Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"People in power are trying to convince us that the villain in our American story is each other. But that is not our story. That is not who we are. That's not our America. Our United States of America is not about us versus them. It's about we the people!"

- Camila Alves

"I am an American, free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on."

- Thurgood Marshall

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."-

Margaret Thatcher

1. This Day in History: Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence

2. Volodymyr Zelensky: Happy Birthday, America (Wall Street Journal))

3. Opinion | Reasons to believe American democracy has a bright future (Washington Post)

4. Opinion | Beneath the July 4 fireworks, remember America’s light (Washington Post Editorial Board)

5. Opinion | What We Celebrate When We Celebrate the Fourth of July (New York Times)

6. Opinion | The Enemies of Slavery Gave New Meaning to the Declaration of Independence (New York Times)

7. As long as the Spirit of ‘76 endures, America will never die (Washington Times)

8. Citizen sailors and the American Revolution (Washington Times)

9. Climate Change, Fire Threats Lead Cities to Replace July 4 Fireworks With Drone Shows

10. John Quincy Adams on Freedom, Independence and Peace

11. Abraham Lincoln on Independence and the Civil War

12. Reflecting on Declaration of Independence on Fourth of July (Heritage Foundation)

13.Opinion | America’s Foes Are Joining Forces (New York Times)

14. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 3, 2023

15. Temperatures seen surging as El Nino weather pattern returns

16. China to restrict exports of chipmaking materials as US mulls new curbs

17. Russia says Ukraine attacked Moscow with at least five drones

18. Grand Strategy is What States Make of It: #Reviewing Wars of Revelation

19. What the U.S. Military Still Hasn’t Learned From Iraq

20. China’s military won’t talk to the US ー so what?

21. To decouple or to de-risk – that is the question

22. Ukraine Situation Report: Patriot Kill Marks Hint That It Downed Aircraft Inside Russia

23. Biden nominates controversial former Trump-appointee to Public Diplomacy Commission

24. Zelensky’s Fight After the War

25. Opinion | The Tao of Deception: Part IV

26. Green Beans Coffee stokes tensions in South China Sea

26. From warfighters to lawmakers: Ranks of Navy SEALs growing in Congress

1. This Day in History: Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence

Just a reminder.

Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence | HISTORY

history.com · by History.com Editors

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king.

The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually encourage France’s intervention on behalf of the Patriots.

The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax.

With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.

Why did the American Colonies declare independence?

Most colonists continued to quietly accept British rule until Parliament’s enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade.

The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

The British Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops.

The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony.

In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

Initially, both the Americans and the British saw the conflict as a kind of civil war within the British Empire: To King George III it was a colonial rebellion, and to the Americans it was a struggle for their rights as British citizens.

However, Parliament remained unwilling to negotiate with the American rebels and instead purchased German mercenaries to help the British army crush the rebellion. In response to Britain’s continued opposition to reform, the Continental Congress began to pass measures abolishing British authority in the colonies.

How did the American Colonies declare independence?

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.

The Declaration of Independence was largely the work of Virginian Thomas Jefferson. In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights, and from the work of other English theorists.

The first section features the famous lines, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The second part presents a long list of grievances that provided the rationale for rebellion.

When did American colonies declare independence?

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.

The Revolutionary War would last for five more years. Yet to come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the United States formally became a free and independent nation.

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history.com · by History.com Editors

2. Volodymyr Zelensky: Happy Birthday, America (WSJ)

This is the only July 4th OpED I found in the Wall Street Journal Opinion pages today.

Volodymyr Zelensky: Happy Birthday, America

Ukraine is grateful to the U.S. for providing both support for and an example of liberty.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/volodymyr-zelensky-happy-birthday-america-ukraine-freedom-fourth-of-july-24bafddf?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

By Volodymyr Zelensky

July 2, 2023 3:42 pm ET

A depiction of a reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, July 4, 1776. . PHOTO: BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Kyiv, Ukraine

America’s Founders upended history when they forged a republic based on individual freedom and political pluralism, pledging to live as “free and independent states.” It was, and is, the greatest attempt in history to rid mankind of tyranny. They broke with centuries of subservience to create a new type of nation, one where all are equal and live free.

This majestic reality was created on July 4, 1776. On Feb. 24, 2022, we Ukrainians made the same choice. The American people stood with us and, I am sure, will stand with us to the end. Today, as Americans celebrate their freedom and independence, we celebrate with you and envision the day when every inch of Ukraine is free of the cruel tyranny that seeks to extinguish us.

A decade ago the current boss of Russia wrote that “America is not exceptional.” What he did later shows what he really meant. Many tyrants in human history have claimed global influence, but none of them could inspire the rest of the world to strive for the best in human nature. That’s why today’s Russian tyrants, like all tyrants, are fundamentally weak and their regime will crumble over time. When any tyrant hates America and denies its exceptional role in the struggle for freedom, he recognizes his own inevitable defeat. To Russian tyranny I say the world needs more, not less, American exceptionalism.

When Ukrainians took to the streets in 2014 to oust the Russian-backed dictator, they did so because they desperately wanted to be free—to be part of the West, governed by the ideals forged during the American Revolution, the idea “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

When Russia fully invaded Ukraine in 2022, it was an attempt not only to bring the Ukrainian people under Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial rule, but also to extinguish the ideals that inspire people to be free. Since Ukraine gained independence, Ukrainians have always supported democracy, defended the dignity of every person, and strived to live in a free world together with other European nations.

Russian tyranny sees that it is not eternal and not sustainable when it looks at Ukraine—free, independent Ukraine; strong, democratic Ukraine leading to true democracy and freedom spreading here on the eastern flank of Europe, and especially to Russia. Ukraine integrated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the West is a guarantee that freedom will continue to win and peace will triumph.

Russian tyranny is desperately trying to attract other enemies of freedom, in particular the Iranian regime, which tries to threaten free nations all over the world and provides weapons to Russia that kill innocent Ukrainian civilians on a daily basis. If—God forbid—Russia were to succeed in Ukraine, it would further embolden countries like Iran to take up arms against free peoples elsewhere in the world. It would encourage Russia to invade deeper into Europe, bringing it into direct confrontation with NATO.

All such scenarios can be stopped only by the steadfast defense of freedom, those who aspire to freedom, and the alliances created to protect freedom. We Ukrainians and you Americans will never give up on freedom.

Mr. Zelensky is president of Ukraine.

Opinion | Reasons to believe American democracy has a bright future

The Washington Post · by Megan McArdle · July 3, 2023

As July Fourth approaches, I’ve been thinking about a question that was put to the table at a recent lunch I attended: What big things are you optimistic about? I think my answer won the prize for most surprising: I am bullish about American democracy.

I’ve no doubt that many readers will find this answer a bit counterintuitive. To conservatives who are concerned about “woke capital,” the “deep state” and the ideological capture of the expert institutions that inform government policy, it might even sound crazy. And no less so to liberals who worry about a conservative Supreme Court rolling back decades of progress, as well as Donald Trump.

So in honor of 247 years of American independence, let me lay out why I am still optimistic about our country’s future.

To people on the right, I would note that capital appears to be undergoing a Great Unwokening, and the hated deep state is the same bureaucracy that validated the Hunter Biden laptop suspicions and spent years investigating him. As for expert capture, yes, it is real. But over the long run, I’m more worried that political showboating will discredit experts who have true and important information to share, as happened with public health officials during the pandemic, than I am that some PhD will bullyrag parents into letting their kids identify as cats.

To the left, I would point out that the republic has survived many sudden reversals of Supreme Court precedent, as well as the discovery of all sorts of new rights, under the Warren and Burger courts. Disliking the results of judicial fiats is not the same as proving they are incompatible with a functioning democracy.

As for Trump, yes, he would, if he could, bulldoze every American institution that stands in his way — but note how conspicuously he has failed to do so. When he was president, American institutions were tested, but while they creaked a bit here and there, they ultimately held strong.

Will they continue to do so? Many on the left see Trump’s failings as the natural outgrowth of various troubling currents on the right and therefore fear he is a harbinger of even worse to come.

Perhaps, but I think this worry ignores how unique Trump’s successes have been, how dependent on things such as his celebrity, his wicked genius for dominating a screen, and a too-crowded primary field where that talent mattered enormously. It is, of course, a depressing sign that even after Jan. 6, 2021, he still dominates the coming GOP primary. But it’s also heartening that his pale imitators aren’t having anything like his success. There is no Trumpism; there is only Trump. And Trump will eventually leave the stage.

U.S. democracy has rebuilt itself from centuries of chattel slavery and another hundred years of Jim Crow; from the Trail of Tears and the Japanese internment; from the Palmer Raids and the Comstock Act and the Red Scare. It recovered from anarchist bombs and urban crime waves and any number of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wilder schemes, including his plan to pack the Supreme Court. No matter how bad you think things look right now, you can find worse in American history — emphasis on “history.” Americans got through it. We can again.

Sure, maybe this time is different and America has finally broken itself. Maybe the antidemocratic talk has gone too far; maybe left and right hate each other too much to come together as a nation ever again. But let me close with the story I told the lunch table to explain why I don’t find all the dialed-up-to-11 online rhetoric so worrisome.

In the early 1930s, a sociologist named Richard LaPiere spent two years traveling across the United States with a Chinese couple — a fraught activity, given then-pervasive bigotry against Asians. Fortunately, they were refused service at only one of 66 hotels and none of the 184 restaurants they entered. Afterward, however, La Piere followed up with a questionnaire to those establishments, asking whether they would accept “members of the Chinese race.”

Of those who responded, more than 90 percent said they would not.

We all know that people sometimes pretend to be better than they are — for example, by saying they care about racial equality while choosing segregated neighborhoods and schools. But this can also work the other way: Sometimes, people will confess an abstract hatred they’d never act on with an actual human being in front of them. So when I wonder whether Americans really hate each other too much to live as one nation, I look not at what people are saying online but how they behave in person.

Watch Americans dealing with one another day to day and you will mostly see them going out of their way to be nice. There are far more random acts of kindness in this country than there are drive-by shootings, and far more people acting with honesty and integrity, even when no one’s looking, than there are con men and thieves. We focus on the latter precisely because they are rare.

Which is why, for all the bad, America is better than it thinks itself. And I dare to believe that, in the future, it will be better still.

The Washington Post · by Megan McArdle · July 3, 2023

4. Opinion | Beneath the July 4 fireworks, remember America’s light (Washington Post Editorial Board)

Opinion | Beneath the July 4 fireworks, remember America’s light

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · July 3, 2023

The United States finds itself in a funk as it celebrates its 247th birthday. Fewer than 4 in 10 U.S. adults describe themselves as “extremely proud” to be American, according to fresh Gallup polling, essentially unchanged from last year’s record low and down from about 7 in 10 two decades ago.

This is understandable given the unremitting pace of alarming headlines. There is a tide of worry about a lack of civic cohesion, intense partisanship and, to some, a sense of hopelessness. July Fourth, however, is a day to celebrate, among other national virtues, the United States’ proven capacity for renewal and self-improvement. The staying power of our system comes from its ability to correct and recalibrate. Free elections and open markets create dynamism that increases political and economic freedom.

The genius of America is that it’s built for give and take, accommodation and compromise, checks and balances, reform and reaction. People in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba aspire to freedom. But their systems don’t tolerate constructive dissent.

Yes, we hear people who should know better say things have never been this bad. That’s as historically myopic as it is objectively wrong. Measured by almost every metric, the United States is better off than 200 — or even 20 — years ago. Start with economic well-being: The U.S.-led global order has brought millions out of poverty. America remains the capital of medical, technological and artistic invention.

The framers designed a self-healing system that also allows for moral growth. We carry the scars of the Civil War, the Jim Crow era, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, Watergate and Vietnam but came out of them a better people. The country that initially counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person twice elected a Black president. The newest member of the Supreme Court is not only the descendant of enslaved people; she’s married to the descendant of enslavers in a marriage that could have been illegal until 1967.

So why are many Americans no longer as proud of their country? Corrosive partisanship is no small part of the answer. Until 2018, Donald Trump’s second year as president, majorities consistently expressed extreme pride in America when Gallup ran its annual pre-July Fourth poll. But many Democrats lost faith in their country after the 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville and failed to reclaim it after their party won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. Today, only 29 percent of Democrats say they’re extremely proud to be American, compared with 60 percent of Republicans.

Alarmingly, across party lines, just 18 percent of 18-to-34-year-olds say they’re extremely proud of this country. This generation grew up amid the dislocation of the Great Recession, seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, school shootings and active-shooter drills. More recently came the disillusionment that accompanied pandemic isolation; George Floyd’s murder; the casual cruelty of Trumpism; the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection; the opioid and fentanyl crises; and warning signs that the effects of climate change are real and growing. With these frames of reference, fear and hopelessness are unsurprising.

A decline in national pride ought not be viewed in isolation from daily events, but these events also provide evidence of this nation’s resiliency. While Mr. Trump remains the dominant force inside the GOP, democracy held in 2020 despite his efforts to overturn the election and voters rejected the most egregious election deniers in 2022. Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in U.S. history, but a House select committee conducted a thorough investigation and the Justice Department has charged more than 1,000 people with participating in the Capitol attack. All of this reflects a triumph for democratic institutions and the rule of law.

Even the chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border — a flash point for the left and the right — is a reminder that this country remains a beacon of opportunity so powerful that people around the world are willing to take enormous risks to move into what they understand to be a promised land. They still want a shot at the American Dream.

Then there is the indispensable supporting role that the United States is playing in Ukraine. American leadership in the world remains as essential as ever.

Between baseball and barbecue, let’s all take a deep breath before the presidential election season kicks into high gear. Despite the corrosiveness of self-doubt and political tribalism, there is much to celebrate. American values have matured and endured, and while our union is still far from perfect, we continue to believe it’s an experiment worth pursuing.

This Editorial Board often highlights ways in which America falls short of her ideals. A newspaper’s role is to hold leaders accountable and to measure America against her promises and potential. The unfettered freedom to do so is one of many reasons we’re extremely proud to be citizens of this country.

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · July 3, 2023

5. Opinion | What We Celebrate When We Celebrate the Fourth of July (New York Times)

Opinion | What We Celebrate When We Celebrate the Fourth of July

The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · July 4, 2023

Bret stephens

What We Celebrate When We Celebrate the Fourth of July

July 4, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Thomas Jefferson in the shadows at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Although Jefferson was a slaveholder, the principles he enshrined in the Declaration of Independence “are the definitions and axioms of a free society,” Abraham Lincoln wrote.Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

Opinion Columnist

In the spring of 1859, Abraham Lincoln was invited by a committee of Boston Republicans to attend a festival in honor of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. He couldn’t make it. Instead, he sent a letter that explains, perhaps better than anything else Lincoln wrote except for the Gettysburg Address, what it is that we celebrate when we celebrate the Fourth of July.

Lincoln began by noting a historical irony: Roughly 70 years earlier, America’s two main political parties had gotten their start. At the time, it was the party of the South, the Democratic-Republicans, that was “formed upon their supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men,” while it was the party of the North, the Federalists, that was mainly devoted to the rights of property.

Things had changed. By the late 1850s, it was Lincoln’s Republicans who held fast to Jeffersonian principles — that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights — while it was the Democrats who “denied and evaded” them. “One dashingly calls them ‘glittering generalities’; another bluntly calls them ‘self-evident lies’; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to ‘superior races,’” Lincoln noted, in veiled digs at John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas.

The Democrats of his day held “the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man’s right of property,” Lincoln wrote. “Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar, but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.”

One can argue with Lincoln’s sense of history: Jefferson and other leading Democratic-Republicans were mostly slaveholders. Alexander Hamilton, one of the original Federalists, helped found the New York Manumission Society, an early abolitionist group. Lincoln himself almost surely understood this. A line in his letter — “he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave”— comes across as a thinly disguised critique of Jefferson as a man.

But Lincoln’s letter has a larger political and philosophical purpose than pointing out Jefferson’s profound moral shortcomings.

In the years before the Civil War, Lincoln was interested in questions of political change, decay and salvation. That parties switch places ideologically should be familiar to us: Democrats were once the party of lower taxes, free trade and segregation; Republicans were once the party of migrant amnesty, moral virtue and being tough on Russia.

The larger and more worrying question to Lincoln was whether nations, like parties, could also abandon formerly sacred principles. “It is now no child’s play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation,” Lincoln warned, just two years before Fort Sumter. “The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of a free society” — as self-evident, he believed, as “the simpler propositions of Euclid.”

The lesson Lincoln drew is how easily a republic could deny its own foundational principles if personal or political self-interest dictated otherwise. America, he warned, was forgoing “free government” for the sake of “classification” and “caste.”

Which brought Lincoln to his extraordinary conclusion.

All honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

What is it, then, that we celebrate on the Fourth of July?

Not the long litany of overwrought and misdirected complaints that makes up the bulk of the Declaration of Independence. Not the glaring hypocrisy of men who held others in bondage from the moment of their birth while insisting that all men are born equal.

And not the example of those for whom the pursuit of happiness was not a universal ideal. As Lincoln wrote in his letter, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

What we celebrate, instead, is a decision: one that would outgrow the circumstances of the American Revolution, outstrip its significance as a historical event and outshine the men who waged it, and perhaps, eventually, will outlive the nation for which it was conceived. It was the remarkable decision by Jefferson and his fellow revolutionaries to do something more than revolutionary: to implant a philosophical truth in a foundational document, so that nobody then or in the future could call himself a patriot or a traditionalist without also subscribing to a universal principle that goes beyond patriotism and tradition.

That is why every great champion of freedom looks to our Declaration. That was true of Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke of it as a “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” And of the brave protesters in Tiananmen Square, who in 1989 built a 33-foot-tall papier-mâché Goddess of Democracy that recalls the Statue of Liberty before they were gunned down by their own regime. And of Volodymyr Zelensky, who in a Wall Street Journal essay on Sunday compared July 4, 1776, to Feb. 24, 2022, when the Ukrainian people also chose to fight for freedom and independence.

When we celebrate the Fourth of July, we celebrate this, just as we give thanks to those who transcended their own failings and prejudices to give us the language of liberty.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Bret Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. Facebook

The New York Times · by Bret Stephens · July 4, 2023

6. Opinion | The Enemies of Slavery Gave New Meaning to the Declaration of Independence (New York Times)

What makes America great is our ability to admit our wrongs and correct our mistakes.

Opinion | The Enemies of Slavery Gave New Meaning to the Declaration of Independence

The New York Times · by Jamelle Bouie · July 4, 2023

Jamelle Bouie

The Enemies of Slavery Gave New Meaning to the Declaration of Independence

July 4, 2023, 5:01 a.m. ET

The cabin of John and Priscilla Hemings, who were enslaved at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation in Charlottesville, Va.Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

Opinion Columnist

Read today, the Declaration of Independence is a freedom document. It stands for absolute human equality and represents the highest ideals of the American republic. On July 4, we celebrate it as much as we celebrate independence itself.

But as scholars like Garry Wills and Pauline Maier have made clear, this relative consensus on the meaning and significance of the Declaration is the product of political, ideological and social developments over time.

“During the first fifteen years following its adoption,” Maier writes in “American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence,” “the Declaration of Independence seems to have been all but forgotten, particularly within the United States, except as the means by which Americans announced their separation from Great Britain.”

The Declaration as we understand it was forged by struggle. Not the struggle with Britain but the struggle within the independent United States for freedom and equality against the weight of the Constitution and the American political system. As you might imagine, the key that shaped our understanding of the Declaration was the fight to end slavery.

“The antislavery movement was not,” the historian Alexander Tsesis writes, “a creation of the Revolution.” Nevertheless, the ideology of the revolution was “inspirational enough to hearten Black petitioners, soldiers and litigants to protest against the resilience of hereditary bondage.” And in that movement, as well as those it spawned, the Declaration of Independence would stand, in the words of the historian David Brion Davis, as a “touchstone” and “sacred scripture” for opponents of slavery.

Examples of this use of the Declaration abound. As early as 1776, we have a pamphlet by Lemuel Haynes, a free Black Congregational minister in Vermont, titled “Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-Keeping.” Haynes begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence and then, embracing the language of natural rights, goes on to assert that “an African” has an “undeniable right to his Liberty: Consequently, the practice of Slave-keeping, which so much abounds in this Land is illicit.”

Although he does not directly quote the Declaration, the author of “Sermon on the Present Situation of the Affairs of America and Great Britain” — who identified himself only as “A Black Whig” — seemed to echo the American independence document in 1781 when he wrote: “Next to life is liberty, and when oppression and tyranny are violent they cause the parties oppressed to make some resistance, let them be ever so feeble.” From here, he asked the American revolutionaries to follow their own fight for freedom with the emancipation of the slaves. “And now my virtuous fellow citizens, let me entreat you, that, after you have rid yourselves of the British yoke, that you will also emancipate those who have been all their life time subject to bondage.”

