Quotes of the Day:
"Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong."
- Thomas Jefferson
"How is it possible, that the love of gain and the lust of domination should render the human mind so callous to every principle of honor, generosity and benevolence?"
- Abigail Adams
“I fear that in every elected office, members will obtain an influence by noise not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls . . . There must be decency and respect.”
-John Adams
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 2 (Putin's War)
2. Chinese purchase of North Dakota farmland raises national security concerns in Washington
3. The U.S. Keeps Losing Wars Because Nobody Listens to the Spooks
4. Henry Kissinger: The Internet Does Not Make Great Leaders
5. Mines, Port Damage Threaten Revival of Sea Route for Ukraine Grain
6. China’s Likely Strategic Impulses Towards Taiwan Post-Ukraine Will Be Determined By US ‘Will To Use Power’ – Analysis
7. Putin's Problem: Is Russia Running Out of Accurate Weapons?
8. Ukraine Needs Large Scale Artillery, Soon, or the War Could be Lost
9. Lysychansk: Heavy fighting rages in Ukraine-held eastern city
10. U.S. Generals Have Been Wrong on Ukraine. We Shouldn't Be Shocked
11. Here Is The Entire List of Military Hardware the U.S. Is Giving Ukraine
12. Ukraine's Insurgents Could Break Russia's Invasion
13. NATO’s new China focus: Smart move — or too provocative?
14. Marcos Jr names career diplomat Manalo as foreign minister
15. Navy SEAL use of state parks appears over as state declines to appeal judge's decision
16. Russia claims capture of pivotal city in eastern Ukraine
17. Cyber Insecurity: Give Deterrence a Break
18. Americans More Likely Than Those In UK To Feel Threatened By China’s Development As A World Power
19. Great Power Competition — China’s Use of Guerrilla Warfare and Information Power in Pursuit of Its Epochal World Order
20. Vladimir Putin's terrifying debt to North Korea's Kim Jong-un after secret meetings
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 2 (Putin's War)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 2
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Frederick W. Kagan, and George Barros
July 2, 6:45 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.
Ukrainian forces likely conducted a deliberate withdrawal from Lysychansk, resulting in the Russian seizure of the city on July 2. Geolocated footage showed Russian forces casually walking around northern and southeastern neighborhoods in Lysychansk in a way that suggests that there are few or no remaining Ukrainian forces in the city as of July 2.[1] Ukrainian military officials did not publicly announce a troop withdrawal but neither did they report on defensive battles around Lysychansk. Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Vadym Denysenko vaguely noted that Russian forces have a “high probability” of capturing Lysychansk but that they will have a difficult time advancing in Donetsk Oblast past Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.[2] Ukrainian National Guard Spokesperson Ruslan Muzychuk rejected reports of Russian forces seizing and encircling Lysychansk, but these denials are likely outdated or erroneous.[3] The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia, Rodion Miroshnik, had previously claimed that Ukrainian forces began withdrawing from Lysychansk on June 28.[4] ISW will continue to monitor the situation.
Russian forces will likely establish control over the remaining territory of Luhansk Oblast in coming days and will likely then prioritize drives on Ukrainian positions in Siversk before turning to Slovyansk and Bakhmut. A Ukrainian withdrawal to Siversk would allow Ukrainian forces reduce the risk of immediate encirclement, but Ukrainian forces may continue a fighting withdrawal to a line near the E40 highway from Slovyansk to Bakhmut.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov inspected Russian troop groupings in Ukraine on July 2.[5] The Russian MoD posted a slideshow of images that reportedly prove that Gerasimov still holds his position as Chief of General Staff and that he had recently been in Ukraine, but notably did not include any video footage of Gerasimov’s purported inspection of Russian troops. This post was likely a response to recent speculation that Gerasimov had been removed from his post as part of the Kremlin’s purge of high-level Russian military leadership due to Russian failures in Ukraine. The Russian MoD amplified a claim that Ukrainian media has been lying about Gerasimov’s removal and stated that Gerasimov is still serving as the Chief of the General Staff.[6] The hasty presentation of a slideshow that does not clearly demonstrate that Gerasimov was recently performing his duties in Ukraine suggests that the Russian leadership is sensitive to rumors of a purge of senior Russian officers or possibly to the impression that the senior most officers are absent or uninvolved in the conflict. The Kremlin likely also seeks to retain or rebuild trust in Russian military leadership against the backdrop of major organizational restructuring, failures, and high casualties, as ISW has previously reported.[7]
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces entered Lysychansk and advanced within the city on July 2.
- Russian forces are conducting offensive operations southwest of Lysychansk likely to push westward towards Siversk and complete the capture of the entirety of Luhansk Oblast.
- Russian forces continued unsuccessful ground assaults north of Slovyansk.
- Russian forces conducted limited attacks southwest of Donetsk City but did not make any confirmed gains.
- Ukrainian troops are likely planning to threaten Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) throughout Kharkiv Oblast using Western-supplied weapons.
- Ukrainian counterattacks and partisan activity continue to force Russian troops to prioritize defensive operations along the Southern Axis.
- Proxy leadership may be setting conditions for the direct annexation of proxy republics by the Russian Federation.
Click here to enlarge the map.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City;
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis;
- Mobilization and force generation efforts;
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Click here to enlarge the map.
Click here to enlarge the map.
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces entered Lysychansk and advanced within the city on July 2, likely after Ukrainian forces conducted a controlled withdrawal from the city. Kremlin-sponsored outlet RIA Novosti claimed that Russian forces seized Lysychansk, but it is unclear if Russian forces fully cleared and secured the city.[8] Geolocated footage showed Russian forces hanging a red banner in Lysychansk‘s city center and walking around the city’s northern neighborhood.[9] Chechen units also advanced to the southeastern part of Lysychansk, with geolocated footage showing them outside the Lysychansk City Council building.[10] The footage in both areas shows Russian forces freely walking around the city and taking group photos, suggesting that Ukrainian defenders had already withdrawn. Ukrainian officials did not announce a withdrawal from Lysychansk, but the Ukrainian General Staff notably did not discuss any Ukrainian defensive activity around Lysychansk.[11] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed earlier in the day that Russian forces have encircled Ukrainian forces in Lysychansk and noted that Chechen units were preparing for street fights and full-scale attack to seize the city, but then announced that Russian forces had captured the city in full.[12] The inconsistencies in Kadyrov’s claims may suggest that Russian forces expected to face remaining Ukrainian resistance in the city but found that the Ukrainians had instead withdrawn.
Russian forces continued to launch assaults southwest of Lysychansk, likely in an effort to reach the Luhansk Oblast administrative borders and push towards Ukrainian positions in Siversk. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that Russian forces established positions in Verkhnokamyanka, situated approximately 15km southwest of Lysychansk and just 13km east of Siversk.[13] The successful assault also implies that Russian forces blocked the northeastern part of the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway (which ISW has assessed Ukraine has been unable to use as a major GLOC for some time). The Ukrainian General Staff also noted that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian reconnaissance-in-force around Berestove, approximately 18km southeast of Siversk and 26km northeast of Bakhmut.[14] Recurrent Russian offensive and reconnaissance operations around Berestove and west of Lysychansk suggest that Russian forces may prioritize a drive on Siversk over an immediate attack on Bakhmut. The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) also posted footage outside of the Pryvillya welcome sign, and a satellite image of a Russian pontoon bridge confirms that Russian forces crossed the Siverskyi Donets River just southeast of Kreminna.[15] The LNR Militia also repeated previous Russian claims that Russian forces seized Shepilove, 6km southwest of Pryvillya, on July 1.[16] Russian forces will likely also push on Siversk from the Pryvillya area now that they have advanced to Lysychansk itself.
Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations north of Slovyansk on July 2. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces resisted a Russian assault on Bohorodychne, approximately 20km northwest of Slovyansk.[17] Slovyansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh reported that Russian forces shelled Slovyansk on the night of July 1, and Russian Telegram channel Voproste published footage of Russian forces reportedly using incendiary munitions against Ukrainian positions in the Slovyansk direction.[18] Geolocated combat footage additionally showed Ukrainian forces targeting Russian positions with drones and artillery in Sulyhivka (approximately 20 km east of Bohorodychne) on July 1, likely as part of continued Ukrainian counterattacks southwest of Izyum.[19]
Russian forces resumed unsuccessful and limited attacks southwest of Donetsk City and continued artillery fire and airstrikes around Avdiivka.[20] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance to Novomykhailivka.[21]
Click here to enlarge the map.
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Ukrainian forces plan to continue to threaten Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) running from Belgorod, Russia, to southern Kharkiv Oblast with Western-supplied long-range rocket artillery. The Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Kraken Special Unit, Konstiantyn Nemichev, stated that Ukrainian forces will use US-provided HIMARS rocket artillery systems to disrupt Russian GLOCs running through Vovchansk, Kupyansk, and Izyum. Kupyansk is a significant logistical hub for Russian forces operating on the Kharkiv axis and is located approximately 50km from the frontline. Vovchansk lies approximately 15-20 km from the frontline, but Russian operations in northern Kharkiv have prevented Ukrainian forces from targeting Vovchansk with indirect fire thus far. Russian GLOCs to Izyum are the most exposed, approximately 15km east of the nearest frontline, and NASA FIRMS heat anomaly detection has observed heat anomalies consistent with indirect fire attacks in wooded areas west of Izyum in recent weeks. Most Russian major ammunition depots and support stations along the Kharkiv axis would be within the range of HIMARS systems that would cover the Kharkiv axis.
Russian forces continued localized and unsuccessful assaults northwest of Kharkiv City on June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks on Dementiivka, approximately 25km northwest of Kharkiv City.[22] Russian forces are reportedly using electronic warfare systems in settlements on the international border, likely aimed at disrupting systems at Ukrainian command and control centers.[23]
Click here to enlarge the map.
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces continued to focus on defensive operations along the Southern Axis on July 2.[24] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Ukrainian counteroffensive activity forced Russian troops to withdraw from previously-held positions in Ivanivka (northwestern Kherson Oblast).[25] Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are preparing occupied settlements for ”circular” defense, which indicates that Russian troops are likely engineering 360-degree fortifications in occupied territory.[26] Ukrainian partisan and counteroffensive activities continue to pressure Russian forces to prioritize defensive operations, likely at the expense of Russian forces pursuing territorial gains in southern Ukraine.[27] Russian forces conducted air, artillery, and missile strikes against Ukrainian positions and infrastructure in Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.[28]
Mobilization and force generation efforts (Russian objective: expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russian military leadership continues to rely on ad hoc composite units to support offensive operations in Ukraine. Russian media reported on July 2 that a volunteer battalion of the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Northern Fleet is preparing to deploy to Ukraine.[29] This battalion consists of reservists, volunteers, military policemen, servicemembers from coastal defense units, and sailors from various naval vessels, which likely means that the volunteers are inadequately trained and do not have the requisite infantry experience to be effective in high-intensity combat. Some of the servicemembers of the battalion notably fought in the early stages of the war and are being redeployed.[30] The composite nature of this battalion indicates that Russian military leadership continues to struggle with proper and consistent constitution of combat-ready units.
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Proxy leadership may be setting conditions for the direct annexation of proxy republics into the Russian Federation. Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin announced on July 2 that he replaced four DNR public administration officials with “experienced” Russian ministers in order to institute the “Russian paradigm of public administration.”[31] Pushilin had previously announced the reorganization of the DNR government in June. The measures taken to streamline the governmental practices and frameworks of the DNR with the Russian system suggest that proxy officials are likely preparing to integrate the DNR directly into the Russian Federation.[32]
[3] https://www dot pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2022/07/2/7355994/
[32] https://t.me/TRO_DPR/3935; http://npa.dnronline dotsu/2022-06-27/ukaz-glavy-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki-333-ot-27-06-2022-goda-o-ministre-po-delam-grazhdanskoj-oborony-chrezvychajnym-situatsiyam-i-likvidatsii-posledstvij-stihijnyh-bedstvij-donetskoj-narodnoj-resp.html; http://npa.dnronline dot su/2022-06-27/ukaz-glavy-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki-332-ot-27-06-2022-goda-o-ministre-vnutrennih-del-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki.html; http://npa.dnronline dot su/2022-06-27/ukaz-glavy-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki-331-ot-27-06-2022-goda-o-ministre-yustitsii-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki.html; http://npa.dnronline dot su/2022-06-27/ukaz-glavy-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki-330-ot-27-06-2022-goda-o-ministre-gosudarstvennoj-bezopasnosti-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki.html; http://npa.dnronline dot su/2022-06-27/ukaz-glavy-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki-329-ot-27-06-2022-goda-o-ministre-inostrannyh-del-donetskoj-narodnoj-respubliki.html; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5434533;
2. Chinese purchase of North Dakota farmland raises national security concerns in Washington
Excerpt:
The project is a complicated one, and the city of Grand Forks is not expected to begin building out infrastructure for it until next spring. Mayor Bochenski says he's moving ahead in good faith, but is ready to shift gears if new information comes to light. "We want to do what's best for the community, we want to do what's best for the country, it's a difficult balance right now," he said.
Chinese purchase of North Dakota farmland raises national security concerns in Washington
KEY POINTS
- Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group bought 300 acres of land near Grand Forks, North Dakota, to set up a milling plant.
- The project is located about 20 minutes from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, raising national security concerns.
- Both the Democratic chairman and the Republican ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee told CNBC they are opposed to the project.
CNBC · by Eamon Javers · July 1, 2022
VIDEO3:5603:56
Growing concerns over Chinese project near U.S. military base
At first glance, the largely barren, wind-swept tract of land just north of Grand Forks, North Dakota, seems like an unlikely location for international espionage.
There's not much on the more than 300-acre patch of prime Dakota farmland right now other than dirt and tall grasses, bordered by highways and light industrial facilities on the outskirts of the city of Grand Forks.
The nearest neighbors include a crop production company, a truck and trailer service outfit, and Patio World, which sells landscaping supplies for suburban back yards.
But when the three North Dakotans who owned the parcels of land here sold them for millions of dollars this spring, the transaction raised alarm bells as far away as Washington, DC.
Grand Forks Air Force Base
That's because the buyer of the land was a Chinese company, the Fufeng Group, based in Shandong, China, and the property is just about 20 minutes down the road from Grand Forks Air Force Base — home to some of the nation's most sensitive military drone technology.
The base is also the home of a new space networking center, which a North Dakota senator said handles "the backbone of all U.S. military communications across the globe."
Farmland in southern North Dakota near Bismarck on September 2, 2016.
Robyn Beck | Afp | Getty Images
Now some security experts warn the Chinese corn milling plant should be stopped, because it could offer Chinese intelligence unprecedented access to the facility.
It's an only-in-America kind of fight — pitting the property and economic rights of a community against national security warnings from high-ranking officials in the nation's capital.
Debate over the project has roiled the small community, with emotional city council hearings, local politicians at odds with one another, and neighborhood groups gearing up to block the project.
Craig Spicer, whose trucking company borders the Chinese-held land, says he's suspicious of the new company's intent. "It makes me feel nervous for my grandkids," he said. "It makes me feel nervous for my kids."
$2.6 million sale
Gary Bridgeford, who sold his parcel of the farmland to the Chinese company for around $2.6 million this year, said his neighbors have vented their anger at him and planted signs opposing the project in his front yard. "I've been threatened," he said. "I've been called every name in the book for selling property."
Bridgeford says he believes the national security concerns are overblown. "How would they gain any knowledge of the base?" he asked. "It's about 12 miles away. It isn't like its next door."
"People hear the China stuff and there's concern," Bridgeford said. "But everyone has a phone in their pocket that was probably made in China. Where do you draw the line?"
The city's mayor, Brandon, Bochenski, says he just wants to do business: The proposed $700 million plant would create more than 200 direct jobs, and other opportunities for logistics, trucking and other support services. He's pushing for the project, but he acknowledges there are national security concerns that are beyond his ability to process as a small-town mayor.
'The best we can'
"I mean, we're a municipality of about 60,000 people," he said. "You know, we don't have the budget to have an intelligence gathering apparatus here. We do the best we can and rely on our partners."
Among those partners is the United States Air Force, which hasn't taken an official position on the Chinese project in its North Dakota back yard.
But inside the Air Force, an officer circulated a memo about the project in April, casting it as a national security threat to the United States and alleging that it fits a pattern of Chinese sub-national espionage campaigns using commercial economic development projects to get close to Department of Defense installations. The officer, Maj. Jeremy Fox, argued that the Fufeng project is located on a narrow geographic footprint at which passive receiving equipment could intercept sensitive drone and space-based communications to and from the base.
"Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets," he wrote. And any such data collection "would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to United States' strategic advantages."
Electronic surveillance
Maj. Fox argued that the Air Force would have little ability to detect any electronic surveillance on drone and satellite transmissions being conducted from the Chinese property. "Passive collection of those signals would be undetectable, as the requirements to do so would merely require ordinary antennas tuned to the right collecting frequencies," he wrote. "This introduces a grave vulnerability to our Department of Defense installations and is incredibly compromising to US National Security."
Still, that's not the Air Force's official position. An Air Force spokeswoman says Maj. Fox wrote the memo on his own, "in an effort to raise awareness of what he deemed concerning with respect to the company in question moving into the Grand Forks area, Maj. Fox submitted his personal assessment of potential vulnerabilities to the Grand Forks Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations," Lea Greene, spokeswoman for the Air Force Base, said in a statement.
The company at the heart of the debate argues that its project will helps Americans, not hurt them. Eric Chutorash, Chief Operating Officer of Fufeng USA, the US subsidiary of Fufeng Group, dismissed concerns the plant could be used to spy on the Air Force base.
"I can't imagine anyone that we hire that's going to even do that,' Chutorash said. When asked if he could definitively say it wouldn't be used for espionage, he responded, "absolutely." "We're under U.S. law, I'm an American citizen, I grew up my whole life here, and I am not going to be doing any type of espionage activities or be associated with a company that does, and I know my team feels the exact same way."
But Fox is not the only official concerned about the farmland in Grand Forks.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission cited Maj. Fox's intelligence concerns in a May 26 report, writing, "the location of the land close to the base is particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security related concerns."
Senate opposition
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., opposes the project, despite the economic advantages it might bring to his own constituents. He says he's suspicious of the Chinese government's intent. "I think we grossly under appreciate how effective they are at collecting information, collecting data, using it in nefarious ways," he said in an interview. "And so I'd just as soon not have the Chinese Communist Party doing business in my back yard."
Both the Democratic Chairman and the Republican ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee also told CNBC they are opposed to the project.
"The Senate Intelligence Committee has been loudly sounding the alarm about the counterintelligence threat posed by the (People's Republic of China)," said Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va. "We should be seriously concerned about Chinese investment in locations close to sensitive sites, such as military bases around the U.S."
His Republican counterpart, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida agrees. "It is dangerous, foolish, and shortsighted to allow the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies to purchase land near U.S. military installations," he told CNBC in a statement, noting that he is co-sponsoring legislation that would give the Biden administration the power to block such a purchase. "This is something we must address."
The project is a complicated one, and the city of Grand Forks is not expected to begin building out infrastructure for it until next spring. Mayor Bochenski says he's moving ahead in good faith, but is ready to shift gears if new information comes to light. "We want to do what's best for the community, we want to do what's best for the country, it's a difficult balance right now," he said.
CNBC · by Eamon Javers · July 1, 2022
3. The U.S. Keeps Losing Wars Because Nobody Listens to the Spooks
Almost every military leader and policymaker thinks he is his own best intelligence officer and they think they know better than the professionals. I am not saying intelligence estimates should not be questioned and I agree it is ultimately the responsibility of the leader to accept or reject the estimates but I think the case can be made that a number of our mistakes and failures can be connected to a rejection of sound intelligence estimates.
Only a slight mention of State and no specific mention of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) which has provided some of the best analysis no one has listened to (and it has often conflicted with estimates from the other members of the intelligence community and gotten the estimates right).
The U.S. Keeps Losing Wars Because Nobody Listens to the Spooks
THE PATH OF ARROGANCE
The intel failures behind conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan are not identical, but most of them come down to the people in power not listening to the spies on the ground.
