conflict. Lawmakers and defense policymakers should explore and develop deepfake technology for use at the tactical and operational levels of warfare. Deepfakes could give warfighting commands advantages over enemy forces and enable protection for maneuvering forces. Deepfakes are certainly dangerous, particularly for democratic societies. But they are not inherently immoral, unethical, or illegal. If developed and deployed responsibly, they could advance military objectives and even save lives.

Deepfakes and Deception: A Framework for the Ethical and Legal Use of Machine-Manipulated Media - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by John C. Tramazzo · July 28, 2023

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On March 6, 2023, journalist Sam Biddle published an article in The Intercept describing the pursuit of a deepfake capability by United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The article confirmed, for the first time, that the US military is actively exploring the use of the controversial technology to influence and deceive certain foreign audiences and adversaries. Biddle’s report relies on a publicly available USSOCOM procurement document that solicits commercial bids to fill future capability gaps. His article implies that the military’s interest in employing deepfakes demonstrates hypocrisy, as the US government has “spent years warning deepfakes could destabilize democratic societies.” The implication deserves closer analysis.

The fact that USSOCOM is examining these next-generation influence capabilities is not entirely scandalous. The US military conducts a broad array of research, development, and testing. Further, USSOCOM is DoD’s joint proponent and coordinating authority for internet-based information operations and typically acts as the US military’s technological pathfinder. The joint force relies on USSOCOM’s progressive attitudes, creativity, and innovative acquisitions. But it is not clear how the US military will balance the potential advantages of deepfakes with their well-documented harmful consequences. This article examines that dilemma and suggests a framework for further analysis.

Deepfakes Defined and Decried

The term deepfake is not explicitly defined in United States law or policy, but recent legislation includes a definition of a term that extends to deepfakes. Section 5709 of the Fiscal Year 2020 NDAA requires a comprehensive report on the foreign weaponization of “machine-manipulated media,” which Congress defined as, “video, image, or audio recordings generated or substantially modified using machine-learning techniques in order to falsely depict events, to falsely depict the speech or conduct of an individual, or to depict individuals who do not exist.”

Debates over deepfakes within the US government have revolved almost exclusively around the dangers presented by foreign-made forgeries. In June 2019, the US House Intelligence Committee held a hearing during which several artificial intelligence experts described threats posed by deepfakes and other generative AI applications. The committee issued a statement expressing concern about how deepfakes will contribute to a “post-truth future.” Since the hearing, lawmakers, the Congressional Research Service, the FBI, and various think tanks have issued dire warnings about the harms caused by foreign deepfakes and have urged government agencies to invest in deepfake detection technologies to guard against adversarial information operations.

Additionally, Congress has mandated various parts of the US national security enterprise to take steps toward countering deepfakes. Section 5724 of the FY2020 NDAA established a competition “to stimulate the research, development, or commercialization of technologies to automatically detect machine-manipulated media.” Section 5709 required the intelligence community to conduct a study on the foreign weaponization of deepfakes. The FY20 NDAA also established a requirement for the intelligence community to notify Congress whenever “there is credible information or intelligence that a foreign entity has attempted, is attempting, or will attempt to deploy machine-manipulated media or machine-generated text aimed at the election or domestic political processes of the United States.” The notification requirement is now codified in public law at Title 50, US Code 3369a. There is no doubt that foreign-made deepfakes pose a threat to democracy and will likely complicate future US elections.

What is less clear, however, is to what extent US government agencies are developing deepfake technology for future operational use or whether senior leaders fully grasp the legal and policy issues associated with the use of generative AI to influence foreign audiences. There has been little open debate about whether the US military should employ deepfakes in support of peacetime information initiatives, gray-zone information operations, or wartime military information support operations and military deception campaigns.

Very few commentators have considered whether the US military might use deepfakes to achieve operational effects in competition or conflict. One example is a 2019 California Law Review article in which Professors Bobby Chesney and Danielle Keats Citron briefly surmised that “the U.S. military . . . might use deep fakes to undermine the credibility of an insurgent leader by making it appear that the person is secretly cooperating with the United States or engaging in immoral or otherwise hypocritical behavior.” The remainder of their discussion of deepfakes in the military context, however, focused on targeting enemy deepfake producers and imposing costs against “foreign individuals or entities who may make harmful use of deep fakes.”