White abolitionists and other opponents of slavery also made use of the Declaration in their legal and rhetorical assaults on human bondage.

“It was repeatedly declared in Congress, as language and sentiment of all these States, and by other public bodies of men, ‘that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” wrote the pseudonymous author Crito (after the ancient Athenian companion of Socrates) in 1787. “The Africans, and the blacks in servitude among us, were really as much included in these assertions as ourselves,” he continued. “And if we have not allowed them to enjoy these unalienable rights, we are guilty of a ridiculous, wicked contradiction and inconsistence.”

As the 18th century progressed into the 19th, a new generation of abolitionists would marry reverence for the Declaration with fiery contempt for the Constitution.

“The duty of every American is to give his sympathy and aid to the antislavery movement,” declared the Garrisonian abolitionist Wendell Phillips in 1847. “And the first duty of every citizen is to devote himself to the destruction of the Union and the Constitution, which have already shipwrecked the experiment of civil liberty.” It was out of the wreckage of the Union that the nation would see a “state which will unfold, in noble proportions, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, whose promises made us once the admiration of the world.”

Of course, Frederick Douglass famously wielded the Declaration of Independence as a freedom document in his denunciation of American hypocrisy over slavery. “Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting,” Douglass said in “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” “America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”

In “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” Garry Wills observed that “Lincoln was able to achieve the loftiness, ideality and brevity of the Gettysburg Address because he had spent a good part of the 1850s repeatedly relating all the most sensitive issues of the day to the Declaration’s supreme principle. If all men are created equal, they cannot be property.”

This is true. Abraham Lincoln had been playing with the central ideas of the Declaration, as he understood them, for much of the previous decade. We see this when he challenged Stephen Douglas’s assertion that its signers meant “men of European birth and European descent, when they declared the equality of all men.”

But Lincoln was also not working in a vacuum. His use of the Declaration of Independence should be situated within the larger context of the antislavery Declaration, deployed by abolitionists and antislavery proponents, Black and white.

It’s no surprise that on Independence Day, most Americans look back to the founding fathers as they celebrate and articulate the nation’s ideals. The story of the changing meaning of the Declaration should be a reminder, however, that we had more than one founding — and far more than just one set of founders.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @jbouie

The New York Times · by Jamelle Bouie · July 4, 2023

7. As long as the Spirit of ‘76 endures, America will never die (Washington Times)

As long as the Spirit of ‘76 endures, America will never die

washingtontimes.com · by Don Feder

By - - Sunday, July 2, 2023

OPINION:

I’m the Spirit of 1776 — the spirit of independence, individual liberty and personal responsibility.

You know me. I’ve been part of this grand adventure from the beginning.

I was there with the earliest settlers — the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Catholics in Maryland — with all who came to escape the oppression of the Old World, where you could rise no higher than your father, and build a Shining City on a Hill.

I brought the Bible here as a guide and an inspiration.

I encouraged the colonists who revolted against British rule and the Founding Fathers who penned the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence and later formed a more perfect union.

In the winter of ’76, after a string of disastrous defeats, I trudged through the snow with the Continental Army, in shoes wrapped in rags, leaving bloody footprints behind. When Washington crossed the Delaware, I was in the first boat.

In what’s been called our second war of independence, I inspired Old Hickory at the Battle of New Orleans.

Later, I helped man the garrison of the Alamo, which fought to the last man in Texas’ war for independence.

I was with the Marines when they stormed the Halls of Montezuma.

I held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and heard Lincoln speak his stirring words at the dedication of a cemetery there.

I saw a nation of 13 states perched precariously on the Eastern Seaboard grow to a land stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

I watched the pioneers push west, saw the great cattle drives, the fields of grain, and the cities rising from what was once wilderness. I saw the engineers, inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs as they helped to create the greatest economy in history — one that lifted all boats.

I charged up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders and joined the doughboys over there.

I sold apples on a street corner during the Great Depression and saw Americans climb out of its depths due to perseverance and hope.

I beheld America’s dream factory when it produced works of art and imagination like “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I remembered Pearl Harbor and watched the landing at Omaha Beach and MacArthur’s return to the Philippines.

I was on the frozen ground of the Chosin Reservoir, in the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia and on the burning plains of Afghanistan.

I welcomed immigrants and refugees from Italy and Ireland, Germany and Russia, Cuba and Southeast Asia who came here to build and fill their lungs with free air. Each group made unique contributions to our culture.

I was proud to raise our banner and inspire oppressed people the world over. We created the first republic in modern times, guided by a government of limited powers and restrained by the rights of citizens.

And now I look back at 247 years of triumph and tragedy, of dreams and illusions, of nobility and achievement, at the times when we lived up to our ideals and those when we didn’t.

I can take pride in our achievements, regret our failures and marvel at the glory of the nation we built on these shores.

But now, the nation I inspired is in mortal danger.

We’ve raised a generation of ignorant ingrates that haven’t the vaguest notion of the price paid to secure the freedoms they now enjoy. They are historical illiterates who believe that America is a natural phenomenon instead of something precious that took centuries of sacrifice and struggle to achieve.

They are fed a steady diet of lies and poison to make them hate their native land.

We have an administration of criminal misfits and a culture controlled by degenerates diametrically opposed to the ideals for which I stand. Their inspiration isn’t the American Revolution, but the French and Bolshevik revolutions. They seek not individual liberty, but an anthill society they can rule.

They are dedicated to the destruction of this great nation — committed to open borders, weak national defense, debt that imperils our survival, anarchy in our streets, and a social agenda that aims at destroying the family and forcing uniformity of opinion.

You must oppose them with everything you have.

I am the Spirit of 1776 — the Spirit of America. Remember, when you’ve lost me, you’ve lost everything.

• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.

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washingtontimes.com · by Don Feder

8. Citizen sailors and the American Revolution (Washington Times)

Conclusion:

But their sacrifice helped to make us a nation. John Lehman, secretary of the navy under President Ronald Reagan, put it best: “It has been said that the battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, and independence was won at sea. For this we have the enormous success of American privateers to thank, even more than the Continental Navy.”

Citizen sailors and the American Revolution

'Pirates' helped secure our nation

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

By Thomas C. Stewart - - Monday, July 3, 2023

OPINION:

The naval history of the American Revolution receives scant attention from most historians. That is unfortunate for two reasons: First, because the war at sea contributed enormously to the winning of our independence, and second, because it’s a cracking good yarn that needs telling.

When the revolution broke out, Britain was the world’s leading naval power, with over 250 vessels of all sizes. The American colonies’ navy, in contrast, never had more than eight ships at sea at any one time during the war. But U.S. strength at sea was not limited to the size of our navy. It was augmented by thousands of privateers who, throughout the conflict, were furiously raiding British ships on both sides of the Atlantic.

A “privateer” was a captain who had a letter of marque or license from his government to plunder enemy ships. The fledgling United States may not have had much of a navy, but it did have numerous merchant vessels, whalers and fishing boats — manned by skilled sailors — that could be converted into warships.

The Continental Congress was quick to tap this source of potential naval strength. In March 1776, four months before the Declaration of Independence was signed, our lawmakers gave permission to private citizens “to fit out armed vessels to cruise on the Enemies of these United Colonies.”

The chance to get rich by raiding British commerce was a strong incentive for American mariners to turn privateers. Congress made the incentive even stronger.

When a privateer captured an enemy ship, the usual practice was for the officers and crew to divide the spoils, with a share going to the government that had issued the letter of marque. Instead, Congress allowed American privateers to keep all their loot.

The reaction was electrifying. John Adams wrote at the time that “thousands of schemes for privateering are afloat in American imaginations.”

According to the National Park Service, Congress issued some 1,700 letters of marque during the Revolution. State governments issued hundreds more.

The proliferation of privateers brought immediate and substantial economic pressure on Britain. Maritime insurance rates rose dramatically, as did the cost of imported goods.

As the British economy suffered, the American economy was invigorated by the influx of prize money and captured goods. These goods included military supplies that were badly needed by Washington’s army.

Privateering also put diplomatic pressure on Britain. In Paris, a commission headed by Benjamin Franklin was lobbying to obtain French support for the American cause — ideally, to get France to enter the war on the American side.

The privateers strengthened the commissioners’ hand by demonstrating to the French that the American cause was worth backing. “That which makes the greatest impression in our favor here,” the commissioners wrote to Congress, “is the prodigious success of our armed ships and privateers.”

Franklin took full advantage of this sentiment. He persuaded the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, to allow American ships to use French ports and even to allow him to secretly commission privateers.

When the British government protested, Vergennes feigned innocence. But the British, who had an extensive spy network, were not deceived. So between British bluster and bland French denials, tensions between the two countries were exacerbated — which was exactly what Franklin wanted.

Soon, the French dropped all pretense of neutrality and signed a formal treaty of alliance with the United States in February 1778. Within weeks, France entered the war, and with that, American independence was assured.

What had the privateers accomplished?

America’s young navy captured nearly 200 ships as prizes during the Revolution; the privateers captured more than 10 times that number. In the process, they turned public opinion in Britain against the war.

Beyond that, they helped to offset Britain’s overwhelming advantage at sea. By raiding British commerce on both sides of the Atlantic, they forced the Royal Navy to divide its forces instead of concentrating them on the American theater.

Finally, the privateers gave valuable experience to the men who would become America’s future naval leaders.

All this was not without cost. Because Britain did not recognize American independence until the end of the Revolution, our privateers were regarded as pirates. American seamen unlucky enough to be taken prisoner by the British were confined in rotting prison hulks under appalling conditions — without trial and without the possibility of exchange. Some 12,000 died.

But their sacrifice helped to make us a nation. John Lehman, secretary of the navy under President Ronald Reagan, put it best: “It has been said that the battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, and independence was won at sea. For this we have the enormous success of American privateers to thank, even more than the Continental Navy.”

• Thomas Stewart is a retired New York investment banker and a former naval officer.

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washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

9. Climate Change, Fire Threats Lead Cities to Replace July 4 Fireworks With Drone Shows

Videos at the link: https://themessenger.com/news/july-4-fireworks-drone-shows?utm_campaign=body&utm

Climate Change, Fire Threats Lead Cities to Replace July 4 Fireworks With Drone Shows

Fireworks can send elevated levels of particulate matter out into the air, as well as dangerous metals and gases

Published 07/03/23 09:14 AM ET|Updated 21 hr ago

Nick Gallagher

themessenger.com · July 3, 2023

Drones lit up the sky in Salt Lake City, Utah this weekend in the city's first-ever drone show, which the mayor's office billed as an environmentally-friendly alternative to fireworks.

Salt Lake is among several communities across the United States that have decided to forego Independence Day fireworks in favor of choreographed nighttime drone displays, in which hundreds of drones light up simultaneously to form patriotic shapes in the sky.

"As temperatures rise and fire danger increases, we must be conscientious of both our air quality and the potential for wildfires," Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said.

In Boulder, where fireworks have lit up the sky every year since 1941, except for during the pandemic, spectators are set to gather at the University of Colorado's Folsom Field for its own drone event.

"The shift from traditional fireworks to drones was not an easy decision and based on a number of factors, including increased fire danger fueled by climate change," the city said.

But not all cities are sticking with the trend. California's Imperial Beach put on a drone show last year after a fireworks company said at the last minute it could no longer host the event. But after last year's mixed reviews, with some residents saying they missed the nostalgic pop of traditional fireworks, the city announced it would return to its usual July 4 programming for this year's display.

Drone show in Key West, Florida. March 26, 2022.Sky Elements Drone Light Shows

New York City, meanwhile, will shoot off 60,000 firework shells along the East River as part of its Macy's fireworks display — continuing a nearly 50-year-old tradition despite its potential environmental impact.

Fireworks can send elevated levels of particulate matter out into the air, as well as dangerous metals and gases, which are especially harmful to people with lung and heart disease as well as elderly people and children. Pollution from fireworks will likely be compounded this year as particulates from hundreds of Canadian wildfires continue to stream into the U.S.

Levels of fine particulate pollutants rise by about 42% directly after a fireworks display and linger in the air until noon the next day, according to one 2015 study.

Drone shows can cost as much as $300,000 for high-definition shows featuring 500 drones, according to the Drone Girl blog. Prices for traditional fireworks vary widely, starting at around $10,000 for smaller, local shows, up to at least $6 million for New York's bombastic show.

Drones are not the only fireworks alternative being encouraged this year. The U.S. Forest Service is advising people celebrate with non-explosive — and far less expensive — items like Silly String, noisemakers, and glow sticks.

While drone shows aren't failure-proof — one show in China in 2021 was disrupted when drones fell out of the sky — one possible advantage drone shows offer cities is a decreased risk of a malfunction leading to all the fireworks going off at once, which happened during the 2012 San Diego Fourth of July celebration.

While a Las Vegas woman was injured by a drone show in 2018, the injury risk for fireworks is so high that the Consumer Product Safety Commission shares an annual Twitter thread showing the impact of fireworks on mannequins in order to discourage illegal fireworks use. The commission's annual report on fireworks shows over 10,000 Americans were seen in the emergency room for fireworks-related injuries in 2022.

themessenger.com · July 3, 2023

10. John Quincy Adams on Freedom, Independence and Peace

As a side note, John Adams wanted Independence Day to be celebrated on July 2d.

John Quincy Adams on Freedom, Independence and Peace - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · July 4, 2023

Editor’s Note: On July 4, 1821, then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams gave the following Independence Day speech.

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

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John Quincy Adams was the eighth secretary of state of the United States and went on to become the sixth president.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · July 4, 2023

11. Abraham Lincoln on Independence and the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln on Independence and the Civil War - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · July 4, 2023

Editor’s Speech: The following is President Abraham Lincoln’s message to Congress, on July 4, 1861.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation.

At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago, the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the Post-Office Department.

Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses, and the like, including the movable and stationary property in and about them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this Government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were organizing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose.

The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the best of its own and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into these States, and had been seized to be used against the Government. Accumulations of the public revenue lying within them had been seized for the same object. The Navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the Government. Officers of the Federal Army and Navy had resigned in great numbers, and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms against the Government. Simultaneously and in connection with all this the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accordance with this purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States declaring the States respectively to be separated from the National Union. A formula for instituting a combined government of these States had been promulgated, and this illegal organization, in the character of Confederate States, was already invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign powers.

Finding this condition of things and believing it to be an imperative duty upon the incoming Executive to prevent, if possible, the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end became indispensable. This choice was made, and was declared in the inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the Government and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot box. It promised a continuance of the mails at Government expense to the very people who were resisting the Government, and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the people or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the Government on foot.

On the 5th of March, the present incumbent’s first full day in office, a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was by that Department placed in his hands. This letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that reenforcements could not be thrown into that fort within the time for his relief rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of less than 20,000 good and well-disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major Anderson’s letter. The whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflection, however, he took full time, consulting with other officers, both of the Army and the Navy, and at the end of four days came reluctantly, but decidedly, to the same conclusion as before. He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient force was then at the control of the Government or could be raised and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions in the fort would be exhausted. In a purely military point of view this reduced the duty of the Administration in the case to the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the fort.

It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position under the circumstances would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under which it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that, in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed. Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached Fort Pickens might be reenforced. This last would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military necessity . An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort Pickens. This order could not go by land but must take the longer and slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was received just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself was that the officer commanding the Sabine , to which vessel the troops had been transferred from the Brooklyn , acting upon some quasi armistice of the late Administration (and of the existence of which the present Administration, up to the time the order was dispatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To now reenforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached at Fort Sumter was impossible, rendered so by the near exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture the Government had a few days before commenced preparing an expedition, as well adapted as might be, to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately used or not, according to circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now presented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort, and that if the attempt should not be resisted there would be no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given, whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.

It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew–they were expressly notified–that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this Government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot box for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object–to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution. That this was their object the Executive well understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, “You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors,” he took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world should not be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the Government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort, sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, “Immediate dissolution or blood.”

And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic, or democracy–a government of the people by the same people–can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the Government and so to resist force employed for its destruction by force for its preservation.

The call was made, and the response of the country was most gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation. Yet none of the States commonly called slave States, except Delaware gave a regiment through regular State organization. A few regiments have been organized within some others of those States by individual enterprise and received into the Government service. Of course the seceded States, so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the time of the inauguration), gave no troops to the cause of the Union. The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some of them being almost for the Union, while in others, as Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, the Union sentiment was nearly repressed and silenced. The course taken in Virginia was the most remarkable, perhaps the most important. A convention elected by the people of that State to consider this very question of disrupting the Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell. To this body the people had chosen a large majority of professed Union men. Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter many members of that majority went over to the original disunion minority, and with them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether this change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter or their great resentment at the Government’s resistance to that assault is not definitely known. Although they submitted the ordinance for ratification to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more than a month distant, the convention and the legislature (which was also in session at the same time and place), with leading men of the State not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State were already out of the Union. They pushed military preparations vigorously forward all over the State. They seized the United States armory at Harpers Ferry and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They received–perhaps invited–into their State large bodies of troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded States. They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance and cooperation with the so-called “Confederate States,” and sent members to their congress at Montgomery; and, finally, they permitted the insurrectionary government to be transferred to their capital at Richmond.

The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders, and this Government has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it; and it has the less regret, as the loyal citizens have in due form claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens this Government is bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia.

In the border States, so called–in fact, the Middle States–there are those who favor a policy which they call “armed neutrality;” that is, an arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one way or the disunion the other over their soil. This would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of separation, and yet not quite an impassable one, for, under the guise of neutrality, it would tie the hands of the Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except only what proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the disunionists that which of all things they most desire–feed them well and give them disunion without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very many who have favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in effect.

Recurring to the action of the Government, it may be stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 militia, and rapidly following this a proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was believed to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice of privateering.

Other calls were made for volunteers to serve three years unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the Regular Army and Navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.

Soon after the first call for militia it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding General in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” should not himself violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it” is equivalent to a provision–is a provision-that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.

No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some length will probably be presented by the Attorney-General. Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and, if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.

The forbearance of this Government had been so extraordinary and so long continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action as if they supposed the early destruction of our National Union was probable. While this on discovery gave the Executive some concern, he is now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United States are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers, and a general sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the world.

The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient for your deliberation and action, while the Executive and all the Departments will stand ready to supply omissions or to communicate new facts considered important for you to know.

It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this contest a short and a decisive one; that you place at the control of the Government for the work at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000. That number of men is about one-tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where apparently all are willing to engage, and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of that struggle, and the money value in the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.

A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well.

It might seem at first thought to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called “secession” or “rebellion.” The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in and reverence for the history and Government of their common country as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully , withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice.

With rebellion thus sugar coated they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the Government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union who could have been brought to no such thing the day before .

This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State–to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the “United Colonies” were declared to be “free and independent States;” but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of “State rights,” asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the “sovereignty” of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a “sovereignty” in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it “a political community without a political superior”? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.

Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the National Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but at most such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the Government itself had never been known as a governmental–as a merely administrative power. This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality . Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole–to the General Government–while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State. This is all there is of original principle about it. Whether the National Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy is not to be questioned. We are all bound by that defining without question.

What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with the Constitution–is lawful and peaceful . It is not contended that there is any express law for it, and nothing should ever be implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of these States were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off without consent or without making any return? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding States in common with the rest. Is it just either that creditors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?

Again: If one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall have seceded none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will promise to remain.

The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which of necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of secession, as they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours. If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours they show that to be consistent they must secede from one another whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts or effecting any other selfish or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure.

If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called “driving the one out,” should be called “the seceding of the others from that one,” it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle and profound on the rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made the Constitution and speaks from the preamble, calling itself “we, the people.”

It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, except, perhaps, South Carolina, in favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called seceded States. The contrary has not been demonstrated in any one of them. It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election all that large class who are at once for the Union and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union.

It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our whole people beyond any example in the world. Of this we now have a striking and an impressive illustration. So large an army as the Government has now on foot was never before known without a soldier in it but who had taken his place there of his own free choice. But more than this, there are many single regiments whose members, one and another, possess full practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world; and there is scarcely one from which there could not be selected a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent to administer the Government itself. Nor do I say this is not true also in the army of our late friends, now adversaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better the reason why the Government which has conferred such benefits on both them and us should not be broken up. Whoever in any section proposes to abandon such a government would do well to consider in deference to what principle it is that he does it; what better he is likely to get in its stead; whether the substitute will give, or be intended to give, so much of good to the people. There are some foreshadowings on this subject. Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words “all men are created equal.” Why? They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one signed by Washington, they omit “We, the people,” and substitute “We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States.” Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of the people?

This is essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend.

I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this the Government’s hour of trial large numbers of those in the Army and Navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag.

Great honor is due to those officers who remained true despite the example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor and most important fact of all is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of plain people. They understand without an argument that the destroying the Government which was made by Washington means no good to them.

Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled–the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains–its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to be the course of the Government toward the Southern States after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the Executive deems it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws, and that he probably will have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people under the Constitution than that expressed in the inaugural address.

He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation in any just sense of those terms.

The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” But if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.

It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the Government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the Government. No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

As a private citizen the Executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws.

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by WOTR Staff · July 4, 2023

12. Reflecting on Declaration of Independence on Fourth of July (Heritage Foundation)

Reflecting on Declaration of Independence on Fourth of July

dailysignal.com · by Richard M. Reinsch II · June 30, 2023

If we want to conserve the American nation, then we must begin with the Declaration of Independence.

We should be aware of the richness of this document and what it teaches us about our rights and duties as Americans.

Contained within it is a clear statement about the principles of politics, lawful government, the self-governing practices of the colonists, and why they were reclaiming their right to govern themselves in the face of a settled pattern of abuse by the British government.

The declaration proclaims that the “thirteen united States of America” now “assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

The declaration was a statement about the type of politics and order that the “United Colonies” would live under and why they were now rejecting the unwritten English constitution.

Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Richard Henry Lee in 1825 stated that the declaration was “an expression of the American mind.” What is that mind? As philosophy professor Paul Seaton has argued, it was logical, liberty-loving, manly, and open to God’s will for the colonists and their push for political independence.

And what is a self-evident truth? A self-evident truth is one that carries the evidence for itself within its own terms. If we say man is a rational animal, the predicate “rational” is contained in the idea of the subject, “man.”

Here’s John Adams’ letter to his son Charles Adams in 1794 on the self-evident nature of man’s equality:

As the genuine Equality of human Nature is the true Principle of all our Rights and Duties to one another: and the false Notions of Equality the source of much folly and Wickedness: and the undefined and indeterminate Ideas of it, the Cause of much Nonsense and confusion, it is of great importance to ascertain, what it does mean, and what it does not mean.

We should keep that passage in mind as we hear leading liberals define us by race, gender, property, and class, and seek to use the state as the enforcer of group rights; that is to say, qualities that are not the foundation of rights, but which can be used as the foundation of state power to redefine us, divide us, and make us malleable in their hands.

Here’s Adams again on equality:

It really means little more than that We are all of the same Species: made by the same God: possessed of Minds and Bodies alike in Essence: having all the same Reason, Passions, Affections and Appetites.

The logical Declaration of Independence states that there is a just order that can be defined and used to deal coherently with tyranny and revolution. Such order is evinced in the English constitutional order that the colonists argue has been violated repeatedly by the Crown and Parliament.

The declaration’s signers meant to reclaim the principles of that order in the nation they would build. We might be surprised to learn that the declaration evinces that reason can understand and guide politics, even revolutionary activity.

In that respect, the declaration is our model of reflection, rhetoric, and deliberate action about politics. The question facing us is whether we believe that about the capacity of human reason and politics. Or have other ideas about who we are as persons, as citizens, distorted our thinking?

Our declaration asserts that government is created by the consent of men who are equal in their rights, whose protection fundamentally limits that government.

In defense of those rights, the Continental Congress—which approved the Declaration of Independence—listed 27 grievances, 18 committed by the king and nine by Parliament.

These grievances grounded the call for a new nation in the important second paragraph of the declaration. They can be split into five parts and move toward a necessary conclusion.

The first seven items bear upon the king’s relationship to legislative power; specifically, the legislatures of the Colonies.

Why start with the Colonial legislatures? Legislative priority is necessary because it’s the central instrument of a self-governing people. Attacking legislatures prevents a sovereign people from being a self-governing people. This is key not only to the opening section of the declaration, but to the declaration’s overall mind, and it will return later as Parliament’s chief misdeed.

The next two items deal with the executive’s relationship to the judiciary. The monarch has not permitted the judicial protection of the people and has abolished the independence of the judiciary. “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers” and “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”

The declaration stated that the executive was intent on bending the judicial power to his will. In short, these are the actions of an aspiring tyrant.

Next come problems of administration and defense, key parts of a monarch’s office, but those portray a “Design” of subjugation of the Colonies. The list is short, but telling:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to Harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military Independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

The executive aims to despoil the people with “swarms of officers” and has placed the military over civil government. We were now in wartime, but it was still peacetime when those actions began. The king now exercised his powers in destructive ways.

Next, the declaration lists nine usurpations by Parliament. Parliament had been the king’s companion in violating the “constitution” that governed relations between the Colonies and the Empire.

“He has combined with others [Parliament] to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.”

We read of nine specific instances of Parliament’s “pretended Legislation,” with the final charge being a direct hit on the heart of American Colonies’ self-government. Their “pretended Legislation” aimed at “suspending our own Legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

The fifth and final section of the indictments refocuses on the king and the war stance of his actions. He had removed his protection from the Colonies, and reinaugurated a state of nature between them and himself. The king was now waging war against the Colonies.

His conduct had included “transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny,” “exciting domestic insurrections amongst us,” and enlisting Indian tribes to wage war against “all ages, sexes, and conditions.”

Tyrannically, he made citizens captured at sea fight against their country and brethren. Who sows discord among citizens and turns them against one another? Tyrants do. King George confirmed the ancient wisdom.

In short, we might restate our declaration as follows: There are principles of politics worthy of free and virtuous people, and they have been violated. Here are the actions of the king and Parliament, which evidence a settled design of despotic ambition, and the Colonists of right and duty determine that they will not bow down to it, but declare their independence as a people. And there is God—“the laws of nature and of Nature’s God”—who warrants this bold action.

Seaton, the philosophy professor, observes that the declaration is an American epic poem that speaks to the depths of our political soul:

The Declaration indicates that even revolutionary action can be warranted. But it also lays down strict criteria for such action. It thus cautions boldness to tether itself to reason, while challenging reason to entertain even the boldest thoughts.

Earlier, I referred to the need for “manliness” made by the declaration’s signers. After making the case for independence on behalf of “the good people of these Colonies,” the 55 representatives pledge to one another their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

The right of revolution means you are willing to risk everything for the justness of the cause. Liberty entails sacrifice precisely because the passions and vices of others constantly threaten it. But that also means that liberty is about duty.

In knowing what is right and doing it, we demand the liberty to make our virtue a reality. There had been in the Colonies a history of the defense of liberty, one that is noted in the text of the declaration. Earlier legislatures had resisted “with manly firmness” the Crown’s violations. The declaration joined them and found inspiration in their earlier example of resistance.

God is also present in the declaration. He is mentioned or referred to four times. God is presented as Creator, Legislator, Provident, and Judge. Men are created equal, and nature is ordered and formed by God—precisely the activities of creating and legislating.

Those two features occur at the beginning of the document. The other two show up near the end. Those two references were added to Jefferson’s draft by the Continental Congress. They have the effect of indicating that the divine is protective. The Supreme Judge scrutinizes human activity “the world” over and penetrates to the “intentions” of agents. He was also firmly on the side of the colonists. Their understanding of man, man’s freedom, and virtue were also God’s plan for the nascent American people. They called upon His blessing.

And on this July Fourth in 2023, so should we, and then labor to make the declaration’s words and ideas our own as we labor to restore a free country.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

dailysignal.com · by Richard M. Reinsch II · June 30, 2023

13. Opinion | America’s Foes Are Joining Forces (New York Times)

My bias: no mention of north Korea.

My other bias: reference to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS):

Excerpts:

This isn’t the first time the United States has driven smaller nations into the arms of its superpower adversaries. It did so during the Cold War. In his book “Embers of War,” Fredrik Logevall notes that until the late 1940s, Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese nationalist leader, believed the United States “could be the champion of his cause” of independence from France. During World War II, Mr. Minh’s rebel army, the Viet Minh, worked alongside the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the C.I.A., in America’s fight against Japan.

But as Cold War tensions rose, the Truman administration disregarded its Asia experts — many of whom considered the Viet Minh a primarily nationalist rather than Communist movement — and backed French efforts to preserve its empire. By 1950, the Viet Minh were receiving arms from Communist China.

Opinion | America’s Foes Are Joining Forces

The New York Times · by Peter Beinart · July 3, 2023

Guest Essay

America’s Foes Are Joining Forces

July 3, 2023

President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba, left, and President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran reviewing the honor guard during a welcoming ceremony in Havana on June 15.

Mr. Beinart is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

The Biden administration recently made two grim announcements: Iran is helping to manufacture drones for Russia. China operates a spy base in Cuba.

The message is clear: America’s foes are joining forces. They now constitute what Washington’s influential Center for a New American Security recently called a new “axis of authoritarians,” which threatens U.S. interests from East Asia to the Caribbean and Eastern Europe to the Persian Gulf. The phrase implies that what binds the governments of Russia, China, Iran and Cuba is their common aversion to democracy. For a Washington foreign-policy class that often depicts America’s geopolitical struggles as contests between freedom and tyranny, it’s an appealing narrative.

But there’s a problem. Only a few years ago, the governments of Cuba and Iran — which had the same authoritarian political systems back then — were pursuing closer ties to Washington. They didn’t swerve toward Russia and China because they realized they hate democracy. They swerved because the United States spurned those overtures and drove them into the arms of America’s great-power foes. Under both Donald Trump and President Biden, Washington has helped create the very anti-American partnerships it now bemoans, which is exactly what it did during the last Cold War.

Take Cuba. For most of the post-Cold War era, its government’s strategy has been fairly clear: keep its political system closed while opening the economy to foreign investment. That required better relations with Washington, since U.S. sanctions not only barred Cuba from its biggest potential source of tourism and trade but also scared off European companies. William LeoGrande, a Latin America expert at American University, told me, “Every major component of Cuba’s economic strategy in the last two decades had been premised on long-term expectations that the relationship with the U.S. would improve.”

In 2014, that bet began to pay off. The Obama administration announced an end to America’s decades-long enmity with the Cuban government, and soon everyone from Conan O’Brien to Andrew Cuomo to Steve Nash began showing up in Havana. As a University of Miami Cuba expert, Michael J. Bustamante, noted at the time, “the American flag has even become the most stylish national standard, appearing on Cubans’ T-shirts, tights and tank tops.”

Then Donald Trump entered the White House and it all fell apart. In 2019, he imposed the harshest economic sanctions in more than a half-century. A month later, Cuba began rationing soap, eggs, rice and beans. Around that same time, according to The Wall Street Journal, China’s surveillance network on the island “underwent a significant upgrade” (the Cuban and Chinese foreign ministries have denied reports of a Chinese surveillance facility in Cuba). Evan Ellis, a Latin America analyst at the U.S. Army War College, told The Journal that the deal “is basically Chinese pay-to-play,” adding that “China gives money to Cuba it desperately needs, and China gets access to the listening facility.” Last fall, China agreed to restructure Cuba’s debt and donate $100 million to the island. One reason Cuba still needs Beijing’s money is that the Biden administration has kept key Trump sanctions in place.

U.S.-Iran relations follow a similar pattern. When the two countries signed the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister at the time, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called it “not a ceiling but a solid foundation. We must now begin to build on it.” Iran’s leaders, like Cuba’s, hoped better relations with the United States would spur Western investment. Although some Iranian hard-liners feared that economic ties to the West would weaken the regime, Mr. Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani gambled that a stronger economy would strengthen Iran’s regional position and defuse popular discontent, thus helping solidify the country’s despotic political system.

It didn’t work out that way. Mr. Trump canceled the nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions. Rather than re-enter the agreement on its first day in office, the Biden administration made additional demands, which helped thwart efforts to revive the deal. And as the prospect of substantial U.S. and European investment disappeared, so did Washington’s leverage over Iran’s relationship with Moscow. Iran now has little to lose by developing what a National Security Council spokesman recently called a “full-scale defense partnership” with Russia.

This isn’t the first time the United States has driven smaller nations into the arms of its superpower adversaries. It did so during the Cold War. In his book “Embers of War,” Fredrik Logevall notes that until the late 1940s, Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese nationalist leader, believed the United States “could be the champion of his cause” of independence from France. During World War II, Mr. Minh’s rebel army, the Viet Minh, worked alongside the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the C.I.A., in America’s fight against Japan.

But as Cold War tensions rose, the Truman administration disregarded its Asia experts — many of whom considered the Viet Minh a primarily nationalist rather than Communist movement — and backed French efforts to preserve its empire. By 1950, the Viet Minh were receiving arms from Communist China.

A decade later, the United States did something similar in Cuba. After taking power at the beginning of 1959, Fidel Castro set about redistributing wealth and revising the island’s historically subservient relationship with Washington. But despite Mr. Castro’s leftist inclinations, William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh note in their book, “Back Channel to Cuba,” he “showed no special affinity for the Soviet Union during his first year in power.” It was only after Mr. Castro nationalized large plantations, which led the Eisenhower administration to begin plotting his overthrow, that Havana grew dependent on Moscow for economic and military assistance. U.S. animosity, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev observed, pushed Cuba toward the U.S.S.R. “like an iron filing to a magnet.”

The Cold War should remind us that countries with similar political systems aren’t necessarily allies. During the Cold War, many U.S. policymakers doubted that Communist governments could remain independent of the U.S.S.R. But that’s exactly what happened in Yugoslavia, where Josip Broz Tito split with the Soviet Union in 1948 and later welcomed U.S. aid. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union and China became adversaries themselves.

If even governments that shared a common Marxist ideology didn’t always get along, there’s even less reason to believe that the diverse forms of tyranny practiced in China, Russia, Iran and Cuba constitute binding glue today. There’s nothing ideologically predestined about the growing security or military ties between Havana and Beijing or Tehran and Moscow. They stem, in large measure, from Washington’s efforts to starve Cuba and Iran into submission rather than forge working relationships with regimes whose political systems and foreign policy orientations we dislike.

These days, hawks in Washington say the United States cannot lift broad-based sanctions on Iran and Cuba, even though they deny ordinary people food and medicine, because the two countries are partnering with America’s enemies. Maybe the hawks should have thought of that before they brokered those partnerships in the first place.

Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also an editor at large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

The New York Times · by Peter Beinart · July 3, 2023

14. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 3, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-3-2023

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four sectors of the front and made marginal advances on July 3.
Russian milbloggers have seized on recent Ukrainian activity on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast to call for an increased presence of small river vessels and equipment in the Dnipro River to prevent further Ukrainian advances.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev published an essay that reamplified inflammatory Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine and the West, likely to undermine support for Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reiterated boilerplate rhetoric about the current state of the war in Ukraine and the Wagner Group rebellion on July 3.
Russian forces continued drone and missile strikes against rear areas in Ukraine overnight and during the day on July 3.
The Kremlin continues to use tools of digital authoritarianism to surveil Russia’s domestic population and aims to expand domestic production of surveillance technology.
Ukrainian and Russian forces continued limited attacks on the Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna.
Russian and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks in the Bakhmut area.
Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast, near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts administrative border, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Official Russian sources continue to claim that Russian forces repel all Ukrainian assaults on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near the Antonivsky Bridge.
The Wagner Group is reportedly suspending regional recruitment on a temporary basis.
Russian officials continue efforts to portray Russia as a safe custodian of Ukrainian children while inadvertently confirming that Russia is facilitating mass deportations of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 3, 2023

Jul 3, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 3, 2023

Grace Mappes, Karolina Hird, Nicole Wolkov, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 3, 2023, 8pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 2:30pm ET on July 3. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 4 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four sectors of the front and made marginal advances on July 3. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the Lyman direction.[1] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area, the western Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[2] Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces recaptured nine square kilometers of territory in eastern Ukraine, and geolocated footage shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced southwest of Bakhmut.[3] Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces also recaptured 28.4 square kilometers in southern Ukraine in the past week for a total of 158.4 square kilometers in southern Ukraine during an unspecified time period.[4] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces made limited gains south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[5]

Russian milbloggers have seized on recent Ukrainian activity on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast to call for an increased presence of small river vessels and equipment in the Dnipro River to prevent further Ukrainian advances. Russian milbloggers appealed on July 2 to the heads of the Dagestan and Tatarstan republics, Astrakhan Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, and Primorsky Krai to send boats confiscated from poachers to the Kherson Oblast frontline, specifying that 10 regiments and brigades of the Southern Military District’s “Dnepr” (the Russian word for Dnipro) Grouping of Forces sorely need the vessels.[6] ISW previously reported on July 2 that milbloggers are accusing the Russian MoD of failing to provide Russian forces on the east bank with requisite boats and other equipment, and it appears that milbloggers outsourced their requests for additional logistical support to Russian regional heads.[7] Dagestan Republic Head Sergey Melikov responded to the milblogger appeal on July 3 and ordered Dagestan to solve the issue of transferring confiscated poaching boats to Russian forces.[8] One Russian milblogger called for the resurrection of the “Dnepr” flotilla,” a special miliary river unit that was active in the 1735-1739 and 1787-1792 Russo-Turkish wars, the Russian Civil War, and World War II.[9] The milblogger claimed that a resurrected “Dnepr” flotilla could significantly ameliorate the position of Russian troops in the Kherson direction and that this grouping could be reinforced with simple, civilian-use boats.[10] Several other milbloggers, including former Russian officer Igor Girkin, claimed that Russian forces in Kherson Oblast need small boats and equipment in order to keep Ukrainian troops as far back from the Dnipro delta as possible.[11] The overall anxious milblogger response to recent Ukrainian activity across the Dnipro River suggests that many Russian milbloggers fear Ukraine’s ability to cross the river and believe that the current command of the “Dnepr” grouping has not sufficiently prepared its troops for that potentiality.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev published an essay that reamplified inflammatory Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine and the West, likely to undermine support for Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit.[12] Medvedev’s July 3 essay paints his usual alarmist rhetoric in new colors; he again portrayed the war in Ukraine as part of a broader existential conflict against the West, restated many of Putin’s extreme pre-war demands that transcended Ukraine, and implied that Russia is prepared to engage in this broader conflict for “decades” if these demands are not met.[13] Medvedev claimed that “armageddon” is “probable” if the West does not agree to negotiate a new world order with Russia, absurdly claiming that the nuclear “taboo” is broken (presumably by the US use of atomic weapons in 1945--it is otherwise entirely unclear to what he might be referring) to falsely imply that nuclear war is a certainty.[14] Medvedev attempted to portray Russia as connected to partners outside of the West despite Western sanctions, and that states not aligned with the West actively stand against it. Medvedev’s essay is consistent with his and other senior Kremlin officials’ prior attempts to scare Western states, organizations, and media prior to significant international discussions about military, political, and economic support for Ukraine and its effort to liberate Russian-held territories.[15] Medvedev’s essay is a restatement of existing Russian narratives and does not represent a true inflection in Russian political, military, or nuclear rhetoric.[16]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reiterated boilerplate rhetoric about the current state of the war in Ukraine and the Wagner Group rebellion on July 3.[17] Shoigu notably did not directly name the Wagner Group or its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin while discussing the “provocation,” opting instead to denounce the rebellion and credit the loyalty of the Russian military as the reason for the rebellion’s failure. Shoigu also claimed that Ukrainian forces have lost 2,500 pieces of military equipment since June 4, likely intending to undermine Western support for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Shoigu’s speech did not present any new rhetorical arguments and is likely continued projection of claimed internal stability following the rebellion and portraying the Russian military as capable of defending against the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Russian forces continued drone and missile strikes against rear areas in Ukraine overnight and during the day on July 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 17 Shahed drones at unspecified areas of Ukraine overnight on July 2-3, and Ukrainian forces shot down 13 of the drones.[18] The Ukrainian General Staff reported in its evening situational report that Russian forces targeted civilian infrastructure with three S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and 20 Shahed drones in Sumy, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia Oblast during the day on July 3, and Ukrainian forces shot down 16 of the UAVs.[19] The Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported that Shahed drones struck a residential building in Sumy City, killing two and injuring 19 civilians.[20]

The Kremlin continues to use tools of digital authoritarianism to surveil Russia’s domestic population and aims to expand domestic production of surveillance technology. The New York Times (NYT) reported on June 3 that the Kremlin has given Russian law enforcement, including the Federal Security Service (FSB), more tools to monitor the location of phones, break into personal accounts, and track activity in encrypted applications such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal.[21] According to Russian internal records that NYT reportedly obtained, the Russian government reportedly aims to expand its surveillance technology tools by supporting the transition of Russian technology firms into producing advanced tools for Russian intelligence services. Russian technology firms may be experiencing a shortage of skilled employees given the number of skilled workers that left Russia after the start of the war in February 2022.[22] ISW has previously reported on the Kremlin’s use of automated technology to censor the Russian information space and trading of surveillance tools in exchange for weapons to use in Ukraine.[23]