Updated Jul. 03, 2022 5:20AM ET / Published Jul. 02, 2022 11:22PM ET
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
In mid-May, CNN reported that the U.S. intelligence community was about to begin a sweeping review of the way it does business. What prompted the senior officials to action? The answer is simple enough: alarmingly inaccurate predictions as to the durability of the U.S.-supported government of Afghanistan, which led to a decidedly ignominious withdrawal of our forces there, as well as overly pessimistic projections of Ukraine’s ability to stave off a major assault by the Russian army.
In view of the gravity of those mistakes, this seems a necessary and laudable undertaking. But… don’t expect the review and inevitable list of recommendations to improve the complicated process of gathering, analyzing, and consuming intelligence products by much. So say two of the leading scholars of intelligence in the English-speaking world, Richard Betts and the late Robert Jervis, both of Columbia University’s political science department. After decades of studying the question, these men concluded that invariably the recommendations of commissions designed to improve the caliber of the intelligence process after American wars tend to produce a new set of problems. As Betts put it in a widely quoted essay on this topic:
Curing some pathologies with organizational reforms often creates new pathologies or resurrects old ones; perfecting intelligence production does not necessarily lead to perfecting intelligence consumption; making warning systems more sensitive reduces sensitivity; the principles of optimal analytic procedure are in many ways incompatible with the imperatives of the decision-making process; avoiding intelligence failure requires the elimination of strategic preconceptions, but leaders cannot operate purposefully without some preconceptions. In devising measures to improve the intelligence process, policymakers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Strategic intelligence, which Betts nicely defines with admirable economy as “the acquisition, analysis, and appreciation for relevant data,” is an extremely tricky business. It’s a unique amalgam of science and art, for it invariably involves political and psychological factors that are unique to a given conflict, and subject to abrupt change. And it must not be forgotten that senior intelligence officials have to sell their product well if it is to carry real weight with consumers, and that’s an entirely separate skill than producing good analysis.
Of course, serious students of recent American military history already have a basic understanding of what went wrong in assessments of the final phase of the Afghan tragedy, and in the first phase of the Russia-Ukraine war. Broadly speaking, the American intelligence community—the 18 agencies involved in its collection , along with the chief consumers, the White House and the National Security Council—have become overly dependent on quantitative analysis derived primarily from technical and electronic sources (signal intelligence), at the expense of both human intelligence (agents and sources on site in the arena of conflict) and expertise about the political dynamics and cultural histories of foreign societies.
What Clausewitz called moral, or spiritual, factors in his masterwork, On War—the will to fight among the soldiers of an army, the level of popular support for the government, the creativity and intuition of the political leaders of the adversaries—these are things that Clausewitz says “cannot be classified or counted. These have to be seen and felt.”
On paper, the American-trained Afghan National Army of more than 300,000 troops, armed with far more sophisticated weapons than the Taliban, including drones and jet fighters, should have been able to hold off the final offensive Taliban onslaught well into 2022. That didn’t happen, because except for some 30,000 Afghan Special Forces, the rest of the “army” had no interest in defending a government they and their families perceived to be corrupt, ineffectual, and in the pocket of the West. The majority of the Afghan army units did not put up any resistance to the Taliban. They negotiated their own surrender or offered no resistance whatsoever.
As for the CIA projections that the Russians would break the back of Ukrainian resistance in a matter of days, it’s clear that analysts relied too much on their quantitatively based assessment of Russian units and weapons systems, while their grasp of Clausewitz’s “moral factors” on both sides was shaky, at best.
One of the most significant failures in U.S. intelligence since Vietnam was the community’s inability to get a grip on the swirling political and military developments surrounding the Iranian revolution of 1979. In February of that year, a bizarre collection of liberal reformers, leftists, and Muslim fundamentalist clerics overthrew the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the time the United States’ most powerful ally in the Middle East and a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Led by a glowering, mysteriously charismatic cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the clerics deftly outmaneuvered and marginalized their revolutionary allies, and established the world’s first modern Islamic republic.
“The Carter administration’s responses to developments in Iran was halting, contradictory, and in the opinion of every serious historian of U.S. relations of whom I’m aware, depressingly inept.”
Anti-Americanism had been the glue that kept together the disparate factions of resistance to Pahlavi’s rule. All the revolutionaries believed that the shah, whose regime had become increasingly oppressive and corrupt, was in the pocket of Washington. Washington completely misread the dynamics of Iranian politics. Less than a year before the shah was ousted, President Jimmy Carter had praised him lavishly, calling his regime “an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.” The turbulence and rising tide of anti-Americanism in Iran had been in plain sight for several years, but the American intelligence community had developed no contacts among the myriad opposition groups and depended heavily on the shah’s intelligence agencies. They told the Americans not what was really going on, but what the shah wanted the Americans to know.
The Carter administration’s responses to fast-moving developments in Iran before and after that event, including the infamous hostage crisis of 444 days, was halting, contradictory, and in the opinion of every serious historian of U.S. relations of whom I’m aware, depressingly inept. Among the U.S. intelligence community, opines the noted military historian Lawrence Freedman in his history of U.S policy in the Middle East, A Choice of Enemies, “there was little grasp of the internal power struggles that were soon underway in Tehran. The diplomats and intelligence specialists sent to try to pick up the pieces of U.S.-Iranian relations lacked any expertise in the ideological wellsprings of the Islamic movement… Because clerics were not generally known for their lust for power or their appetite for government, the comforting assumption was that their role would soon be circumscribed by proper politicians."
Professors Betts and Jervis join a wide consensus of scholars in believing that the most egregious intelligence failures in recent American history lie more with the top-level consumers of intelligence than with the CIA or the other myriad organizations involved in its collection and analysis. Here, the chief villains, writes Betts, are “wishful thinking, disregard of professional analysis, and the preconceptions of consumers.” There was nothing impulsive about the series of decisions that committed the United States to fighting a major war in Vietnam, and then prolonged America’s commitment to winning that conflict, even as signs of failure began to accumulate like buzzards around a corpse.
Between 1950 and the summer of 1965, three U.S. presidents opted to expand America's involvement in Vietnam, despite that ancient Asian country's seeming irrelevance to American vital interests, and the extraordinary level of dysfunction and corruption among America’s Vietnamese allies. Had President Johnson heeded the CIA’s pessimistic reports about American prospects in Vietnam, he never would have committed the country to a major ground war.
While the Johnson administration’s “best and the brightest” justified America’s growing military presence in Southeast Asia as a proper response to “wars of national liberation” sponsored by the Kremlin and Beijing, the CIA consistently pointed out that this was simply not the case. Hanoi ran its own show, deftly playing off one communist superpower against the other, and frequently decided to go its own way in the prosecution of the war effort against the Americans. The Agency's doubts about the trajectory of American policy in the war were especially pronounced during late 1964 and early 1965, when the Johnson administration crossed the Rubicon by deploying American combat units to take the fight to the enemy in the South in March 1965. In effect, Johnson took over management of the war from the South Vietnamese and put it in the hands of his own generals.
Here is a brilliantly prescient assessment by CIA analyst Harold P. Ford, written in April 1965, just as LBJ was committing American Marines to offensive operations for the first time:
This troubled essay proceeds from a deep concern that we are becoming progressively divorced from reality in Vietnam, that we are proceeding with far more courage than wisdom—toward unknown ends… There seems to be a congenital American disposition to underestimate Asian enemies. We are doing so now. We cannot afford so precious a luxury. Earlier, dispassionate estimates, war games, and the like, told us that [the communists in Vietnam] would persist in the face of such pressures as we are now exerting on them. Yet we now seem to expect them to come running to the conference table, ready to talk… The chances are considerably better than even that the United States will in the end have to disengage from Vietnam, and do so considerably short of our present objectives.
Johnson ignored Mr. Ford's sage advice. Within weeks of receiving this report, he approved General Westmoreland's three-phase plan to win the war by 1968 through a strategy of attrition. Using as many as half a million U.S. troops, he would destroy the enemy's main forces with massive “search and destroy” sweeps, using American mobility and firepower to vanquish an enemy without any air power whatsoever, and little motorized transport. Westmoreland would pay lip service to the CIA’s belief that the war had to be fought and won in the villages, but he’d fight and win in the traditional American way: conventional warfare, emphasizing air power and artillery, even though American military operations inflicted massive destruction on the people America had come to South Vietnam to “save.”
Why did America's policymakers dismiss the astute counsel of the CIA’s wise men? The short answer is that they couldn't break free of the domino theory—the false notion that if one state fell to communism, a string of others was sure to follow, and that this would lead to an irreversible loss of credibility and prestige for the United States... and for Lyndon Johnson and his senior advisers.
“ The disastrous decision by the Bush administration to invade Iraq grew out of a refusal to listen to good intelligence.”
One of the most subtle and perceptive of the CIA analysts, George W. Allen, puts it well in his book, None So Blind: “America failed in Vietnam not because intelligence was lacking, or wrong, but because it was not in accord with what its consumers [i.e., Ike, JFK, LBJ, and their chief advisers] wanted to believe, and because its relevance was outweighed by other factors in the minds of those who made national security policy decisions.”
The disastrous decision by the Bush administration to invade Iraq grew out of a refusal to listen to good intelligence analysis as well. From the spring of 2002 forward, Bush joined with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and several other influential hawks in marginalizing a very substantial body of intelligence and analysis from within and outside the government indicating that an invasion of Iraq might well create more problems for the United States, Iraq, and the entire Middle East than it would solve.
This, at least, was the considered impression of no less a figure than Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain’s equivalent of the CIA, MI6, who engaged in top-secret discussions with the American president and his principal advisers in early July 2002.
A summary of Dearlove’s testimony about those meetings was recorded in a top-secret Downing Street memo: “There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route [of diplomatic pressure]... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath of military action.”
Indeed, the most reliable and objective accounts we have of the administration’s deliberations agree entirely with Dearlove’s assertions that the intelligence and facts were being manipulated to fit the administration’s policy inclinations, and that there was precious little discussion of the likely aftermath of cutting the head off the snake in Iraq.
In its secret discussions during the planning phase and in its public defense of the project, the administration aggressively “worst-cased” the threat posed by Saddam, and “best-cased” the results of removing him from power.
A four-star general who worked on the war plan for months told military writer Tom Ricks that he felt the president was shielded from the advice of those in the upper ranks of the military who thought the United States was heading into a quagmire both before and after the invasion commenced. That advice, he said, was “blown off by the president’s key advisers… the people around the president were so, frankly, intellectually arrogant. They knew that postwar Iraq would be easy and would be a catalyst for change in the Middle East. They were making simplistic assumptions and refused to put them to the test.”
The CIA and State Department analysts were far, far less sanguine about what might happen as a result of the invasion than Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the other hawks. According to Paul Pillar, the top CIA coordinator for intelligence on Iraq from 2001 to 2005, the professional intelligence community presented a picture of a political culture in Iraq that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, turbulent transition.
It projected that a Marshall Plan-type effort would be required to restore the Iraqi economy, despite Iraq’s abundant oil resources.
It forecast that in a deeply divided Iraqi society, with Sunnis resentful over their loss of their dominant position and Shiites seeking power commensurate with their majority status, there was a significant chance that the groups would engage in violent conflict unless and occupying power prevented it.
And it anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks—including by guerrilla warfare—unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam… War and occupation would boost political Islam and increase sympathy for terrorists’ objectives—and Iraq would become a magnet for extremists from elsewhere in the Middle East.
Vietnam and Iraq, of course, were fundamentally irregular, or asymmetric conflicts. Far more than conventional conflicts, irregular wars are shaped more by politics and political organization among the people than by military operations. Since Vietnam, America’s senior foreign policy decision makers have a very unfortunate habit of forgetting this fundamental truth. They have been overly enamored by the power of the U.S. military machine, but obtuse in failing to recognize the limits of military power alone to shape politics in foreign societies.
This tendency goes far in explaining why the United States keeps losing wars.
4. Henry Kissinger: The Internet Does Not Make Great Leaders
Excerpts:
How do you think history will judge the leadership of Vlodomyr Zelensky?
Zelensky is doing a heroic and extraordinary job in leading a country that normally would not elect somebody of his background as leader. He has made Ukraine a moral cause in a period of great transition. It remains to be seen whether he can institutionalize what he has started or whether that is the impact of an extraordinary personality on a very dramatic situation. He has not expressed himself about what the world will look like after the war with the same clarity and conviction with which he has led the pursuit of the war. But I consider him a great figure.
...
You’re quite gloomy on the effect of the internet on leadership. Why is that?
The internet is an overriding reality of the period, and one should not discuss it as if it could be done away with. It permits a degree of self-education that was inconceivable relatively few years ago. But the manipulation of the internet requires such special skills and can evoke such broad reactions, that the ability to affect the immediate impact of stories or events can become the preoccupation of leaders, rather than a view of a more distant future. And the impact is not just of the internet but of technology. It is now relatively easy to construct a computer assistant to yourself that produces rapid answers to issues that you are addressing. In any one case that is a wonderful help, but over a lifetime and over the educational cycles it may produce an inability to ask the deeper questions. Some of the greatest ideas of history, of philosophy, or literature, came out of the anguish of struggling for understanding, and might never have been reached if there was a helpful assistant who gave an immediately relevant solution.
Henry Kissinger: The Internet Does Not Make Great Leaders
TIME · by Belinda Luscombe
In his new (and 19th) book, Leadership, Kissinger—widely admired and reviled for his management of world affairs under President Richard Nixon—uses a historian’s approach to examine six consequential world leaders who inherited difficult geopolitical situations, and in his view, overcame and improved them. He looks at the work of Konrad Adenauer, who helped Germans take stock of their actions after WWII, Charles de Gaulle, who restored confidence to France during the same period, Richard Nixon, who, in Kissinger’s telling, understood how to balance the delicate scales of world order, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who signed the first regional peace treaty with Israel, Lee Kuan Yew, who brought national cohesion to Singapore and Margaret Thatcher, who navigated the U.K. out of its economic doldrums of the 80s.
Kissinger, whose last book—a mere eight months ago—was co-authored with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher, says that because the internet provides such ready answers to so many questions, and can provoke so overwhelming and speedy a response among wide swaths of people, it discourages long term thinking and problem-solving, or what he calls “deep literacy.”
It also makes leading harder. “It is not that changes in communications technology have made inspired leadership and deep thinking about world order impossible,” he writes, “but that in an age dominated by television and the internet, thoughtful leaders must struggle against the tide.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Do you consider yourself a leader?
Yes, but more in the intellectual and conceptual field that in the actual political leadership field. I tried to have some influence on the political thinking also, but not by being actively involved in politics.
You include Richard Nixon in a book of inspired leaders, and a lot of people will balk at this because of the way he left office. Are you trying to re-tilt history in his favor?
I included him because I believe in the field of foreign policy, in which I knew him best, he took over in a very difficult and declining situation and tried to show a way out of it, and some of his policies in the Middle East and on China, for example, set a pattern that lasted for over a generation. In that sense, I think he had a transformative impact. He was the American president, of those that I have known, who best understood the impact of societies over a period of time in the foreign policy field.
Who would you say was the runner up?
George Bush, the elder.
How do you think history will judge the leadership of Vlodomyr Zelensky?
Zelensky is doing a heroic and extraordinary job in leading a country that normally would not elect somebody of his background as leader. He has made Ukraine a moral cause in a period of great transition. It remains to be seen whether he can institutionalize what he has started or whether that is the impact of an extraordinary personality on a very dramatic situation. He has not expressed himself about what the world will look like after the war with the same clarity and conviction with which he has led the pursuit of the war. But I consider him a great figure.
At Davos, you suggested that Ukraine might think about ceding some land in order to find peace and this suggestion was highly criticized.
If you read what I actually said, I never said that. What I said is that the best dividing line for a ceasefire is the status quo ante, that is, one should not pursue the war from the territories that were Ukrainian when the war started into territories that had been tolerated or accepted as part of Russia at that time. And I warned against turning the war for the freedom of Ukraine into a war about the future of Russia. One has to think about this very carefully. Right now, Russia still occupies 15% of pre-war Ukrainian territory. It must be restored to Ukraine before a meaningful ceasefire can be established. The disputed territory is a slight corner of Donbas, about 4.5%, and Crimea. Crimea, especially, has a significance to Russia beyond the dispute of the current crisis. I’m very worried that this war might spread into something that will become very unmanageable. I did not say that territory should be given up. I just implied that it should have a separate status in any negotiations. I am unreservedly for the freedom of Ukraine, and its significant role in Europe.
In the book, you say there are two types of leaders: statesmen and prophets. Could you explain the difference?
Statesmen leaders analyze the realities of the existing situation and want to achieve the maximum possible within them, balancing vision against risk and keeping in mind that history lasts longer than the passion of the moment. Prophets, as I conceive them, do not accept this distinction. They believe that their values must be implemented as quickly as is possible, and that the quality of the values determines the significance of their political role. The prophetic view is often the more elevated view and certainly the more passionate view and it may achieve great historic transformations, but it does not make allowances for the scale of human suffering and for the capability of any one generation to adapt to fundamental change.
You also write that “Forgetfulness is sometimes the glue for societies that would not otherwise cohere.” I wondered if that has any relevance to an America that right now feels quite unglued?
America now is much more conscious of its divisions than of its coherence. [That coherence] still exists in major parts of the country, but at the level of political debate, it has become much weaker. When I was in government, I thought we were having a bad time in terms of public disputes about Vietnam. But in retrospect, the Vietnam issue was a debate about the best way to achieve basically agreed-upon objectives. Today, the conflicts are about different objectives. At that time, there was a fixed number of senators to whom you could go and say, the national interest requires a certain action. They didn’t always agree. But they didn’t a priori disagree. They considered it a valid issue. Today the definitions of the national interest and of the national values are in intense dispute.
One of the ways in which that’s playing out at the moment is in the Jan. 6 hearings. Do you think they are good for America geopolitically?
Election outcomes that are disputed by the loser have happened before. But the issue then is to what extent that disagreement should be pushed and whether one should not keep in mind the need of the country’s ultimate unity. Whatever the debate about Richard Nixon after his defeat by Kennedy—there were plausible arguments that maybe the election in some states had not followed agreed procedures— he refused to make that case and conceded the election, because he rightly knew that such a debate would split the country in a way that would make the conflict unbridgeable. And in all the disputes that I’ve read about of that kind, the system itself did not come under assault. That’s the special aspect of the January 6 situation. The real issue is not whether there were some transgressions but whether the constitutional system at the end, should override the disagreements within it, when a legal judgment had been reached.
Do you think that it’s a useful exercise to conduct hearings on the way the President behaved?
It’s not an abstract historical inquiry about whether they were violations to begin with, and whether the president should intervene and to what extent. Part of its purpose is to affect the prospects of Trump as a presidential candidate.
If you just had to pick one, which leader do you think America needs now? One with the integrity of Konrad Adenauer, the forceful vision of de Gaulle, the tenacity of Thatcher, the imagination of Lee Kuan Yew or the peaceful heart of Anwar Sadat?
(Long pause.) I think it needs somebody like de Gaulle, who recalls it to its essence, even if the definition of that essence is somewhat romanticized, as de Gaulle’s was. That was his essential contribution—he took a country that had lost faith in itself and declared as his objective not ultimate victory but a kind of regeneration of a lost faith in itself.
You write that the task of the leader is to ‘transcend circumstance by vision and dedication.’ Could you find no leader who leaned left who did this?
No, of course, there were leaders—the left-right division is relatively recent. But several leaders of the British Labour Party were personal friends of mine, and for example in France President Mitterrand, who was explicitly left, I rate just behind de Gaulle as a leader with vision. It’s probably true that I personally lean more towards center but I don’t consider the division between left and right the key division.
What do you consider the key division?
A willingness to recognize the importance of history. Leaders who think that history must be totally changed usually bring more suffering.
You write that foreign policy in the U.S. right now needs a “Nixonian flexibility.” What might that look like, say, in the U.S.’s dealings with China?
The encounter between China and the United States has its special ingredient in the fact that both societies consider themselves exceptional and therefore unique and therefore entitled to prevail. The difference is that the United States thinks that the coherence of the world is natural and therefore the challenge is a series of practical problems that have to be solved on an ad hoc basis. But China thinks of history as an evolution without end in which the solution of one problem is an entrance ticket to another set of problems. Where America prevails—in its image—by its case to case performance, China’s view of itself is that it prevails through the majesty of its conduct and the scale of its performance, which results, in my interpretation of the Chinese view, not in conquest but in respect. So, they are aiming for different things on a day-to-day basis.
