Quotes of the Day:
“Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
- Isaac Asimov
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew."
- Abraham Lincoln, December 1862
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 5 (Putin's War)
2. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: July
3. NATO Is Sending the Right Message to Putin
4. NASA chief warns against China’s moon program
5. Israel-Arab Air Defense Alliance A Real Possibility Due To Iran Threat
6. Countering Putin’s Nuclear Threats
7. Army’s education waiver reversal stuns applicants, splits experts on impact
8. The RNC and DNC have time to prevent an electoral disaster in 2024
9. No, the West Should Not Appease Erdogan
10. U.S. Aims to Expand Export Bans on China Over Security and Human Rights
11. How volunteers can help defeat great powers
12. Deterrence is Not Rocket Science: It is More Difficult
13. Gas Becomes a Second Front in Putin’s War
14. The Three Ps of Amplifying and Accelerating Domestic Extremism in the United States
15. How commercial satellite imagery could soon make nuclear secrecy very difficult—if not impossible
16. The Liberty Times Editorial: ‘Asian NATO’ might temper Chinese activity
17. How Nato’s stance on China has changed, and why it matters
18. Mongolia’s Military Diplomacy Highlights Female Peacekeepers
19. Russia doing everything to make Europe experience the biggest crisis in history this winter – Zelensky
20. The Risks of US Military Assistance to Ukraine
21. Nuclear Power Gets New Push in U.S., Winning Converts
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 5 (Putin's War)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 5
Karolina Hird, George Barros, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan
July 5, 7:30 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russia’s stated objectives in its invasion of Ukraine remain regime change in Kyiv and the truncation of the sovereignty of any Ukrainian state that survives the Russian attack despite Russian military setbacks and rhetoric hinting at a reduction in war aims following those defeats. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated on July 5 that the Russian military operation in Ukraine will continue until Russia achieves its goals of protecting civilians from “genocide,” “denazifying” and demilitarizing Ukraine, and obliging Ukraine to be permanently neutral between Russia and NATO—almost exactly restating the goals Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in his February 24 speech justifying the war.[1] Putin had stated that the operation aimed to protect civilians from humiliation and genocide, demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, and prosecute genocidal perpetrators.[2] Patrushev’s explicit restatement of Putin‘s initial objectives, nearly five months later, strongly indicates that the Kremlin does not consider recent Russian gains in Luhansk Oblast sufficient to accomplish the initial goals of the "special operation,” supporting ISW’s ongoing assessment that the Kremlin has significant territorial aspirations beyond the Donbas. Patrushev’s statement suggests that Russian military leadership will continue to push for advances outside Donetsk and Luhansk blasts and that the Kremlin is preparing for a protracted war with the intention of taking much larger portions of Ukraine.[3]
Patrushev’s statement is noteworthy because of its timing and his position as a close confidante of Putin. Patrushev is very unlikely to stray far from Putin’s position in his public comments given his relationship with Putin and his role in the Kremlin. His restatement of virtually the same maximalist objectives that Putin laid out before the invasion even as Russian forces seemed to be closing in on the more limited objectives of securing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts—which Putin and other Russian leaders had hinted were their new aims following their defeats around Kyiv—strongly suggests that those hints did not reflect any actual change in Kremlin policy. Patrushev’s statement significantly increases the burden on those who suggest that some compromise ceasefire or even peace based on limited additional Russian territorial gains is possible, even if it were acceptable to Ukraine or desirable for the West (neither of which is the case).
Igor Girkin, a Russian nationalist and former commander of militants in the 2014 war in Donbas, responded to Patrushev’s statements and continued expressing his general disillusionment with the Kremlin’s official line on operations in Ukraine. Girkin said that the intended goals of “denazification” and “de-militarization” will only be possible with the total defeat of the Ukrainian military and the surrender of the Ukrainian government.[4] Girkin noted that Russian victory is premised on the capture of "Novorossiya”—a notional territory that encompasses eight Ukrainian oblasts, including the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and much of eastern and southern Ukraine. Girkin also claimed that the capture of “Novorossiya” is the bare minimum and that Russian goals will be realized through the total capture of “Malorossiya,” which is an invocation of the Russian imperial concept for almost all Ukrainian territory. Girkin is once again pushing back on the Kremlin line, which he views as insufficient in securing Russian objectives in Ukraine. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik similarly suggested that the Kremlin has not yet met its goals in Ukraine, despite reaching the borders of his claimed oblast, and stated that LNR authorities are still not confident in the security of the LNR.[5] Girkin and Miroshnik’s statements, taken together, indicate that Russian nationalists continue to push for further territorial gains and, at least in Girkin’s case, full-scale regime change and the incorporation of most of Ukraine into Russia. Patrushev’s statement suggests that Kremlin thinking may not be that far removed from these extremist nationalist ambitions.
Key Takeaways
- Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev restated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial objectives for operations in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin retains maximalist objectives including regime change and territorial expansion far beyond the Donbas.
- Russian forces continued offensive operations northwest and east of Slovyansk.
- Russian forces are attempting to advance west of the Lysychansk area toward Siversk.
- Russian forces are likely attempting to gain access to village roads southeast of Bakhmut in order to advance on the city from the south.