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four sectors of the front and made marginal advances on July 3.
Russian milbloggers have seized on recent Ukrainian activity on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast to call for an increased presence of small river vessels and equipment in the Dnipro River to prevent further Ukrainian advances.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev published an essay that reamplified inflammatory Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine and the West, likely to undermine support for Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reiterated boilerplate rhetoric about the current state of the war in Ukraine and the Wagner Group rebellion on July 3.
Russian forces continued drone and missile strikes against rear areas in Ukraine overnight and during the day on July 3.
The Kremlin continues to use tools of digital authoritarianism to surveil Russia’s domestic population and aims to expand domestic production of surveillance technology.
Ukrainian and Russian forces continued limited attacks on the Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna.
Russian and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks in the Bakhmut area.
Ukrainian forces reportedly continued limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast, near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia oblasts administrative border, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Official Russian sources continue to claim that Russian forces repel all Ukrainian assaults on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near the Antonivsky Bridge.
The Wagner Group is reportedly suspending regional recruitment on a temporary basis.
Russian officials continue efforts to portray Russia as a safe custodian of Ukrainian children while inadvertently confirming that Russia is facilitating mass deportations of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Ukrainian and Russian forces continued limited attacks on the Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna on July 3. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna), Torske (14km west of Kreminna), Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna), and Zolotarivka (16km south of Kreminna).[24] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces also attacked near Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna) and in the Serebrianska forest area (10km south of Kreminna).[25] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove) on July 2 and 3.[26] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed on July 2 that Chechen Akhmat special forces continue to operate in the Kreminna area. Russian milbloggers also claimed that elements of the Russian 228th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (90th Guards Tank Division, Central Military District) are operating near Kreminna and that the 85th Brigade of the 2nd Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Army Corps is operating near Bilohorivka (12km southwest of Kreminna).[27]

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

Russian and Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks in the Bakhmut area on July 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive operations west of Bakhmut itself, and northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (10km northwest), Minkivka (13km northwest), and Bohdanivka (5km northwest).[28] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on July 3 that Ukrainian troops continue to advance in unspecified parts of the Bakhmut direction.[29] Russian milbloggers continued to discuss Ukrainian counteroffensive operations southwest of Bakhmut, particularly between Kurdiumivka (13km southwest) and Klishchiivka (6km southwest).[30] Geolocated combat footage posted on July 2 shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced towards the treeline west of Klishchiivka.[31] Russian sources, including the Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks near Klishchiivka, Kurdiumivka, and Ozarianivka (16km southwest of Bakhmut).[32] Several Russian sources claimed that elements of the 4th Brigade of the 2nd LNR Army Corps repelled Ukrainian attacks near Klishchiivka.[33]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka and that Ukrainian forces repelled 14 Russian ground attacks near Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[34] Geolocated footage posted on July 3 shows that Russian forces have made a marginal advance southeast of Pervomaiske (on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[35] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks southwest of Avdiivka and within Marinka.[36]

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

The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted an unsuccessful ground attack in the Vuhledar area in western Donetsk Oblast. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack north of Mykilske (4km southeast of Vuhledar).[37]

Ukrainian forces continued to conduct ground attacks along the administrative border between western Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts on July 3. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces continue to conduct successful offensive operations in the Novosilka direction (immediately west of Velyka Novosilka) and the Staromaiorske direction (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and conducted offensive operations in the Novodarivka (14km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) directions.[38] Malyar also reported that Ukrainian forces have liberated an additional 28.4 square kilometers in southern Ukraine, for a total of 154.4 liberated square kilometers in an unspecified time frame (presumably since the start of Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in early June). The Russian MoD and other Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Makarivka (7km south of Velyka Novosilka), Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), Pryyutne, and Staromaiorske. [39]

Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 2. Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Novodanylivka (6km south of Orikhiv) and Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv) directions.[40] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces captured an unspecified number of Russian positions near Luhivske (18km southeast of Orikhiv) and advanced toward Robotyne.[41] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces attacking with a grouping of up to two assault platoons near Robotyne.[42] Russian sources did not report ground attacks near Pyatykhatky (25km southwest of Orikhiv) but claimed that Russian and Ukrainian artillery is active near the settlement.[43] Footage published on July 3 purportedly shows units of the 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th Guards Mountain VDV Division) operating in the Zaporizhia direction.[44] Russian sources claimed on July 2 that elements of the 1430th Motorized Rifle Regiment of Territorial Troops (TRV) are operating near Robotyne and that elements of the 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade (GRU) are operating in the Orikhiv direction.[45]

Russian forces are accumulating military equipment in the rear of occupied Zaporizhia Oblast. Satellite imagery published on July 2 shows new helicopters and vehicles at the Berdyansk airport.[46] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported on July 3 that Russian military helicopters are accumulating in Berdyansk and Kyrylivka[47] Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported on July 2 and 3 that Russian forces are transporting military equipment in the Berdyansk direction.[48]

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that an unspecified actor, likely Ukraine, reconnected the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant’s (ZNPP) only available back-up power line on July 1.[49] IAEA Director Rafael Grossi stated that the ZNPP’s power situation remains “extremely fragile” and is not sustainable due to the combat activities.[50] The IAEA reported that Russian shelling disconnected the power line on March 1, causing the ZNPP to rely on a single main power line for external electricity needed for reactor cooling and other safety functions.

Official Russian sources continue to claim that Russian forces repel all Ukrainian assaults on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near the Antonivsky Bridge. Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo claimed on July 3 that Russian forces repel all of the Ukrainian forces that attempt to cross the Dnipro River.[51] The Russian MoD claimed that it takes only two minutes for Russian observation posts on the east bank of the Dnipro River to observe Ukrainian forces operating near Russian positions and order Russian forces to strike them.[52] Another Russian milblogger claimed that fighting is ongoing near Antonivsky Bridge.[53]

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

The Wagner Group is reportedly suspending regional recruitment on a temporary basis. Several Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels that focus on the dissemination of recruitment information reported that due to Wagner’s “temporary non-participation" in the war in Ukraine and its relocation to Belarus, Wagner is “temporarily suspending the work of regional recruitment centers” for a one-month period.[54] Wagner may have paused domestic recruitment as it attempts to grapple with formalization processes under the Russian MoD and move some of its training capacity to Belarus. A prominent Russian milblogger responded to the announcement and called for Russian authorities to call a new wave of mobilization to compensate for losses in Russian force generation capacity as a result of suspended Wagner recruitment.[55] State Duma Defense Committee head Andrey Kartapolov previously told Kremlin newswire TASS, however, that there is no need for a new wave of mobilization despite Wagner’s withdrawal from the combat zone.[56]

An investigation by Russian opposition outlet Protokol confirmed the details of a reported deal between Russia and Iran pertaining to a drone manufacturing factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Republic of Tatarstan. Protokol cited an unnamed internal source who claimed that the Russo-Iranian contract is valued at between 115 to 130 billion rubles (about $1.3-1.5 million) and that Iran supplies all components for the production of Shahed drones, which are assembled at the Alabuga SEZ.[57] Protokol also found that the contract includes a stipulation for the training of specialists from the Alabuga SEZ in Iran and that the first of these training trips took place in March 2023.[58] The Protokol investigation noted that the contract provides that the number of components imported from Iran should gradually decrease as the Alabuga SEZ is able to increase the independent production of individual components.[59] The White House previously reported on June 9 that Iran is helping Russia build a drone plant in Alabuga, and ISW assessed on July 1 that Iran may be sending material and personnel to the Republic of Tatarstan for the manufacture of combat drones for use in Ukraine.[60]

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

Russian officials continue efforts to portray Russia as a safe custodian of Ukrainian children while inadvertently confirming that Russia is facilitating mass deportations of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation. Russian State Duma Deputy Grigory Karasin claimed on July 2 that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have fled Ukraine for Russia during an unspecified timespan allegedly in recent years.[61] It is unclear whether Karasin’s claimed timespan includes only 2022-2023 or 2014-2023. However, Karasin’s statement confirms ISW’s long-standing assessment that Russia is using the guise of humanitarian necessity to justify the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.[62]

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

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

Russian sources continued to speculate about the construction of Wagner field camps in Belarus. A Wagner-affiliated milblogger posted images on July 3 reportedly of the construction of a Wagner base near Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast, and claimed that some Wagner units have already begun training with tanks, heavy equipment, and artillery.[63]

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

15. Temperatures seen surging as El Nino weather pattern returns

Temperatures seen surging as El Nino weather pattern returns

Reuters · by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

Summary
Companies
El Nino emerges for first time in seven years
Temperatures seen surging
WHO expects increase in infections diseases

GENEVA, July 4 (Reuters) - Temperatures are expected to soar across large parts of the world after the El Nino weather pattern emerged in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, the World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday.

El Nino, a warming of water surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, is linked to extreme weather conditions from tropical cyclones to heavy rainfall to severe droughts.

The world's hottest year on record, 2016, coincided with a strong El Nino - though experts says climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.

Even that record could soon be broken, according to the WMO.

The organisation said in May that there was a strong likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, would be the warmest on record due to El Nino and anthropogenic global warming.

"To tell you whether it will be this year or next year is difficult," Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of Regional Climate Prediction Service at WMO, told reporters in Geneva.

"What we know is that throughout the next five years, we are likely to have one of the warmest years on record."

The World Health Organization said last month it was preparing for an increased spread of viral diseases such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya linked to El Nino.

"We can reasonably expect even an increase in infectious diseases because of the temperature," Maria Neira, Director for Environment, Climate Change and Health at WHO, told reporters.

During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.

The phenomenon occurs on average every two to seven years, and can last nine to 12 months, according to the WMO.

It is typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

In the past, it has caused severe droughts in Australia, Indonesia, parts of southern Asia, Central America and northern South America.

Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Alex Richardson and Christina Fincher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

16. China to restrict exports of chipmaking materials as US mulls new curbs

China to restrict exports of chipmaking materials as US mulls new curbs

Reuters · by Reuters

BEIJING, July 3 (Reuters) - China will control exports of some metals widely used in the semiconductor industry, its commerce ministry announced on Monday, the latest salvo in an escalating war over access to high-tech microchips between Beijing and the United States.

The controls, which China said were aimed at protecting national security and interests, will require exporters to seek permission to ship some gallium and germanium products.

The move to manage exports of the rare elements that Beijing classifies as strategic, comes as Washington mulls new restrictions on the shipment of high-tech microchips to China, according to media reports.

The United States and the Netherlands are also set to deliver a one-two punch to China's chipmakers this summer by further restricting sales of chipmaking equipment, part of efforts to prevent their technology from being used to strengthen China's military.

China's controls, to take effect from August 1, will apply to eight gallium-related products: gallium antimonide, gallium arsenide, gallium metal, gallium nitride, gallium oxide, gallium phosphide, gallium selenide and indium gallium arsenide.

They will also apply to six germanium products: germanium dioxide, germanium epitaxial growth substrate, germanium ingot, germanium metal, germanium tetrachloride and zinc germanium phosphide.

Exporters will need to go through procedures to obtain export licences, China's commerce ministry said in a statement.

Anyone exporting these products without permission and those who export in excess of the permitted volumes will be punished, it said.

Germanium is also used in infrared technology, fibre optic cables and solar cells.

Reporting by Siyi Liu, Amy Lv and Dominique Patton and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Jason Neely and Tom Hogue

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

17. Russia says Ukraine attacked Moscow with at least five drones

Russia says Ukraine attacked Moscow with at least five drones

Reuters · by Guy Faulconbridge

Summary
Drone attack on Moscow
Russia says attack is 'terrorism'
Four drones shot down, one jammed - defence ministry
Vnukovo airport flights disrupted
No comment from Kyiv

MOSCOW, July 4 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine had attacked Moscow with at least five drones that were all either shot down or jammed, though one of the capital's main airports had to reroute flights for several hours.

Four Ukrainian drones were shot down by Moscow air defences while a fifth was jammed and crashed into the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, the Russian defence ministry said. No one was injured.

Russian news agencies reported that two drones were intercepted near a village 30 km (19 miles) southwest of the Kremlin. One drone was detected in the neighbouring Kaluga region.

Landings and takeoffs at Moscow's Vnukovo were restricted for several hours early on Tuesday before normal operations resumed after 0500 GMT. A number of flights from Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt were diverted.

One drone was shot down in the area of the town of Kubinka, some 63 km (40 miles) west of Moscow, RIA reported. A Russian air base is near Kubinka.

Russia's foreign and defence ministries denounced the attack as terrorism.

"The Kyiv regime's attempt to attack an area where civilian infrastructure is located, including the airport, which incidentally also receives foreign flights, is yet another act of terrorism," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

"The international community should realise that the United States, Britain, France - permanent members of the UN Security Council - are financing a terrorist regime," she said.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

High-profile drone attacks deep inside Russia, the world's largest country, have increased over recent months with attacks on the Kremlin in May and on Russian oil infrastructure last month.

After May's drone attack on the capital, President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was trying to scare and provoke Russia, adding that the capital's air defences would be strengthened.

"At this moment, the attacks have been repelled by air defence forces," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his Telegram messaging channel. "All detected drones have been eliminated."

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Guy Faulconbridge

Thomson Reuters

As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins - reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian. Contact: +447825218698

Reuters · by Guy Faulconbridge

18. Grand Strategy is What States Make of It: #Reviewing Wars of Revelation

Conclusion:

Lissner’s Wars of Revelation is a rich and thoughtful discussion of how military interventions provide information to civilian and military leaders about the global security environment and current U.S. capabilities. However, her book leaves unresolved questions about how grand strategies are created, negotiated, and revised. Given the importance of thinking about grand strategy, this book should spur greater discussion about who is involved in these conversations and what influence they have.

Grand Strategy is What States Make of It: #Reviewing Wars of Revelation

thestrategybridge.org · July 4, 2023

Wars of Revelation: The Transformative Effects of Military Intervention on Grand Strategy. Rebecca Lissner. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Buy on Amazon

Reconsideration of U.S. grand strategy is critical in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine alongside rising tensions with China. Rebecca Lissner’s Wars of Revelation makes a compelling argument that past U.S. military interventions have played an important role in shaping U.S. grand strategy. Grand strategy is a broad concept encompassing both threats to national security and possible responses. Drawing on extensive archival research, she examines events around the U.S. interventions in Korea, Vietnam, and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and argues past wars are formative in that they reveal foreign policy objectives, the ability to apply military power, the capabilities of militaries of certain profiles, and the relative will of polities to achieve their aims.[1] Wars of Revelation provides a rich description of the information gained through military intervention but lacks a generalizable explanation of how actors use that information to change U.S. grand strategy.

The Cases

Lissner begins at the outset of the Cold War in Korea, concluding the Korean War reframed the threat posed by Communism in the minds of American policymakers.[2] Rather than major wars between the great powers, the more likely threats were smaller, low-intensity conflicts.[3] This persuaded President Truman to reassess U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent. The uneven performance of U.S. forces also provided information about the limits of the military’s capabilities and led to an inward reassessment, elevating the importance of conventional means suitable for conducting limited war.[4] Lissner provides archival evidence that construction and support for overseas military bases increased in response to the Korean war.

According to Lissner, the U.S. engagement in Vietnam, on the other hand, demonstrated the United States had perhaps overestimated the threat from communist forces. U.S. policymakers had committed themselves to repelling any Communist advance in the region, embracing the so-called Domino Theory.[5]

However, information learned during the Vietnam War ultimately drove U.S. policymakers to reassess the threat of expansion by the Soviet Union and China. Anti-war protests in the United States also demonstrated there were limits to the public’s willingness to fund expensive and costly wars. Lissner concludes that “Vietnam broke the containment orthodoxy by demonstrating that it was domestically unsustainable—but also strategically unnecessary.”[6]

For Lissner’s final case study, she argues that the 1991 Persian Gulf War encouraged U.S. policymakers to embrace the vision of a “New World Order,” ushering in an era of greater interdependence and cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Lissner argues: “U.S. grand strategy after the Gulf War thus placed significant emphasis on deterring and defending against Iraq and Iraq-like threats, which became the central preoccupation of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period.”[7] As with the other conflicts, Lissner finds that this intervention significantly informed U.S. grand strategy, particularly about the nature of future threats and the dominance of U.S. capabilities.

President George H. W. Bush addresses a joint session of Congress regarding the end of the war with Iraq, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC.06 March 1991, declaring a “new world order.” (George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum/Wikimedia)

The Fuzzy Nature of Strategy

Lissner’s argument might seem as obvious as it is compelling. She stresses that her research and analysis goes beyond the merely intuitive and provides insight into how interventions provide crucial opportunities for information gathering. However, it is difficult to generalize from her analysis because three key questions are left unaddressed. First, what is grand strategy? Second, who makes grand strategy? Finally, is grand strategy a stable concept?

Pinning down a concept like grand strategy is challenging. However, it is important for the reader of Lissner’s book to understand what it is and how it is to be observed. Lissner’s initial definition, which describes grand strategy as “the highest-order and most consequential dimension of statecraft” is fuzzy.[8] Something so vast and important seems difficult to discern, and it's not clear that it could be found in a single document or that it would be authored by a particular person or even group.

Lissner refers to grand strategy almost as though it hangs in the ether. She questions explanations of grand strategy focused on leaders, arguing its evolution was much more continuous than a great leader focus would suggest.[9]

Lissner does not clearly specify the roles and influence of the various policy makers involved in creating and revising grand strategy. In each case study she provides substantial archival evidence of civilian and military leaders gaining information from each intervention and ultimately revising U.S. grand strategy. However, it is not clear who is consistently engaged in the creation and revision of grand strategy and how differences between the players might be resolved.

For example, one might ask why it took the United States so long to learn from the intervention in Vietnam. Lissner notes: “From Johnson’s escalation in 1965 through the end of 1967, however, the Vietnam War’s adverse trends went largely unexamined. To some extent, the messy and multifaceted nature of the conflict on both sides of the north-south border obscured data from coalescing into clear patterns.”[10] The lack of clarity on the positions of various decision makers and the process of creating grand strategy weakens Lissner’s ability to make testable and generalizable claims.

Lissner’s analysis presumes that policymakers agree on a unitary understanding of U.S. grand strategy. Given that grand strategy includes military, economic, and diplomatic calculations, it is hard to imagine that it can be pinned down to one agreed upon meaning at any time. It is possible at any one time that decision makers, holding different kinds of information, could have divergent views of U.S. grand strategy.

Conclusion

Lissner’s Wars of Revelation is a rich and thoughtful discussion of how military interventions provide information to civilian and military leaders about the global security environment and current U.S. capabilities. However, her book leaves unresolved questions about how grand strategies are created, negotiated, and revised. Given the importance of thinking about grand strategy, this book should spur greater discussion about who is involved in these conversations and what influence they have.

Given the importance of thinking about grand strategy, this book should spur greater discussion about who is involved in these conversations and what influence they have.

Christi Siver is currently a Professor of Political Science at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University. She earned her MA in International Relations and International Economics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Washington. She teaches courses on international relations and international security and is the author of Military Intervention, War Crimes, and Civilian Protection.

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

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

Header Image: Korean War Memorial, Washington, DC, 2018. (Brittany Colette).

Notes:

[1] Lissner, 7.

[2] Lissner, 39.

[3] Lissner, 55.

[4] Lissner, 25.

[5] Lissner, 67.

[6] Lissner, 104.

[7] Lissner, 110.

[8] Lissner, 19.

[9] Lissner, 56.

[10] Lissner, 87.

thestrategybridge.org · July 4, 2023

19. What the U.S. Military Still Hasn’t Learned From Iraq

Dr WIlson certainly has some inside perspectives. This is an important and useful essay.

In 2003 while a student at the National War College I recall listening to Ambassador Crocker as well as planners from 3d Army describe the "Phase IV" planning- post conflict operations that they developed but which was not found acceptable to senior (mostly civilian) leadership. There was recognition before the invasion that an insurgency was likely to arise following the end of major combat operations. But the advice and recommended plans were not heeded.

Regarding de-Baticifcaiton and disbanding the Iraqi Army we should modify Sun Tzu's advice and change the word destroy to dissolve.

“To capture the enemy’s entire army is better than to destroy [dissolve] it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy [dissolve] them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.”

— Sun Tzu

Excerpt:

In Iraq, the U.S. military failed because it did not realize that all politics is local. Washington and its coalition of the willing proved unwilling to work with and through local tribes and kin-based political networks, as well as with regional and international tribal confederations, for far too long. In future civil-military interventions, the United States must instead begin and end its efforts at the basic roots of human society. To succeed in engaging populations as they are, rather than just as state actors, the armed forces should do a better job of engaging civilian governmental or international actors, as well. And whenever possible, the military should seek to deter without actually using lethal force. The U.S. armed forces are extremely powerful, and they can use their might to help intimidate and deter adversaries without fighting.

What the U.S. Military Still Hasn’t Learned From Iraq

It’s Hard to Win Without a Plan for the Future

By Ike Wilson

July 4, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Ike Wilson · July 4, 2023

By the summer of 2003, it had become clear to even its most ardent proponents that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had, at the very least, not gone as planned. After Washington disbanded the Iraqi military at the end of May, hundreds of thousands of armed men began protesting across the country. Fighters began regularly attacking U.S. and allied soldiers, prompting the American military to spend June carrying out a series of operations to find and kill armed groups. As the weeks went by, these groups began carrying out even bigger and bolder attacks. In August, they bombed the Canal Hotel, killing the UN special envoy to Iraq.