But they have one problem that has never existed before. Technology has become a participant in the sense that its evolution is rapid in a way that is unheard of. More than that, the human-created objects can develop something close to consciousness, so that one can have computers that can write articles and make weapons that can define their own danger or their own objectives.
A war between these countries would therefore have implications of catastrophe that were not imaginable even 30 years ago. So I always wind up saying, as I wind up in the book, that the United States and China have a special responsibility, one, to be in contact with each other to define that danger for each other, and secondly, to make this the basic principle of their foreign policy, even while they disagree on a wide range of other things. No two countries have ever had that challenge. And I would say the world, of course, has exactly the same challenge. This is what makes thinking about history so different from even 25 years ago.
Business leaders are becoming more willing to become geopolitically engaged, as we’ve seen in the voluntary sanctions against Russia they undertook. What do you think is the role of business leaders going forward?
Business leaders are on dangerous territory when they think they can apply the requirements of success in business to the requirements of political change. Because business is about the implementation of a vision for profit of some form or another, but the historical process covers a broader range. One aspect of our period is the transformation of the image that business leaders have of themselves, because at one time they thought they were contributing by what they were doing in a separate field. And now they’re in some cases trying to use that separate field to become an integral part of the political world. If you are not informed about the historic processes, that is a potentially dangerous course.
You’re quite gloomy on the effect of the internet on leadership. Why is that?
The internet is an overriding reality of the period, and one should not discuss it as if it could be done away with. It permits a degree of self-education that was inconceivable relatively few years ago. But the manipulation of the internet requires such special skills and can evoke such broad reactions, that the ability to affect the immediate impact of stories or events can become the preoccupation of leaders, rather than a view of a more distant future. And the impact is not just of the internet but of technology. It is now relatively easy to construct a computer assistant to yourself that produces rapid answers to issues that you are addressing. In any one case that is a wonderful help, but over a lifetime and over the educational cycles it may produce an inability to ask the deeper questions. Some of the greatest ideas of history, of philosophy, or literature, came out of the anguish of struggling for understanding, and might never have been reached if there was a helpful assistant who gave an immediately relevant solution.
At 98, do you feel hopeful about the world or not?
The problems that occupy me now could not possibly have preoccupied me when I was [younger] because the world has changed so much. When you enter a country as a kind of refugee, the ambition that you might become the Secretary of State of that country is not one that forces itself on your imagination in any immediate way. I’ve had the opportunity through the radical nature of history, as it engulfed us, to participate in many things that, from where I sat, were attempts to improve the world to some extent. And this possibility now exists in an even wider sense. That is a positive aspect. But I’m also concerned that if my children’s generation doesn’t make progress in understanding what I’ve tried to describe—things that I have never dealt with—that this could become a world of great violence and division. So there is an opportunity and also a danger, and both are relatively unique. Whether we are preparing ourselves adequately for this kind of world, that’s the challenge. What I tried to do in this book is to show how it was done by some people in different times. It’s not a cookbook; it’s supposed to inspire some reflection.
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
TIME · by Belinda Luscombe
5. Mines, Port Damage Threaten Revival of Sea Route for Ukraine Grain
Mines, Port Damage Threaten Revival of Sea Route for Ukraine Grain
Getting grain moving again could take weeks even if Ukraine and Russia agree to a U.N. plan to clear a safe path for exports
July 2, 2022 5:30 am ET
ODESSA, Ukraine—Before Ukraine can begin exporting grains via the Black Sea, mines have to be cleared, warehouses patched up and shipowners persuaded to take the risk of making the journey.
At the port city of Odessa, few have faith that will happen soon.
Mines area
Possible drifting mines area
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Kyiv
UKRAINE
Area of
detail
ROMANIA
UKRAINE
Mykolaiv
Kherson
Odessa
Izmail
CRIMEA
ROMANIA
Black Sea
Sevastopol
Constanta
50 miles
50 km
Note: As of June 28
Source: Hydrographic Institute of the Spanish Navy
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Before the war almost all of Ukraine’s wheat, corn and sunflower oil went out through its Black Sea ports. Now, several are in Russian hands and mines blockade others, while various port infrastructure has been damaged.
Should Ukraine and Russia agree to the U.N.-backed deal—or if the war were to end—it could still take weeks, or even months, to get traffic moving again, Ukrainian officials and industry players say.
“This might be a long-term story and we are considering the options of shipping the next year’s harvest” outside of the ports, said Rustem Umerov, a member of Ukraine’s negotiating team.
“Honestly, after eight years of war with Russia, Ukrainians have no trust in Russians,” Mr. Umerov added, in reference to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin-backed separatist movement the Donbas.
Russia has denied that it is deliberately hindering Ukrainian exports and has accused Kyiv of exacerbating the food crisis.
“Russia is not blocking the export of grain from Ukrainian ports,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We have nothing to do with the worsening of the grain crisis. Active efforts are currently under way to solve the problem.”
What’s at Stake as Ukraine’s Grain Remains Blocked
What’s at Stake as Ukraine’s Grain Remains Blocked
Play video: What’s at Stake as Ukraine’s Grain Remains Blocked
A significant portion of the world’s wheat supply has been disrupted as Ukraine’s Black Sea ports remain blockaded following Russia’s invasion. WSJ looks at why finding solutions to avoid a potential food crisis is so complicated. Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko/ Reuters
Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg last month, President Vladimir Putin said: “Let them demine [the ports] and export, we’ll ensure the safety of civilian ships.”
Six Ukrainian ports are blocked by mines and the Russian navy, with another four occupied by Russia, according to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority. Just three small river ports are moving goods, it says.
Among those blocked is Odessa, which before the war shipped more grain than anywhere else in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Coast Guard says it doesn’t know how many mines are in the nearby water.
The country has mined its shore too, to protect itself from a potential invasion by sea, and Kyiv is reluctant to move that safety net.
Ukraine doesn’t have the capability to clear mines itself, and should it agree to make a safe sea path it would need help from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ms. Humenyuk said.
A ship waits to be loaded with grain at a Ukrainian port on the Black Sea in February.
PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER OCCHICONE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Several European nations have minesweeping capabilities and Turkey, which has championed the safe sea path proposal, has offered to clear the ordnance.
Ukrainian officials have said that it would take months to demine the Black Sea, which is why the U.N. plan now centers on sweeping a corridor through them, rather than clearing them all.
Underscoring the dangers, some mines have already drifted closer to shore due to strong currents or storms. Signs warning of mines dot Odessa’s beaches. On June 11, one exploded some 20 meters from shore, killing a man whose family was nearby.
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Alan West, a former head of the British Navy who once commanded a minesweeper, said the speed at which mines can be cleared will depend on how many and how sophisticated they are and whether their locations are known.
“It’s incredibly complex,” he said.
Mr. West, though, believes that if locations are known, then a properly equipped navy could clear the mines in a matter of days.
U.S. officials believe that the operation could take anywhere from days to weeks, depending on the type of mines in the sea.
Even if a path is cleared, some in the maritime industry say they remain apprehensive.
Wheat silos in Lazarivka, Ukraine.
PHOTO: GUILLAUME BINET / MYOP FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Two large grain shipping companies said that while they do want to get food moving out of Ukraine again, they would be careful about visiting Ukrainian ports unless all the mines have been cleared or even while the war continues, given the risk for sailors. Higher insurance costs would have to be borne by those chartering the vessels, they said.
Oleg Grygoriuk, chairman of the Marine Transport Workers Trade Union of Ukraine, said that demining isn’t enough of a guarantee that the waters near Ukraine would be safe because Russia could attack vessels. At the start of the war, several vessels were hit by missiles.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of targeting its ports, which could affect its ability to handle cargoes for export.
Russia recently withdrew from Snake Island, a rocky outcrop on the Black Sea that it seized early in the war and used as a platform from which to launch attacks on Ukrainian ships and territory. Despite relinquishing control there, Russia maintains the capacity to strike coastal areas of Ukraine.
On June 22, Russia hit grain and sunflower oil terminals at the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv owned by Canadian agribusiness Viterra and U.S. grain trader Bunge Ltd. A large sunflower-oil processing plant near Mariupol and other Mykolaiv terminals have also been struck in the past.
Mykolaiv would require work to get back to full capacity, with repairs needed to damaged silos and cisterns holding grain and sunflower oil, according to Dmytro Barinov, deputy head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority.
Grain continues to be sent out of Ukrainian ports controlled by Russia, according to Russian state media and ship-tracking companies, suggesting the facilities haven’t sustained too much damage.
From March to June, ships visited Ukrainian ports in Russia-controlled areas an average of 99 times a month, according to Windward Ltd., which tracks maritime trade.
Dmytro Barinov, deputy head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, said grain silos in Mykolaiv will need to be repaired.
PHOTO: SERHII KOROVAYNY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Aside from Mykolaiv, other Ukrainian ports under Kyiv’s control are also in good working condition, and, allowing for workers to return, could theoretically start working within days, said Mr. Barinov.
At Odessa, however, the port’s once 24-hour operation is currently dead after about 3 p.m. local time. Operating less than 12 hours a day, skeleton crews work only on maintenance.
“We simply paint the walls and do mundane upkeep work,” said Yury, a crew captain whose contract obliges him to be at work each day despite the lack of any goods to export.
Access to the port is blocked by military checkpoints. Ukrainian Coast Guard ships patrol the waters under cover of darkness with their lights off to avoid enemy spotters.
Viktor Berestenko, head of shipping company Inter Trans Logistics Co. Ltd., said he doubts the demining process will be under way this year, and has let go of 37 of his 120 workers. There are tens of thousands of tons of grain at the port, he said, with nowhere to go.
“There are no ships arriving, so what work can there be?” he said.
The beach front in Odessa is cordoned off to prevent people accessing it.
PHOTO: GUILLAUME BINET / MYOP FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
6. China’s Likely Strategic Impulses Towards Taiwan Post-Ukraine Will Be Determined By US ‘Will To Use Power’ – Analysis
Excerpts:
Finally, two things need to be stressed for the United States to deter China from its strategic impulses post-Ukraine for Taiwan Invasion and further military adventurism in Indo Pacific.
The first, the United States should learn from historic mistakes when it neglected Indo Pacific and got strategically distracted by Afghanistan and Iraq interventions during 2001-2015 wherein China un-checkmated built up its exponential military and naval power, which United States has now to contend with.
Secondly, the United States can ill-afford to send mixed signals to its Allies& Strategic Partners, in its policy approaches to China post-Ukraine, which smack of United States REVERSION once again to “China Appeasement” and “Risk Aversion”.
This REVERSION would be the ‘Tipping Point’ for China to seize the moment as opportune for Taiwan Invasion.
China’s Likely Strategic Impulses Towards Taiwan Post-Ukraine Will Be Determined By US ‘Will To Use Power’ – Analysis
China’s strategic impulses post-Ukraine Invasion by Russia will necessarily be focused on forcible annexation of Taiwan and be determined and crafted based on China’s perceptions of United States “Will to Use Power” to pre-empt a repeat of Russian Ukraine Invasion by China and in case of surprise Chinese invasion and occupation of Taiwan, will United States escalate China’s ‘Limited War’ on Taiwan into a full-blown US-China War?
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China has already tested United States “Will to Use Power” and found it lacking when China from 2013- 2020 established ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ over the South China Sea. The United States hurried military exit from Afghanistan reinforced China’s perception of United States as a ’Power on the Decline’.
Sequentially, it can be surmised that Russia preying on the same perception of United States as of China felt emboldened to undertake the Ukraine Invasion in early 2022. The Russia-China Axis has concretised and strategic & military consultative processes more coordinated in terms of confronting the United States.
The United States and NATO’s lack of ‘Will to Use Power’ against Russia over Ukraine Invasion even after 100 days, has led to Russian destruction of Ukrainian cities reminiscent of World War II and reflect United States and NATO impotence to confront authoritarian regimes military adventurism.
Limiting US responses to arms supplies to Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia is likely to be a strong determinant which could ignite China’s strategic impulses for Taiwan Invasion.
In my assessment, China and Russia at the political level would have war-gamed the scenarios both of Russian Ukraine Invasion and China’s intended Taiwan Invasion.
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China has not condemned Russia’s impulsive invasion of Ukraine and short of putting Chinese Army boots on the ground is seemingly intensely involved in aiding Russia to prolong the Ukraine Invasion.’
Russia’s Ukraine Invasion as stressed by me in earlier writings was a ‘War of Choice’. Perceptionaly, it was the personal choice of President Putin aimed at bringing former USSR territories under Moscow control.
China’s likely invasion of Taiwan viewed with similar aims of forcible merger of breakaway Taiwan with Chinese Mainland, however, in eyes of Chinese President Xi Jinping will figure as a ‘War of Necessity’ impelled by his grandiose ‘Greater China Dream’ and more significantly as a validation of his legacy to be equal to Chairman Mao.
China’s intention for merger of Taiwan, by force if necessary, is not debatable. Nor is debatable Chinese President Xi’s intention to do it during his Presidency. In both cases China’s merger of Taiwan with Mainland China becomes a “War of Necessity”.
The question therefore is not “if” China will invade Taiwan, but when does China feel it is opportune to do so?
The next question that then comes to the fore having established that China does have intentions for a Taiwan Invasion, is an assessment of Chin’s military capabilities for Taiwan Invasion?
China certainly has the military capabilities for Taiwan Invasion ad military occupation in a ‘Limited War’ scenario achieved by surprise invasion before United States and Allies can spring into action to pre-empt Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.
The only factor that is bound to weigh heavily on China is United States ‘Will to Use Force” to pre-empt the Taiwan Invasion and also United States “Will to Escalate” the conflagration to an all-out US-China War?
Going by present indictors, the United States & Allies have initiated China-deterrent strategies to dissuade China not only from a Taiwan Invasion but also from further military adventurism in Indo Pacific.
Geopolitically and strategically, China can be said to be isolated in Indo Pacific unless US President Biden reverses former US President Trump’s ‘Hard Line China especially on trade. US President Biden post-Ukraine also has to exhibit to US Allies and Strategic Partners in Indo Pacific that United States has the “Will to Use Power” to compel China to desist from Taiwan Invasion.
President Biden to order exit of US Military Forces from Afghanistan ostensibly to stiffen US military presence was understandable. But post-Ukraine, the decision of US President Biden that United States to increase US military presence in Europe can only come at expense of US military Forward Military Presence in Japan, South Korea and Guam.
This would send wrong signals to China and reinforce China’s decision that now would be the opportune time for the Taiwan Invasion when United States is getting strategically distracted to Europe.
Finally, two things need to be stressed for the United States to deter China from its strategic impulses post-Ukraine for Taiwan Invasion and further military adventurism in Indo Pacific.
The first, the United States should learn from historic mistakes when it neglected Indo Pacific and got strategically distracted by Afghanistan and Iraq interventions during 2001-2015 wherein China un-checkmated built up its exponential military and naval power, which United States has now to contend with.
Secondly, the United States can ill-afford to send mixed signals to its Allies& Strategic Partners, in its policy approaches to China post-Ukraine, which smack of United States REVERSION once again to “China Appeasement” and “Risk Aversion”.
This REVERSION would be the ‘Tipping Point’ for China to seize the moment as opportune for Taiwan Invasion.
7. Putin's Problem: Is Russia Running Out of Accurate Weapons?
But can Ukraine keep taking the punishment until they run out? (Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope).
Putin's Problem: Is Russia Running Out of Accurate Weapons?
Fighting in the Donbas and Russian (Im)Precision Strikes
In its daily estimate of the war, the British Ministry of Defense touched on the fighting in the Donbas but mainly focused on the misuse of precision-guided munition by the Russian military.
“Russian forces continue to achieve minor advances around Lysychansk, with air and artillery strikes continuing in the district. Ukrainian forces probably continue to block Russian forces in the south-eastern outskirts of Lysychansk,” the British Military Intelligence assessed.
Last week, the Russian military launched two cruise missiles against a Ukrainian shopping mall that was packed with hundreds of people in the middle of the day. At least ten people were killed and many more injured by the attack.
“Russia continues to employ air-launched anti-ship missiles in a secondary land-attack role, likely because of dwindling stockpiles of more accurate modern weapons,” the British Ministry of Defense added.
The Russians claimed that they weren’t targeting the mall, and the weapon system they used seems to support that. However, choosing the wrong weapon system for a precision strike comes with the admission that collateral damage and civilian casualties are acceptable. And in that, the Russians are guilty.
“Analysis of CCTV footage shows the missile that impacted the Kremenchuk shopping centre on 27 June 2022 was highly likely a Kh-32. This is an upgraded version of the Soviet era Kh-22 KITCHEN. Although the Kh-32 has several performance improvements over the Kh-22, it is still not optimised to accurately strike ground targets, especially in an urban environment. This greatly increases the likelihood of collateral damage when targeting built up areas,” the British Ministry of Defense stated.
“Further strikes on 30 June 2022 in Odesa Oblast likely involved Kh-22 KITCHEN missiles. These weapons are even less accurate and unsuitable for precision strikes and have almost certainly repeatedly caused civilian casualties in recent weeks,” the British Military Intelligence assessed.
Russia Has a Casualties Problem
The Russian military continues to suffer casualties in Ukraine. The Kremlin continues to rely on mercenaries and separatist fighters to make up for the losses it has been suffering in the war.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that as of Saturday, Ukrainian forces have killed approximately 35,870 Russian troops (and wounded approximately thrice that number), destroyed 217 fighter, attack, and transport jets, 186 attack and transport helicopters, 1,582 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 3,737 armored personnel carriers, 246 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 15 boats and cutters, 2,614 vehicles and fuel tanks, 105 anti-aircraft batteries, 653 tactical unmanned aerial systems, 61 special equipment platforms, such as bridging vehicles, and four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems, and 144 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.
1945’s New Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.
8. Ukraine Needs Large Scale Artillery, Soon, or the War Could be Lost
Ukraine Needs Large Scale Artillery, Soon, or the War Could be Lost
By Dan Rice, MSeD
Wars, by their nature, are incredibly complicated.
The war in Ukraine is actually much simpler than most of the wars of the past 75 years. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Vietnam, Bosnia, and many others were very complicated, with a lot of “gray areas.” Most of these were civil wars, with warring factions, sectarian violence, and competing internal ideologies.
The war in Ukraine is much simpler. It is more 'black and white' than all the other wars since World War II. It is “good vs evil”. It is one horrible Army invading a sovereign neighbor and committed atrocities on an industrial scale against an entire civilian population. It is the world vs. Russia. And it is why NATO was formed in 1949, to counter Russia.
And it is a ‘just war”.
The war really boils down to math. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, where the population was divided along religious, tribal, sectarian segments, this is a united population. They have the will to fight. They are not asking the NATO or the US to commit combat troops. They are only asking for weapons to kill the common enemy of Russia.
98% of the population of Ukraine supports the Ukrainian military.
The majority of the world supports Ukraine against the Russians.
Ukraine defeated the much larger and superior Russian force in the Battle of Kyiv in one of the greatest upsets in military history.
Ukraine prior to the war had a GDP of $155 billion, and that has been destroyed. Russia had a GDP of $1.5 trillion. The EU had an economy of $17 trillion and the US had an economy of $20 billion.
Ukraine therefore cannot possibly compete economically with Russia. Ukraine cannot afford to buy enough weapons to defeat Russia. The smaller country, illegally invaded by Russia, needs US and NATO support or it will be destroyed forever.
This is obvious. But what is the solution?
Ukraine is way outgunned financially and militarily by the much larger Russia. But Russia is way outgunned financially and militarily by the much larger US and EU economies and militaries.
The war has now boiled down to an artillery duel. The Russians have 10X the artillery that Ukraine possesses. The PRIMARY need is artillery.
If the west does not act, Ukraine will likely eventually collapse under the weight of the much larger Russian artillery and army.
The cost of Russia winning this war and destroying Ukrainian culture will be enormous. Food security. Inflation. Precedent for China and other aggressors. The rest of Europe will be at risk. This war is like a tax on the American economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
On the other hand, a victory of Ukraine over Russia will have the opposite effect. Peace, security, stability will likely reduce global uncertainty. Inflation will decline and fuel prices will likely decline. This will be like a tax break to the American economy.