- Ukrainian forces conducted a limited counterattack southwest of Donetsk City.
- Russian forces continued limited and unsuccessful assaults in northern Kharkiv Oblast.
- Russian authorities are conducting escalated conscription measures in occupied territories to compensate for continuing manpower losses.
- Russian authorities are continuing to consolidate administrative control of occupied areas of Ukraine, likely to set conditions for the direct annexation of these territories to the Russian Federation.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City;
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis;
- Mobilization and force generation efforts;
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued offensive operations to the northwest and east of Slovyansk on July 5.[6] Ukrainian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanuk stated that elements of the Russian 8th and 58th Combined Arms Armies, mobilization reserve of the 1st and 2nd Army Corps (forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples’ Republics), and elements of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, 41st Combined Arms Army, 90th Tank Division, 68th Army Corps, and Airborne Forces (VDV) are currently active in the Donbas and likely participating in efforts to advance on Slovyansk.[7] Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks on Dolyna and Krasnopillya, both along the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border northwest of Slovyansk.[8] Russian forces conducted continued artillery strikes against Ukrainian positions southeast of Izyum along the E40 highway and fired on Dibrove, Dolyna, Adamivka, Bohorodychne, and Mazanivka.[9] Russian forces also fired on Kryva Luka, about 20km east of Slovyansk, in order to continue to set conditions for advances on Slovyansk from the southwest of Lyman.[10] Slovyansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh reported that Russian forces conducted an artillery strike directly on Slovyansk and indicated that artillery strikes on the city have recently intensified.[11]
Russian forces continued efforts to push west from Lysychansk and the Luhansk Oblast border towards Siversk on July 5.[12] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces conducted an airstrike near Siversk and fired on civilian infrastructure in Serebryanka—a settlement 5 km northeast of Siversk directly along the Luhansk-Donetsk Oblast border.[13] Russian sources also reported that Russian troops have begun demining and clearing Severodonetsk and Lysychansk to expand their control and administrative presence of the area and continue to use it as a base for future offensives to the west.[14]
Russian forces continued offensive operations southeast of Bakhmut on July 5. Russian forces conducted ground assaults on Novoluhanske (about 25 km southeast of Bakhmut) and Vershyna (about 10km southeast of Bakhmut) and shelled Ukrainian positions between Novoluhanske and Bakhmut in the areas of Kodema and Zaitseve.[15] The continued targeting of Ukrainian positions southeast of Bakhmut indicates that Russian forces likely seek to gain access to village roads between Novoluhanske and Bakmut that lead to the T0513 highway, which runs northwards directly into Bakhmut. Opening that route along with the E40 highway would allow them to advance on Bakhmut along two converging axes.
Ukrainian forces conducted a limited counterattack southwest of Donetsk City on July 5. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Ukrainian troops regained control of Solodke, about 30 km southwest of Donetsk City.[16] Russian forces also continued to fire at Ukrainian positions along the line of contact in the Donetsk City-Avdiivka area.[17]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces continued limited ground assaults north of Kharkiv City on July 5. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are focusing on maintaining defensive positions and repelling Ukrainian advances and that Russian troops attempted an unsuccessful assault near Sosnivka.[18] The Derhachi City Council reported that Ukrainian forces also repelled Russian assaults on Prudyanka, Dementiivka, and Pytomnk.[19] Russian forces continued intense air and artillery strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure and force concentrations in Kharkiv City and the surrounding settlements.[20]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces prioritized holding defensive lines and repelling Ukrainian counteroffensives along the Southern Axis on July 5. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian platoon-level attack near Lozove (southwest of Davydiv Brid in Kherson Oblast), which indicates that Ukrainian forces likely either reestablished a bridgehead at Lozove at an unspecified previous date or have consistently maintained the one they established in early June.[21] This report is the first mention by Ukrainian officials of control of terrain on the left bank of the Inhulets River near Davydiv Brid since the Ukrainian General Staff reported a Ukrainian counteroffensive near Sukhyi Stavok on June 5.[22] Russian Telegram channel Rybar claimed on July 4 that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults on the Snuhurivka-Lozove-Bila Krynytsya lines along the Inhulets River.[23] While exact control of terrain around Lozove and Davydiv Brid remains unclear, Ukrainian forces likely did seize some territory in this area. NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) remotely sensed data showed fires near south and east of Lozove on July 5, consistent with the Ukrainian Southern Operational Command’s report. Russian forces continued targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure behind the front line across the Southern Axis on July 5.[24]
[Source: NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System, July 5]
Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces are reinforcing unspecified positions along the Southern Axis with unspecified units from Khabarovsk Krai.[25] The report likely refers to the Russian 57th and/or 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigades (MRBs) (subordinate to the 5th and 35th Combined Arms Armies, respectively) based in Khabarovsk Krai. The 57th MRB reportedly operated around Severodonetsk, Luhansk Oblast in mid-April, and the 64th MRB participated in the Battle of Kyiv and likely participated in the war crimes in Bucha. [26]
Mobilization and force generation efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russian authorities continued to escalate conscription measures in order to support force generation efforts. Ukrainian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk stated that Russian forces have intensified conscription practices to provide more manpower for the 2nd Army Corps (forces of the Luhansk People’s Republic), which likely suffered considerable losses during protracted operations for control of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.[27] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also stated that Russian authorities are preparing for conscription in Berdyansk by ordering building managers to provide lists of conscription-aged residents.[28] Russian authorities will likely continue to set conditions for conscription in occupied territories to renew combat capabilities.[29]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian authorities continued efforts to strengthen administrative and economic control of occupied areas of Ukraine on July 5. The Ukrainian Resistance Center claimed that Ukrainian partisans discovered a network of pro-Russian collaborators in occupied Kherson Oblast on July 5.[30] The report indicated that this network of collaborators informs occupation forces about Ukrainian activities, which suggests that Russian authorities are continuing to leverage pro-Russian sentiment to extend control over occupied areas.[31] However, the Ukrainian Resistance Center also claimed that Russian authorities have failed to find enough collaborators to form an occupation government in Kherson Oblast and are therefore installing officials directly from Russia.[32] This claim is consistent with previous reports that proxy leadership in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) has imported several Russian public administration officials to the DNR government to shape its policies under a Russian framework.[33] Despite the number of Ukrainian collaborators in Kherson Oblast, Russian occupation authorities likely prefer Russian officials in administrative roles to align occupied areas with the Russian system on an administrative level. This phenomenon may indicate that the Russians are preparing to annex the occupied territories directly to the Russian Federation rather than establishing one or more independent statelets.