That, of course, was just the beginning. Twenty years later, it is clear that in the post–Cold War era no conflict has been more consequential to the U.S. military than the war in Iraq. The U.S. military spent nearly $2 trillion deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and fighting the insurgencies that arose in his wake. The United States lost 4,000 soldiers in combat, and it has spent more than $200 billion caring for those who were permanently injured. The United States still has troops in Iraq, and so these costs continue to mount. Approximately four million Americans fought in the war, people who spent the formative years of their lives battling for control of a country more than 6,000 miles from where they grew up.

It is now obvious that the war was a strategic disaster. Despite all of its investment in Baghdad, the United States ultimately created a fragile state with deep ties to Iran—one of Washington’s main antagonists. All over the world, the invasion engendered tremendous ill will toward the United States. It gave birth to new terrorist groups, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). And it ended Washington’s moment of unquestioned dominance, illustrating that even the world’s most powerful country could not get away with whatever it wanted.

These sweeping failures have been endlessly dissected by journalists, academics, and politicians. But 20 years later, as it continues to reflect on the invasion, the United States must think about more than just how its overarching plans failed, or where its intelligence was wrong. It must also consider how the military—despite its many resources and great sophistication—could not create lasting peace in Iraq.

In some ways, it is hard to blame the armed forces for this failure. Turning Iraq into a tranquil democracy was always going to be extraordinarily difficult, and unlike the White House and Congress, the U.S. military did not decide to embark on it. The military also did not set the conflict’s objectives. The armed forces did what they were asked. Unlike the Russian military in Ukraine, the U.S. military did not leak key secrets, run low on weapons, or overstretch its supply lines (although it came close to doing so, in the early days of the initial “march up country”). Within a month of invading, the armed forces had captured the Iraqi capital and driven the country’s government from power.

But the U.S. military, like Washington as a whole, did not seriously plan for what would happen after it defeated Saddam’s regime. It had no good strategy for securing a victory where the country would be democratic and stable, rather than riven with internal divisions. The military did realize that it needed more troops than Washington wanted to commit. When asked by Congress before the invasion what it would take to defeat and occupy Iraq, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki said that the armed forces would need several hundred thousand soldiers, more than the 130,000 they were given. But the military still failed to adequately communicate with U.S. civilian leaders.

Instead of walking into Iraq and trying to tackle challenges as they came, the U.S. military should have clearly defined and planned for the long-term problems of not just meeting the mission of destroying the enemy forces it expected to face but also of restoring effective Iraqi civil governance. It should have better studied and worked to understand the endemic problems facing Iraq—such as its historical, economic, and social struggles—rather than focusing all its attention on how to oust Saddam’s government. If it had considered all these factors, the U.S. military could have told civilian leaders that their goals for the country were beyond the armed forces’ capacities, and then made clear to these officials what the military could realistically accomplish. Instead, the U.S. military conflated and confused what it would take to win in battle with what it takes to fully win a war, meaning that its best military advice to civilian leaders came up short. And as early as March 19, 2003, it was already becoming clear that the enemy the United States faced was not, as U.S. General William Wallace put it, “the one we war-gamed against.”

To avoid repeating these mistakes, the U.S. armed forces must better communicate with Washington going forward. In doing so, the military should do what it can to steer the United States away from wars of choice. When it must enter new conflicts—and in today’s turbulent world, it may have to—the military needs to expand and enlarge the advice it gives civilians on how to campaign. It needs to better assist civilian decision-makers in crafting long-term strategies that can secure lasting victories, instead of just short-term plans to defeat enemy forces. It must learn how to convert local wins into broader victories. The military cannot, in other words, behave as it did in 2003—and assume that force alone will transform a divided and poor country into a Western-style democracy. The U.S. military’s best military advice must get better, and it must be inclusive of what it takes to win the peace in addition to what it takes to win a fight.

DOOMED FROM THE START

When the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, I was an army major, attending the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies. I first voiced my concerns as a student, arguing that the United States was not ready for the war it had planned. I also expressed worries in the pre-invasion phase while responding to an army chief of staff’s request for alternative military options to an all-out invasion.

My concerns only got worse when the war started. After graduating early from the School of Advanced Military Studies, I deployed to Iraq to co-lead Shinseki’s Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group, which was deputized to chronicle and study in detail how the invasion was going. From what I saw, it was apparent early on that the military would struggle to succeed. We invaded the country without an operations-ready “Phase IV” plan for consolidating our victory after combat ended; there was, in other words, no formal strategy for occupying and stabilizing the country. Because Washington was not preparing for this monumental task, it never committed enough troops to the invasion. It also coordinated relatively little with civilian and other governmental agencies, figuring that the war would be quick and that it would therefore transfer responsibilities to some civilian agency by summer 2003. As a result, the military concluded that substantial outside support would be unnecessary.

Part of the reason for this failure lies with civilian officials, who would not meet the military’s early troop requests, and who also had minimal interest in becoming involved with Iraqi state-building. But part of the failure very much lies with the military. The American armed forces remained institutionally committed to the traditional way of doing war, which emphasizes defeating an opposing state’s own armed services. U.S. commanders therefore focused on calculating the type and amount of forces required to win against Saddam’s military—not what kind of forces they would also need once the regime had crumbled. As a result, once Saddam was driven from office, the United States and its allies had to haphazardly pivot from dynamic, rapid major combat operations to slower-moving and lower-level protracted ones. Suddenly, there was a whole new set of numbers and equations that the United States needed to consider, as the mission, enemy, and culture altered and expanded dramatically and the military’s task expanded beyond winning in military battles (which is, itself, complicated enough). For example, the West’s lack of knowledge of and appreciation for entities and armed organizations other than states—including tribes and clans—made it impossible to properly plan. The U.S. military, intensely focused on physical geography, failed to realize that religion, culture, and ethnicity are also a type of terrain.

The U.S. military paid too little heed to Iraq’s many sectarian divisions.

Angry Iraqis quickly capitalized on this uncertainty. In 2004, as the United States and its coalition tried to redefine their aims and policies, the opposition organized into an insurgency. U.S. troops fought back, and they continued to win battles against armed militias in various locales. But without a greater and clearer strategic purpose, these local efforts did not add up to a bigger success. Planners failed to create a way to turn individual operations, actions, activities, and investments into an effective and comprehensive campaign. By the 2004 U.S. presidential election, American commentators began asking a quippish, but fair, question: How could we have a plan for the war but not for the peace?

By late 2006, Washington finally accepted that the United States needed to send more troops to Iraq in order to stabilize the country. And in early 2007, the United States began its famous “surge,” sending 30,000 additional soldiers onto the battlefield. Seemingly, it was a success. As the military’s presence expanded, violence declined. By December 2011, the United States felt secure enough that it finally withdrew from Iraq.

Yet in reality, the surge provided little more than what the journalist and former CIA analyst Frank Snepp, referring to Vietnam, called “a decent interval” to escape obvious censure for failure. The campaign pacified the insurgents, but the U.S. military paid too little heed to Iraq’s many sectarian divisions as it tried to suppress violence. It made no durable attempt to work or reshape the country’s system of tribes and kin-based relationships beyond making transactions with them. As a result, it was easy for violence to flare back up once the United States withdrew.

And flare up it did. Within three years of Washington’s departure, the self-proclaimed Islamic State—which was partially led by prisoners of war held by the United States—erased the international boundary between Iraq and Syria. It invaded and took over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014. The U.S. military was then forced to return to the country in order to push ISIS out. Even after ten years, many U.S. troops have not left.

THE FOREST AND THE TREES

On a tactical level, the U.S. military has learned much from two decades of fighting in Iraq. It has developed new operational concepts, and it has discovered how to take advantage of technologies that could improve combat capabilities. The armed forces, for example, have made strides in information-based warfare. Based on what happened in Iraq, the military created the Joint Military WebOps Information Center, which helps the Joint Chiefs of Staff better understand digital information and operations. Since invading the country, the U.S. Army alone transformed entire warfighting divisions into digitally linked formations, based on the idea that such links would increase the tempo of ground operations and thereby make army forces both more lethal and likely to survive. New technologies have also allowed the military to decentralize mission command by giving officials a literal picture of unit locations and movements, making it easier for officers to make quick decisions.

But despite significant operational achievements, there are many lessons that the U.S. military has not learned from Iraq. In fact, some of the armed forces’ advances could exacerbate the faults. Take, for instance, the U.S. armed forces’ critical failure to chart out a plan for how to permanently stabilize the country. The United States’ improved prowess at quickly projecting military force simultaneously, across multiple theaters of conflict, has allowed Washington to continue neglecting questions about how to establish peace once its principal adversary is gone. The irony is stark: the United States’ desire to stop its endless wars may be a forlorn quest, because of the country’s peerless capacity for endless warfighting.

Perhaps the biggest lesson of Iraq, then, is the simplest: don’t launch such conflicts to begin with. This lesson is most important for civilian leaders in Washington, given that they ultimately decide when the United States goes to war and when it doesn’t. But U.S. military leaders should do a better job of making clear to their civilian superiors what the full costs of such conflicts will be. That means that commanders must understand a potential war’s political goals and objectives well before combat begins. If those goals and objectives will be extremely difficult for the armed forces to achieve, they must forthrightly tell civilian leaders. The U.S. military is a powerful but blunt instrument, with a dismal track record of defeating protracted insurgencies. It should steer itself away from issues it cannot fix.

But as far as advice goes, “Don’t do it” is insufficient. Iraq was a war of choice, but in the future, Washington could face wars it is obligated to wage. Indeed, the risk of such a conflict is growing. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has endangered the whole planet, but especially the West. Today, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario where the United States must rush to defend one of its NATO allies. China could also launch its own war of aggression in the years ahead, including to take Taiwan. And terrorism remains a persistent threat.

The United States’ desire to stop its endless wars may be forlorn, because of its peerless capacity for endless warfighting.

The United States must therefore reform its fighting forces, but in calculated ways. It will need to adopt new technologies, yet it must also avoid overcommitting to the latest technological trends at the expense of past military challenges. The military, for example, should adopt major new systems that will remake war—including artificial intelligence, autonomous drones, and three-dimensional printing—but in ways that help serve the military’s practical purposes. It should also not oversell or fetishize new war concepts. It should avoid asserting that any reduction will irreparably degrade national security. In the end, Washington needs to focus on the military’s organizational design and people, making sure that the U.S. soldiers are as well prepared and well commanded as they can possibly be.

To make these changes work, however, the United States must learn to do something it failed to do in Iraq: win not just the war but also the peace. Those of us who have served on the ground have seen how the U.S. military can defeat enemy forces, rebuild local governments, strengthen local economies, and generally help build a healthy civic life. It is unbelievably frustrating for us to then witness these individual successes unwind as the United States fails to convert local wins into countrywide victories.

In Iraq, the U.S. military failed because it did not realize that all politics is local. Washington and its coalition of the willing proved unwilling to work with and through local tribes and kin-based political networks, as well as with regional and international tribal confederations, for far too long. In future civil-military interventions, the United States must instead begin and end its efforts at the basic roots of human society. To succeed in engaging populations as they are, rather than just as state actors, the armed forces should do a better job of engaging civilian governmental or international actors, as well. And whenever possible, the military should seek to deter without actually using lethal force. The U.S. armed forces are extremely powerful, and they can use their might to help intimidate and deter adversaries without fighting.

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

My father was a lifelong soldier. He spent 30 years in uniformed service, before then spending 12 more as a Department of Defense civil servant until his death in 1985. During his career, he experienced an unconditional win in World War II, a stalemate in South Korea, and finally an abject loss in Vietnam. His untimely passing was the result of his cumulative experiences with war, mounting in Vietnam. Ultimately, he was left—like so many of our Vietnam War veterans—scarred by fighting in this unwinnable war of questionable cause. He and others fought well and honorably, but their efforts were never good enough to make the war good and righteous.

The United States continues to lose the war in Vietnam as it keeps losing veterans to the conflict’s physical and psychological scars, even though it has been nearly 50 years since it officially ended. Washington must begin now to exorcise similar haunts from Afghan and Iraq war veterans, or else these endless wars will become forever wars for these veterans and their families, as is Vietnam. Indeed, the United States is, unfortunately, already losing Iraq and Afghan veterans to drug addiction and mental illness.

Like my father before me, I spent 33 years in a uniform, followed by seven years (and counting) as a government civil servant and military and global affairs scholar. As with my father, my experience of American wars has left me disappointed with, and often confused by, U.S. defense policies. They have left me persuaded that there are just some conflicts—like Iraq and Vietnam—where the United States cannot win. They have taught me that Washington should not be in the business of carrying out wars of choice, no matter how appealing they may seem.

But my experiences have also shown that when the U.S. military must fight, it needs to campaign with more than just its forthcoming battles in mind. It needs to have the Phase IV plan it never had in Iraq. It needs to learn how to translate small wins into big ones.

And it needs to start crafting such plans now, before the tumultuous global order springs conflict onto Washington. Otherwise, the United States, and its military, risks repeating one of its greatest-ever failures.

ISAIAH WILSON III is a Professor at and President of the Joint Special Operations University and author of Thinking Beyond War: Civil-Military Relations and Why America Fails to Win the Peace. From 2013 to 2016, he served as Chief, Commanders Initiatives Group. From 2003 to 2005, he served as deputy team lead for the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army’s Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group. The views expressed here are his own.

Foreign Affairs · by Ike Wilson · July 4, 2023

20. China’s military won’t talk to the US ー so what?

Excerpts:

But, will the US keep trying to set up these communication channels with the Chinese military? How about a different approach or strategy?

I’m sure the US will continue begging for new communications channels with the PRC – like a desperate suitor. Nothing good comes from appearing to be a supplicant when dealing with the Chinese.

Should the Americans try a different approach? Perhaps. There doesn’t seem to be any form of self-abasement that the US government won’t try with the Chinese.

However, any US officer or official calling for dialogue and engagement with the PLA should be required to explain how it will produce good results (this time). And a rote: “Dialogue is always good” is a very American answer. But it is not a sane answer.

It’s better to be in a bigger hurry to get the US military ready to fight and win – rather than having rap sessions with the Chinese. They have been getting ready to fight while the US is more interested in engaging and talking.

China’s military won’t talk to the US ー so what?

China’s People’s Liberation Army knows, if you want to make Americans uncomfortable, simply don’t talk to them

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · July 4, 2023

US officials keep asking China for mil-to-mil communications. But the Chinese military knows, if you want to make Americans uncomfortable, don’t talk to them.

During his recent visit to China, Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly asked his hosts to set up a military-to-military crisis communications hotline. The Chinese declined.

USINDOPACOM commander Admiral John Aquilino complained earlier this year that the Chinese were ignoring his requests to establish direct communications channels with the Chinese military People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regional commands.

And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was rebuffed when he sought a meeting with China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu during the Shangri-La Dialogue in June.

Top United States civilian and military officials may be fretting. But they might better worry about having too few Navy ships and submarines or stocks of anti-ship cruise missiles instead of having their Chinese counterparts on speed dial.

China Knows How to Contact US Forces

The US military has been jousting with the Chinese military in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait for a number of years. And it’s a stroke of good luck nobody has gotten hurt or killed.

How critical is it to have designated communication lines with the PLA? It doesn’t matter that much. The PLA also knows how to get in touch with the United States military in the area if it wants to.

Channels already exist for all militaries operating in the sea and/or air to communicate with each other. You’ll also notice that the Chinese military routinely contacts US and Australian, Japanese, Canadian and other ships and aircraft to warn them to stay out of what the Chinese say is their territory.

The Chinese think the Americans (and everyone else) should not be operating in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait without China’s permission. So that sets the tone for the relationship. Having some other or special “communications link” isn’t going to change anybody’s mind.

Chinese warship Luyang III sails near and crosses in front of the US destroyer USS Chung-Hoon. As seen from the deck of US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on June 3, 2023. Photo: US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Andre T. Richard / Handout

What’s wrong with mil-to-mil hotlines?

When the PLA tries to ram or obstruct US ships and aircraft the Chinese know exactly what they are doing. And the orders come from on high.

Being able to call the Chinese up on a designated line to tell them they shouldn’t do what they are doing seems pointless. The Chinese know the US isn’t happy. They also don’t care.

You might ask again, why won’t China agree to mil-to-mil hotlines?

The answer is in large part because the Americans are so eager to have such a communications channel. If the Chinese refuse to join such a link it’s possible (indeed, likely) the Americans will offer some concession to get the Chinese to agree. Say, for example, not making an issue of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States.

The concession might not even be on the military front. It might be relaxing economic sanctions on the People’s Republic of China. Or it might be not complaining about China’s human rights abuses and intellectual property theft.

Another concession might be pretending Xi Jinping knows nothing about the fentanyl that killed 70,000 Americans in 2022.

Proceeding with US Operations in the Indo-Pacific

Some might ask whether this absence of communication between the two militaries affects US operations in the Indo-Pacific region. Not really, is the answer.

The Chinese know what they are doing and what they intend to do. Their objective is to drive the Americans out of the Asia-Pacific and for the PRC to dominate the region. They’ve been clear enough about this.

It is an adversarial relationship – owing to China’s position and objective. And no communication or engagement with the PRC or the PLA is going to make a difference.

The US military went all out on “communication” and “engagement” with the PLA for a few decades. That was until the Trump administration. In fact, the PLA was even twice invited to RIMPAC, the US Navy’s premier regional exercise.

And what did the US get from this policy? A Chinese military that has caught up with the US in many areas and has surpassed it in others. They could give the US military a bloody nose in certain circumstances. A very bloody nose.

It’s jaw-dropping that some US officers are now calling for a return to unrestrained engagement with the PLA and the PRC. This will cost American lives at some point. Thirty years of empirical evidence ought to be instructive.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China. June 18, 2023. Photo: Leah Millis / Pool

How about a different approach?

It’s an American conceit, however, that if they can just talk to somebody they can solve any problem.

But, will the US keep trying to set up these communication channels with the Chinese military? How about a different approach or strategy?

I’m sure the US will continue begging for new communications channels with the PRC – like a desperate suitor. Nothing good comes from appearing to be a supplicant when dealing with the Chinese.

Should the Americans try a different approach? Perhaps. There doesn’t seem to be any form of self-abasement that the US government won’t try with the Chinese.

However, any US officer or official calling for dialogue and engagement with the PLA should be required to explain how it will produce good results (this time). And a rote: “Dialogue is always good” is a very American answer. But it is not a sane answer.

It’s better to be in a bigger hurry to get the US military ready to fight and win – rather than having rap sessions with the Chinese. They have been getting ready to fight while the US is more interested in engaging and talking.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America.

This article was originally published by JAPAN Forward and is republished with permission.

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · July 4, 2023

21. To decouple or to de-risk – that is the question

Excerpts:

Though the US and China are rivals, American companies’ supply chains are deeply embedded in China. China is the largest trading partner of the US and of about 120 countries, including American allies like Japan, South Korea and Germany.

China has dominant world market share in some product lines, like drones and solar panels, and is a critical supplier of countless thousands of others. In a war, China would unquestionably cut off exports to the US, which makes it logical to decrease reliance on China.

But short of war, how far disentangling today’s supply chains can or will go is unclear, regardless of which diplomatic euphemism is used to describe it.

To decouple or to de-risk – that is the question

US favors decoupling while Europe prefers de-risking but it’s all a matter of degree of mitigating reliance on China

asiatimes.com · by Urban C. Lehner · July 3, 2023

As often happens in diplomacy, the communique the G7 leaders issued in May from their meeting in Hiroshima ducked a key question: What is the difference between “de-risking,” which the communique expressed approval of, and “decoupling,” which it disapproved?

The G7 statement didn’t define those terms. It didn’t even mention that the foremost object of both decoupling and de-risking is China. That’s diplomacy for you.

The leaders of the seven countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy) simply said they were coordinating their approaches to economic resilience and economic security “based on diversifying partnerships and de-risking, not decoupling.”

As often happens in diplomacy, the vagueness was intentional. It conveniently papered over differences between the US and some of its allies. “Economic resiliency” and “economic security” are diplo-speak for avoiding overreliance on China (and to some extent Russia) for key products and avoiding supplying those countries with strategically sensitive technologies.

On the surface, decoupling (the trendy word until recently) implies taking separation from China further than de-risking (the European Commission president’s word). De-risking suggests diversifying, ending exclusive reliance on China, rather than withdrawal.

In practice, though, much of the decoupling to date has also been diversification. For communique purposes, the difference between decoupling and de-risking is semantics. That’s why the US could agree to the communique even though there are real differences between the US and its allies in their concerns about reliance on China.

At their Summit in Hiroshima, leaders of the G7 countries agreed to “de-risk” rather than “decouple” from China. Photo: Hiroshima Summit website

Those differences reflect their differing geopolitical situations, especially with regard to Taiwan. A Chinese military attack on the island seems increasingly possible – possible enough that US officials have to plan for it even as they pray it never happens.