Globally the cost of energy should decrease. Inflation will likely decrease. The world will likely see an economic boom.
What is the cost required to obtain this victory? The world has already given or pledged $50 billion.
We have given 126 M777 Howitzers.
We have given 4 MLRS launchers to Ukraine and pledged 4. The UK has pledged 3 and Germany 3. Poland alone, has ordered itself 500 MLRS launchers.
This is the scale that is needed in Ukraine.
The world is giving a lot of money, but it isn’t always going to the weapons that are needed by Ukraine. We often give them the items that WE want to give them, that a particular member of Congress wants built in their district, such as 18 Navy boats.
The battle is a land battle out east and in the south.
An MLRS launcher is $5 million. Ukraine needs 300, or around $1.5 billion.
A M777 Howitzer is $700,000. 300 Howitzers is $210 million. Of course ammo plus maintenance is additional. But these are small numbers relative to what has been given.
But this is what is the primary need of Ukraine. And we aren’t giving them what they need, and if we do not, the war will be lost. The US has given $54 billion.
With the stroke of one pen, enough artillery aid can go to Ukraine to win this war.
Let’s send them what they need, artillery, in massive numbers, immediately.
Daniel Rice receives no compensation nor reimbursement from Ukraine and is advocating for Ukraine for philanthropic purposes.
About the Author(s)
Dan is the President of Thayer Leadership and a 1988 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He served his commitment as an Airborne-Ranger qualified Field Artillery officer. In 2004, he voluntarily re-commissioned in the Infantry to serve in Iraq for 13 months. He has been awarded the Purple Heart, Ranger Tab, Airborne Badge and cited for ‘courage on the field of battle” by his Brigade Commander.
SCHOLARLY WORK/PUBLICATIONS/AWARDS
Dan has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Small Wars Journal, and Chief Executive magazine. In 2013, he published and co-authored his first book, West Point Leadership: Profiles of Courage, which features 200 of West Point graduates who have helped shape our nation, including the authorized biographies of over 100 living graduates.. The book received 3 literary awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association plus an award from the Military Society Writers of America (MSWA). Dan has appeared frequently on various news networks including CNN, FOX News, FOX & Friends, Bloomberg TV, NBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show.
EDUCATION
Ed.D., ABD, Leadership, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education (graduation expected 2023)
MS.Ed., Leadership & Learning, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, 2020
M.S., Integrated Marketing Communications, Medill Graduate School, Northwestern University, 2018
M.B.A., Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2000
B.S., National Security, United States Military Academy, 1988
9. Lysychansk: Heavy fighting rages in Ukraine-held eastern city
Lysychansk: Heavy fighting rages in Ukraine-held eastern city
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Image source, AFP
Image caption,
Heavy fighting has devastated much of Lysychansk (18 Jun 22 pic)
Ukraine says its forces are enduring intense Russian shelling in the eastern city of Lysychansk, but denies claims that they are surrounded.
It is the last Ukrainian-held city in Luhansk, part of the industrial Donbas region. Russia captured the nearby city of Severodonetsk last month.
"We barely have time to put out the major fires in Lysychansk," Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said.
Russia has also fired more missiles at cities in the north and south.
Railway tracks and electricity lines in the northern city of Kharkiv were damaged in a series of attacks. No casualties were reported.
The southern city of Mykolaiv - on a key route to the port city of Odesa - was shaken by several explosions.
The Russian defence ministry said its air force had destroyed five Ukrainian command posts and several ammunition dumps, but that claim has not been independently verified.
The blasts came a day after the Russians killed more than 20 people in a missile strike on a block of flats near Odesa.
Russia is concentrating its ground offensive in the Donbas, and Governor Haidai said artillery fire was striking Lysychansk from several directions.
But a Ukraine National Guard spokesman denied claims by Russian-backed Luhansk separatists that they had encircled the city.
Russian sources have tweeted video of the Soviet flag allegedly being placed at a war memorial in Lysychansk, but that has not been verified.
The Russian-backed Luhansk separatists claimed they had "occupied the last strategic heights, which allows us to confirm that Lysychansk is completely encircled".
In its latest intelligence update, the UK Defence Ministry says Russian forces "continue to achieve minor advances around Lysychansk, with air and artillery strikes".
It also accuses Russia of using Soviet-era anti-ship missiles "in a secondary land attack role" - not what they were designed for. The Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles were "likely" the ones that killed many civilians in Kremenchuk and Odesa, the ministry says.
Slovyansk, a major Donbas city held by Ukrainian forces, has also been shelled again by the Russians. Its mayor Vadym Lyakh said banned Russian cluster munitions killed four people there - another claim the BBC was unable to verify.
10. U.S. Generals Have Been Wrong on Ukraine. We Shouldn't Be Shocked
Observable reality? What reality does the former Lt Col observe? Where does he observe it from? Who is on the frontline observing and providing the ground truth?
Excerpts:
Such claims, however, are in contradiction to observable reality on the battlefield – and continue a disturbing, decades-long trend of poor and misleading advice given by America’s top military officers.
...
As I have chronicled on these pages, the conditions and military fundamentals clearly evident for years have strongly suggested that Ukraine could not win a war with Russia, and that both Kyiv and Washington should have made different policy choices based on that reality, both before and since Russia’s illegal invasion. But as graphically detailed below, active and retired flag officers have continually claimed that – ignoring clear evidence to the contrary – Ukraine has a chance to win the war.
U.S. Generals Have Been Wrong on Ukraine. We Shouldn't Be Shocked
Frederick B. Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army-Europe, claimed last month that Ukraine’s forces would soon slow Russia’s advance and, the New York Times reported, begin “to roll back its gains by late summer.” Hodges said his confidence was based on his belief that “the Ukrainian logistical situation getting better each week while the Russian logistical situation will slowly degrade.”
Such claims, however, are in contradiction to observable reality on the battlefield – and continue a disturbing, decades-long trend of poor and misleading advice given by America’s top military officers.
Listening over the past four months to what America’s retired generals and admirals have said on TV, one would be forgiven for believing that Ukraine is winning its war with Russia, that Putin’s troops and leaders are incompetent, and that soon Ukrainian troops will begin rolling the Russians back.
Such belief, however, would be badly misplaced, as substantial evidence indicates virtually the opposite.
A Rosy Look at the Brutal Battle in Ukraine
Rosy, optimistic – and inaccurate – assessments from U.S. flag officers have unfortunately become the norm over the past few decades. While some current and former generals give excellent and accurate assessments, there are far too many that don’t. The consequence to American policy has often been severe. It is time to reassess how much credibility we should place with American generals and admirals.
As I have chronicled on these pages, the conditions and military fundamentals clearly evident for years have strongly suggested that Ukraine could not win a war with Russia, and that both Kyiv and Washington should have made different policy choices based on that reality, both before and since Russia’s illegal invasion. But as graphically detailed below, active and retired flag officers have continually claimed that – ignoring clear evidence to the contrary – Ukraine has a chance to win the war.
Encouraging Ukraine to Keep Up the Fight
Such unwarranted assertions have led policymakers and the American public to believe, improperly, that we should continue encouraging Ukraine to maintain its fight against Russia. American official policy has been to provide Kyiv with substantial armaments to defend itself and overwhelming emotional support.
If the generals were right, if Ukraine were indeed close to winning the war, and if the aid we have offered could tip the scales in Kyiv’s favor, then our policy might make sense. But it doesn’t. Ukraine isn’t winning the war and isn’t even close to parity, much less superiority, to Russian forces.
In my most recent piece at 19FortyFive, I detail many of the practical, military reasons Ukraine is losing the war and is likely to continue losing. In my assessment, if Kyiv continues refusing to seek a negotiated settlement with Russia – something that is understandably repugnant to many Ukrainian citizens and government – they are in danger not merely of sliding into a long-term stalemate, but of outright losing the war.
I do not hesitate to admit that I can’t guarantee an outcome in this war. There are too many variables and information I don’t have, and do not have access to the secret council of either the Russian or Ukrainian general staff, or that of the western NATO leaders. A number of things could change the dynamics and trajectory of the war, which are not publicly known. Of course events that have yet to happen could result in major course changes.
But as I have laid out in detail, the current trends and military fundamentals reveal Ukraine is unquestionably losing this war. For the conditions to change dramatically enough to make an eventual Ukrainian military victory possible, as many generals continue to claim, would require a radical shift from today’s realities. Beyond mere rhetoric, there is no evidence such a radical shift is forthcoming. It is therefore irresponsible, I argue, to tell the American people that the desired outcome is possible when all evidence screams that it’s not – and downright cruel to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and civilian population, to foster a belief that they have a chance.
Should Washington Change Course?
To have the best chance to protect America’s vital national interests and save as many Ukrainian people as possible from being killed, Washington must change course and begin to form policy based on a frank and honest assessment of the combat, economic, and diplomatic realities of this war. It will be hard to get to that rational place, however, unless we first recognize the consistently rosy pictures painted by America’s flag officers over the past few decades have been atrocious.
My 21 years of active service in the U.S. Army, including four combat deployments, has put me in a position to personally observe many of the mistakes and bad judgments of both active and retired generals. The cumulative result of their frequently flawed advice has been uniformly bad for our country, resulting in some of the worst military and foreign policy decisions our country has made.
Whether it was routine claims, made over a 20-year period, of success in the Afghan War when events conclusively proved it was always a disastrous failure, or perpetual claims of success during and after the 2003 Iraq war – before the Iraqi Security Forces the U.S. trained melted away at the first contact with the Islamic State – senior American military leaders have consistently misled the American public on the true state of affairs.
Since virtually the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian war, American active and retired generals have consistently claimed that Russian troops were incompetent, that their troops were ill-disciplined, arrogant, unmotivated, and sometimes rebelled against their leaders and refused to fight. The Russians, many generals claimed, could not win, with Gen. Hodges claiming that Ukraine would begin rolling back Putin’s troops before the end of this summer.
It is appropriate, in light of the awful record active and retired general officers have amassed over the past few decades, that both the media and public should give more scrutiny to future claims made by generals. It is understandable why many would give blanket trust to the word of a senior commander: they typically have 30-plus years of experience and have served at the highest levels. But evidence confirms that this trust has been misplaced and it is up to the generals to earn that trust back. Telling the truth and giving honest assessments would be a good place to start.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.
11. Here Is The Entire List of Military Hardware the U.S. Is Giving Ukraine
Here Is The Entire List of Military Hardware the U.S. Is Giving Ukraine
The latest package is worth $820 million and contains advanced anti-aircraft weapons to tackle the Russian missile threat.
Surface-to-Air Missiles
– The new package of military aid contains the following weapon systems and supplies:
– Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);
– Four additional counter-artillery radars.
The NASAMS is a medium-range anti-defense system that can target aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles. The weapon system is a product of a collaboration between Raytheon and Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace and was first developed for the Norwegian military.
“The United States continues to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with capabilities to meet its evolving battlefield requirements. In particular, DoD recognizes Norway’s cooperation to enable the historic provision by the United States of modern air defense systems that will help Ukraine defend against Russia’s brutal air attacks,” Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Todd Breasseale said in a press statement on Friday.
In the last two years, the U.S. has committed to providing Ukraine with more than $7.6 billion in security assistance alone, with approximately $6.9 billion of that assistance given the war began more than four months ago on February 24. Since 2014, when Moscow first attacked Ukraine, the U.S. has provided Kyiv with more than $8.8 billion in security assistance.
Total U.S. Security Aid
Since the war started, the Pentagon has provided or committed to providing the Ukrainian military with the following weapons systems:
-Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
-Over 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems;
-Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems;
-Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
-126 155mm Howitzers and over 442,000 155mm artillery rounds;
-126 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers;
-19 Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment;
-8 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition;
-Two Harpoon coastal defense systems;
-Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS)
-20 Mi-17 helicopters;
-Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;
-200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
-Over 7,000 small arms;
-Over 50,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition;
-75,000 sets of body armor and helmets;
-121 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
-Laser-guided rocket systems;
-Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems;
-Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;
-18 coastal and riverine patrol boats;
-26 counter-artillery radars;
-Four counter-mortar radars;
-Four air surveillance radars;
-M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
-C-4 explosives and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;
-Tactical secure communications systems;
-Night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;
-Commercial satellite imagery services;
-Explosive ordnance disposal protective gear;
-Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;
-Medical supplies to include first aid kits;
-Electronic jamming equipment;
-Field equipment and spare parts.
1945’s New Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.
12. Ukraine's Insurgents Could Break Russia's Invasion
Excerpts:
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said that Russia is facing “rising partisan activity in southern Ukraine,” which will further challenge Russia’s ability to hold the ground it has thus far taken in the invasion. It will stretch a Russian military that has already been stretched thin because of the massive casualties taken since the war began four months ago.
If anyone tells you that you, as an occupying force, will be welcomed by any indigenous force with open arms, then you had better banish that person to a remote desert island so he cannot provide any more such "expert" advice.
Russia believed, and told its troops, that the Ukrainians would “welcome them with open arms.” That was a serious miscalculation. The U.S. and other Western analysts knew that the Ukrainians would resist and the pieces were in place for a serious insurgency if they tried to occupy the land.
Russian commanders didn’t learn from their bloody lessons in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and despite their “filtration camps,” the will to resist remains.
Ukraine's Insurgents Could Break Russia's Invasion
Ukraine is resisting Russian occupation: As anyone with knowledge of unconventional warfare knows, it is one thing to take territory, it is quite another to hold it. Especially when the populace is so willing to take an active role in removing the occupying force.
And despite Russian disinformation reports – to the world as well as to its own people – they have vastly underestimated not only Ukraine’s willingness to resist militarily but also how difficult it will be to effectively hold the territory it currently occupies inside of Ukraine.
Ukrainian resistance fighters made three separate assassination attempts against pro-Russian proxy leaders put in place in the Kherson region in the past two weeks. U.S. officials believe that this is not just related to Kherson but to the entire region and that a resistance movement is growing.
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said that Russia is facing “rising partisan activity in southern Ukraine,” which will further challenge Russia’s ability to hold the ground it has thus far taken in the invasion. It will stretch a Russian military that has already been stretched thin because of the massive casualties taken since the war began four months ago.
Most U.S. and Western analysts believe that the Russians don’t have enough troops to occupy the southern Ukraine territory that it has seized and still keep up operations aimed at moving toward the port of Odesa. Especially with the operations in eastern Ukraine which look to secure the large town of Lysychansk in the industrial heartland of the Donbas.
Kherson and Melitopol Remain A Hotbed of Resistance Activity:
The Russian military took Kherson in the early stages of the Ukrainian invasion and despite their efforts to remove any semblance of Ukrainian governance, the Ukrainians continue to resist. The “Russification” of the city via banks, mobile phone operators, and central political influence, as well as the control of the news, are only seeming to drive Ukrainians farther from Russian influence.
As soon as they took the city, the Russians began collecting a “database of Nazis” and former and current government officials were arrested, killed, or simply disappeared. Kherson’s mayor, Ihor Kolykhaev kept the world informed on what life was like under Russian occupation via his Telegram channel app posts.
But he too was arrested shortly after arriving at the municipal office building where he continued to work even after being ousted by the Russians and replaced by Vladimir Saldo, a “kleptocrat” who is found to own vast amounts of property in Ukraine, far beyond his means.
It soon became clear that Russia was abandoning the talk of Kherson becoming part of the “People’s Republics” that were being installed elsewhere, and they intend on annexing Kherson and the surrounding areas into the Russian Federation. The proxy government announced that they would hold a referendum to join Russia. No date has yet been announced.
In another tactic out of the Stalinist playbook, the Russians are confiscating food stocks so that the people are dependent on Moscow to survive. This, and the purges of government officials, have not pacified the populace but drove its people to resist. Many locals voted with their feet and have fled. Others have taken an active role in resisting.
Peaceful protests that began soon after the Russian occupation were dispersed by Russian military forces. This led to more passive forms of resistance. Many hospital workers refused to go to work so that they wouldn’t have to treat Russian soldiers. Then the assassination attempts and other partisan activity began.
More than 200 Russian soldiers have been killed in nighttime attacks on isolated troops. There have been numerous guerrilla attacks in the region. Attacks on Russian troops and proxy leaders are also occurring in the city of Melitopol, a crucial town that links the newly occupied lands with the Crimea territory that Russia annexed in 2014.
Ukrainian Reforms Are A Big Factor in the Resistance:
When the Crimea territory was annexed in a quick Russian incursion in 2014, the Ukrainian Army performed poorly, due to massive corruption and the overall weakness of the state. But government reforms changed that.
By decentralizing the government, local communities took a more active role in their day-to-day governance. The military went through a massive modernization and training upgrade. By moving toward the West, the training of the military toward a more modern force was plain to see once the Russians invaded a few months ago.
One other factor was the Ministry of Defense creating what it called the Territorial Defense Force. These were local militias formed at the local community level and were charged with defending their home villages, towns, and cities. These localized militias have captured the attention of Taiwan which is now creating similar units to combat a possible Chinese invasion.
Back in May, President Zelensky replaced the head of its Territorial Defence Forces, Yuriy Halushkin with Major General Ihor Tantsyura. No reason was given for the change.
“The explosive growth of the structure, especially in conditions of intense combat, is a huge experience, with mistakes and achievements. There are successes and, unfortunately, losses,” the ministry said in a released statement.
Part of the modernization program was the doubling in size of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces. And the unconventional-warfare mission set is where much of the Ukrainian resistance has borne fruit.
Russia believed, and told its troops, that the Ukrainians would “welcome them with open arms.” That was a serious miscalculation. The U.S. and other Western analysts knew that the Ukrainians would resist and the pieces were in place for a serious insurgency if they tried to occupy the land.
Russian commanders didn’t learn from their bloody lessons in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and despite their “filtration camps,” the will to resist remains.
Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer before injuries forced his early separation. In addition to writing for 19fortyfive.com and other military news organizations, he has covered the NFL for PatsFans.com for over 11 years. His work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.
13. NATO’s new China focus: Smart move — or too provocative?
Excerpts:
G: Do you think NATO’s new attention to China will distract from its core focus on Russia? Do these different priorities draw resources from each other?
MG: No, I think they all can be managed, and I think there’s different levels of engagement. I think NATO is really actively involved in dealing with Russia right now, and the direct and immediate security challenge Russia poses to Europe. That doesn’t mean they can’t also simultaneously be strategically thinking about how to coordinate on China over the coming decade.
But there’s also an element of interconnectedness here. What the Ukraine War has shown us more than anything else, it’s that what’s happening in Europe can affect the security of the Indo-Pacific region and vice versa. China’s reaction to Russia, or lack of reaction, China’s continued support for Russia — that’s had an impact.
NATO’s new China focus: Smart move — or too provocative?
The North Atlantic alliance now has the Pacific on its radar. China’s not happy about that.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appears to have given NATO a new lease on life. While the 73-year-old security alliance has sometimes seemed strategically adrift since the end of the Cold War — described as “obsolete” or “brain-dead” by the leaders of some of its own members — in the last four months it has refocused on its historic core mission: defending Europe from Russian aggression. Current members have been sending weapons to Ukraine and bolstering their defense capabilities, and two new members (Sweden and Finland) are on the verge of joining, as a direct response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Despite this renewed focus on Russia, and the urgency of the war, another major power got considerable attention at NATO’s Madrid summit this week. There, NATO released its new “Strategic Concept,” a long-term planning document last updated in 2010, and for the first time the alliance singled out China as an area of focus. According to the document, China now poses a “systemic challenge” to Euro-Atlantic Security. NATO accuses the country of “malicious hybrid and cyber operations,” seeking to exert control over critical infrastructure and supply chains, and using “economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence.” The document also takes note of “the deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order.”
The Chinese government, which in recent months has often echoed Russian criticism of NATO expansion, was quick to condemn the NATO paper — not just the specific charges but the idea that an alliance built to safeguard peace and stability in Europe would have anything to do with the Asia Pacific region.
“We firmly oppose certain elements clamoring for NATO’s involvement in the Asia Pacific, or an Asia Pacific version of NATO on the back of military alliances,” Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun told the Security Council on Tuesday.