Occupation authorities are continuing measures to integrate Ukrainian economic assets into the Russian trade economy. The Russian-backed head of the Zaporizhia occupation administration, Yevheny Balytskyi, stated that occupation authorities in Zaporizhia Oblast have agreed to export Ukrainian grain to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. Balytskyi claimed that the administration will export over 150,000 tons of grain to Iran alone.[34] Both ISW and the Critical Threats Project have sought, but not found, confirmation of these reports from Iran, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia.
Russian authorities continued to consolidate control of Ukrainian energy assets. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on July 5 that Russian authorities intend to restaff the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) with Russian employees, likely mostly from Rosenergoatom. The Ukrainian Resistance Center claimed that Russian authorities intend to disconnect the NPP from the Ukrainian power grid by the end of September, which indicates that Russian authorities intend to fully divert Ukrainian energy to the Russian Federation.[35]
[1] https://ria dot ru/20220705/spetsoperatsiya-1800246996.html
[26] https://incident.obozrevatel dot com/crime/vsu-likvidirovali-pod-severodonetskom-komandira-rotyi-57-j-brigadyi-vs-rf-foto-18.htm; https://gur.gov dot ua/content/voennye-prestupnyky-neposredstvenno-uchastvuiushchye-v-sovershenyy-voennykh-prestuplenyi-protyv-naroda-ukrayny-v-h-bucha-voennosluzhashchye-64-otdelnoi-motostrelkovoi-bryhady-35-oa-vvo.html
[34] https://tass dot ru/ekonomika/15123727?utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=google.com&utm_referrer=google.com
[35] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/07/05/rosiyany-cherez-vidmovu-ukrayinskyh-energetykiv-spivpraczyuvaty-zvozyat-vlasnyj-personal-na-zahoplenu-zaes/
2. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: July
July 5, 2022 | FDD Tracker: June 3, 2022-July 5, 2022
Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: July
Trend Overview
Edited by John Hardie
Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch.
When it comes to redressing Beijing’s illiberal economic practices, however, the Biden team remains divided on how to proceed. Separately, the administration threw some counterpunches in an intensifying U.S.-China fight for influence in the Pacific Islands, but Washington still seems two steps behind Beijing in advancing economic ties with Indo-Pacific countries.
Please check back in with us next month to see how the administration dealt with these and other challenges.
Trending Positive
Trending Neutral
Trending Negative
Trending Very Negative
3. NATO Is Sending the Right Message to Putin
But strength and resolve must be sustained.
NATO Is Sending the Right Message to Putin
A larger, more assertive alliance is the only way to deter Russian aggression.
July 5, 2022 at 8:00 AM EDT
At their summit in Madrid last week, NATO’s leaders agreed to add two new members, Finland and Sweden, and to beef up the alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe. Taken together, the moves will greatly enhance NATO’s firepower and strengthen its ability to deter Russian aggression. They also could create new risks, which all member states will need to be attentive to.
The summit’s most significant breakthrough came before it officially began, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to support the Nordic countries’ bids to join NATO. In exchange, Erdogan received assurances that both countries would not support Kurdish groups that Turkey considers terrorists — as well as a pledge from US President Joe Biden to support the sale of new F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
However distasteful to give in to Erdogan’s demands, the price was worth it. Adding Finland and Sweden will significantly upgrade the alliance’s air-defense and intelligence capabilities and help NATO counter Russian activity in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. It also sends a powerful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin: namely, that his attempt to use the invasion of Ukraine to weaken and divide NATO has done just the opposite.
Having agreed to move forward with Nordic expansion, the leaders of NATO’s member states will still need to convince their respective legislatures to ratify the deal. In the meantime, the allies should increase intelligence sharing and defense cooperation with Finland and Sweden to deter Russia from taking hostile action while their membership bids are pending.