Washington’s allies don’t. In the event of an attack, Japan could end up supporting the US, at least logistically. It’s a prisoner of its history and geography. European allies would be far less inclined to see a China attack on Taiwan as their problem. They might be cajoled into joining a coalition of the willing, but that is far from guaranteed.

The US, then, has greater reason to worry about providing China with technologies that strengthen it militarily. It has more serious fears of being cut off by China from critical products during hostilities.

When governments are planning for war, national security ranks higher in their concerns than economic efficiency. This can be a hard swallow for those who believe, as many in exporting sectors like agriculture do, that financial markets allocate capital more efficiently than governments and free trade produces the best economic outcomes.

But it explains why some Republican believers in free markets have voted for Biden administration industrial policy initiatives. And why Republicans are solidly behind the Biden administration’s stepped-up efforts to block exports of the most advanced semiconductor technologies to China, despite warnings from US high-tech companies that restrictions will have long-term economic consequences.

European countries share some of the same concerns about China as the US, but they’re nowhere near as worried about national security. Referring to Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned Europe not to get “caught up in crises that are not ours.”

Europeans are displeased with the Biden administration’s high-tech subsidies and buy-American rules, which they see as drawing investment away from them as much as from China.

Some Europeans are also leery of US efforts to block exports of high-tech products to China. The Dutch government, however, eventually went along with the US and restricted Dutch companies’ exports of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.

Europe, in sum, prefers “de-risking” because it doesn’t want as much economic separation from China as the US. The Biden administration accepted “de-risking” because it’s sufficiently vague to let allies march to different drummers.

Actually, so is decoupling. For all the talk of it over the last few years, for all the government’s industrial policy moves, for all its export restrictions, for all the announcements by companies of plans to move manufacturing back to the US or to Asian countries other than China, US-China trade in goods set a record in 2022, as did US exports to China.

Shipping containers from China are unloaded at the Port of Los Angeles in 2019. Photo: AFP / Mark Ralston

US agriculture exports to China also set a record in fiscal 2022 at $36.4 billion.

Though the US and China are rivals, American companies’ supply chains are deeply embedded in China. China is the largest trading partner of the US and of about 120 countries, including American allies like Japan, South Korea and Germany.

China has dominant world market share in some product lines, like drones and solar panels, and is a critical supplier of countless thousands of others. In a war, China would unquestionably cut off exports to the US, which makes it logical to decrease reliance on China.

But short of war, how far disentangling today’s supply chains can or will go is unclear, regardless of which diplomatic euphemism is used to describe it.

Former longtime Wall Street Journal Asia correspondent and editor Urban Lehner is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

This article, originally published on July 3 by the latter news organization and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2023 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on Twitter: @urbanize

asiatimes.com · by Urban C. Lehner · July 3, 2023

22. Ukraine Situation Report: Patriot Kill Marks Hint That It Downed Aircraft Inside Russia

Ukraine Situation Report: Patriot Kill Marks Hint That It Downed Aircraft Inside Russia

Ukraine shows kill markings painted on a Patriot air defense battery that align with enemy aircraft downed inside Russia.

HOWARD ALTMAN

PUBLISHED JUL 3, 2023 6:32 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · July 3, 2023

The Ukrainian Air Force on Monday released a video that appeared to include a tacit claim that one of its donated Patriot air defense systems downed several Russian aircraft on May 13, a day when Moscow lost at least four and possibly five aircraft within its own borders.

The video was released in conjunction with the celebration of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Day, one of many such honors Ukraine holds for its troops. In one shot, there are images of two Russian fighters and three Russian helicopters emblazoned on the side of a Patriot battery. The three helicopters and two jets have the date May 13 inscribed underneath.

A screen capture of the Ukrainian Air Force video shows images of three Russian helicopters and two Russian fighters painted on the side of a Patriot air defense battery. The three helicopter and two jet images bear the date May 13. (Defense Industry of Ukraine image)

As we reported at the time, Russia lost two Mi-8 Hip helicopters, a Su-34 Fullback strike fighter, and a Su-35 Flanker-E, with no survivors on May 13. All four aircraft came down in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast, opposite northeast Ukraine’s Chernihiv Oblast.

As news of that incident emerged, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yuri Ignat suggested that there was actually a third helicopter downed, but that the Russians themselves accidentally took down their own aircraft.

Video on that day showed one of the Mi-8s breaking up after what looks as if a missile hits it near the town of Klintsy, about 50 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border.

Video also emerged of the downing of a Russian fighter that day.

While we raised the possibility in our story at the time that one of Ukraine’s donated air defense systems could have been involved in downing those aircraft, we also noted that such a move inside Russian territory could jeopardize future arms supplies. U.S. and allied officials have repeatedly said that such arms are only meant for use inside Ukrainian territory.

Shortly after the aircraft were downed, speculation floated about the possibility that a Patriot system might have been involved.

It is unclear why Ukraine waited until now to indicate that a Patriot battery might have been used, if Kyiv has any concern that such a use might cause consternation of allies or if this is just another information operation.

During a press conference today, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Col. Yuri Ignat made no mention of such a claim nor was he asked about it.

We've reached out to the Pentagon and to Ignat and will update this story with any information provided.

At least one of the helicopters was said to be hit in a location about 160 miles from Kyiv, the presumed location of Ukraine's two existing existing Patriot batteries. While it is theoretically possible for a Patriot interceptor to hit a target that far away, such a shot has a low probability of hitting a target, one expert told us.

The longer the distance, the less likely a Patriot is to hit a target, David Shank, a retired Army colonel and former commandant of the Army Air Defense Artillery School at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, told The War Zone Monday afternoon.

“It would be a wasted shot in my opinion,” he said. “I say that based on mission requirements. Patriot systems are deployed to defend critical assets, meaning not take ‘pot shots’ at long range targets who may be planning to strike elsewhere.”

Given that, four, or even five kills from that distance would be a significant feat.

It is also possible, Shank noted, that Ukraine could have set up remote site launchers to engage targets further out. It's also possible, he said, that the Patriot's radar was able to detect and track targets that far and relay information to an air defense system much closer.

Maybe there is another tactic or capability in play that we are not aware of. Or the whole thing could be a propaganda ploy to confuse the Russians. We just don't know at this point.

We'll update this story when more information becomes available.

Before we head into the latest from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can catch up on our previous rolling coverage here.

The Latest

On the battlefield, Ukraine appears to be expanding its bridgehead across the Dnipro River in the occupied portion of Kherson Oblast. Russian occupation official Vladimir Rogov complained on his Telegram channel Sunday that contrary to Russian Defense Ministry reports, Ukrainian troops have not been ousted yet.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister said that her forces are continuing to make gains across the eastern and southern portions of the front lines while Russia is attempting to "continue to advance in the directions of Lyman, Avdiiv, and Marin. The enemy is trying to dislodge our troops from their positions, but receives a decent rebuff. Heavy fighting is going on there now."

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu - who has apparently survived Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny aimed in large measure at ousting him - has made some more bold claims, albeit as usual without proof.

Speaking during a “special teleconference” on Monday, Shoigu said Russian forces have destroyed “15 airplanes, three helicopters, and 920 pieces of armored hardware, including 16 Leopard tanks, in the South Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk directions alone, where Ukrainian troops are making futile attacks.”

The loss of the Leopards, said Shoigu, represented “nearly all of the tanks of this type that Poland and Portugal provided” to Ukraine.

According to the latest figures from the Oryx open-source tracking group, there is no mention of any Polish- or Portuguese-donated Leopards being lost. But Oryx does indicate that Ukraine has seen eight German-donated Leopard 2 tanks taken off the battlefield.

There was one 2A4 variant destroyed and two damaged, and two Leopard 2A6 tanks destroyed, two damaged and one damaged and abandoned.

The real number is likely higher because Oryx only tabulates vehicles for which is has visual confirmation.

But he didn’t stop there. Shoigu claimed that “over the past month, Russian air defense units have shot down 158 HIMARS rockets, 25 Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and 386 unmanned aerial vehicles.”

You can read more about how difficult it really is for Russian air defense to shoot down the U.K.-donated Storm Shadow air-launched, conventionally armed cruise missiles in our story here.

As for Prigozhin’s putative putsch, Shoigu said it failed “mainly because the Armed Forces personnel were loyal to the military oath and their military duty.”

The mutinous march on Moscow “did not have any impact on actions of the Groups of Forces,” he added. “I thank the Russian servicemen for their faithful service.”

One big issue Shoigu didn't address was the fate of Russian Gen. Sergie Surovikin, the head of the Russian Aerospace Forces who was detained last week over his role in Prigozhin's mutiny attempt. His status remains murky.

Speaking of Prigozhin, new imagery has been released showing the damage that was caused when a Russian helicopter attacked a fuel facility in Voronezh in an attempt to slow down his march. You can see the incident in this video below.

The satellite imagery, released Monday by Maxar Technologies, appears to show at least two of the storage tanks were damaged during that attack.

While Shoigu proclaimed his claimed Storm Shadow kills, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday said he did not want to provide Ukraine with the air-launched, conventionally armed Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile out of concern that Kyiv would use them on Russian territory.

“We carefully check all the requests we receive," Scholz told German ARD TV. "But for us there is a principle that I share with the U.S. president – we do not want the weapons we supply to be used to attack Russian territories."

Taurus - the product of a joint venture between MBDA Deutschland of Germany and Saab Dynamics of Sweden - reportedly has a range of more than 300 miles. You can read more about what it would bring to the table for Ukraine here.

The battle for Neskuchne in Donetsk Oblast last month was the first victory for Ukraine in its now nearly month-old counteroffensive. But as The New York Times reported Sunday about the fight for this tiny village along the Mokri Yaly River, it was tougher than expected and in many ways emblematic of the slow-but-steadily moving counteroffensive that is chewing up small pieces of territory at a heavy cost.

"The Russian defeat, on June 9, was Ukraine’s first win in a prolonged counteroffensive that is well into its fourth week but moving at a slower pace than expected. In that respect, the battle for Neskuchne served as an early warning that Kyiv’s and the Western allies’ hopes for a quick victory were unrealistic and that every mile of their drive into Russian-occupied territory would be grueling and contested."

After Neskuchne was cleared, which was announced on June 10, "Ukrainian forces have managed to retake several villages farther south. But since that early string of victories, Ukraine’s offensive has been slow. Ukrainian forces have been mired by staunch Russian defenses, mounting casualties and field after field of land mines.

Ahead of next week's NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, The Economist took a deep dive into the challenges facing the alliance both in the current fight in Ukraine in which it is not directly involved, as well as any future fight in which it might be.

"A senior NATO official points to five immediate priorities: combat-capable ground forces, particularly heavy armored brigades; integrated air and missile defense systems capable of protecting units on the move; long-range firepower such as artillery and rocket launchers; digital networks that allow data to move around the battlefield and back to headquarters quickly and securely; and logistics to shunt large armies across Europe while keeping them supplied," The Economist wrote.

"This list largely reflects needs that have been identified while observing the war in Ukraine: old-fashioned artillery has inflicted the majority of casualties; maneuvering without armor has proven extremely costly. The problem is that the majority of European armies fare woefully on most of these measures (notwithstanding pockets of excellence, such as Finland’s artillery-rich army of conscripts).

In January, France announced with great fanfare that it was donating AMX-10 RC infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.

Over the weekend, however, a Ukrainian commander complained to the French AFP news outlet that AMX-10s — highly-mobile armored vehicles with a tank-like main gun — are "impractical" for front-line attacks.

A 34-year-old battalion commander within the 37th Marine Brigade, who uses the call sign 'Spartanets,' said the tanks' "thin armor" means they can be used as fire support, but not in front-line assaults.

Spartanets claimed one four-man crew has already died because of the vehicle's thin armor.

"There was artillery shelling and a shell exploded near the vehicle, the fragments pierced the armor and the ammunition set detonated."

He added that the French AMX-10 also had issues with gear boxes breaking down, possibly due to their use on dirt roads.

"Just sending out the (AMX-10) vehicles (into combat) so they get destroyed, I consider it is impractical and unnecessary because it's primarily a risk for the crew," Spartanets said.

He did not specify how many AMX-10s the elite combat formation has, and declined to show them to AFP reporters in the field.

On the positive side, Spartanets said that the AMX-10s’ “guns are good, the observation devices are very good.”

In its most recent tally, Oryx counted three abandoned AMX-10s.

What may be the first image of a Slovakian MiG-29 Fulcrum jet donated to Ukraine has emerged. The first four of them were delivered to Ukraine in March. You can read more about the history of these aircraft here. Based on its false canopy and the shape of a pattern on the right vertical stabilizer, researcher Matej Rafael Risko identified it as potentially Bort No. 0921.

Russia, meanwhile, appears to have some new aircraft in its fleet. This video below shows the delivery to the Russian Defense Ministry of a new batch of SU-30SM2 Flanker multirole fighters.

“Today we delivered to the Russian Defense Ministry another batch of new modernized Su-30SM2 fighters," said Vladimir Artyakov, first deputy general director of Rostec State Corporation. "Aircraft of this type have proven their high efficiency over the years of operation and are very important for our country’s defense capabilities. Production of aviation equipment under the state defense order at the UAC Irkutsk aircraft plant is proceeding according to schedule. All aircraft scheduled for delivery this year are already in the final assembly shop or flight test unit.”

Artyakov did not say how many Flankers were delivered in this batch.

It's bad enough when you hit an enemy mine, but there is something ignominious about hitting your own, as this Russian T-62 tank apparently did.

New video shows a Russian tank surviving at least one attack by a Ukrainian First Person Video (FPV) drone. After the first strike, the tank keeps rumbling down the road, until it stops to fire at a Ukrainian target. It appears to be hit again, but it is unclear how much damage was caused.

The Russian soldier atop this armored vehicle may not have fared quite as well during this Ukrainian FPV attack.

A small group of Russian soldiers managed to survive a Ukrainian drone attack in the occupied city of Oleskny near the Dnipro River. The troops here were apparently wounded, just a few meters from a graveyard.

As drones have created problems for both sides in this conflict, each has tried to devise ways to defeat them using so-called cope cages or improvised netting as well. The results - as you can see in this video below of a Ukrainian radar system being attacked by a Russian Lancet drone - are often not so good.

Speaking of wartime improvisation, another Mad Maxian Ukrainian vehicle has made an appearance, this one a sport utility kitted out with ballistic plates use for body armor.

More video of intense combat has emerged on social media. At one point, a Ukrainian soldier is almost killed when a captured Russian detonates a grenade.

Sometimes the spoils of this war are antiques, like this old bolt-action rifle Ukrainian forces captured along with another Russian trench.

And finally, we write frequently about tanks and jets and artillery and ammunition, but let's spend a moment to remember the shovel, a handy piece of kit.

You can use it to dig trenches and foxholes, create a latrine or, in the case of this Ukrainian mortar man, clear a round stuck in a tube.

That's it for now. We'll update this story when there's more news to report about Ukraine.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · July 3, 2023

23. Biden nominates controversial former Trump-appointee to Public Diplomacy Commission

Did not see this coming.

Biden nominates controversial former Trump-appointee to Public Diplomacy Commission | CNN Politics

CNN · by Jack Forrest · July 3, 2023

CNN —

President Joe Biden announced Monday his intention to nominate a former appointee under former President Donald Trump with a controversial past in Latin America to the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

Elliott Abrams, who has served in three Republican administrations, most recently acted as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Iran and Venezuela where he was tasked at the time with directing the campaign to replace Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

The Republican insider’s long history in foreign policy is marked by a 1991 guilty plea for withholding information about the Iran-Contra affair that earned him two misdemeanor counts, two years probation and 100 hours of community service – though his crimes were later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.

The secret Iran-Contra operation, which took place during Abrams’ time as an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, involved the funding of anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua using the proceeds from weapon sales to Iran despite a congressional ban on such funding.

Again in his role under former President Ronald Reagan, Abrams was also blasted by a Human Rights Watch report for his attempts in a February 1982 Senate testimony to downplay reports of the massacre of 1,000 people by US-trained-and-equipped military units in the Salvadoran town of El Mozote in December 1981 – the largest mass killing in recent Latin American history. He insisted the numbers of reported victims were “implausible” and “lavished praise” on the military battalion behind the mass killings – stances he doubled down on when they were put on display during a 2019 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, who used his history in Latin American to call into question his credibility.

He later served as a senior director of the National Security Council and then as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser under former President George W. Bush. Abrams currently serves as senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He attended Harvard College, the London School of Economics and Harvard Law School and served under two former US senators.

The United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy is a bipartisan body and does not allow for more than four of its seven members appointed by the president to be from any one political party, according to the State Department.

The commission “appraises the US Government activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics” and “may assemble and disseminate information and issue reports and other publications to the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress,” according to the State Department.

Current members include Sim Farar, the managing member of JDF Investments Company; William Hybl, former special counsel to Reagan; and Anne Terman Wedner, a political organizer and former foreign service officer – four seats on the commission remained vacant as of March 2023, according to the National Archives.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.

CNN · by Jack Forrest · July 3, 2023

24. Zelensky’s Fight After the War

If you concentrate exclusively on victory, while no thought for the after effect, you may

be too exhausted to profit by peace, while it is almost certain that the peace will be a

bad one, containing the germs of another war.

--B.H. Liddel-Hart

If in taking a native den one thinks chiefly of the market that he will establish there on

the morrow, one does not take it in the ordinary way.

--Lyautey: The Colonial Role of the Army,

Revue Des Deux Mondes, 15 February 1900

War embraces much more than politics: it is always an expression of culture, often a

determinant of cultural forms, in some societies the culture itself.

--John Keegan in A History of Warfare

Excertps:

It will be essential for the Ukrainian government to sustain broad national unity as it pursues reform efforts, and Ukrainian reformers can look cautiously to Georgia for inspiration. In 2003, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili successfully capitalized on the optimism generated by the Rose Revolution to immediately and dramatically eliminate petty corruption throughout the government, including in the previously notorious traffic police as well as basic state services. Saakashvili’s brilliance was not so much to propose a technically impressive anticorruption plan as to convince millions that things would actually change, thereby setting in motion a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, Georgia’s history is also a cautionary tale, with other, high-level corrupt practices continuing. Ukraine needs an even further-reaching reform effort. What Georgia shows, though, is that it is only when people are convinced that change is coming that they will alter their own behavior and adapt to the new expected reality. Formulating attractive proposals is relatively easy; convincing people that things will change is much more difficult.

The end of the war, whenever it comes, may offer Zelensky and the rest of the country just such a moment. The president will need to find a way to translate the population’s will to fight into an equally strong conviction that the old approach to running the country is no longer possible. And he must then follow through on his promises. The moment will come, and it must be hoped that he lives up to it.

Zelensky’s Fight After the War

What Peace Will Mean for Ukraine’s Democracy

By Henry E. Hale and Olga Onuch

July 4, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Henry E. Hale and Olga Onuch · July 4, 2023

Russia’s war against Ukraine has transformed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s image. Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, many regarded him as an untested figure whose former career as an actor and comedian did not inspire much confidence. After it began, however, he became—in former U.S. President George W. Bush’s judgment—“the Winston Churchill of our time.”

In the war’s first days, many Western observers assumed that Zelensky would buckle, flee, surrender, or die. Instead, he stayed in Kyiv and led Ukraine with resolve. His popularity skyrocketed. A July 2022 poll conducted by the authors and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 65 percent of people in unoccupied Ukraine believed Zelensky to be the best man to lead the country to victory. The second most popular choice, former president Petro Poroshenko, had the support of five percent. Another 19 percent either said there was no difference between the politicians or declined to answer. More than 80 percent of respondents described Zelensky as intelligent, strong, and honest.

But when the war finally ends, Zelensky will face major challenges. Wartime leadership requires very different skills and capacities than leadership during peacetime. Notably, Ukrainians are less confident in Zelensky’s leadership when they are asked to consider the future. In the same July 2022 poll, 55 percent identified Zelensky as the best person to lead the country’s postwar reconstruction, and the share saying there was no difference between him and the alternatives or that refused to answer was 28 percent. To overcome these potential misgivings, Zelensky will have to rebuild and fortify not only Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure but also its democracy. He will have to end the country’s tendency to shape government around personal patronage networks, which are prone to corruption, and craft an inclusive conception of patriotism. He will also need to respect the rules and spirit of the Ukrainian constitution. Zelensky’s ability to meet these challenges will determine his country’s fate and the future of its democracy.