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Grid spoke with two experts — Mirna Galic, senior policy analyst for China and East Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Leah Scheunemann, a former Pentagon official who is now deputy director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council — to discuss what we should make of NATO’s new China focus, how Beijing is likely to respond and what an alliance with “Atlantic” in its name is doing talking about the Asia Pacific at all.
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Grid: Given all the discussion about NATO refocusing on its historical mission of confronting Russia, is it a surprise to see the sort of prominent place of China as a systemic challenge in this strategic concept document?
Leah Scheunemann: It is not a surprise for those of us who have been watching NATO’s evolution toward China for the last several years, especially under the Trump administration. There was a lot of focus from Washington on getting them to focus more on the threat of China.
But the language on China is striking. It’s literally a list of all the ways the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is challenging the interests and security and values of NATO. I think it’s stronger language, or at least more explicit language, than we would have expected even two years ago. But the cyberattacks emanating from China, sponsored by the PRC, have been a persistent problem in Europe for years. So has Chinese investment in critical infrastructure and the supply chain — issues that the pandemic exacerbated. I think it’s really important that Europe has woken up to this threat, even if it’s not putting it at the same primacy that the United States is right now
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Mirna Galic: If you look at that document, China is in there, for sure, and that’s a big deal for those of us who have been following NATO’s shift in this direction. But what this document is is a reflection of changes in the geopolitical environment since 2010 that NATO faces. So there are a lot of new things in there in addition to just China. For example, North Korea is mentioned in the context of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threats. That’s a first. And so is Iran. Neither of those were in the 2010 Strategic Concept. Climate change is mentioned 10 times in the document, and it was only referenced once in the 2010 document.
So this is reflecting a lot of the changes to the geopolitical environment that NATO is facing. And one of those changes is a more assertive and more militarily capable China that has expanded its nuclear arsenal and has recently flexed its muscles against European allies, in addition to the challenges that it has posed in the region, and a China whose relationship with Russia has grown more prominent. So it would be very strange for NATO not to consider this development when looking at the strategic environment it faces in the next 10 years.
G: New Zealand and South Korea and Japan and Australia also attended the summit this week — several of them for the first time. Does that speak to a shift toward NATO working more closely with those partners?
MG: It’s very significant that they have come at the leader level, all four of them, all at one summit. I think what’s happening now is you’re seeing basically an evolution of NATO’s existing relationships with these four countries, which far predate NATO’s focus on China.
These partners sit in this region, and they have a very unique and informed perspective of what is happening in the region. They’ve been neighbors with China for a very long time, they’ve dealt with trying to balance economic and security priorities and imperatives with China, so they have a lot to share with NATO in terms of Europe’s ability to learn lessons from them.
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G: So what does this emphasis on China look like on a practical level for NATO?
MG: It doesn’t mean NATO is going to be sending ships to monitor freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; it means NATO is going to be coordinating with its partners in the region. NATO is going to be looking at how China might pose challenges to the Euro-Atlantic region, and it’s going to be trying to inform itself more about what’s happening in China. Why is NATO trying to insert itself in the region? It’s not. NATO is trying to ensure that it’s coordinated with the partners that it has in the region and that it is able to respond to any security challenges that China provides to NATO.
LS: On the cyber front, a big thing that came out of the summit is the establishment of the new innovation investment fund and an innovation accelerator that NATO has started up. That could be an opportunity for Asia Pacific partners to either contribute monetarily or reap the benefits of cooperation that’s happening between allied democratic states working on similar problems, especially in cyberspace.
G: What do you take from China’s response to NATO’s labeling it a “systemic challenge” and the attendance of Asian partners at the summit?
MG: I think it’s really interesting to look at who is China actually messaging to when it’s addressing NATO and the Asia Pacific partners of NATO, when it’s telling them that closer relations are a dangerous and unnecessary thing. It’s not really addressing them. Because as we’ve said, these four countries have had relationships with NATO for a long time, and they’re not just going to suddenly change their minds because China is unhappy about it. What China is really addressing is Southeast Asia and the broader region, and ASEAN in particular. And it’s trying to rally them into — to quote from a Global Times op-ed — “not letting the sewage of the Cold War flow into the Pacific Ocean.” What it means by that is not just NATO, it’s talking about alliances in general and the many sort of alliance measures that have sprung up in the Indo-Pacific from the United States, like AUKUS [Australia/U.K./U.S.] and the Quad [U.S./India/Japan/Australia]. NATO is a proxy, I think in many ways, for China’s disapproval of the springing up of these mini-laterals, or those multilateral coalitions in the region.
G: Do you think there are consequences to China feeling cornered by those alliances?
MG: It’s an important question. It’s a question I really hope that is also on the minds — and I think is — of NATO allies. … But I think, again, this is why they have explicitly said in their strategic concept that they want to continue to have constructive engagement with China.
G: Do you have any concerns that this could push China and Russia closer together? We’ve seen China echo Russia’s rhetoric about how NATO’s eastward expansion put it under threat. Could this add to the shared sense of threat?
LS: One of the things that I heard a lot about last week when I was in Brussels, meeting with NATO and EU officials, is that Europeans, especially, are very concerned to see a huge uptick in energy flows from Russia to China. So, while the West has cut off Russia in a lot of important ways, Russia obviously still has buyers globally, and it seems like China has really stepped up its purchases as well. This is worrying but doesn’t necessarily reflect some sort of closer strategic alignment or partnership. And I think it’s been a good sign that China has not been more supportive of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
I am in the camp that sees alignment between China and Russia as an alignment of convenience. They have some strategic interests that are the same in terms of undermining the rules-based international order and not being held accountable for breaches of sovereignty.
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But I don’t think that the Chinese, when looking to play the long game, are expecting Russia to be a power player in the decades to come.
G: Do you think that NATO’s focus could have an impact on specific potential points of conflict in the Pacific — Taiwan in particular?
LS: The Russian war against Ukraine is obviously going to be the strategic focus of European NATO allies for as long as the war is fought. Hopefully it’s not much longer, but I think there are a lot of people who are kind of settling into the reality that it could be a lot longer than we had hoped.
So, I don’t think that strategically Europe is going to be able to focus on the Taiwan situation, but there are obvious parallels between aggressive authoritarian regimes using military power to subvert a sovereign neighbor who is trying to be closer to the West.
MG: I’m not sure that NATO would be a primary respondent to a situation in Taiwan. I think you would see Europe coordinating on a response, but I don’t think that it would be through NATO, I think you’d probably be through the European Union.
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G: We’ve seen other examples in recent years of NATO shifting its focus beyond Europe — in particular the war in Afghanistan and the post-9/11 focus on counterterrorism. Are there lessons you think the alliance should be drawing from those experiences?
LS: Yeah, there are a lot of lessons to be drawn. And at the end of last year, the [NATO] secretary-general had ordered a report looking at “lessons learned” specifically from Afghanistan, and unfortunately, that report has not been released. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the lessons drawn are not good news for NATO, especially on the political level, and the mistakes that were made in terms of setting strategy.
It’s important to make sure these lessons are implemented, and so I do worry that with the Russian war against Ukraine, and attention shifting to collective defense and territorial defense, which is really important, that some of those lessons might not be learned in the correct way. So in the future, if NATO is proposing larger-scale out-of-area operations like Afghanistan, I do worry that there are not enough lessons being learned.
G: Do you think NATO’s new attention to China will distract from its core focus on Russia? Do these different priorities draw resources from each other?
MG: No, I think they all can be managed, and I think there’s different levels of engagement. I think NATO is really actively involved in dealing with Russia right now, and the direct and immediate security challenge Russia poses to Europe. That doesn’t mean they can’t also simultaneously be strategically thinking about how to coordinate on China over the coming decade.
But there’s also an element of interconnectedness here. What the Ukraine War has shown us more than anything else, it’s that what’s happening in Europe can affect the security of the Indo-Pacific region and vice versa. China’s reaction to Russia, or lack of reaction, China’s continued support for Russia — that’s had an impact.
Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
14. Marcos Jr names career diplomat Manalo as foreign minister
Marcos Jr names career diplomat Manalo as foreign minister
TheJakartaPost
Spanish Ambassador to Thailand Ignacio Sagaz, a member of the European Union delegation (right) talks with then Philippines Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo (L) during the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers and European Union ministerial meeting in the Thai resort of Phuket on July 22, 2009. Following meetings ahead of Asia's biggest security forum US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on July 22 that North Korea must agree to (AFP/POOL/BARBARA WALTON)
Manila, Philippines ● Sun, July 3, 2022 2022-07-03 14:00 0 e16ff64e7ecc29b4174149122336d32f 2 Asia and Pacific Manila,UN,Philippines,foreign-minister,Marcos-Jr,diplomacy,China Free
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed Enrique Manalo, a career diplomat, as foreign secretary, the president's press secretary said Friday.
Manalo had served as the country's permanent representative to the United Nations, undersecretary for policy of the Department of Foreign Affairs and acting foreign secretary.
The new top diplomat, who replaced Teodoro Locsin, has experience in handling diplomatic issues including a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, local media reports said. The Philippines and China have competing claims over the gas-rich sea.
Meanwhile, Marcos, who was sworn in as president Thursday, attended a ceremony at Clark Air Base on Luzon Island facing the South China Sea on Friday.
"A more modern aerial and surveillance capability is all the more felt given the territorial disputes that we, in the Philippines, are involved in," Marcos said at the ceremony of the 75th founding anniversary of the Philippine Air Force.
15. Navy SEAL use of state parks appears over as state declines to appeal judge's decision
Navy SEAL use of state parks appears over as state declines to appeal judge's decision
The Washington Attorney General’s office has declined to appeal a judge’s ruling that bans Navy SEAL or other military training in Washington state parks.
This appears to mark the demise of a high-profile, controversial permitting process that would have expanded to possibly 17 or more parks under a motion approved by the State Parks and Recreation Commission in January 2021.
“This should be the end of the road to the Navy’s using the state parks,” said Zachary Griefen, an attorney representing Whidbey Environmental Action Network, which filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court challenging the commission’s action.
The state had 30 days to file an appeal to the ruling, which was issued May 13. Judge James Dixon found that the commission lacked the statutory authority to permit the training and also failed to adequately consider the impacts of such training in violation of a state environmental law.
Brionna Aho, a spokesperson for the state Attorney General, deferred to the Parks and Recreation Commission to comment on the decision not to file an appeal. A commission representative could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Navy SEALs, elite special-operations forces, began training at state parks in the early 1980s. But they have not been able to use them since 2020, when permits to use five parks expired.
A new review process got underway after the January 2021 commission vote but had yet to result in any new permits being issued, according to an April statement from Becki Ellison, executive assistant to the state Parks and Recreation Commission.
The SEAL training involves submersible vessels that navigate through offshore waters and unarmed SEAL team trainees in groups of six to eight who then make their way to shore, typically under cover of darkness. Once on land, they conceal themselves for 24 to 48 hours to conduct surveillance, then depart by water.
“With the Washington State Parks unavailable, the military members who need this critical training, which takes place only a few months each year, will have fewer options to hone their unique skills,” said a statement released by Joe Overton, a deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Northwest. “They will continue to train in the other areas in Washington state through rights-of-entry agreements.”
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(c) 2022 The Seattle Times
16. Russia claims capture of pivotal city in eastern Ukraine
Russia claims capture of pivotal city in eastern Ukraine
AP · by MARIA GRAZIA MURRU and FRANCESCA EBEL · July 3, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed control Sunday of the last major Ukrainian-held city in one of two eastern provinces that have been the focus of Moscow’s grinding war.
A Ukrainian official, however, denied Moscow’s control was complete. If confirmed, Russia’s claim that it seized the last stronghold of resistance in Luhansk province would bring its forces one step closer to achieving one of President Vladimir Putin’s major goals, capturing the entire Donbas, where a pivotal battle of the war is unfolding.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that Russia’s troops, together with members of a local separatist militia, “have established full control over the city of Lysychansk,” according to a ministry statement published Sunday.
As is typical with such descriptions, the Russian statement said the seizure of the city marked “the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” one of two Ukrainian provinces that have declared their independence and are recognized by Moscow.
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The BBC quoted a Ukrainian military spokesman as denying Lysychansk was under full Russian control. Yuriy Sak told the BBC that it will “not be game over” for the Donbas region even if Russia captures all of Luhansk.
“For Ukrainians, the value of human life is a top priority, so sometimes we may retreat from certain areas so that we can retake them in the future,” Sak added.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, had predicted late Saturday that Lysychansk’s fate could be determined within days. Earlier Sunday, Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces had strengthened their positions.
“The occupiers threw all their forces on Lysychansk. They attacked the city with incomprehensibly cruel tactics,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai said on the Telegram messaging app. “They suffer significant losses, but stubbornly advance. They are gaining a foothold in the city.”
Ukrainian fighters spent weeks trying to keep Lysychansk from falling to Russia, as neighboring Sievierodonetsk did a week ago in bloody battles that devastated both cities. The capture of Lysychansk would give the Russians a stronger base to intensify attacks on the second province in the Donbas, Donetsk.
Since pulling back from northern Ukraine and the capital, Kyiv, after setbacks early in the war, Russia has focused its offensive on the Donbas, a region of mines and factories where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
If Russia prevails there, Ukraine would lose not only land but perhaps the bulk of its most capable military forces, opening the way for Moscow to grab more territory and strengthen its ability to dictate terms to Kyiv.
Already, Russian forces have concentrated rocket attacks on the sizable Ukrainian-held city of Slovyansk in Donetsk. New attacks were reported in the city Sunday. At least six people were killed, regional government spokeswoman Tatyana Ignatchenko told Ukrainian TV.
Kramatorsk, another major city in the Donetsk region, also came under fire, the regional administration said.
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Far from the fighting in the east, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday visited a town near the capital that was severely damaged early in the war. Albanese called the destruction in Irpin “devastating.”
“These are homes and these are livelihoods and indeed lives that have been lost here in this town,” he said.
Elsewhere, the exiled mayor of the Russia-occupied city of Melitopol said Sunday that Ukrainian rockets destroyed one of four Russian military bases in the city.
Attacks were also reported inside Russia, in a revival of sporadic apparent Ukrainian strikes across the border. The governor of the Belgorod region in Western Russia said fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed four people Sunday. In the Russian city of Kursk, two Ukrainian drones were shot down, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoit said the town of Tetkino, on the Ukraine border, came under mortar fire.
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Ebel reported from Prokovsk, Ukraine.
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AP · by MARIA GRAZIA MURRU and FRANCESCA EBEL · July 3, 2022
17. Cyber Insecurity: Give Deterrence a Break
Cyber Insecurity: Give Deterrence a Break
by Thomas R. Johansmeyer
It’s time to give deterrence a break. We’ve made the concept carry us through the Cold War and another thirty years after that in the face of bipolar nuclear threats. After almost 80 years, we’ve seen what deterrence can do – and what it can’t. Despite the salient effort to make deterrence work for cyber, it’s clear that we’re faced with a “square peg/round hole” problem. Deterrence doesn’t fit for cyber, and no amount of forcing will change it.
The simplest reason why deterrence is destined to relative irrelevance in the cyber domain of warfare is really one of degree. Nuclear war is largely believed to be a no-win endeavor, whether you ask the White House or WOPR. Cyber, on the other hand, lacks the same effect, except perhaps in the domain of science fiction. There may be some conceivable scenarios in which cyber operations contribute to a no-win result, but that likely involves cyber as a conduit to a form of kinetic warfare with greater impact (such as nukes). Instead of thinking about cyber as a physical risk to be deterred, it may make more sense to contemplate it as an economic threat to be managed – significant, but manageable within appropriate context.
The limits of deterrence
Deterrence is largely believed to be one of the best ideas of its time, but that time was the 1950s. Televisions and newspapers were in black and white. The nuclear age had just begun, and deterrence provided a ready solution to that powerful and still little understood existential risk to humanity. Times have changed, though. Jim Lewis and Chris Painter savage deterrence in their podcast, Inside Cyber Diplomacy: “I love ideas from the 1950s … deterrence is the ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ of cyber security,.” with Colin Gray noted it was fertile ground for “pioneering study” during that same period.
Still, deterrence keeps coming up. NATO advocates for it. Smeets raves about it. Even the U.S. Air Force can handle a limited amount of it. Even with cyber deterrence seen as overrated, the international relations community clings to it like that special childhood teddy bear. Gray notes that deterrence is expensive and “difficult to achieve,” and it ultimately requires the agreement of the deterred. If I seek to deter you and you don’t agree to be deterred, then my efforts haven’t worked, and deterrence will have failed. It’s that simple.
The mutual agreement required seems to be most realistic in cases where the stakes are high enough to make agreement intuitively mutually beneficial and thus easier to attain. The virtually unwinnable nature of nuclear war fits that case, and not much else comes close. That’s why deterrence made sense during the Cold War. The potential carnage that could result from a nuclear strike – and, presumably, reciprocation – would outweigh any potential benefits. In a bipolar world, it was easy for both sides to agree to be deterred.
A study in contrasts
The magnitude of an attack’s impact clearly makes a difference. The time it takes to recover from a cyber attack is far less than from nuclear, or even conventional, weapons. Even major cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure have had a more profound psychological effect than physical or even economic, as illustrated by a comparison of events involving energy companies – one in the United States and the other in Ukraine.
In May 2021, Colonial Pipeline was impacted by ransomware. Concerns about fuel shortages and increasing prices abounded. Sentiment changed quickly, though. Colonial Pipeline was up and running in only five days, given the low level of physical impact. In fact, the price increases were less severe than reported. In the end, the insured loss from the attack was only around $10 million according to PCS Global Cyber research), and the economic loss not significantly higher than that. While the situation could have been worse, it’s hard to extrapolate your way to cybergeddon. To understand why the potential for cyber damage remains relatively low, it helps to look at what kinetic attacks can do.
The kinetic warfare in Ukraine, on the other hand, has been far more impactful. PCS is aware of four windfarms that have experienced damage from the conflict. Aggregate insured losses could be as high as $800 million, an amount that could continue to increase. It’s impossible to tell when Ukraine’s renewable energy capabilities will be restored, but the process is likely to take years. Unlike a cyber attack, which may have some physical damage implications but is largely a virtual endeavor, kinetic activity requires that parts be sourced and shipped and local repairs made – all of which starts with physical access to the damage site. The long time expected for repair, shortage of materials, and inability to start until the conflict cools off illustrate the difference in magnitude between cyber and kinetic attacks. Even the financial consequences could be more severe.
While bankruptcy is often cited as a risk from cyber attacks, Kosatka indicates that it could become an issue for several Ukrainian renewable energy companies.
Conclusion
Deterrence, it seems, just isn’t worth it. Cyber attacks seem inevitable, and the decline of ransomware will likely only signal the rise of whatever threat type will come next. While it is important to protect systems and data – there’s no substitute for putting locks on your doors – having a plan for recovery after getting hit is also crucial. Preparation for rapid and disciplined recovery may be far more effective than deterrence.
The significant differences between the cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline and the kinetic activity affecting windfarms in Ukraine illustrates the difference in perspective necessary in understanding how to develop an appropriate strategy for defense, protection, and resilience in the cyber domain of operations. While there can be grave and tangible consequences from cyber attacks, there are clearly aspects that benefit from treatment from the perspective of economic security rather than military security. With that in mind, investing the ability to recover could be as important as continually improving defenses.
Bibliography
Burton, Joe. 2018. Cyber Deterrence: A Comprehensive Approach? CCDOE. April https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2018/10/BURTON_Cyber_Deterrence_paper_April2018.pdf [Accessed 2 July 2022].
Harding, Brian, CDR, USN. 2016. Cyber Deterrence: A Research Report Submitted to the Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements. 11 February. Air War College. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1037682.pdf [Accessed 2 July 2022].
About the Author(s)
Tom Johansmeyer is head of PCS, a Verisk business, which estimates the industry-wide insured losses from disaster events around the world. He writes and speaks regularly on natural catastrophes, cyber attacks, and political violence events.
18. Americans More Likely Than Those In UK To Feel Threatened By China’s Development As A World Power
Excerpts:
“US citizens are also quite threatened by China’s rise as a global power. Individuals in the UK and Lithuania, on the other hand, do not tend to consider China’s development as a global power a critical threat. This discrepancy between threat perceptions in the US and the UK might be especially poignant in light of the new AUKUS alliance, which also includes Australia and has been lauded as an effort to counter China.”