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Beyond expanding to the north, NATO announced other measures that have the potential to transform Europe’s security landscape. Biden said the US will establish a permanent Army headquarters in Poland and rotate more forces to Romania and the Baltic states. Two additional squadrons of US F-35 stealth fighters will be sent to the UK to bolster NATO’s air power. Fully deploying the new assets will double the size of NATO’s defenses on its eastern flank.
It remains to be seen whether the allies can sustain the resolve that was on display in Madrid. US and European officials predict the war in Ukraine is likely to continue for months to come. Support for tougher sanctions against Russia may collapse as energy and food costs mount. It’s also possible that Putin will lash out in retaliation against NATO’s new assertiveness, perhaps by targeting vulnerable Baltic states — which might test the willingness of the US and Europe to heed their obligations to defend any ally that comes under attack.
The work of defending Ukraine’s freedom, let alone countering Russian influence in Europe, is far from over. But NATO has so far shown impressive unity and determination in meeting the challenge. For that, Biden and his fellow leaders deserve credit and support.
4. NASA chief warns against China’s moon program
"lunar hegemony"
Excerpts:
A spokesman for China‘s Foreign Ministry rejected Mr. Nelson‘s criticisms of China‘s space program, saying Beijing has no intentions of colonizing the moon and has consistently supported joint international exploration of space. China is planning unmanned research missions to the moon’s south pole some time this decade.
“This is not the first time that the NASA administrator has lashed out at China in disregard of facts,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday during a press briefing. “Some U.S. officials have spoken irresponsibly to misrepresent the normal and legitimate space endeavors of China.”
NASA chief warns against China’s moon program
Beijing angrily rejects charge it seeks lunar hegemony.
The Cold War space program was often characterized as a campaign between the U.S. and the Soviet Union with both sides claiming victories: Moscow was the first to launch a man into space while Washington landed the first man on the moon.
But more than 50 years after Neil Armstrong stepped off Apollo 11’s lunar module onto the Sea of Tranquility, NASA administrator Bill Nelson says the U.S. is in another “space race.” This time with China, which the U.S. space chief said has made no secret that its ambitions are not limited to earthly influence and power.
“We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: ‘It’s ours now and you stay out,’” Mr. Nelson said in an interview published Saturday in the German newspaper Bild.
Mr. Nelson, a former longtime Democratic senator from Florida, was the second member of Congress to fly in space. In 1986, he was a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
China‘s space program, at its heart, is a military space program, Mr. Nelson said.
“China is good. But China is also good because they steal ideas and technology from others,” he said, according to Bild.
The U.S. was the first, and so far only, country to put a human on the surface of the moon. But NASA has not been back since 1972 following the Apollo 17 mission. The U.S. space agency is planning a return to the moon with its Artemis program. NASA says it will return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024, paving the way for future missions to Mars.
A spokesman for China‘s Foreign Ministry rejected Mr. Nelson‘s criticisms of China‘s space program, saying Beijing has no intentions of colonizing the moon and has consistently supported joint international exploration of space. China is planning unmanned research missions to the moon’s south pole some time this decade.
“This is not the first time that the NASA administrator has lashed out at China in disregard of facts,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday during a press briefing. “Some U.S. officials have spoken irresponsibly to misrepresent the normal and legitimate space endeavors of China.”
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5. Israel-Arab Air Defense Alliance A Real Possibility Due To Iran Threat
This would seem to be a historic development. Or too good to be true? I hope discussing it before it happens does not scuttle the project.
Israel-Arab Air Defense Alliance A Real Possibility Due To Iran Threat
In an exclusive interview with The War Zone, former CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie talks about the Middle East Air Defense Alliance.
BY
JUL 5, 2022 6:36 PM
Israel and several Arab nations are “down the road a good bit” toward creating a system to share information about Iranian missile and air defense threats to the region, the most recent former commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) tells The War Zone.
“You'd like to have a common operational picture that everyone can share so that everyone has immediate knowledge of threats, and can take actions to protect themselves and protect others,” Frank McKenzie, the retired Marine general who commanded CENTCOM until April, told The War Zone in an exclusive interview Friday morning. “Nations are open to sharing intelligence, sharing air defense information, and I think it's a big step forward. We've taken some very specific steps there that I can't share the details [about.]”
The growing threat from Iranian missiles is increasing cooperation between Israel and Arab nations. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The range of threats from Iran and its proxies in the region - ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones - makes this cooperation effort, dubbed the Middle East Air Defense Alliance, especially valuable.
A common situational awareness, leading to early detection of these threats, is a mutually beneficial asperation for Israel and the Arab nations. Drones, in particular, are a challenging threat. They are hard to spot, can fly relatively slow and over great distances, often at low altitude. This means early warning is very problematic, but with an integrated air picture over the region, it would drastically improve.
“The growing threat posed by these systems coupled with our lack of dependable, networked capabilities to counter them is the most concerning tactical development since the rise of the improvised explosive device in Iraq," McKenzie said at a Middle East Institute think tank event in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 8. "They provide adversaries the operational ability to surveil and target U.S. and partner facilities while affording plausible deniability and a disproportionate return on the investment, all in our adversaries’ favor."