THE TEMPTATION OF POWER

The Russian invasion rallied Ukraine’s vibrant, inclusive civic nation and strengthened an associated sense of duty and commitment to democracy. Data collected in February 2023 by the MOBILISE Project, showed that approximately 80 percent of Ukraine’s civilian population is involved in the war, through volunteering, protest action, or giving financial support. Others are putting partisan differences aside, uniting in support of the reforms that will be required by EU accession. These positive developments are threatened by Ukraine’s long-standing tradition of what is known as patronalism, which is the feeling that personal connections are necessary to get almost anything done, feeding distrust in the rule of law. This reliance on patrons cultivates deep personal connections among those in one’s own network, but it also spawns nepotism, reliance on bribes, and often violence where trust breaks down. Those in power have repeatedly taken advantage of this situation to create their own political machines that accumulate wealth and suppress opposition. Although the people have repeatedly risen up to thwart Ukraine’s most notorious power grabs, the country’s political class is still prone to corruption and the tendency to favor personal connections over democratic institutions. So long as there is a perception that “everybody does it,” these practices are likely to continue.

It is possible that the sense of unity the war sparked may dissipate when it ends. Of course, the Ukrainian government could replace it with a new sense of national purpose provided by Ukraine’s application to join the EU, which will give new impetus to much-needed reforms. But these reforms could generate enough opposition to drive the country back toward patronalism. EU membership, for example, will require a major adjustment for Ukraine’s businesses, for they will have to become aligned with EU regulations. It will also oblige Kyiv to take steps to eliminate corruption, necessitating extensive reforms of the Ukrainian judicial system. These reforms will put pressure on both ordinary citizens and elites, challenging the latter’s vested interests. Opposition from ordinary people whose businesses will be affected, and from elites whose interests will be threatened, is likely. Thus, the dangers of a return to patronal politics as usual are real. It cannot be guaranteed that the democratic gains the country has made will be sustained. It is possible, although not highly probable, that Ukraine may shift from the patronal democracy it has typically been in recent years—in which a significant amount of corruption has been leavened by a general commitment to democratic transfers of power when incumbents lose elections—to a more authoritarian or centralized system.

When wider political opposition to Zelensky’s government reemerges, as it is likely to do once the war ends, it is possible that Zelensky and his supporters may be tempted to protect their leadership by amassing power for themselves—even if the initial aim is only to push through reforms or rebuild the country. Such justifications have been used by leaders seeking to strengthen their rule in eastern Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere time and again. This kind of ramped-up “presidentialism” could set in motion processes that might undermine reforms. Already, some of Zelensky’s critics have interpreted his removal of the mayor of Chernihiv, Vladyslav Atroshenko, on abuse-of-office charges as a threat to local government. The same critics have charged that the Zelensky administration’s weakening of the country’s oligarchs masks an effort to gain this power for itself. And while it is too early to tell whether this interpretation of his moves is well grounded, the possibility must nonetheless be guarded against.

Zelensky’s far-reaching popularity itself could pose a threat to Ukrainian democracy.

Some of the actions that Zelensky’s government has taken to prosecute the war could also threaten Ukrainian democracy when peace is restored. For example, the February 2022 decision to consolidate most private television channels into a single state broadcaster was arguably necessary at the start of the war as the country struggled for survival. Such an action would be unjustifiable in peacetime. Zelensky’s critics in parliament—the leaders of the European Solidarity party in particular—as well as think tanks and NGOs such as Opora, Chesno, and the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, have publicly and privately voiced concerns that the president may be unwilling to give up this control when the war ends. No leader, after all, relishes being criticized or—as they see it—vigorously attacked and ridiculed, as happens in open societies. But, if Ukraine is to continue to deepen its already vibrant democracy, these measures will have to be reversed when the war ends and the threat of Russian aggression is gone.

It is also possible that Zelensky’s far-reaching popularity itself could pose a threat to Ukrainian democracy. There is no one in Ukraine who has anything close to his stature and public support as a political leader. If this level of popularity is sustained, it could lead Zelensky to conclude that he needs to stay in power, effectively denying others the chance to gain the needed stature. Perhaps the greatest thing that U.S. President George Washington ever did, greater even than leading his forces to victory in the Revolutionary War, was to step away from the presidency at a time when he was still revered as a war hero and was far and away the country’s most prominent leader. He thereby set a precedent for the peaceful transfer of power. Shortly before being elected in 2019, Zelensky declared that a president should only serve a single five-year term. A strong case can be made that breaking this particular promise would not harm Ukrainian democracy, and could even bring stability in wartime. But if Zelensky wins re-election, the future trajectory of Ukrainian democracy may come to depend on whether he will abide by the country’s two-term limit. There is currently no indication that he would consider violating it.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE NATIONALISM

The rise of civic national identity in Ukraine, an identity that places civic duty and attachment to the country above all else, is one of the great achievements of Ukrainian independence. This identity has been elevated and nurtured by Zelensky and consolidated by the war. Nevertheless, it has been consistently challenged by other visions of what it means to be a Ukrainian. One extreme alternative vision connects national identity solely to ethnocultural identity, according to which the concept of being a good and reliable citizen depends on speaking the right language, holding the right view of the country’s history, and revering the right cultural figures. To adherents of this view, those who do not share these ethnocultural traits are often regarded as a threat. The more nationalist proponents of this exclusive ethnocultural identity are a small minority. And those who could be considered liberal nationalists but who still promote a more ethno-culturally flavored patriotism in parliament, such as those in the European Solidarity party, are quick also to highlight the importance of civic national duty and the centrality of the state. In fact, for most politicians, even right-wing ones, civic and ethno-cultural identities can be complementary much as they are in France.

Nonetheless, some politicians may seek political gain by capitalizing on or seeking to exacerbate these divides. There are many historical examples of countries that have been traumatized by brutal wars resorting to more exclusive definitions of the nation in an effort to wall off foreign influence. This happened among some of Ukraine’s western neighbors following World War II and the fall of communism. Such moves can lead to division, oppression, and internal conflict, weakening the country and opening up opportunities for exploitation. In Ukraine’s case, the risk, albeit very small, is that an illiberal nationalist movement can gain renewed support and push for the hardening of more extreme views of Ukrainian identity, according to which true national security and prosperity can only be achieved through some kind of ethnic purification.

Fortunately, there is no indication so far that such exclusivist forms of nationalism are gathering force. Rather, the war seems to have strengthened Ukrainians’ commitment to liberalism and to inclusive ideas of the nation. This has happened even as a strong grassroots shift has occurred toward speaking Ukrainian (many people in Ukraine speak Ukrainian and Russian). Indeed, bilingual citizens are increasingly distancing themselves from other “Russian” aspects of their identities. In fact, there is some evidence this shift is particularly pronounced among southeastern Russophone Ukrainians who are seeing this shift to Ukrainian language practice as an element of their civic duty to the state.

It will be essential for the Ukrainian government to sustain broad national unity as it pursues reform efforts, and Ukrainian reformers can look cautiously to Georgia for inspiration. In 2003, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili successfully capitalized on the optimism generated by the Rose Revolution to immediately and dramatically eliminate petty corruption throughout the government, including in the previously notorious traffic police as well as basic state services. Saakashvili’s brilliance was not so much to propose a technically impressive anticorruption plan as to convince millions that things would actually change, thereby setting in motion a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, Georgia’s history is also a cautionary tale, with other, high-level corrupt practices continuing. Ukraine needs an even further-reaching reform effort. What Georgia shows, though, is that it is only when people are convinced that change is coming that they will alter their own behavior and adapt to the new expected reality. Formulating attractive proposals is relatively easy; convincing people that things will change is much more difficult.

The end of the war, whenever it comes, may offer Zelensky and the rest of the country just such a moment. The president will need to find a way to translate the population’s will to fight into an equally strong conviction that the old approach to running the country is no longer possible. And he must then follow through on his promises. The moment will come, and it must be hoped that he lives up to it.

HENRY E. HALE is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective.
OLGA ONUCH is Professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Mapping Mass Mobilization: Understanding Revolutionary Moments in Argentina and Ukraine.
They are the authors of The Zelensky Effect (Oxford University Press, 2023), from which this essay is adapted.

Foreign Affairs · by Henry E. Hale and Olga Onuch · July 4, 2023

25. Opinion | The Tao of Deception: Part IV

Opinion | The Tao of Deception: Part IV

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · July 3, 2023

Miss a previous installment?

1

2015, Beijing

From the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security at Xiyuan, you could glimpse the magnificent grounds of the Summer Palace. For Chinese spymasters, it was a reassuring sight: a perfect realm of lakes and gardens, maintained with care over centuries. Surmounting this majestic space was a Buddhist temple that stood atop what the Chinese called Longevity Hill.

The minister had his own private dining room overlooking the gardens, where he liked to entertain visitors. He had a personal chef, who was said to be better than the general secretary’s cook, at his private quarters near the Forbidden Palace. Better wines, too. In the evening, he served his guests cocktails from a mirrored tray. The Chinese spymaster entertained like the chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service in his suite overlooking the Thames, or the CIA director admiring the view across the trees to the Potomac.

About ‘The Tao of Deception’

“The Tao of Deception” is a fictional spy thriller by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius inspired by real-life events in CIA history.

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Yu Qiangsheng had maintained a grand office here before he defected to the West. For years, his name had been unmentionable at the ministry. Now he was simply forgotten by most of the senior cadres. The stench of his betrayal was covered by the perfume of good times.

But not for the younger professionals like Ma Wei, who had tried to rebuild the service after Yu bolted to Hong Kong and the West. She had stayed in her lair at the far end of the compound, supervising her team of agent recruiters and spy hunters; she rarely was invited to the private dining room, and she even more rarely accepted the invitation.

The mandarins of the Chinese intelligence services didn’t see it coming. On a Monday morning, investigators from the party’s Discipline Inspection Commission descended on MSS headquarters. They seized files that were said to include taps of the phones of the general secretary, “Big Daddy” himself, and other members of the Politburo. Police accompanying the commission inspectors arrested the vice minister, and the minister himself quickly “resigned.”

Ma was invited a week later to meet with a small national security committee of the Politburo. They said she had been chosen as the ministry’s next chief. She refused at first. That wasn’t simply her modesty. Few women had ever run a major cabinet agency, let alone a security ministry. She didn’t have a fancy pedigree; her family wasn’t rich, even with the scraps they had collected in red envelopes.

“Why me?” she asked. The Politburo representative gave her a simple, one-sentence answer: “Because you are not corrupt.” That was the new order of the day.

As Ma was leaving, the Politburo national security adviser gave her a delicate Chinese brush painting, which he said had been drawn by the general secretary himself. It recited in traditional Chinese characters, each stroke painted with finesse, the words of the ministry’s motto: “Serve the people firmly and purely, reassure the party, be willing to contribute, be able to fight hard and win.” Ma bowed and left the office. When she returned to the compound at Xiyuan, her younger colleagues who had gathered in the lobby broke into applause.

Even after her appointment as minister, Ma Wei stayed mostly out of sight. She avoided her fancy ceremonial office overlooking the Summer Palace. She preferred to work in the tightly compartmented space she had built years before in the back of the compound where she and her officers analyzed the files, day after day. She was a spy, not a politician. She had the ministry install a private elevator and tunnel so that she could escape to her hideaway without anyone knowing.

“I don’t believe in miracles,” she would tell her colleagues. “I am a communist. I believe in the science of fact. In our work, there are no giant leaps. Only small steps.”

For nearly a decade, Ma had assigned her colleagues to take those small steps by examining every detail of every known case of CIA recruitment or attempted recruitment. She gave a talk to each new class of officers who joined the ministry. She called her lecture “Little Things,” because she mistrusted the big men around her and their big things.

“When I say, ‘little things,’” she told her officers, “I mean the small operational details where our adversary might be careless. They might repeat a past practice, or use a standard protocol one too many times, or overlook an ordinary garden bench or coffee shop table where we might have planted a microphone.

“Dear students, start with the basics. We know that every CIA operation in China must begin with an effort to evade our surveillance. They know that we are very diligent, so they work hard to develop these surveillance detection routes. When they find one that is successful, it would not be surprising if they repeat it. It works! So, please, look to see if officers repeat the same routes. Do not let them imagine that we see. But check carefully, and you may find buried treasure.”

Heads would nod around the room. Of course. Little things.

And they knew facts, the students who had been briefed into the most sensitive cases. That was really how they were unraveling the CIA networks. They arrested an agent; they examined how he had been handled; then they looked for other examples of the same tradecraft.

“Students, please think small about CIA communications technology, too. Yes, sometimes we will have big success and obtain one of the fancy devices that communicate directly to a satellite. Our engineers will have fun with that. Perhaps they can discover the frequency and see if it is used again. Or, maybe, they will engineer the device in reverse, so we can see how it works and break the encryption algorithm. I would be very happy if you found those big things.

“But, please, remember that we are looking for the small mistakes that make these big systems vulnerable. We know the CIA instructs its agents to use the deep web to send encrypted files or documents. These are hard to find. Impossible, almost, unless they use the same address twice. And of course, they will. It is too hard to set up a completely new protocol for each agent. There isn’t time. You must have something on the shelf that’s ready to go.

“But dear students, if they use something twice, we should see the pattern and be attentive. Because they will use it again.

“If people were perfect, there would be no work for spies. But they make mistakes. They think they have closed a door, but it’s still open. They think no one is listening, but we have big ears. They repeat things — a line of code, an address, a technique. Perhaps they think we are human, so we will forget to check. We won’t catch their simple mistakes. But we are inhuman. That is our calling.”

Miss Ma had given that lecture nearly a dozen times now. And it had paid off, year by year. Her cell of specialists gathered bits and pieces, tidbits that were left behind, footprints not quite covered. And with these fragments, they had crafted a seamless net to catch spies.

The MSS ruthlessly exploited its successes. When they found another CIA plant in their midst, they interrogated him until he had given up every last secret — about his CIA case officers and their routines, dead drops and communications methods. That helped the MSS capture another spy, and another.

2

2020, Beijing

What was Ma Wei’s secret? She urged her colleagues to pay meticulous, “inhuman” attention to finding patterns. And why? Because she realized that the CIA had become predictable. The Chinese had always imagined that Americans were wildly creative risk-takers. That was their secret power. But Ma had understood that many Americans didn’t really like to take chances. Ordinary was good enough.

Ma had seen it first when she was a student at the University of Wisconsin. She was already reporting to the Ministry of State Security then, and she had been terrified that she would be discovered by the FBI. But over time, she learned not to worry.

The campus police interviewed her at the beginning of each term. It was supposed to be a friendly talk about campus matters, like a meeting with the dean of students, but Ma knew better. This was the screen through which American law enforcement would, in theory, identify the people who might be spies. But the screen had gaping holes.

What surprised Ma, made her giggle later, was how stupid the questions were. The police officers were reading from a list: Have you received any unusual letters or parcels from China? Has anyone contacted you from the Chinese government? Have you improperly obtained classified information? It was a checklist, which they could then send to the FBI field office in Madison to affirm that they had vetted their students. The Americans were so nice; they wanted her to feel welcome.

She began to wonder then if Americans, the giants who had defeated Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, were really ten feet tall.

Ma’s real revelation came years later, almost by accident, when she was investigating the “tunnel mistake” at the CIA base in Chengdu. As part of her inquiry, she reviewed the recordings that had been made in the outer workspace of the base.

They didn’t reveal any big secrets. Agency officers were careful not to talk about classified matters outside the bubble or other secure spaces deeper inside the base. But the talk in the anteroom offered an unusual look at ordinary conversation among CIA officers, like placing a microphone next to the office water cooler.

Ma learned that Sonia Machel was a CIA officer, like her husband, Tom Crane, simply because she was inside the agency’s restricted space. That proved to be a very valuable fact. Ma ordered a review of old surveillance records of Sonia and realized that she had aborted a run to make a dead drop for the agency’s still-unidentified mole in the Chengdu MSS office. That made it easy to find him.

But Ma had learned little things, too, from the CIA water-cooler talk. She understood that Crane must have been base chief because his colleagues called him “boss” or “chief.” She realized that the agency had a special case going in Chengdu because Crane would halt certain conversations by saying, “That’s RH,” which she knew meant “Restricted Handling.”

The most surprising revelation was that this secret lair of spies was so ordinary. Officers complained about home leave. They cautioned each other not to get in trouble with the inspector general. They worried about congressional investigations. They discussed whether to contact lawyers. It occurred to her, as she listened, that the CIA had become predictable. The freewheeling brotherhood of trust was a myth. These people were careful, even behind the doors of their enclave. And it dawned on her that an organization that had been created in 1947 to break the rules now played by the book.

Once Ma Wei understood that the CIA was a bureaucracy, she realized that her challenge was to be creative. Throw away the musty rule book that Yu Qiangsheng had compiled. Come at the adversary from directions he didn’t expect.

Ma looked for new solutions to old problems. The MSS had always been vulnerable when its officers tried to fill and collect dead drops in America. The FBI could see MSS officers coming a mile away. So, Ma decided to recruit a Chinese American businessman from Northern California, a respected U.S. citizen, and turn him into an MSS courier.

The target was Tankai “Edwin” Fung. The MSS recruited him during a business trip to China in 2015. A Chinese “friend” approached. The Chinese man said he needed simple help — nothing unpleasant or dangerous. He told Fung to reserve hotel rooms on business trips and share the room numbers with him in Beijing. He should leave money in each room, usually $10,000. The next day, he should return. The money would be gone. In its place would be a small computer storage card. He should fly to Beijing and give the card to his Chinese friend.

The MSS turned Fung into their mule. He performed this routine at three hotels in the western United States and three on the Eastern Seaboard. He didn’t seem to realize that he was servicing MSS dead drops. It was an ingenious system that operated from 2015 to 2018. The MSS let its mule do all the dirty work. Fung was caught by the FBI and sentenced in 2020 to prison, but Ma had recruited other mules by then.

It bothered Ma, too, that the Chinese were still so culture-bound, dependent on the overseas Chinese community. So, she created new operations to run Anglos, too. And she was brazen, as in the cold pitch she authorized of a former CIA officer named Evan Joseph Ward.

Ward was running a small consulting business when the MSS first contacted him on social media in 2017, under the cover of a supposed think tank. They invited him to visit China two months later, where he met someone named Michael Hing, who said he would pay a research stipend if Ward could gather useful information using his former government contacts. He gave the former CIA officer a covert device disguised as a Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

It was an outrageously bold action, with none of the old pieties about pretending to be weak when strong.

Ma made mistakes. Fung and Ward both got caught. But so what? If Ma was blocked in one operation, she would try another tactic. And for every agent the FBI discovered, she had many others in play. She was the American girl. The Americans might have stopped taking risks, but not Ma Wei.

3

2020, Washington

Hendrick Hoffman, the former chief of the East Asia Division, brooded about Ma Wei. She confounded him. She was a single woman, childless, from a smoggy industrial suburb of Shanghai. She was the Chinese version of a nobody. How had she learned the skills that allowed her to flay the skin of the CIA’s operations in China so that the agents he and others had recruited were a mess of quivering flesh? It galled him to think that the agency had been defeated by this woman who so diligently turned America’s house of secrets upside down.

The CIA’s China problems had continued, even after they caught Arthur Li. More Chinese penetration agents were exposed. As soon as the CIA tried to touch a potential Chinese source, a light seemed to go on at MSS headquarters. China’s offense had become as strong as its defense. The number and intensity of operations against the United States doubled, and then doubled again.

Ma was nailing people who had even passing contact with American intelligence or its cutouts. She ordered the arrest of one MSS official she accused of working for the CIA — and went on to jail 350 more people she connected to the case. Working for the CIA had become like being a target in a shooting gallery.

As the troubles deepened, the agency had asked Hoffman to come back to head a special counterespionage cell within the East Asia Division.

Hoffman obsessed about Ma Wei the way the fictional George Smiley anguished over his nemesis, “Karla.” Hoffman wondered about Ma at odd hours. What was she planning? How many more penetrations of the CIA was she running in addition to the ones the agency had discovered? How many of the CIA’s sources were doubles, feeding disinformation?

Hoffman had odd, paranoid thoughts: Were the Chinese tapping the electrical grid in Langley to spy somehow through the electricity that coursed through Headquarters? Had they invented insect cameras that buzzed in through airshafts, or robotic cockroaches that lived in the walls of the seventh-floor conference rooms?

Hoffman took to reading the ancient texts of Chinese spycraft, written by Sun Tzu and other commentators 2,500 years ago. They were supple parables of espionage: If you are strong, act weak; if you’re near, pretend to be far away; if you have secrets, feign ignorance. To disorient your enemies, make them angry; when they are at ease, make them weary; when they are resting, make them move.

Hoffman enjoyed the elusive poetry, but he understood Ma well enough to know that this ancient tradecraft wasn’t the secret of her success. These were the hoary precepts that Yu Qiangsheng had enumerated for Tom Crane during his long debriefing. But Ma Wei was the anti-Yu. Her Chinese colleagues still called her the American girl. But what did that mean? What did she understand about America that made her such a clever adversary.

Hoffman was a big man, red-faced. He liked to tell colleagues that a fat man like him had an advantage as an intelligence officer. He could move slowly, stop to rest by the side of the road, excuse himself to find a bathroom. He didn’t like this wisp of a Chinese woman who had outsmarted his agency. He ruminated about her for weeks and months and years.