A total of 70 per cent of people in the UK agreed or strongly agreed the best way for their country to proceed in foreign affairs is to build international consensus compared to 59 per cent of people in the US and Lithuania.
About 6 in 10 Britons, and half of Americans, agreed it is sometimes necessary for their countries to ‘go at it’ alone in international relations, this is the case for 45 per cent of Lithuanian respondents. Less than a third of respondents in each country (21 per cent in the UK, 29 per cent in the US and 31 per cent in Lithuania) considered their country’s interests are best protected by avoiding involvement with other states.
Americans More Likely Than Those In UK To Feel Threatened By China’s Development As A World Power
Americans were more likely than people living in the UK to feel threatened by China’s growth as a world power, a new survey shows.
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The research suggests support in both countries for NATO and the UN to act diplomatically and militarily is high, with citizens in favour of nations working together to protect peace.
Seven out of 10 Americans questioned agreed their country needed a strong military to be effective in international relations, as did 63 per cent of Britons.
Both US and UK respondents thought a former Soviet state under threat from Russia should seek support from NATO (55 per cent in the UK compared to 41 per cent of Americans).
The research, by Catarina Thomson, from the University of Exeter, is published in The RUSI Journal. Dr Thomson used the Gray Zone Security Survey, carried out in the US, the UK and Lithuania, with nationally representative samples of 4,000, 1,300 and 1,000 in March 2021 respectively. Citizens were asked about their perception of the threat from Russia’s territorial ambitions and the development of China as a world power were. Their response was measured using a seven-point scale, varying from 1 (not a threat at all) to 7 (critical threat).
People in Lithuania were more likely to see Russia’s territorial ambitions as a critical threat, with a third labelling Russian territorial ambitions as belonging to the highest threat category (compared to just 2 in 10 US respondents, and 12 per cent in the UK).
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Half of Americans questioned ranked the development of China as a world power as being in the top two highest threat categories, with just over a third regarding it as the most critical threat level. Only 37 per cent of respondents in the UK and 32 per cent in Lithuania considered China’s assent to world power as being at such high threat levels.
Dr Thomson said: “Although the world is now a different place it is still important to analyse views taken before the Russian invasion of Ukraine so we have a clear idea of opinions about Russia’s territorial incursions.
“The ongoing war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed the international system. A shared Russian threat has translated into NATO and other Western allies being more united than they have been in decades. It must not be forgotten that just months before this show of Western unity, fractured institutional bonds among NATO members culminated in the disorderly withdrawal of allied troops from Afghanistan.
“China’s development as a world power and Russia’s territorial ambitions were considered critical threats, but not equally for citizens in the three sample countries. Interestingly, citizens in the UK did not feel terribly threatened despite the UK military leadership’s years-long messaging on the dangers of an assertive Russia.
“US citizens are also quite threatened by China’s rise as a global power. Individuals in the UK and Lithuania, on the other hand, do not tend to consider China’s development as a global power a critical threat. This discrepancy between threat perceptions in the US and the UK might be especially poignant in light of the new AUKUS alliance, which also includes Australia and has been lauded as an effort to counter China.”
A total of 70 per cent of people in the UK agreed or strongly agreed the best way for their country to proceed in foreign affairs is to build international consensus compared to 59 per cent of people in the US and Lithuania.
About 6 in 10 Britons, and half of Americans, agreed it is sometimes necessary for their countries to ‘go at it’ alone in international relations, this is the case for 45 per cent of Lithuanian respondents. Less than a third of respondents in each country (21 per cent in the UK, 29 per cent in the US and 31 per cent in Lithuania) considered their country’s interests are best protected by avoiding involvement with other states.
19. Great Power Competition — China’s Use of Guerrilla Warfare and Information Power in Pursuit of Its Epochal World Order
Great Power Competition — China’s Use of Guerrilla Warfare and Information Power in Pursuit of Its Epochal World Order
By Richard M. Crowell
…the guerrilla campaigns being waged in China today are a page in history that
has no precedent. Their influence will be confined not solely to China in her
present anti-Japanese struggle, but will be world-wide.
- Mao Tse-Tung, Yu Chi Chan, 1937[1]
There is a war out there, old friend - a World War. And it’s not about whose got
the most bullets; it’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear,
how we work, what we think. It’s all about the information.
- Cosmo, Sneakers, 1992[2]
Introduction
Great power competition (GPC) has returned to the global stage with rivalry between the People’s Republic of China and numerous nations with which they are competing.[*] The idea that the world’s most prized resource is no longer oil but data has changed the character of GPC in the twenty-first century.[3] Today nations are competing for access to data vital to control machines of trade and war vice oil essential to operate the engines of the industrial age.
Phillip Bobbitt, the noted constitutional scholar, defines a great power as a state capable of initiating an epochal war—a conflict that threatens the survival of the leaders of the society of states.[4] Bobbitt contends that GPC throughout the twentieth century can be viewed as one long war to answer the constitutional question of how nation states would be governed— communism, fascism or parliamentary democracy.[5] When the Cold War ended many believed the question was answered with parliamentary democracy. However, once China’s twenty-first century actions are viewed holistically, it is clear they have become a threat to existing constitutional order of states in which they are competing. The Communist Party of China (CPC) skillfully promotes their closed authoritarian model as an alternative to democratic governance and free-market societies.[6] Furthermore, Bobbitt describes the relationship between how states are governed and how they conduct war, “Fundamental innovations in war bring about fundamental transformations in the constitutional order of states, while transformations in the constitutional order bring about fundamental changes in the conduct and aims of war.”[7] The CPCs fundamental innovation in war, a successful guerilla war, determined how they govern China and subsequently how they view competition and war.[8]
This paper brings together disparate Chinese activities to highlight the CPCs ability to control information which enables control of their people and many others in pursuit of their epochal world order. China’s vision of the world is one in which it is the leader in every major industry and technology, the economic and strategic center, with a military that can successfully defend their overseas interests.[9] China’s increasing ability to control behavior comes from taking advantage of the uncontrolled and poorly protected aspects of cyberspace,[10] and the elements of democratic societies that have been heretofore unprotected or minimally protected; the political, education, social, and informational systems in free and open states.
Comprehending China’s twenty-first century global actions in search of wider power requires knowledge of their perspective on power and competition. That lens is one which sees guerilla warfare and information power used to invade social order to change the existing order in favor of the CPC. Insight into their methods reveal their path to victory is in the truest wisdom of Sun Tzu, “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”[11]
This work is divided into six parts. The introduction defines GPC and describes its changes in the twenty-first century. Part two describes China’s reformulation of its national security strategy, prioritizing the use of guerilla warfare and information power. The third part presents information power, the information environment and cyberspace to illustrate how information is moved and used in the twenty-first century. Part four describes China’s strategic innovation in using information to control its people and others, often by creating dependency on the CPC for access to information communication technologies (ICT) necessary to communicate with family and friends. This section describes how China is competing in the globally uncontrolled spaces with machines and humans, it includes examples of China’s information power used in the Philippines. Part five cautions policymakers and leaders on the risks of using Chinese ICT and provides a look at future competition and conflict with China as a great power. Part six offers concluding thoughts.
China’s Reformulation of Power
In Social Order and the General Theory of Strategy, Alexander Atkinson contends that to understand China’s views on competition and conflict we must look to their strategy of changing and securing social order.[12] The CPC’s guerilla war from 1927 to 1949 to defeat the Republic of China on the mainland and the evolution of communism highlights the relationship between changing constitutional order and controlling social order. Following the CPCs victory, the party started metering access to information. Beginning with education, the party focused on two main objectives: first was equipping the people with the academic skills necessary to create productive workers, and second was indoctrinating the populace with correct political thought.[13] Indoctrination became a prime means of securing social order.
China began reformulating its national security strategy near the end of the twentieth century, prioritizing information power as a way to compete globally.[14] Compromising an opponent’s will to wage war by controlling information became a goal of the CPC. The strategy employs practices and tools adapted from the CPCs domestic information control to change constitutional order and control the social order of states in which China is actively competing. The CPCs actions reveal that rather than living in a world either at peace or at war, we live in a world of enduring competition.[15]
The CPCs persistent competition is built upon their ideas on revolutionary guerilla strategy. One that changes the constituent parts of the existing state, its political, economic, military, social, and psychological [informational] systems, its social order, to a desired state.[16] A key element of this stratagem is managing the competition aims to subtly create dependency on key Chinese goods and services that a majority of the people in developed nations want and people in developing nations need, particularly ICT. Dependency enables the CPC to influence behavior of many of the policymakers in competing nations.
Fundamental Innovations in War – Guerilla Warfare and Information Power
The idea of guerilla or small war became popular following Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1807. The type of warfare and irregular forces used to compel Imperial France to change its policies were named guerilla war, Spanish for “little war.” While there are many thoughts on guerilla warfare over the past two centuries, this paper will use the following concepts from successful practitioners.
In Small Wars for the 21st Century, General Mattis tells us that these wars are first and foremost information wars. Small wars differ from big wars where destruction is the norm; in guerilla wars persuasion and influence are more often the objective.[17] Additionally, Mattis contends that the role of intelligence should have a different focus in these wars. Intelligence must strive to understand culture to develop detailed knowledge of the ethnic, tribal, racial, economic, technical, religious, and linguistic groups in host nations; this extends to the underlying cultural beliefs and narratives that distinguish their value system.[18] This in-depth understanding creates a greater appreciation of how policymakers and citizens react to information. Mao Zedong asserted guerilla warfare takes place in and among the people and in spaces where there is little or no control; they are comprised of three merging phases: 1) Organization, Consolidation and Preservation; 2) Progressive Expansion and 3) Decision or Destruction of the Enemy.[19] Perhaps the most useful idea comes from Major-General Charles Callwell, British Army, “The expression small war has in reality no particular connection with the scale on which any campaign may be carried out; it is simply used to denote, in default of a better, operations of regular armies against irregular, or comparatively speaking irregular, forces.”[20] [emphasis added]
As the struggle for China culminated in Tiananmen Square on October 1, 1949, Mao realized that in order to complete his evolution to a communist state he needed to control the uncontrolled terrain—the people.[21] The fledgling Republic of China was changed to the communist Peoples Republic of China by attacking and changing its constituent parts. The new social order was necessary to control society; a population that grew from approximately 450 million to 931 million in Mao’s lifetime.[22] Control was achieved in large part through information means; manufacturing public opinion and creating new communities, particularly through developing new collective entities with shared economic interests.[23]
Behavioral control expanded in the early 1950s when the CPC created dependency on
the state for jobs, education, and healthcare—generating a cradle to grave welfare system.[24] The dependency became known as the Iron Rice Bowl and was an innovative element of social control. Eventually the CPC recognized its original style of communism had to adapt to survive. Throughout the last few decades of the twentieth century China evolved through various versions of socialism with four modernizations: agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military to modern communism and state capitalism. The most recent adaptation comes with the CPC allowing citizens to share information via cyberspace. This seemingly open gesture actually enables increased control of the populace.
Information Power
One of the most significant innovations since the Second World War is the ability to control the movement of information and how that control is used to influence human behavior. Information power is defined by Daniel Kuehl as “The use of informational content, technologies and capabilities enabling the exchange of that content, used globally to influence the social, political, economic, or military behavior of human beings, whether one or one billion, in the support of national security objectives.”[25]
The ability to control the movement of information may be seen as disruptive technology; specific technology that profoundly changes established technologies, the rules and industry models of a given market, and often society overall.[26] The smartphone and social media are examples of great changes to the internet and the world wide web that resulted in pronounced transformations in social order. Two important features of the near constant connectivity are first, when modern machines, smartphones or tablets are used to communicate, they generate an addictive hold on many humans that use them,[27] and second, countless users of these machines either do not understand or do not care that data moving through them is easily accessed by third parties who may use the data or the machines for nefarious means.
The skill to compel another to do your will is the highest form of power in human competition. Delivering precise content or code (software) to humans or machines can influence human action or operate machines independent of the owners. The relationship between humans and information exists in four levels; see Figure 1. Data forms the foundation and movement up the levels leads to expertise. Expertise comes when the humans have the ability to use the knowledge to achieve objectives.
Figure 1. The four levels of information[28]
Behavioral power can be used to get humans to do what they would not do otherwise.[29] Joseph Nye describes command power and co-optive power: command power is the ability to change what others do based on coercion or inducement and co–optive power as the ability to shape what others want relying on the attractiveness of one’s culture and values or the skill to manipulate the agenda of political choices.[30] Precision delivery of malicious information can effect global events influencing behavior and social order. Today the manipulation of content and code happens within the information environment, most often using cyberspace for delivery.
The Information Environment and Cyberspace
The information environment (IE) is a term of art defined as, “The aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect process, disseminate, or act on information. This environment consists of three interrelated dimensions that continuously interact with individuals, organizations, and systems. The dimensions are the physical, informational, and cognitive.”[31] The nexus of the dimensions is where humans and machines come together receiving information to make decisions and execute control.
Cyberspace is often difficult to understand. Unlike other domains where maps and charts exist to describe the physical features and boundaries, cyberspace remains largely uncharted.[32] Kuehl provides a particularly useful definition of cyberspace as, “A global domain within the information environment whose distinctive and unique character is framed by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to create, store, modify, exchange, and exploit information via interdependent and interconnected networks using information– communications technologies (ICT).”[33] [emphasis added] Cyberspace knits together the dimension of the IE making it the primary field of action that allows information to move between humans and machines.
Similar to the ways in which humans build machines – ships, trains, automobiles, aircraft, and space craft – to compete with trade and war in the traditional domains, mankind builds the machines necessary to control the movement of information and places them in the uncontrolled cyberspace domain. Like the sea, human use of cyberspace has expanded to include trade and war, and naturally evolved to competition for control and denial.[34] The idea of cyberspace existing within the information environment is important to understanding the domain as humans create and adapt the physical connectivity – smartphones, computers, servers, routers, and industrial control systems – to move information, facilitate human decision making, and ease work. Simply put, cyberspace is a largely man-made domain that enables the innovative movement of information with great speed, depth and precision.
Intelligence
Intelligence is the field that has historically been tasked with translating data and information into knowledge and expertise during military planning and operations. Intelligence is the product of collection, processing, integration, evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of available information concerning foreign nations, hostile or potentially hostile forces or elements, or areas of actual or potential operations.[35] There are numerous forms of intelligence that exist within and between nations or groups. Examples include but are not limited to: military, diplomatic, economic, domestic, communications, electronic, foreign, signals, imagery, medical, open-source, scientific and technical intelligence. Effective use of intelligence yields insight, knowledge and expertise into how a competitor or enemy nation and its society functions; this expertise is necessary should one desire to change how rivals’ function. Because so much data is stored digitally today, cyber-espionage has become a primary means to gather intelligence.
Twenty-first Century Information
Connecting machines to machines and humans to machines significantly increases the amount of data moving through cyberspace. Today, movement between levels of information not only happens faster than at any other time in history, the use of machines enables processing of considerably more data, more rapidly than ever before. In order to extract meaning from this increasing array of data the distinct fields of data science (DS), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) have been developed and formalized.
Data science is focused on improving decision making through the analysis of data.[36] The general method of applying data science is sourcing, aggregating, exploring the data and analyzing patterns through machine learning to make better decisions.[37] ML focuses on the design and evaluation of algorithms (mathematical models) for extracting patterns from data.[38] If one uses Kuehl’s earlier definition of cyberspace, it is hard to believe these fields could exist without this new domain. Stuart Russell, founder and head of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, University of California Berkeley tells us that, AI aims to build machines that are better at making decisions and solving problems.[39] He cautions, humans must ask the machines to solve the right problems, if we are unclear the machines may achieve something other than what we want.[40]
AI is best understood by separating it into the current and future capabilities of artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI). ANI is the present capability of data-based, algorithmic, decision-making software utilizing machine learning within a controlled environment.[41] AGI describes a future capability where software recognizes, reasons, and solves problems in a contextual manner identical to humans. [42] [emphasis added]
There is a vast amount of data available today, however it is often what is termed dirty data, making it difficult or impossible to use. Figure 2 shows the process to make data useable employing DS and ML to source, aggregate, and clean the data. It represents the activity of moving from raw data to decision. Once cleaned, the data can be summarized for presentation so that algorithms and ANI may be applied to ask and answer questions. What is learned from answering these questions is used by humans to make better decisions and may be used to influence humans to act in specific ways. At some time in the future AGI may use only machines to make decisions identical to humans, however, today it remains decades away from reality.[43]
Figure 2. Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence[44]
Expertise to control the movement of data enables data scientists and those able to manipulate the information (computer code and content) to set issues, shape agendas, and control human behavior in pursuit of objectives. In Weapons of Math Destruction – How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, Cathy O’Neil tells us that algorithms and the information gained from them can be powerful tools for behavior modification.[45] The authors of the algorithms can use the embedded code to manipulate human action.[46] These models can encode human prejudice, misunderstanding, and bias into the software systems that manage human life.[47]
Strategic Innovation and Constitutional Order
China began granting its citizens limited use of ICT at the end of the twentieth century. Access included controlled use of the internet which became the seeds of large scale innovation. As early as 1999 the CPC created national websites in addition to election and governance websites.[48] The CPC began monitoring websites following natural and man-made events in 2004.[49] Monitors focused on negative social events or what they termed hot incidents.[50] Observation led to collecting data on public opinion and eventually analysis of information to use for the benefit of the state.[51] The information gleaned was used to score how well sites reported on events that impacted the state. The CPC learned that websites could not just report on events, but deliver information and thereby influence behavior of the citizens.[52]
An increased desire to control electronic communication inside China led to establishing the Network Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) in 2006. Figure 3 shows the structure of the CPD with links between direct reporting points, monitoring and research centers and connections to the CPD Network Bureau and the Politburo. The CPD works closely with State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and General Administration of Press and Publication monitoring content to ensure China's news, entertainment and print media do not publish anything that is inconsistent with the CPC political dogma.[53]
Figure 3. China’s Network Public Opinion Agencies [54]
China began aggressively competing globally in cyberspace shortly after the turn of the century using cyber-espionage to steal information. CISCO, a global leader in ICT was hacked in 2003.[55] While the CPD initially had limited data analysis capabilities, it was able to take advantage of luck and chance when Google decided to enter the world’s largest internet market, launching Google.cn in 2006. Many believed that Google’s access in China would lead to reforms and greater openness for the people of China. In reality that notion displayed a clear mis-understanding of the CPC authoritarianism.
China launched Operation Aurora in 2009, the hacking of Google and other US technology and defense corporations. The operation stole valuable information necessary for the CPC to advance its national security agenda, leapfrogging the West in disruptive technology.[56] Perhaps the most significant item stolen during the hack was Google’s source code—software that powered Google’s vaunted search engine.[57]
Social media and internet service corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon make money by predicting human behavior as accurately as possible. These corporations and others monitor all of one’s online actions and collect the associated data. Captured data is used to develop models, predictive mechanisms, that can forecast future behavior such as a click, purchase, or an action.[58] The more data a company has on an individual the more accurately they are able to predict behavior. Google became one of the richest corporations in history by understanding that the human is the product in the free market model. Tristan Harris, former Design Ethicist at Google tells us that their business model is based in large part on delivering information to the users of its platform so that they will think about things that they would never have done so on their own.[59] Jarod Lanier, a Microsoft researcher, computer philosophy writer and one of the creators of virtual reality explains, “These corporations have created an entire global generation of people who were raised within a context where the very meaning of communication, the very meaning of culture is manipulation.”[60]
The CPCs innovation in constitutional order comes with understanding that in their authoritarian model, predicting human behavior yields control of the populace. China’s use of information power for its national security is built upon competing in cyberspace and the traditional domains by creating low cost emotive machines and content on a scale that has never before been seen. China is using the production and sale of these to change social order by creating dependency on connectivity and a subsequent reliance on the CPC to fulfill the needs and wants of the people. The innovative adaptation of ICT increases the CPCs ability to control behavior.