With Arab nations equipped with increasingly advanced U.S.-made air and missile defense systems laying between Iran and Israel's borders, the latter has an especially potent interest in seeing such a previously unthinkable level of cooperation come to pass.
There is still a long way to reach the level of military cooperation among Israel and Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, and other nations that the Middle East Air Defense alliance aspires to, McKenzie told The War Zone.
But the work is well underway.
“We’re not at the first step,” said McKenzie, who now heads up the University of South Florida's newly created Global and National Security Institute. “We're further down than we've ever been, but because of the sensitivities involved, I'm not going to be able to give you any more information.”
In March, however, McKenzie met with top military leaders of those nations, plus officers from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to discuss such a system, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported it was the first time senior leaders of all those nations met under U.S. auspices.
Still, the effort has already led to some measure of success, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz told Israeli lawmakers last month.
“Over the past year I have been leading an extensive program, together with my partners at the Pentagon and in the U.S. administration, that will strengthen the cooperation between Israel and countries in the region,” he said, according to an official transcript, Reuters reported June 20.
“This program is already operative and has already enabled the successful interception of Iranian attempts to attack Israel and other countries."
The transcript did not name partner countries nor give further details on the thwarted attacks.
McKenzie declined to cough up any details.
“I'm not gonna be able to speak to any specific incident,” McKenzie told The War Zone when asked about Gantz’ comments. “But I would tell you that we have demonstrated an ability to share information about emerging threats and help nations address those threats and that's really all I care to say.”
Israel and Arab nations like Egypt, Jordan and Saudia Arabia are seeing common threats from Iran. Google Earth
The War Zone reached out to Israel's Ministry of Defense for further details of the interceptions and countries Gantz referenced. We will update this story with any additional information provided.
The Pentagon told The War Zone it “is well aware of” Gantz’ statements and deferred further questions about them to Israel.
“DoD’s commitment to increasing regional cooperation against shared threats emanating from Iran is nothing new, and the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad,” Army Maj. Rob Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, told The War Zone. “Expanding integrated deterrence and more networked security cooperation remains a high priority amidst an emerging consensus among many Middle East partners that integrated air and missile defense, and enhanced maritime security, can help defend against and counter shared threats.”
Last month, Yoni Ben Menachem, a longtime Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television and senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center, tweeted that the U.S. involvement in this alliance could involve a deeper military commitment than mere advising.
“The planned air defense alliance against Iran will include the establishment of a joint [command], possibly at the [CENTCOM] headquarters in Qatar," he tweeted, "and the deployment of radar, surveillance, and alert systems in Arab countries to detect Iranian ballistic missiles and UAVs for interception.”
McKenzie declined to comment about those specifics. But he said that “all of these countries have very good radar systems. Many of them are our Patriot systems.”
The goal, then, is not to install new radar systems, “but rather practices, techniques and procedures that would allow you to share that information better.”
That “improved efficiency and sharing information” could be “done in a variety of places. Certainly, the CAOC [Combined Air Operations Center] at Al Udeid Airbase [in Qatar] is one. There are possibly other locations [where] that could occur and I don’t want to limit the future of where those could be.”
As for what role the U.S. military could play in the Mid East Air Defense Alliance, McKenzie said that America remains the “partner of choice” in the region, despite encroachments from Russia and China.
“Every nation in the region wants to have a relationship with the United States,” he said. “Not only because of our weapons, which are very good, but because of all of the things that come with an association with the United States. So it is only natural that as they reach out and increase ties with each other, they view the United States in some ways as an honest broker who can help these relationships move forward, particularly their relationships between nations that don't have a history of having strong ties.”
THAAD interceptor test launch. Credit: US Army
Beyond that, despite the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it still has “significant resources in the Middle East,” he said. “We still have significant Air Command Control and Air Force air defense resources in the theater. As far as I know, they're going to remain and help provide a backbone going forward.”
Still, the long-term goal is to ween the region of dependence on the U.S. “to allow us to focus on other areas if we need to.”
The idea of regional air defense is not new. Turkey and Israel, for instance, briefly pursued joint-production of Arrow in the late 1990s, War On The Rocks reported in 2015. The U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum in 2014 reaffirmed its intent to create “a Gulf-wide, interoperable missile defense architecture.” And the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Center, at Al Bateen AB, UAE, offers simulation and modeling-based instruction, and combines a large amount of training for both ballistic and cruise missile defense education, according to
But the timing for this latest cooperation effort, once unthinkable given long-standing enmity between Israel and those Arab nations, is right, McKenzie told The War Zone.
“The reason that people are interested in doing that now is because the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems is now more pressing than it has ever been at any point in the past,” said McKenzie. “Over the last five to seven years, Iran has extensively upgraded their arsenal of these weapons and they've used them against their neighbors.”
Israeli has established expertise in air defense technology, like the Iron Dome system that has proven successful in knocking down incoming fire, particularly from Gaza. That, said McKenzie, is attractive to Arab nations which, like Israel, face missile and drone threats from Iran, McKenzie said.