He wanted revenge. He decided to do what the agency did too rarely these days. He became creative.

4

2023, Washington

Intelligence operations aren’t “nice.” CIA officers have the authority to break the laws of other countries to obtain intelligence. They can lie about covert actions taken abroad to subvert governments or steal secrets. When the agency conducts a “deniable” operation, that means it can be denied if it’s exposed. When people say intelligence operations exist in a shadow world, where normal definitions of right and wrong don’t apply, they’re sometimes right.

Tom Crane had accepted those rules when he joined the agency in the 1980s. And even though the system had bent back against him cruelly during the years when he was suspected as a Chinese mole, he still accepted the code. He would have authorized the same ruthless operations to identify the traitor. Many of his CIA colleagues had learned to play it safe to avoid trouble. Not Crane. He still wanted to win.

So, when his former boss from the East Asia Division contacted Tom in 2023 and asked him to attend a special briefing on what he called “the China File,” he wanted to be helpful. Hendrick Hoffman had retired not long after Tom; he was a “former,” or so Tom thought. But oddly, he called using the encrypted messaging application Signal, rather than an open line.

“I’m angry,” Hoffman said. “We’re getting our clock cleaned by the Chinese.”

“I’ve been angry since they nailed my agent in 2007,” answered Tom.

“They called me back to fix this. I need help.”

Tom agreed immediately. Some part of him had been waiting for this call since the day he left the agency.

Hoffman didn’t ask Tom to walk in the front door at Langley, past the stars on the wall for fallen heroes and the chiseled inscription: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” This was different. He told Crane to meet at a clandestine location on the upper floors of a bland commercial office building in Manassas, Virginia, a suburb of Washington beyond the Beltway.

“I’m getting dragged back in again,” Crane told his wife.

“You never really were out,” she answered.

She studied his face. His eyes were heavy; sad, after so many years of struggle in an uncertain combat. He hadn’t left. He was still trying to finish something.

“Why are you doing this? They screwed you over.”

“Payback, partly. All those people died. But this is for me.”

“You can say no,” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

She knew her husband. It was true. There was a part of him that was empty.

“Then do it,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because you need to.”

Hoffman was the same as Tom remembered: portly, intense, peering over the top of his glasses with an accusatory look even when he was about to ask a favor. Hoffman was an intellectual; he could read Chinese nearly as fast as English. But he always treated intelligence operations as a knife fight.

A polygrapher from the Office of Security waited in an adjoining room. The first priority, before Hoffman said a word, was to check Crane’s reliability.

Hoffman excused himself while the polygrapher administered her test. She queried Tom about contacts with Chinese nationals or any other foreigners, and any potentially compromising information. The test went smoothly; Tom hadn’t talked much to anyone the past few years, other than his wife. When the test was done, Hoffman returned.

“We can’t take any chances on this,” he said. It wasn’t an apology, just a statement of fact.

Tom nodded. He didn’t yet know what the project was, but he understood it required extreme caution.

“The Chinese have been eating our lunch,” Hoffman began. “I don’t have to tell you about the destruction of our agent networks, because you watched it begin. But you may not realize how aggressive the Chinese have become in the years since they rolled up our assets.”

“I don’t know anything,” said Tom. “The FBI told me to shut up. I don’t ask questions. I keep my head down.”

“Of course,” said Hoffman. “I would apologize on behalf of the agency, but that would be meaningless. And untrue. The agency doesn’t have anything to apologize for. They had to investigate you.”

“Understood. No hard feelings. You were telling me how the MSS is eating our lunch.”

“I hate statistics. They give me a stomachache. But let’s start with them. Between 2000 and March 2023, the Chinese ran 224 known intelligence operations against the United States government. Those are the ones we caught. God only knows how many they actually ran. And that doesn’t count cyberhacks. Over the last ten years, we had 104 Chinese cyberattacks, in addition to the other espionage cases.”

“We’re getting clobbered,” said Tom, shaking his head.

“Correct. It’s nauseating. As of 2020, the FBI was opening a new China counterintelligence case every ten hours. Two a day. They had about 2,500 active cases going. The Chinese have gotten very good at this game. Makes us look like chumps.”

“What can I do about it? I want to help. Obviously.”

“We need to punch the MSS in the nose,” said Hoffman. “But we have to do it in a way that looks like it’s the Chinese who are throwing the punch. You get me?”

“Not at all. What are you talking about?”

“We need to set up your girlfriend. Ma Wei. She’s the best thing they’ve got. We need to make the MSS think she’s rotten.”

“You’re nuts. She’s not my girlfriend, for starters. I took her out to lunch a couple of times. That’s it. And she is their star. They won’t mess with her. She’s untouchable.”

“Nobody’s untouchable. And guess what? We’re going to poison the well. With you. You’ve seen more of her than anyone in the agency. We’re going to make the Chinese think you recruited her, long ago. We’re going to wreck her career and maybe put her in prison.”

Crane shook his head, in a combination of appreciation and horror.

“You are a nasty bastard, Hendrick.”

“Thank you,” he answered.

Tom received a blue badge as if he were a full-time employee again, but he didn’t go anywhere near Headquarters. Hoffman had created a small task force that met in the Manassas building and another covert location in Vienna, closer to the city. The team included someone from the CIA’s “skunk works,” known as the Directorate of Science and Technology, and a cyber-geek from the Directorate of Digital Innovation who could help plant phony information in the right places.

Hoffman briefed the task force on the structure of deception that he planned to create. “We are going to create a legend in reverse,” he began. “We’re not going to hide the tracks of a real agent but create the tracks of a fake one. Her crypt will be ‘LCLONER.’ She will be the most useful agent we never recruited.”

The men and women in the room thumped the conference table, whistled and otherwise signaled their approval. Tom surveyed the room. He was ten years older than most of them. Many of his fellow team members had the sallow faces of people who spent too much time in dark rooms playing video games.

Hoffman handed out assignments, each of them chapters in the legend he proposed to create. Members of the team listened carefully, asked questions, and then dispersed to other islands in the secret archipelago that rings Washington.

One team went to Singapore. With help from an agent inside the local branch of a large Swiss bank, they created an electronic paper trail for an account into which quarterly payments of $25,000 appeared to have been made to Ma Wei since 2007, several months after her second meeting with Crane. Sixteen years of payments, with interest, added up to a handsome sum.

The Singapore team doctored the false records so that the payments seemed to have originated with an account in Jersey that the agency had in fact used before to pay a Chinese agent — one of the several dozen who had been swept up in the dragnet that began in 2010.

Another team from S&T doctored a covert communications device that would be left for the “agent,” Ma Wei, at a dead drop outside Beijing. It would be programmed with a communication stating that the device was being sent to agent LCLONER, as had been noted in previous communications, to replace an earlier device with less advanced encryption. The frequency of the new device would match one of the cov-comm devices the CIA knew the Chinese had already captured.

The cov-comm should log another communication: a request for an urgent meeting with the CIA case officer who had recruited the agent, location to be supplied by an alternate but unstated method.

When the device was engineered by S&T, Hoffman sent it by pouch to the Beijing station. On a Restricted Handling channel, he told the chief there to have one of his officers drop the device at a clean site the agency had never used before. The officer making the drop should subtly be sure that Chinese surveillance had in fact detected his run. The Chinese would doubtless watch the spot and, eventually, collect the device.

Now the task force needed to create the intelligence that the fictitious agent Ma Wei had provided to the agency. Hoffman searched the information provided over the past year by the small roster of agents the CIA had managed to recruit since the debacle. He selected three documents that would upset the Chinese but whose intelligence value had already been tapped by the CIA.

How could the Chinese see that an MSS officer had delivered information to the CIA? Hoffman had an idea: The agency knew what communications frequencies the Chinese had identified and were able to intercept. The CIA had kept one of them clean for future use in deception operations. Now, Hoffman transmitted two of the Chinese documents via this circuit — knowing they would be intercepted. He appended a note saying they were highly reliable because they had been obtained from source LCLONER.

Hoffman wanted another channel, to lock in the deceptive intelligence. The FBI had been investigating a suspected Chinese agent within the bureau’s counterintelligence section. Before the bureau made an arrest, Hoffman asked if the agent could be shown, in his digital stack of cables, a piece of raw intelligence about MSS operations in the United States. Ma Wei hadn’t actually written that file, but it had come through one of the branches she supervised.

When these chapters of the legend had been prepared and put in place, Hoffman requested a meeting with Tom, one on one.

“Now, we need just one more thing,” said Hoffman, putting a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “We need you.”

5

2023, Beijing

Tom Crane flew from Washington to Beijing, via Tokyo. He traveled on a diplomatic passport. China was open again after covid, but the Tokyo leg was half full. Crane was staying at a hotel downtown, but he had a taxi drive him to the new American Embassy east of the city center. It looked splendid, with its elegant white columns and Zen-cool reflecting pool. Nearby was Chaoyang Park, where Sonia had serviced a dead drop in another life.

Tom was on a mission that was, in its way, diabolical. He was going to cold-pitch Ma Wei. The station had been monitoring her movements for several weeks, using overhead surveillance. They watched to see when she left the office, noted her route of travel home, checked when she was unguarded.

Tom stayed at his hotel, venturing out to see the sights, until he received an encrypted signal from the embassy with a time and place where he should seek to encounter Miss Ma. She was a single woman, married to her job, you might say, and she had a driver and a housekeeper. But most evenings she liked to take her dog for a stroll in Yuanmingyuan Park, near her apartment, and this evening was forecast to be especially nice.

Tom did an adequate surveillance run. The MSS would be suspicious later if he hadn’t made the attempt. But he knew that the park had heavy fixed surveillance. It was near Tsinghua University and the technical centers where many of China’s military-industrial projects were hatched.

Ma arrived home at 6:30. She changed into casual clothes and descended from her apartment to the street. Ahead of her, tugging at its leash, was a stocky Pekingese with a flat face and big eyes obscured by a bang of fur. The sky was deepening color as dusk approached; the air was clean for Beijing. Many pedestrians were wearing masks after several years of covid lockdowns, but Ma’s face was uncovered.

She approached the park and its graceful array of lakes and canals. Her step was light. She worked hard as MSS chief, and she enjoyed the nightly escape into a world of well-manicured natural beauty.

Tom had finished his SDR an hour before and was standing at the north end of the park, watching the route that she normally took. He turned on the tape recorder he was carrying in his pocket, which he knew the Chinese would take from him later.

He saw the scampering dog before he glimpsed its mistress, but then Ma was unmistakable. She dressed like a woman in middle age now, proper trousers rather than jeans, and her hair in a short bob. But she was still a youthful woman with the buoyant manner that Tom remembered from their encounters.

Tom walked toward her, head down until she was close. When he was ten yards away, he raised his head and strode directly at her. She was in reverie, lost in time, and he caught her by surprise. The first look on her face was a bright flash of recognition, then a darker look of fear. Tom began speaking before she could walk away. He was close to her now.

“Miss Ma, it’s Tom Crane from the U.S. Embassy,” he said. “You remember me. We had lunch together.”

He was a foot away now. In a quick motion, one that he had practiced a dozen times, he slipped something into the open carryall she always slung over her shoulder. It was the number of the bank account in Singapore that the agency had doctored to show the fictitious payments.

“No,” she said loudly. “Go away!”

Tom continued, not breaking stride. “Miss Ma, I have come to see you to make sure we continue your relationship with the CIA.”

There was a look of horror on her face now. She was an intelligence officer. She knew what was happening.

“What are you talking about?” she roared. “I have no relationship with the CIA. Go away. I am calling the police.”

He was still beside her. “Please, we are very grateful. That is why I have come to see you, to remind you of our long relationship and to personally express the thanks of the United States government.”

She was running away from him now and screaming for help in Chinese. Tom didn’t follow. He waited for the police to arrive and take him in for questioning.

Crane was released after two days. He had diplomatic immunity, but the Chinese still wanted to mess with him. They had taken his tape recorder, of course, and the copy in his pocket of the Singapore bank account number, in case the authorities didn’t find the one in her bag.

Ma Wei would insist that it was all a setup, and maybe people would believe her at first. But they would gradually discover the trail of breadcrumbs that Hendrick Hoffman had left, and they would never really be sure, would they? That was the beauty of this operation. It created a haze of doubt over Ma that she would never be able to dispel. Her career as MSS minister was effectively over, whether they charged her with espionage or not.

On the flight back to Washington, Tom wondered whether he felt guilty for what he had done. But this woman wasn’t innocent. She had directed the intelligence service of a police state. She had run operations that had resulted in the deaths of several dozen Chinese people who had worked for the United States.

Still, Tom couldn’t sleep on the long flight home.

In his near-slumber, he recalled the hundreds of hours with Yu Qiangsheng as he explained the Tao of deception. He thought of the haunted gaze of his agent in Chengdu and his flush in the intoxicating moment that the Chinese man became a spy, and he remembered the red pulp of the man’s face after he had been arrested and interrogated.

He recalled in his half-consciousness the glint in Ma Wei’s eyes as she had wheedled for the information that his wife was a deep-cover CIA officer. And he saw again that last moment in the park in Beijing days before, and the shocked look from her that said, at once, “How could you?” and “Of course.”

What had Crane learned? Perhaps that, as Yu had told him, it is best to win wars without fighting.

Tom’s war was over, and so was Ma Wei’s. Somehow it didn’t feel like victory.

About this serial

Project management and audience editing by Beatrix Lockwood and Mili Mitra. Social media editing by Edgar Ramirez and Deirdre Byrne. Audio production by Hadley Robinson and Charla Freeland. Illustrations by Anthony Gerace for The Post. Copy editing by Vince Rinehart and Lydia Rebac. Design and development by Post Opinions staff.

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · July 3, 2023

26. Green Beans Coffee stokes tensions in South China Sea

I could not resist this excellent humor. The best humor rests on the foundation of real events. This covers a lot of ground.

Green Beans Coffee stokes tensions in South China Sea

Irvine recommends every Marine try "200 reps of 7.62" in the Spratlys

https://www.duffelblog.com/p/green-beans-coffee-stokes-tensions-in-south-china-sea?utm

Blondes Over Baghdad

July 03, 2023

Irvine demonstrates how to choke the life from a man or eat a turkey burger.

FRESH KITCHEN, The Pentagon – Chef, fitness fanatic, barista, government destabilizing agent, and president of the international Green Beans Coffee expansion project, Robert Irvine is implementing a plan to expand opportunities and increase market share for Green Beans by starting a land war in Asia.

The Menacing of Arch China or “MOAC,” is a base of the National Defense Strategy with four shots of fear-mongering mixed in. While the goal is a near-peer engagement with China, and/or 5,432 Green Beans coffee locations by 2035, Irvine is on track to hit the key road-to-war benchmark of 3,200 caramel frappes in the Straits of Taiwan by fiscal year 2025.

“No one stops Robert Irvine when he wants something,” said Robert Irvine as he did farmer carries with 80kg of Fit Crunch in each hand. “First, I controlled the military-industrial caffeine complex. Now I control the narrative.”

With the end of the Global War on Terror, sales of Green Beans Coffee, Rip-it, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, A-10 Warthogs, and exchange select wet wipes have fallen to an all-time low. As these industries fall precariously close to collapse, each has had to find a new business model and market. Only Green Beans Coffee has had the courage to double down on its previous “War! What is it Good For? Us!” business model by actually working to foment a shooting war with China.

Irvine, known best for his Food Network appearances, has been making the rounds on Fox News to opine on China’s growing global influence, rare earth minerals, the Wuhan virus, and co-branding opportunities between Restaurant: Impossible and Green Beans Coffee.

Flexing hard for a full lat spread display in the Pentagon Athletic Center, Irvine spoke over his shoulder while saying, “The average Chinese guy? Not a big guy at all. Likely can’t squat more than 225. And between the MSG and sodium in the average Chinese menu? Any high-intensity war should be America by a walk. Are you done with that bench?”

Irvine’s campaign seems to be working. Within the Pentagon, sources who asked to remain anonymous confirmed that pages 286-372 of the National Military Strategy were copied directly from a napkin Irvine slid to Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, Joint Staff Director for Operations under a gluten-free crust fig and bacon pizza with caramelized onions during the war fighter’s pizza party. Sims was last seen wandering down the E ring in a daze, following the scent of a maple walnut blondie that Irvine threw like a flare.

“We plan for large-scale operations against China, the threat we assess as our most likely peer threat,” said Vice Adm. Stephen T. "Web" Koehler Director for Strategy, Plans and Policy, J5 at a daily Pentagon Press briefing. “But through strategic deterrence, we ensure that the day never arrives that we are forced to sacrifice America’s blood and treasure to preserve our freedom and way of… Wow! Is that a large iced MOAC with a shot of vanilla and whipped cream on top? I haven’t seen one of those since I was a Lt. Commander spending all my days in one of the thirty-seven reasonably priced Baghdad Green Zone Green Beans.”

Irvine has admirers outside of the Pentagon as well.

“We all look up to Robert and what he’s accomplished at Green Beans, we really do,” said Anthony Breadsticknello, founder of Anthony’s Pizza. “I got locations in every PX in the country and even in Japan, but then I started to think I was flying too close to the sun. Robert ignores that instinct. He really goes for it. Just don’t ask who is building those artificial islands or why you suddenly can’t find the banana pecan FitCrunch anymore.”

Blondes Over Baghdad lets someone else take the top block because it’s the selfless service thing to do. She’ll go to ranger school when there’s a 3-beer policy. Follow her on Twitter at @BlondsOvrBaghd

26. From warfighters to lawmakers: Ranks of Navy SEALs growing in Congress

From warfighters to lawmakers: Ranks of Navy SEALs growing in Congress

washingtontimes.com · by Alex Miller

By - The Washington Times - Monday, July 3, 2023

The number of military veterans in Congress has dwindled over the past decade, but one group of former commandos has bucked that trend.

House membership of Navy SEALs went from zero to five over the past 10 years. They won elections to represent districts in Montana, Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas.

All members of this small club are Republicans.

The 80 military veterans serving in the House represent 18% of the chamber’s 435 members. It is the smallest share in modern history, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.

Navy SEALs now comprise just over 1% of House lawmakers.

Navy SEALs — short for the U.S. Navy Sea, Air and Land Teams — go through rigorous training on the coast of Coronado, California, to become mission-focused war fighters. The Navy SEALs in Congress say their military training and experience have prepared them for political combat on Capitol Hill.

“One of the biggest things that any SEAL would acknowledge is that we are forged through adversity, we are made through adversity in the SEAL teams,” said Rep. Elijah Crane of Arizona. “Congress is obviously not an easy job.”

Mission success is paramount for SEALS, and they say no mission, big or small, can succeed without teamwork.

Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana served in the Navy for 23 years. In 2014, he became the first SEAL elected to Congress.

In addition to Mr. Crane, others joining the influx are Reps. Morgan Luttrell of Texas, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Dan Crenshaw of Texas. Mr. Crenshaw won reelection to a third term last year.

The four newly elected SEALs displayed their teamwork prowess on the campaign trail last year.

Mr. Zinke is chairman of the Supporting and Electing American Leaders Political Action Committee, or SEAL PAC, which worked to elect himself and Mr. Crane, Mr. Luttrell and Mr. Van Orden.

“We just spent a lot of time helping each other,” Mr. Zinke said.

Mr. Luttrell said he and his peers were “thick as thieves” on the campaign trail. The brotherhood that the SEALs share also cuts through political differences on Capitol Hill.

“It is a group where we can collectively come together and voice our concerns, and we know that it’s safe right there,” Mr. Luttrell said. “If we need guidance and direction, we can lean on each other.”

At 61, Mr. Zinke is the eldest of the club. He said having a younger group of SEALs in the House was important, particularly for fresh perspectives on national defense matters.

“When you first get there and you’re a private, you’re probably not going to lead a lot of missions,” Mr. Zinke said. “You have to learn in the House. There’s a little learning curve.”

Mr. Luttrell, who served in the Navy for 14 years, said bipartisan teamwork is foremost in getting work accomplished in Congress.

Army Rangers were never his “jam,” Mr. Luttrell said, but when it came time for a mission, any friction melted away and the focus became mission success.

That same feeling has translated into how Mr. Luttrell operates in the House.

“When I’m a member of Congress, I use the understanding of ‘Hey, look, we may disagree on tactics, but the mission itself is the betterment of the country,’” Mr. Luttrell said.

Mr. Crane, who served in the Navy for 13 years, said the dedication to teamwork doesn’t mean fidelity to the House Republican leadership. That was evident when he joined other Freedom Caucus members to block the election of Kevin McCarthy as speaker in 14 rounds of voting in January.

“A lot of military guys think that the Republican Party or the Democrat Party is their new chain of command and that they need to fall into line and do what they’re told. I don’t believe that the Republican Party is my new chain of command,” Mr. Crane said. “The people in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District are my chain of command.”

• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washigtontimes.com.

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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