Not all deepfakes are exploitative (i.e., a subject may have consented) or particularly harmful, and there may be great utility in employing deepfake technology as a military information-related capability. For example, deepfakes could impede recruiting efforts for terrorist groups that rely on the internet to radicalize young men and women. In a future armed conflict, commanders might use deepfakes to confuse the enemy and protect forces maneuvering to an objective.

That said, if the US military intends to utilize deepfakes in support of operations, it should do so with a clear picture of the potential risks and rewards. In a January 2023 Brookings Institution report entitled “Deepfakes and International Conflict,” the authors noted, correctly in my view, “The decision to generate and use deepfakes should not be taken lightly and not without careful consideration of the trade-offs.” They recommended establishing “a broad-based, deliberative process” as “the best route to ensuring that democratic governments use deepfakes responsibly.”

Deepfake Categories, Military Use Cases, and the Pitfalls to Navigate

Deepfakes are diverse in many ways. As discussed above, some feature video or still images, while others feature audio alone. Some are generated for nefarious purposes without the subject’s consent while others are made with total transparency. Regardless of the variables in format and maker’s intent, almost every deepfake falls into one of five major categories. Understanding these categories, how they might be employed by a military force in an armed conflict, and some of the legal, policy, and ethical considerations involved offers a framework for determining when and how deepfakes can—or should—be employed in the future.

The first category, Living Person/No Consent (“LPNC”), likely includes the bulk of existing deepfakes in circulation. For good reason, this category also attracts the most substantial attention by media organizations and scholars. It includes deepfakes like the Russian-made video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging his countrymen to surrender after the Russian military invaded in February 2022. The LPNC category also includes pornographic deepfakes and other fake videos and audio files that exploit the images and likenesses of celebrities. Recent LPNC deepfakes include fake audio recordings of the rapper Jay-Z performing Billy Joel’s, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and video of actor Bruce Willis appearing in a commercial for the Russian mobile phone company MegaFon. In May 2022, a deepfake of Elon Musk emerged online purporting to show him endorsing the cryptocurrency platform BitVex.

In the military context, LPNC deepfakes might carry significant advantages. For example, US military planners working on military information support operations could create a deepfake of an influential Islamic State, al-Qaeda, or al-Shabaab leader saying or doing things that he would not typically say or do with the intent of confusing terrorists in the field or discouraging new recruits. Considering how many ISIS fighters became radicalized online before traveling to Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere to fight, sophisticated deepfakes could impede terror networks or exploit disagreements among factions within them. Commanders and their servicing legal advisors would need to consider whether deepfakes like these trigger the covert action statute—although Title 10, US Code 394c, which categorizes clandestine military activities or operations in cyberspace as traditional military activities, likely exempts deepfakes employed in support of military campaigns from the requirements of the covert action statute.

The second category of deepfakes, Living Person/Consent (“LPC”), includes many videos made for entertainment purposes. For example, in 2018 a group of doctorate students at the University of California, Berkeley created a series of deepfake videos depicting them dancing like professionals. Their paper, “Everybody Dance Now,” remains one of the more influential, and entertaining, works of scholarship in the area of computer visualization.

In the military context, LPC deepfakes might be used as lawful tools for deception. As Professor Eric Talbot Jensen and Summer Crockett explained in their 2020 article for the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare, “A deepfaked video including inaccurate intelligence information might significantly impact the conduct of military operations.” Further, as Professor Hitoshi Nasu explained, the law of armed conflict does not prohibit deception. The US military might release a series of focused deepfakes as part of an approved military deception campaign to trick an adversary into believing that a battlefield commander is in multiple locations at once, for example.