“Israel works with all the nations in the region,” he said. “Those are sometimes bilateral agreements between them. And I wouldn't be able to speculate further on that, but I would tell you that Israel has a lot of expertise to bring because they've got decades of experience [at air defense]. They have excellent technology, and all the nations of the region realize that.“
Israel said it exhibited an example of that technology last week, claiming it downed three Hezbollah drones on Saturday heading toward the Mediterranean Ocean gas rig it was about to open.
Last year, Israel launched a new early-warning aerostat, a type of unmanned tethered airship, described as one of the largest of its kind in the world. Developed by Israeli industry with U.S. assistance, the High Availability Aerostat System, or HAAS, will be expected to provide advance warning of low-flying threats, such as cruise missiles, weaponized drones, and other aerial threats. You can read more about that here.
While Israel and the Arab nations have been increasing cooperation over the years, those efforts were boosted, said McKenzie, when CENTCOM assumed responsibility for U.S. military activity in Israel last year. Adding Israel under the CENTCOM umbrella has only increased military-to-military relations between once bitter foes.
Israel has the most advanced and multi-layered integrated air defense network on earth, including Arrow ballistic missile interceptors that have been developed with assistance from the United States. Credit: US Navy
“When Israel came into the Central Command Area of Responsibility that made it a lot easier for many of these nations to cooperate with Israel, even as we saw the opening of diplomatic relations and the Abraham Accords and the other elements of normalization of relations that have proceeded subsequent to that. Now we're beginning to see some of these things happen at the military-to-military level."
Besides, sharing information about the threat environment, tips, and early warning “is a lot easier to do than working with ground combat forces,” said McKenzie.
Despite the increasing cooperation between Israel and Arab nations, impediments to further cooperation exist, particularly the unsettled future of the Palestinians and long-standing concerns about how Israel treats them.
“I think there's a lack of trust,” McKenzie said when asked about how continued Arab concerns about Palestinians could affect the alliance. “You have to build trust. Some nations have a very high degree of trust with each. Other nations have a high degree of trust with us.”
The key to any future success is building trust and getting to a point “where you actually have a degree of confidence that [when] you get information somewhere, you're not going to misuse it."
It takes time and the commitment of senior leaders to build that trust.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict "certainly is an impediment, but I believe if you practice exercises, just through repetition, you get to the point where people gain a level of trust. So I believe there's a way to actually reduce that.”
While that level of trust in Israel “varies from neighbor to neighbor” McKenzie said “I think everyone in the theater generally recognizes the utility of having a relationship with Israel, the unique capabilities they bring to the defense of the region, and the fact that they are in fact the target of Iran, as are many of the nations in the region. So that sort of brings you together in a community of interest when someone's going after you.”
Having U.S. operations in Israel under the CENTCOM umbrella also means increased cooperation and training exercises between the U.S. and Israel.
Last month, senior CENTCOM leaders and staff visited their Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counterparts in Tel Aviv. It was the first executive-level "progress check" since the U.S. military realigned Israel from U.S. European Command to CENTCOM in September 2021, according to CENTCOM.
The new relationship with CENTCOM is “strong and continually growing,” said the commander of Air Forces Central (AFCENT), according to CENTCOM. “AFCENT’s theater security cooperation, both with the IDF and other regional partners, has expanded and evolved over the last year,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Greg Guillot, the AFCENT commander. “As the threats in the region change, so has the approach AFCENT takes alongside regional partners to address these challenges.”
Countering the unmanned aircraft systems threat and integrating air and missile defense capabilities are too complex for one nation to address alone, Guillot said.
Israel’s security relationships have expanded into maritime cooperation as well, said the U.S. Navy’s top Middle East commander.
“Israel was one of 10 nations during International Maritime Exercise 2022 that employed unmanned systems during complex scenarios at sea,” said U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces.
Between the increased cooperation between Israel and its neighbors, and Israel and the U.S., Iran is taking note.
Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, issued a stark warning June 27 against Israel’s membership in CENTCOM and the growing relations between Israel and Arab nations.
Tehran’s concerns, said McKenzie, are proof that the U.S.-led cooperation efforts are working.
“I think Iran is very concerned about it because what it does is it reduces their ability to bully their neighbors, which is a long-term staple of Iranian foreign policy,” he said. “Remember, our goal here is not to fight Iran. Our goal is to deter Iran to prevent Iran from undertaking irresponsible reckless and dangerous bloody actions abroad, by recognizing that the price they pay will be higher than any potential game they can realize.”
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
6. Countering Putin’s Nuclear Threats
Conclusion:
The Biden administration seems terrified about the idea of threatening Russia. Without credible threats (declaratory policy) and credible capability to implement these threats there is no credible deterrence. The Biden administration has turned all of Russia into a sanctuary by restricting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to attack Russian territory. Russia can apply massive firepower against Ukraine without fear of the consequences. This is happening every day. If Putin or his successor were to attack NATO, the Biden administration would probably fail to launch strikes against Russian territory because of its fear of escalation. Its attitudes toward deterrence appear based on some unstated view concerning the effectiveness of some form of Minimum Deterrence.