Information Power – Expertise to Control Behavior Inside China
The theft of Google’s source code enabled the adaptation of the code from a marketing tool to one for controlling societal norms. China places machines in and among the people to monitor and control all forms of social behavior. Everyone who moves or acts in cities wherever there is a camera or microphone installed has their data collected. Monitoring 1.4 billion people also requires the ability to control personal machines independent of the owners. To accomplish these goals, the CPC developed a network of state sponsored and state favored tele-communications corporations. The most widely publicized of these are Huawei and Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation (ZTE), two of the largest tele-communications firms in the world. These companies and others produce machines that are used in state-of-the-art surveillance networks. These networks are key to the CPCs ability to collect data and expertly use information power to construct and maintain social order.
One of the CPCs primary controlling mechanisms is the social credit system (SCS). China takes advantage of the human desire to be connected via social media and the addictive hold it has on so many by judiciously allowing its citizens access to its version of the internet. China’s internet exists behind a great firewall and permits connectivity to the outside world in very limited cases.[61] The CPC provides access to low cost smartphones and computers that create dependency on the state in order to communicate with family and friends. The addictive hold Chinese ICT has on many may be seen as a modern iron rice bowl or a cyber rice bowl. It is believed that many of the electronic devices Chinese citizens and others use have spyware installed so that the state can monitor online actions.[62]
Nearly all electronic communication in China is monitored by the state. Chinese citizens using the internet are graded on all forms of online behavior. Behavior in the physical domains is also tracked via an intricate surveillance network described below. The data collected is used to create an individual’s social credit score and predict behavior. The score ranks how well individuals conform to CPC norms. One’s score controls access to information, banking, education, and nearly all goods and services to include the ability to travel internally and outside of China. Compliance yields greater access. Noncompliance leads to degraded or denied access to necessary resources, re-education, or even prison.[63]
The CPC prioritizes collecting data on citizens in the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, home to a Uighur Muslim minority. Data collection encompasses all aspects of life including movement in and between buildings, villages, towns, and cities; often including biometric information with voice samples, iris scans, facial scans, and even DNA samples.[64] What is learned in Xinjiang is often applied across China.[65] Collecting vast amounts of data requires the ability to turn data into useable information and knowledge and eventually expertise in support of China’s national security aims.
Guizhou is a rural region in southwest China that until recently had minimal tele-communications links to wider China and the outside world. In 2015 Guizhou was selected to showcase the CPC big data collection capabilities linked to the social credit score.[66] Chinese and international technology giants Baidu, Huawei, Alibaba along with Google and Microsoft established research facilities and data centers in the region in 2017.[67]
Data collected and analyzed is expertly used by Chinese civil courts and municipal leaders to control behavior.
[A] Hebei court released a WeChat “map of deadbeat debtors” on January 14.
According to China Daily, “users are given an on-screen radar, which allows
them to discover if there is anyone who owes money within a 500 metre radius.”
Individuals are then encouraged to tell authorities if they believe the person can
afford to pay back what they owe.
Such peer evaluations are being incorporated into some social credit system pilots.
In Rongcheng, a team of 10 municipal representatives are tasked with manually
taking note of relevant actions and assigning appropriate scores to residents.
Similarly, in Qingzhen, a city in Guizhou Province, a list of 1,000 indicators are
reportedly used to assign a point value to citizens, including some based on peer
evaluations and community monitoring.
The combination of material rewards and repressive goals is likely to intensify
the pressure on local administrators and ordinary citizens to report peaceful but
nonconformist behavior by their neighbors.[68]
In 2019, the police in the central China industrial city of Zhengzhou installed international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catcher equipment in an apartment complex.
Over four days in April, the [IMSI] boxes identified more than 67,000 phones. The
cameras captured more than 23,000 images, from which about 8,700 unique faces
were derived. Combining the disparate data sets, the system matched about 3,000
phones with faces, with varying degrees of confidence. This single system is part of
a citywide surveillance network encompassing license plates, phone numbers, faces
and social media information, according to a Zhengzhou Public Security Bureau database.[69]
Electronic surveillance in large cities gives the CPC keen understanding of the social order that exists in much of twenty-first century China and subsequently better control of its citizens. The monitoring may be seen as using irregular forces and guerrilla methods for gaining information necessary to construct public opinion in the modern party-state.[70]
Competing in Uncontrolled Spaces with Machines and Humans
The CPC has been placing its ICT and party members in positions around the world for a number of years. A notable increase in global competition began in 2013 using diplomatic, informational, and economic levers of power with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a foreign policy and economic development initiative encompassing more than 70 nations, often incorporating coercion with predatory lending practices.[71] The BRI features railroads stretching as far as Spain, ports and maritime infrastructure from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and Mediterranean Sea, oil, gas and mineral exploration on land and at sea. The initiative is key to their vision of its epochal world order. The cyberspace elements of the BRI are seen in the installation of low cost CPC telecommunications infrastructure across much of the globe.
Machines
Chinese corporations produce some high-quality electronics. Many Chinese cell phones are on par with Apple and Samsung. Social media platforms and online shopping are also generally high-grade, easily accessed and provide for the wants and needs of billions of users.
ZTE is the world’s fourth largest smartphone vendor with operations in 160 countries and is partially owned by the CPC.[72] China Telecom (CT) is a state owned corporation and the largest fixed line and third largest mobile telecommunications provider in China.[73] CT began operations on North American telecommunications networks at the turn of this century, and has expanded to ten points of presence, eight in the United States and two in Canada; their access spans both coasts and major exchange points in the US.[74]
Chinese video surveillance companies Hikvision, Dahua, Hytera and Dà-Jiāng Innovations (DJI) are industry leaders and successfully market their security technologies at very appealing prices to many nations and their militaries.[75] The number of nations electing to use Chinese surveillance equipment has grown from a handful in 2008 to more than 80 in 2019.[76] When these technologies are marketed to new clients they often come with training and operations packages.[77] Nations needing to train their constabulary or military forces to use these machines can receive instruction at home or in China. Alternatively, the surveillance and security technologies may be operated by Chinese personnel in place or remotely from bases in China.
When numerous US government agencies, military units, and municipal governments began purchasing DJI surveillance drones, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an Intelligence Bulletin stating that, “DJI was using its products to provide critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government.”[78] Since then the majority of US government users have removed DJI drones from service. The collection of data is also made possible via mobile applications (apps) installed on smartphones, tablets and computers produced by CPC sponsored industries.
Chinese Apps
Apps are software written to program devices to receive and send information. They are downloaded to mobile devices to perform communication, entertainment and shopping functions. A majority of apps are free to consumers because user agreements grant access to the machine for proper operation. The terms of use frequently include granting access to one’s contacts list, locations, search history, or total access to the machine, enabling the apps to capture vast amounts of data. Harris reminds us that, “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.”[79]
China has a robust industry creating world class apps. The CPC has developed an app for users to study communist ideology named Xuexi Qiangguo. “The app has been called Xi’s high-tech equivalent of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book and was launched amid a campaign to bolster the Communist Party’s ideological control over the Chinese population.”[80] Xuexi Qiangguo grants superuser access to devices enabling developers to control the machines independent of the owners.[81] The popular and emotive Chinese video sharing app TikTok announced in June 2021 that it will automatically harvest users biometric data to include faceprints and voice-prints.[82] This data is critical to creating deepfake videos. Deepfakes use DS, ML and ANI to produce synthetic videos that replace existing images and audio with another person’s artificial likeness.[83]
Chinese made apps have billions of users globally. In many cases, Chinese apps are more popular than Western ones; see Table 1. In pursuit of greater control, aimed in part at apps, social media, online shopping corporations and banking, the CPC created the 2017 National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic. Article 7 of the law states, “Any organization or
Table 1. Comparison of Chinese and Western Mobile Applications and Monthly Users[84]
citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of the national intelligence work known to the public.”[85] One of the primary goals of this law is to turn individuals, organizations, and institutions into CPC intelligence agents in the name of public safety and state security. This law is particularly powerful when applied to technology corporations as they have the ability to collect vast amounts of data on their users.
Billions of global users of Chinese apps are at risk of the data from their personal electronics collected by the CPC. Data moving through Chinese made machines or apps can be analyzed and used by the CPC to make decisions in its enduring competition in peace and war.
Controlling Global Information – A Belt and Road in Cyberspace
One of Xi’s key initiatives focused on controlling global information is the creation of a wall of regulations designed to control the flow of ideas, culture, and even capital between China and the rest of the world.[86] In January 2017 President Xi declared China’s national strategic contest would focus on the power to control the internet.[87] The CPCs ultimate goal is to control all content on the global internet, enabling the regime to wield what Xi describes as “discourse power” over communications and discussions on the world stage.[88] The result is China’s true innovation in peace and war—development of a less recognizable belt and road, connecting humans and machines through cyberspace. ICT produced by China’s telecommunication giants and others is often provided to developing nations at low or no cost. Transactions are frequently expressed in terms of public safety and national security of the receiving nation. Appealing prices generate dependency on Beijing for access to the attractive technologies and exposes the existing social order to CPCs information power. China’s path to dominance in controlling information includes investment in fifth generation tele-communications technology (5G), cloud computing and AI.[89]
China is a global leader in 5G. Huawei is the world’s largest producer of 5G cellular communications. 5G connectivity is designed to run the Internet of Things (IoT) in the coming decades. It will provide the near constant connectivity to support on demand data for much of the modern world. Data streaming will allow individuals to connect when and where they desire. 5G will impact nearly all aspects of modern life as it will be built into production, supply chain management, and operation of virtually all modern machines.
Patents are key to 5G, they include user equipment (boxes, wires and cables), radio access networks (parts of the electromagnetic spectrum) and the core networks.[90] By early 2020, there were 16,609 standard essential patents filed globally for 5G, with 36 percent from Huawei and ZTE.[91] Huawei is also a global leader in cloud storage and computing, claiming to provide cloud services to more than 140 nations.[92] This means that a substantial amount of global data will move through or be stored in machines that the CPC directly controls or can easily access.
In 2017, the CPC State Council announced their plan to develop the next generation of AI. The strategy includes connecting large portions of the world with Chinese 5G connectivity, enabling collection and processing of vast amounts of data moving through CPC tele-communications infrastructure. The State Council notice stated,
AI brings new opportunities for social construction. China is currently in the
decisive stage of comprehensively constructing a moderately prosperous society.
The challenges of population aging, environmental constraints, etc., remain
serious… AI technologies can accurately sense, forecast, and provide early warning
of major situations for infrastructure facilities and social security operations; grasp
group cognition and psychological changes in a timely manner; and take the
initiative in decision-making and reactions—which will significantly elevate the
capability and level of social governance, playing an irreplaceable role in effectively
maintaining social stability.[93]
The State Council plans clearly describe the value of 5G, cloud computing and AI in constructing and maintaining social order inside China and across the globe. The CPC has perfected the placement and use of these technologies in support of their totalitarian model. Placing humans in meaningful positions around the world is also key to the CPCs conduct of guerilla warfare and use of information power.
Humans
The CPC employment of humans for information power is recognized through data theft and spreading content. In 2019 there were more than 490 million people of Chinese birth living abroad.[94] Three CPC programs employing key expatriates and other supporters are Confucius Institutes (CI), United Front Work Department (UFWD), and the Thousand Talents Program (TTP). CIs are public educational partnerships between colleges and universities in China and colleges and universities in other countries; the partnerships are funded and arranged in part by Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Culture International, which is affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education. Their stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges. There are more than 471 CIs in 54 countries. The US State Department describes CIs as sponsored by Beijing and pushing skewed Chinese language and cultural training for US students as part of Beijing’s multifaceted propaganda efforts.[95]
The UFWD is rooted in Leninist theory of uniting with lesser enemies to defeat greater ones and has been a key element of the CPC’s strategy, both domestically and internationally, since the days of Mao.[96] The international arm of the UFWD deliberately recruits, fellow travelers, mostly famous intellectuals, writers, teachers, students, publishers, and business people who were not necessarily themselves Communists.[97] A key element is the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA). The controlling mechanism for student behavior is based on a range of threats and rewards to incentivize supporting CPC goals.[98] CSSA members often take part in online shaming and cancelling free speech of Chinese citizens living abroad who criticize the state.[99] The UFWD routinely conducts influence operations targeting foreign actors and states using narrative control to create positive images of China. The UFWD has been quite successful at co-opting or subverting potential opponents in neutralizing much of the open political opposition, including from religious groups and ethnic minorities.[100]
The TTP began in 2008 with a goal to incentivize individuals engaged in research and development in the United States to transmit knowledge and expertise gained from US funded research to China in exchange for large salaries, research funding, lab space, and other incentives.[101] The TTP focus is American science and technology research that supports China’s economic and military gain. By 2017, the CPC had reportedly recruited 7,000 researchers and scientists and the TTP is just one of over 200 Chinese talent recruitment plans through which the CPC has direct control.[102]
These organizations operating outside of China are important parts of a strategy to both collect data and influence decisions. In 2017, the CPC passed its National Intelligence Law requiring all individuals, organizations, and institutions to assist Public Security and State Security officials in carrying out a wide array of intelligence work.[103] In late 2020, it was announced that the CPC has approximately two million party members working abroad in key posts enabling them to further the party’s aims.[104] An example from the United Kingdom (UK) highlights the depth of China’s penetration into western businesses and academic institutions. More than 600 CPC members work in UK international banking, over 120 members work at pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca, academics conduct research in aerospace engineering and chemistry at British universities, and hundreds of party members work in the UK aerospace and defense industry.[105]
The CPC is taking advantage of the changing character of GPC by occupying the uncontrolled spaces, using irregular forces in ways not readily understood by western policymakers. The widespread result of the CPCs actions is the changing of social order beyond Mao’s wildest dreams, as millions of people become subject to totalitarian norms.
Information Power – a Philippine Example
CPC telecommunications, power and banking industries are coercing, co-opting and influencing decision makers around the world to use Chinese made technologies.[106] Nations electing to use Chinese technologies see upgrading their infrastructure at no or low cost as a win-win, however there are actual risks to national security. The win for the CPC is the information that moves across the machines to/from the user can be sent back to state controlled companies in China. That information often has corporate or national security value.
The Philippines is an example of how the CPC is changing the social systems within competing nations. The Philippines and US have had generally good relations since the turn of the twentieth century. The two nations were strong allies against the Japanese in World War Two and maintained positive ties until 2013.
Following a longstanding maritime territorial dispute over Scarborough Shoal, Manila took Beijing to the international court at the Hague in 2013. The result was a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration decision in favor of the Philippines. Since then, relations between the two nations have steadily improved, in large part due to deliberate CPC investment in the Philippines. In late 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte announced his “separation” from the United States, declaring Philippine alignment with China.[107]
Under the guise of public safety, Philippine telecommunication corporations Smart and Globe installed and steadily increased their Safe City project throughout the nation, using largely Huawei infrastructure.[108] During Xi Jinping’s 2018 state visit, the two countries signed a diplomatic agreement establishing a “Safe Philippines Project.” The agreement impacts the political, informational and economic systems throughout the country. The informational systems saw 12,000 surveillance cameras installed by the Philippine Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).[109] The political, social, and economic agreement set targets of a 15 percent crime reduction and 25 percent improvement in response time with primary financing from a nearly $400 million loan from China’s Eximbank.[110] Additionally, Philippine political and informational systems were accessed when the two nations agreed to construct an Intelligent Command, Control, and Communications Center (IC4) that handles video monitoring, critical communication, and information management and analytics, linking Philippine National Police, DILG, national 911 system, and fire and prison agencies.[111]
The State Grid Corporation of China, the world’s largest electric utility company, holds a forty percent stake in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.[112] A 2019 Philippine government report on the risks associated with the turnover of control, warned the supervisory control and data acquisition system used to monitor substations, transformers and other electrical assets is completely dependent on Huawei technology.[113] The report further stated, the Philippines' power grid is under the full control of the Chinese government and could be shut off in a conflict.[114]
President Duterte and the Philippine government have made decisions clearly favorable to the CPC. While the exact reasons for these decisions might never be known, it is reasonable to believe that information presented to policymakers in combination with alternatives has been used to shape decisions and actions. The Chinese are applying Nye’s ideas of command power and co-optive power in the Philippines. They are shaping what policymakers want, relying on the attractiveness of their culture and values to manipulate the agenda of political choices in favor of Beijing.
Way Ahead—Caveat Emptor
China’s co-option, coercion and concealment of their domestic and global actions to change and secure social order should concern leaders in free societies.[115] What makes China’s strategy potent and dangerous to the free world is the integrated nature of their efforts across government, industry, academia and the military.[116] Policymakers electing to install Chinese made tele-communications in their country may believe they are making sound decisions, but installation can come with significant risk—risk that has been known for some time. The US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reported in 2012 that the relationships between many Chinese corporations and the government created the means, opportunity, and motive to use telecommunications companies for malicious purposes.[117] In February 2018, the US Director of National Intelligence stated that US intelligence officials will not use Huawei and ZTE phones for fear of spying.[118] In May 2018, Huawei and ZTE phones and supporting material were banned from sale in US military retail stores.[119] Additionally, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed concern about the use of these products in the United States, stating there are “counter-intelligence and information security risks that come prepackaged with the goods and services of certain overseas vendors.”[120]
Many of these machines can be controlled independent of the owners. Control creates the ability to gather data about the users and generates substantial security risk. Eric Schmidt, the former Chief Executive of Google and Alphabet, stated, “There is no question Huawei sent data to the Chinese government, the company behaves like a signals intelligence entity and there's no question that information from Huawei routers has ultimately ended up in hands that would appear to be the state.”[121] Google is not the only Chinese corporation sending data to the CPC as the 2017 National Intelligence Law requires all citizens and corporations at home and abroad to inform on their contacts.
Future Competition and Conflict
Chinese authors from academia, industry, government, and the military have been writing for decades on the role information will play in future warfare. Hai Lung and Chang Feng tell us, “Invisible forces must be considered in calculating the correlation of forces today. These forces include computing capabilities, to include capacity, communications capacity/volume, system reliability, and the increasing competency and ability of reconnaissance systems to foresee situations.”[122]
Timothy Thomas explains that the most important concept to understand China views on future war is the idea of a strategic advantage or shi on the battlefield, in diplomatic relations and in geostrategic settings.[123] A key contemporary shi is related to the ability to control movement of information. Thomas notes that the premier journal, China Military Studies used the term information 102 times in titles between 2004 and 2013.[124]
In Information Warfare? The Case for an Asian Perspective on Information Operations, Alan Chong describes Mao’s and subsequently the CPCs use of information power to convert, mobilize and control the people.[125] Chong cites Wei Jincheng, Information War: A New Form of People’s War.
A people’s war in the context of information warfare is carried out by hundreds
of millions of people using open-type modern information systems… Political
mobilization for war must rely on information technology to become effective,
for example, by generating and distributing political mobilization software via the
Internet, sending patriotic e-mail messages, and setting up databases for traditional
education. This way, modern technical media can be fully utilized and the openness
and diffusion effect of the Internet can be expanded, to help political mobilization
exert its subtle influence. In short, the meaning and implications of a people’s war
have profoundly changed in the information age, and the chance of people taking the
initiative and randomly participating in the war has increased.[126]
This shi is noteworthy in that China will have more of its citizens employing information power in support of national security objectives than the entire population of most nations with which they will compete.
A Machiavellian shi would be to use deepfakes discussed earlier, combining them with other synthetic media and fake news to remove trust from society, where people cannot, or no longer bother to, distinguish truth from falsehood.[127] This hybrid action may be used as creative deception; when trust no longer exists, doubts about specific events can be used to control human behavior.[128]
China as a Great Power
China’s great power status is founded upon their successful guerilla warfare campaign and sustained by information power to threaten the survival of the leaders of the society of states. The CPCs transformation of constitutional and social order has shaped their strategy for the conduct and aims of competition and conflict. China’s early recognition of data as a valuable resource resulted in their reformulation of power, prioritizing information over armed power. Xi’s ideas on “discourse power” may be viewed as a totalitarian version of Kuehl’s information power and key tenet of their strategy is successful control of uncontrolled spaces.
China understands that installation of their low cost, high-quality ICT creates dependence on Beijing and that armed power to resist the information power may be ineffective, in large part because the addiction influences policymakers’ decisions. Globally placed Chinese made machines and vast diaspora represent contemporary irregular forces and are invisible to many. They provide extraordinary access to intelligence and detailed knowledge of the social systems in competing nations. These include the underlying cultural beliefs, narratives and value systems of policymakers and the populace. Addiction to China’s cyber rice bowl is a primary means of preserving control; enabling the manipulation of agendas and political choices, shaping what decision makers want.