The third category of deepfakes, Deceased Person/No Consent (“DPNC”), includes projects like a fake video of deceased Islamic State leader Abu Mohammed al-Adnani produced by Northwestern University’s Security and AI Lab in 2020. Northwestern researchers produced the DPNC deepfake video of al-Adnani to raise the public’s awareness about the technology’s proliferation. For similar reasons, also in 2020, researchers at MIT created a fake speech by President Richard Nixon purporting to tell the American people that the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon failed and that the astronauts had all died. MIT leveraged media coverage of their fake moon landing speech video to raise the public’s awareness of manipulated internet-based media. It remains one of the most compelling examples of a deepfake online today.

In the military context, a fake video of a deceased enemy combatant (e.g., Anwar al-Alwaki or Osama bin Laden) criticizing the performance of al-Qaeda’s rank-and-file fighters might be of use in confusing and countering violent extremists. Commanders would need to take great care in ensuring that DPNC deepfakes comply with customary international laws prohibiting disrespectful and degrading treatment of the dead.

The fourth category of deepfakes, Deceased Person/Consent (“DPC”), includes an emerging group of videos intended to allow living people to interact with their deceased loved ones. The company MyHeritage, for example, creates AI-manipulated videos and photos of deceased loved ones. While some observers find this service to be “creepy,” MyHeritage and other companies are apparently thriving. In May 2023, actor Tom Hanks told podcaster Adam Buxton that he is open to the potential for future filmmakers to include deepfake video and audio featuring his image, likeness, and voice after he is deceased.

In the military context, a country or command may consider obtaining the permission of an influential leader to generate deepfake videos or audio messages to confuse an adversary about whether a particular target is deceased. One could imagine a scenario in Ukraine in which President Zelenskyy is killed but continues to appear on the news, as if he were still alive, to issue guidance, comment on battlefield developments, and congratulate his soldiers for contemporary gains.

The final category of deepfakes, Fake Person/Event (“FPE”), is worthy of special attention. It includes videos, audio recordings, and images of totally fabricated people and fake events. In 2022, Russian hackers established a pro-Kremlin website, Ukraine Today, to flood the information environment with deceptive news and opinions. The hackers created a troupe of fake bloggers using AI to generate profile photographs of Ukrainians that do not actually exist. A man named Vladimir Bondarenko, for example, published a series of articles intended to distort the public’s understanding of Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine. In reality, Bondarenko is not a real person; images of his face and his propaganda were all computer generated. Similarly, in February 2023, China published a series of videos for the so-called Wolf News network purporting to show American reporters praising China’s contributions to geopolitical stability. In another video, a news anchor criticizes the United States government for its shameful inaction on gun control. In June 2023, the social media platform Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) suspended the account of Russian soldier Pavel Korchatie after his four hundred thousand followers finally realized that he was a deepfake controlled by a Chinese user.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The US military must decide now whether it will continue to explore deepfake technology for operational use or whether it should focus its investments in deepfake detection technology alone. It must also acknowledge the fundamental distinction between employing deepfakes in armed conflict scenarios like the use cases described above and doing so in competition short of conflict. The potential utility of these technologies is significant, yet leaders must also recognize that the US military’s embrace of deepfakes could contribute to information chaos. In the context of competition, that risk outweighs any benefits, and the US military should continue to do what General Laura Richardson vowed to do in the US Southern Command area of operations: tell the truth. Credibility is currency in the world, and the use of deepfakes below the threshold of armed conflict will threaten US credibility.

However, the United States must not forgo the opportunity to develop a deepfake capability as a tool for deception in armed conflict. Lawmakers and defense policymakers should explore and develop deepfake technology for use at the tactical and operational levels of warfare. Deepfakes could give warfighting commands advantages over enemy forces and enable protection for maneuvering forces. Deepfakes are certainly dangerous, particularly for democratic societies. But they are not inherently immoral, unethical, or illegal. If developed and deployed responsibly, they could advance military objectives and even save lives.

Major John C. Tramazzo is an active duty Army judge advocate and military professor at the US Naval War College’s Stockton Center for International Law, where he coteaches a course on the Law of Armed Conflict. John previously served as the regiment judge advocate for the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He has also served as a legal advisor within the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. He has deployed to Afghanistan and to Jordan multiple times and has traveled to the EUCOM and AFRICOM areas of responsibility for temporary duties.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons (adapted by MWI)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by John C. Tramazzo · July 28, 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