Countering Putin’s Nuclear Threats
By Mark B. Schneider
July 06, 2022
Putin’s nuclear threats in support of his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine are clearly an exercise in nuclear blackmail. Putin’s recent extreme, and in some cases unprecedented, nuclear threats have changed attitudes toward nuclear deterrence in a number of NATO states; unfortunately, the Biden administration has gone in the opposite direction. The Biden administration did not increase our nuclear alert status (and, hence, reduce the vulnerability of our nuclear forces) in response to Putin’s aggression, nuclear war threats and his declaration of a nuclear “special combat duty alert.” Moreover, in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, it weakened the U.S. nuclear deterrent and nuclear declaratory policy.
U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees respectively wrote, “…this revised policy seems to be little more than a rehash of the Obama administration’s approach.” (Emphasis in the original). Their reference to the “Obama administration’s approach” is to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review report. This, of course, was years before Putin came out of the closet and began his aggression against Ukraine and threats to NATO nations.
Perhaps the two weakest nations in NATO regarding Russia are France and Germany. Yet both of them have taken actions to enhance NATO’s nuclear deterrent in response to Putin’s aggression and threats. Conversely, the Biden administration has not taken any action to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear deterrent forces to a pre-emptive nuclear strike. (Former Chief of the Russian General Staff General of the Army Yuriy Baluyevskiy, has stated that the “…conditions for pre-emptive nuclear strikes…is contained in classified policy documents.”[1]) The Biden administration did nothing effective to deter the Russian invasion of Ukraine and their massive bombardments of civilians. Additionally, it has imposed restrictions on Ukrainian use of U.S. weapons that may ultimately result in a Russian victory. Furthermore, its constant talk about the risk of World War III has actually enhanced the effectiveness of Putin’s numerous nuclear threats.
After France’s Foreign Minister reminded Putin that NATO is a nuclear alliance, France, for the first time since 1981, deployed more than one of its nuclear ballistic missile submarines to sea at one time – indeed, three submarines.[2] In addition, France put its aircraft carrier, which is part of its nuclear deterrent, under NATO command.[3] This is essentially what we would call generated alert. France also tested its supersonic nuclear cruise missile. It sent a clear message to Russia during a period of unusual tensions in Europe. The Biden administration did the opposite, taking no action to enhance the survivability of our deterrent and cancelled routine ICBM tests. Indeed, it also delayed a conventional hypersonic missile test. In stark contrast to the U.S., France is developing a nuclear “hypersonic cruise missile with a range expected to exceed 1,000 kilometers.” The U.S. is not developing a nuclear-armed hypersonic missile.
Germany has the distinction of having both one of the weakest policies toward Russia and nuclear deterrence in NATO. Yet, in response to the 2022 Russian attack on Ukraine, Germany announced a major increase in defense spending and the procurement of 35 F-35s as nuclear bombers. Germany’s Defense Minister stated, “There is only one response to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression: unity within NATO and a credible deterrent.” This represents quite a change in priorities. In 2018, Germany fired the head of its Air Force for supporting the procurement of the F-35. After Putin’s nuclear threats and his invasion of Ukraine, the German government suddenly became interested in nuclear deterrence and military effectiveness. Again, the Biden administration has done essentially the reverse, cutting back on the planned Trump administration’s defense program by not even taking into account inflation and Ukraine and is in the process of weakening our nuclear deterrent.
Britain actually began its reaction to Putin’s aggression and his nuclear threats in 2021. In an obvious reference to Russia and its nuclear capability, the U.K. Ministry of Defense noted the development of a “range of technological and doctrinal threats” and announced that the U.K. was increasing its self-imposed limit on the number of its nuclear warheads to up to 260, and increase of over 40%.
Thus, the Biden administration has the distinction of being the only NATO nuclear state to announce what amounts to a weakening of the U.S. nuclear deterrent and overall defense posture after the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has not released an unclassified version or even a detailed fact sheet concerning the conclusions of its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. However, a defense official, in a background briefing, confirmed the cancellation of the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile program. This is a terrible decision that reportedly will be reversed by the Congress. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told Congress that he supports the missile. STRATCOM commander Admiral Charles Richard commented that in light of the “…current situation in Ukraine and China’s nuclear trajectory convinces me a deterrence and assurance gap exists.” He went on, “To address this gap, a low-yield, non-ballistic capability to deter and respond without visible generation is necessary to provide a persistent, survivable, regional capability to deter adversaries, assure allies, provide flexible options, as well as complement existing capabilities. I believe a capability with these attributes should be re-examined in the near future.” The Commander of the U.S.’ European Command General Tod Wolters, in Congressional testimony, also told the lawmakers that he supports the nuclear SLCM.
To have the top military leadership of the nation break with the White House on a nuclear issue is unprecedented and clear evidence of how irresponsible the decision is. The only U.S. nuclear cruise missile is the AGM-86B nuclear ALCM which is 40 years old, pre-stealth, pre-precision/near precision accuracy and has seriously eroded reliability. Indeed, the Air Force explained the 1980s decision to develop and deploy the AGM-129 stealth cruise missile on the grounds that, “In 1982 the Air Force began studies for a new cruise missile with stealth characteristics after it became clear that the AGM-86B would soon be too easy to detect by future air defense systems.” The elimination of the AGM-129 ranks up there with the most irresponsible U.S. nuclear deterrence decisions ever made.