The data gained from the CPCs global networks of humans and machines enables them to build better models (algorithms). In keeping with Western big technology corporations’ ideas on data science––whoever builds the best models wins.[129] Transformation of data into information and knowledge enables construction and maintenance of social order without resorting to armed conflict.
Conclusions
GPC must be understood in terms of the spirit and character of the age in which we live.[130]
One meaningful lesson from the 2022 war in Europe is that dependency on another nation for critical resources may greatly influence strategic decision making. China’s use of irregular forces and information power creates reliance on the CPC that threatens constitutional order and presents the question––how will nations be governed in the future? The CPC has learned from the placement of humans and machines in the uncontrolled and minimally protected spaces across the globe. Some of the most important knowledge includes the way critical infrastructure operates, how policymakers think and react to information presented to them, and that building the right models (algorithms) can be used to subdue the enemy without fighting. The CPC’s desired epochal world order is clear, “A world in which China’s power is the center––the sun around which the rest revolve.”[131]
The following closing thoughts are offered. First, few policymakers and leaders around the world recognize that the CPC have prioritized noteworthy portions of their national security strategy to employing information power. Democratic governments and free-market societies that view power and competition through the same lens as China will be best suited to successfully compete. Second, nations electing to use Chinese affiliated ICT are at risk of over dependence on the CPC for critical infrastructure, exposing all aspects of their social order—political, economic, military, social, and informational systems to CPC information power. Third, while the CPC are clearly using guerilla warfare, moving through Mao’s merging phases with a goal of defeating the enemy without fighting, should competitors not decide in favor of Beijing, the CPC will be prepared to employ new forms of control. These will likely use the interconnected world the CPC has built and happen in ways that many have failed to imagine.
[*] The term great power competition is used as Bobbitt’s definition (below) provides a practical way to describe the CPCs actions that threaten the survival of the leaders of the society of states. The US national security community is shifting to the term strategic competition (SC), which is not necessarily new, but often poorly defined.
End Notes
[1] Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, trans, Samuel B. Griffith, II, (Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-18, (Washington DC: HQ US Marine Corps, 1989), 3.
[2] Sneakers, movie, director: Phil Alden Robinson, 1992.
[3] The Economist. “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data,” May 6, 2017 edition (The Economist, 2017).
[4] Phillip Bobbitt. The Shield of Achilles – War, Peace and the Course of History (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 8.
[6] H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds, Harper Collins Inc., Digital Edition, 2020, 88.
[7] Bobbitt. Terror and Consent, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 23.
[8] The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The CPC is the sole governing party, controlling nearly all aspects of life in China.
[10] Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, believes that the internet was created to be free and open and to reach its full potential must remain a permissionless space for creativity, innovation and free expression. Cited in Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee responds to U. S. net neutrality threat, Web Foundation, accessed April 14, 2021 https://webfoundation.org/2017/04/sir-tim-berners-lee-responds-to-us-net-neutrality-threat/; The author of this paper sees strong parallels between the naturally uncontrolled maritime domain and the deliberately uncontrolled cyberspace domain. For an initial theory of cyber warfare using this analogy see: Richard M. Crowell. Some Principles of Cyber Warfare – Using Corbett to Understand War in the Early Twenty-First Century, London: King’s College London, The Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, January 2017.
[11] Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Trans. Samuel B. Griffith. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 77
[12] Alexander Atkinson. Social Order and the General Theory of Strategy. (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul Ltd, 1981), ix, 3.
[14] For in-depth analysis of the CPCs evolution of information power see: Timothy L. Thomas. The Chinese Way of War: How Has it Changed? (McLean, VA: The MITRE Corporation, June 2020); Timothy L. Thomas. Chinese Information-War Theory and Practice, (Fort Leavenworth KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2004); Timothy L. Thomas, Decoding the Virtual Dragon Critical Evolutions in the Science and Philosophy of China’s Information Operations and Military Strategy, (Fort Leavenworth KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2007).
[15] US Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Competition Continuum, Joint Doctrine Note (JDN) 1-19, (Washington DC: CJCS, 3 June 2019), v.
[16] Samuel B. Griffith, II, Introduction to Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, (Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-18, (Washington DC: HQ US Marine Corps, 1989), 7.
[17] US Marine Corps. Small Wars / 21st Century (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, 2005), 73.
[19] Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, trans, Samuel B. Griffith, II, (Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-18, (Washington DC: HQ US Marine Corps, 1989), 20.
[20] Charles E. Callwell, Small Wars Their Principles and Practice, Third Edition, (London: General Staff War Office, 1906), 21.
[21] Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare, trans, Samuel B. Griffith, II, (Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-18, (Washington DC: HQ US Marine Corps, 1989), 20-21.
[22] Broadberry, Stephen, Hanhui Guan, and David Daokui Li. China, Europe, and the great divergence: a study in historical national accounting, 980–1850. Journal of Economic History 78.4 (2018): 955–1000; World Bank, accessed January 8, 2021,
[25] Daniel T. Kuehl, Defining Information Power, Strategic Forum 115, June 1997, accessed March 3, 2021, https://universityofleeds.github.io/philtaylorpapers/vp015a5f.html; While Kuehl’s definition was written at the end of the twentieth century when the understanding of artificial intelligence was less mature, it should be noted that the use of information power may now extend to controlling machines independent of the owners and eventually machines operating independent of humans in support of national security.
[27] Elaine Park. Q&A with Anna Lembke on smartphone technology addiction, The Stanford Daily. February 22, 2018. Dr. Anna Lembke, an addiction expert at Stanford University, explains that the human brain has an evolutionary need for interpersonal connection and today that need is being filled largely by use of smartphones and the internet.
[28] Various sources including, Kitchen. The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data
Infrastructures, and Their Consequences, 2014 and Kelleher and Tierney. Data Science, 2018.
[29] Joseph S. Nye Jr., "Cyber Power." Paper, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard
Kennedy School, May 2010, 2.
[30] Nye, “Soft Power & Leadership.” Paper, Harvard Kennedy School, 2004, accessed 15 June 2010,
[31] US Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Information Operations Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, (Washington DC: CJCS, November 27, 2012, Ch 1 November 20, 2014), I-1.
[32] The idea that the maritime domain is difficult to understand because there are few comprehensive charts and maps was presented by Geoffrey Till to the US Naval War College faculty in January 2021.
[33] Daniel T. Kuehl. Cited in Franklin D. Kramer, Stuart H. Starr, and Larry K. Wentz, Eds., Cyberpower & National Security (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), 28.
[34] Richard M. Crowell. Some Principles of Cyber Warfare – Using Corbett to Understand War in the Early Twenty-First Century, London: King’s College London, The Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, January 2017, 3.
[35] US Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dictionary of Military Terms, (Washington DC: CJCS, January 2020), 107.
[36] John D. Kelleher and Brendan Tierney. Data Science. (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2018), 1.
[41] US Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Artificial Intelligence and National Security, R45178, 2019, 1-2.
[43] Robert Giesler, Director, Strategy Coordination, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Discussion at US Naval War College August 8, 2019.
[44] Figure produced by the author.
[45] Cathy O’Neil. Weapons of Math Destruction – How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, (New York: Broadway Books, 2016), 18.
[46] Cathy O’Neil, The Social Dilemma, Netflix Documentary, accessed 31 January 30, 2021.
[47] O’Neil. Weapons of Math Destruction – How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, 12.
[48] Wen-Hsuan Tsai. How ‘Networked Authoritarianism’ was Operationalized in China: methods and procedures of public opinion control, in Chinese Authoritarianism in the Information Age. Ed. Suisheng Zhao. (London: Routledge, 2018), 48-49.
[52] Chinese Authoritarianism in the Information Age. Ed. Suisheng Zhao. (London: Routledge, 2018), 2
[54] Figure reproduced from digital version of Chinese Authoritarianism in the Information Age Internet, Media and Public Opinion. Chapter 1, Wen-Hsuan Tsai. How ‘Networked Authoritarianism’ was Operationalized in China: methods and procedures of public opinion control. Ed. Suisheng Zhao. (London: Routledge, 2018), 24.
[55] Scott Thurm. Huawei Admits Copying Code From Cisco in Router Software, accessed June 9, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000. Following a law suit Huawei Technologies Co. admitted that a small portion of its router software apparently was copied from Cisco Systems Inc.
[56] David Goldman. Inside China’s Plan for Global Supremacy, The Tablet Magazine, March 19, 2019.
[58] Phan, Nhathai et al. A deep learning approach for human behavior prediction with explanations in health social networks: social restricted Boltzmann machine (SRBM+). Social network analysis and mining vol. 6 (2016): 79. doi:10.1007/s13278-016-0379-0, 1.
[59] Tristan Harris, The Social Dilemma, Netflix Documentary, accessed 31 January 30, 2021.
[62] Eugene Chow. Is your Chinese made smartphone spying on you? The Week, February 19, 2018;
David Richards. Spying Malware Found on Chinese Phone Brands Sold in Australia. Channel News, August 26, 2020.
[63] For more information on the CPC monitoring and controlling of information see: Rogier Creemers, China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control. SSRN, 2018, accessed May 2, 2022, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175792 and State Council, ‘Shehui xinyong tixi jianshe guihua gangyao (2014–2020 nian)’ [‘Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014–2020)’], (27 June 2014), accessed May 2, 2022, translation, available at:
[65] Yael Grauer. Revealed: Massive Chinese Police Data Base - Millions of Leaked Police Files Detail
[71] Mark Green. China’s Debt Diplomacy–How Belt and Road Threatens Countries Ability to Achieve Self Reliance. Foreign Policy, April 25, 2019. These practices occur globally. A specific example comes from Sri Lanka. The nation was unable to repay China for a loan used to build a new port in the city of Hambantota, in 2017 Sri Lanka signed over to China a 99-year lease for its potential use as an operational base for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
[77] Paul Mozur, Jonah M. Kessel and Melissa Chan. Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State, New Your Times, April 24, 2019, accessed November 25, 2020,
[79] Tristan Harris, The Social Dilemma, Netflix Documentary, accessed 31 January 30, 2021.
[83] Deepfakes can be produced with as little as 15-20 minutes of captured video and audio and have been used to create fake news, political hoaxes and commercial fraud.
[84] Compiled using information from the following websites, accessed May 8, 2021: WECHAT, WeChat Pay, QQ, BAIDU, ALIBABA, WEIBO, ALIPAY, TAOBAO, YOUKU, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, PayPal, Viber, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Square, Amazon, YouTube, and Vimeo
[90] Amplified and GrayB. Exploration of 5G Standards and Preliminary Findings on Essentiality, accessed February 3, 2021, www.Amplified.ai .
[92] Jonathan E. Hillman and Maesea McCalpin. Huawei’s Global Cloud Strategy – Economic and Strategic Implications. CSIS Report May 17, 2021.
[93] State Council Notice on the Issuance of the Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, Chinese State Council, July 8, 2017, 3 [translated by New America].
[96] Alexander Bowe. China’s Overseas United Front Work Background and Implications for the United States, Washington, DC, US – China Economic and Security Review Commission, August 24, 2018, 4.
[98] Bowe. China’s Overseas United Front Work Background and Implications for the United States, Washington, DC, US – China Economic and Security Review Commission, August 24, 2018, 7.
[99] Jonathan D. T. Ward. China’s Vision of Victory, The Atlas Publishing and Media Company LLC, Digital Edition 2019, 259-261; The CPC has a robust network of online actors that are capable of forming internet troll mobs. They possess the ability to post tens of thousands of comments per day to counter anti-CPC voices. One group is called the 50 cent army for the amount individuals are paid per post. These pro CPC actors have been known to post nearly 450 million comments per year in support of the CPC. Gary King, Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts. How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument, (accessed April 12, 2021), https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf?m=1463587807.
[100] Bowe. China’s Overseas United Front Work Background and Implications for the United States, Washington, DC, US – China Economic and Security Review Commission, August 24, 2018, 4.
[101] Rob Portman and Tom Carper. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Threats to the US Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans, United States Senate, November 18, 2019, 1.
[103] National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic (Adopted at the 28th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress on June 27, 2017), accessed January 29, 2021,
[106] McMaster, Battlegrounds, Harper Collins Inc., Digital Edition, 2020, 111.
[107] Bill Ide, Duterte Announces Philippine 'Separation' from US. VOA News, October 20, 2016, accessed March 9, 2021, https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/duterte-announces-philippine-separation-us ; In March 2019 Secretary of State Pompeo attempted to reassure the Philippine government that the US will stand by Articles IV and V of the Mutual Defense Agreement, Michael Green and Greg Polling. The US Alliance with the Philippines, Center for Strategic & International Studies, December 3, 2020, accessed 5 April 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-alliance-philippines .
[108] Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Dealing with Demand for China’s Global Surveillance Exports.
Brookings Institute, April 1, 2020. Accessed January 30, 2021, 5; Neil Jerome Morales. Philippines' Globe Telecoms launches 5G service backed by Huawei equipment, Reuters.com, June 29, 2019.
[109] Greitens, Dealing with Demand for China’s Global Surveillance Exports. Brookings Institute, April 1, 2020. (accessed January 30, 2021), 5.
[115] McMaster, Battlegrounds, Harper Collins Inc., Digital Edition, 2020, 110.
[117] Mike Rogers and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Investigative Report on the US National Security Issues Posed by Chinese Telecommunications Companies Huawei and ZTE, U. S. House of Representatives, 112th Congress, October 8, 2012, 2.
[122] Hai Lung and Chang Feng. Chinese Military Studies Information Warfare, Kuang Chiao Ching, Number 280, 16 January 1996, pp 22-23 as translated in FBIS-CHI-96-035, 21 February 1996, pp. 33-34. Cited in Timothy L. Thomas. Dragon Bytes – Chinese Information War Theory and Practice. Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2004, 94
[123] Timothy L. Thomas. The Chinese Way of War: How Has it Changed? (McLean, VA: The MITRE Corporation, June 2020), 5.
[124] Ibid, 11; The China Military Studies journal is akin to the highly respected US Joint Force Quarterly.
[125] Alan Chong. Information Warfare? The Case for an Asian Perspective on Information Operations, Armed Forces & Society, 2014, Vol 40(4), 615-616.
[128] For a more in-depth look at deepfakes see: Tim Hwang. Deep Fakes – A Grounded Threat Assessment, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, July 2020. doi: 10.51593/20190030; Cristian Vaccari and Andrew Chadwick. Deepfakes and Disinformation: Exploring the Impact of Synthetic Political Video on Deception, Uncertainty, and Trust in News. Social Media + Society January-March 2020: 1–13, DOI:10.1 177/205630512903408; John Villasenor. Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and the uncertain future of truth. Brookings, accessed June 15, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/02/14/artificial-intelligence-deepfakes-and-the-uncertain-future-of-truth/ .
[129] Aza Raskin. The Social Dilemma, Netflix Documentary, accessed 31 January 30, 2021.
[130] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 594.
[131] Ward. China’s Vision of Victory, The Atlas Publishing and Media Company LLC, Digital Edition 2019, 444.
About the Author(s)
Dick Crowell is an associate professor, U.S. Naval War College. Specializing in Information Operations & Cyberspace Operations, he is a senior associate of the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (CIWAG), a founding member of the Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute (originally the Center for Cyber Conflict Studies – C3S), and an associate at the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies.
He has authored monographs on Information Operations, Cyberspace Operations, Hybrid Warfare and Small War. His work “Some Principles of Cyber Warfare – Using Corbett to Understand War in the Early Twenty-First Century,” presents the concepts of cyber control and cyber denial as methods of maneuvering through cyberspace. His 2019 Small Wars Journal monograph, “Saving Blood and Treasure: The Evolving Art of War and the Application of Design Methodology to Complex Problems of 21st Century Small Wars” describes the first successful use of Design Methodology by the 1st MarDiv and I MEF in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 and critiques US Joint Doctrine conflating of concepts and linear approach solving complex problems.
A retired naval aviator with 30 years of service, including Assistant Air Operations, Commander Naval Air Forces U. S. Atlantic Fleet; Operations Officer, NATO Multi-Service Electronic Warfare Support Group; military faculty teaching JPME Phase 2 and Information Operations at the Joint Forces Staff College and Info Ops sessions at the NATO School, Oberammergau, Germany.
20. Vladimir Putin's terrifying debt to North Korea's Kim Jong-un after secret meetings
Vladimir Putin's terrifying debt to North Korea's Kim Jong-un after secret meetings
The affinity between Russia and North Korea's leaders is affirmed by their mutual belief in threatening to nuke their enemies and boasting of the power of their “nuclear forces”.
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13:21, 1 Jul 2022UPDATED17:32, 1 Jul 2022
Mirror · by Alice Peacock · July 1, 2022
North Korea’s support for Russia has resulted in Vladimir Putin having a debt to repay to Kim Jong-un - a terrifying prospect given the country’s ongoing ballistic missile tests.
While the US has a strong stance on the tests and would like the United Nations to punish the North with more severe sanctions for all intercontinental ballistic missiles launched, Russian President Putin could get in the way of this, International Relations expert Donald Kirk said.
Mr Kirk suspects Kim could play up his strong relationship with Putin to ensure Russia blocks any move.
Kim and Putin first met in 2019, in Russia’s far eastern port city Vladivostok.
The pair’s alliance seems to have only strengthened over time, in recent times, thanks to North Korea’s support for the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) greets North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un (L) before a meeting in April 25, 2019 (
Image:
Getty Images)
If Putin decides to repay Kim for his rhetorical loyalty, he could begin providing heavy weapons and spare parts.
The concerns came as North Korea was reportedly prioritising repairing or replacing all MiGs and other fighters, bombers and transport aircraft handed down by Kim’s grandfather, dynasty founder Kim Il-sung.
When the Soviet empire broke up in 1991, the flow of aid from the former USSR into North Korea ended.
The most immediate effect of this was that Russia stopped accepting North Korean currency, which was nearly worthless, as payment for a wide range of goods needed to shore up the impoverished North Korean economy.
As a result, North Korea was plunged into a state of poverty.
As many as two million people starved to death or died from the disease, during what North Korea named the “arduous march” of the 1990s.
If Putin decides to repay Kim for his rhetorical loyalty, he could begin providing heavy weapons and spare parts (
Image:
Getty Images)
The situation in North Korea was made worse by Russia also ceasing to supply North Korea with items like machinery for factories, Mr Kirk explained.
When Kim II Sung died in 1994, he escaped blame for starving his citizens and for the torture, execution and other punishment of thousands of citiens.
Following the rise of Kim Jong Un, a third-generation heir, the country has sunken even deeper into poverty.
There are suggestions that Putin should restore relations to where they were before the demise of the Soviet empire and show support by shipping food and other goods to North Korea for nearly nothing.
The affinity between the two leaders is affirmed by their mutual belief in threatening to nuke their enemies and boasting of the power of their “nuclear forces”.
In a April 25 speech in Kim II-sung Square, Kim said his own nuclear forces must be “strengthened in terms of both quality and scale so they can perform nuclear combat capabilities in any situations of warfare”.
There are suggestions that Putin should restore relations between Russia and North Korea to where they were before the demise of the Soviet empire (
Image:
via REUTERS)
According to the official English-language version of the speech released by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, he spoke of his focus on “developing the nuclear forces of our state at the fastest possible speed”.
Kim also said he viewed nuclear power to be used not merely as a “deterrent” but also “when a situation we are not desirous of at all is created on this land.”
He went on to say nuclear force might be needed “to decisively accomplish an unexpected second mission,” he said, meaning if “fundamental interests” were violated.
North Korea was believed to have created at least 60 warheads through production at its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang.
The North’s sixth, most recent nuclear test was ordered by Kim in September 2017 and he is thought to have a seventh test high on his “to do” list.
Several intercontinental ballistic missiles were on dramatic display at the parade before his speech, including the latest-model Hwasong-17.
Russian planes and arms would help bolster the North’s decaying arsenal, which is of high priority to Kim amid calls from incoming South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol that he intends to stand up to North Korea.
It is believed that Russian scientists, physicists and engineers could advise North Korean on technology that could bring the world ever closer to a devastating war.
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Mirror · by Alice Peacock · July 1, 2022
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