The decision to terminate the nuclear SLBM program will be of particular concern to Japan. As far back as 1965, Japan told the U.S. that, “We expect the United States to retaliate immediately using nuclear weapons” if there is a war with China. Japan preferred the strikes to be launched from the sea.
One of the worst decisions in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review is the termination of funding for the B83 bomb. This decision is also opposed by Admiral Richard and General erdxcWolters. The B83 bomb is our highest yield nuclear weapon and the best weapon against many types of very hard and deeply buried targets (HDBTs). Since the Congress killed the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) program during the George W. Bush administration, the B83 is apparently the best weapon against HDBTs built in hard rock areas. We are also losing the B61 Mod 11 earth penetrator weapon. The RNEP was supposed to replace it.
Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, put enormous resources into assuring the survival of the Russian leadership. Hard and deeply buried facilities are very difficult to destroy. The Soviet-era deep underground bunkers have enormous survivability. In 2012, Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, Jr, then-Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, stated, “Russia is upgrading massive underground facilities that provide command and control of its strategic nuclear forces as well as modernizing strategic nuclear forces as another top priority.” President Putin said that the existing Russian systems “are in a good state.” In 2014, the Chief of the General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate, Lieutenant General Andrey Kartapolov, said the newly operational National Defense Management Center in Moscow was safe from a nuclear strike.
In August 2016, Bill Gertz reported, “Russia is building large numbers of underground nuclear command bunkers in the latest sign Moscow is moving ahead with a major strategic forces modernization program.” If the Russians are building new leadership bunkers they will obviously be more survivable than the Soviet-era facilities. The new Russian facilities, “will have a very high safety margin” against nuclear attack, according to President Putin. Putin places high value on his own hide. Assuring the survival of President Putin by eliminating our most effective weapons against his bunkers, could impact his decision to initiate the use of nuclear weapons. The Biden administration, like the Obama administration before it, is not funding life extension of our two most effective weapons against hard and deeply buried targets, the B61 Mod11 earth penetrator and the B83 high-yield nuclear bomb.
According to Dr. John Harvey who served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs in the Obama administration (and in senior nuclear weapons related positions in previous administrations), “The Biden NPR’s approach to hedging is still an open question—I have not read the classified NPR document but, based on rumint, I have concern[s] that the Biden team may have understated the importance of the hedge.”[4] This is quite alarming because the U,.S. ability to “hedge” by increasing the number of its deployed nuclear weapons rapidly has seriously eroded since it was announced by the Clinton administration in 1994. Because of its withdrawal provision, the New START Treaty delays for six months even the start of any significant increase in the number of our ballistic missile warheads.
According to STRATCOM Commander Admiral Charles Richard, “…two-thirds of those [U.S. nuclear] weapons are ‘operationally unavailable’ because of treaty constraints, such as provisions of the New START treaty with Russia.” Thus, the Biden administration’s ill-advised decision to extend the seriously flawed New START Treaty without changes (and apparently without any real analysis), a reversal of the Trump administration’s policy, reduced the benefits of the U.S. modernization program by two-thirds.
The 2006 decision to eliminate the AGM-129 stealth cruise missile also eliminated most of the older U.S. AGM-86B nuclear ALCMs, reducing the inventory to 528 weapons. The excess missiles were actually destroyed. This is actually the opposite of what would hedge against unexpected adversary threat levels. These decisions were made on the basis of the recommendation of a STRATCOM Commander who, after his retirement, in 2012 authored a report saying Russia was not even among the top 20 threats to the U.S. and who later received a Presidential pardon after being “…charged with making false statements during a probe into disclosure of classified information.” Since this was 16 years ago, the ALCM inventory must have been significantly reduced by routine flight testing and the replacement LSRO missile will not be available until early 2030s. The effect of these decisions has been to reduce our rapid upload capability of the bomber force from about 2,000 weapons to no more than a few hundred.
Since the decimation of the U.S. hedge capability with bomber weapons is very old news, what Dr. Harvey is concerned about is clearly a similar result involving U.S. ballistic missile capability.
Since the Biden administration revealed the total U.S. active and inactive nuclear stockpile is only 3,750 warheads, the total U.S. hedge capability has to be less than that. What Dr. Harvey is apparently suggesting is that the Biden administration will not run enough of these warheads through the life extension programs to maintain the current arguably inadequate hedge capability. The 3,750 warheads is less than the lowest credible estimates of the current Russian nuclear stockpile which is growing. Moreover, “Russia has improved and expanded its production complex, which has the capacity to process thousands of warheads annually.” In addition, China is engaged in a massive increase of its nuclear capability. Hence, there is even more need and urgency for a hedge capability.
In March 2022, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Scott Berrier said Putin has “…invested in tactical nuclear weapons….I believe that he thinks that [these niche weapons] gives him an asymmetric advantage.” He also observed, “As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength, Russia likely will increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences.” We do not know whether Putin will decide to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. His low opinion of President Biden, his health problems and the lack of any real effort to deter the use of nuclear weapons by the Biden administration means such an eventuality could happen. The only effort by President Biden to make a real threat concerning Russian use of WMD was immediately walked by the White House and was based on a complete misunderstanding by the President concerning what our capabilities actually are.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Christopher Bort emphasizes, “Putin also knows that in the back of his opponents’ minds lurks a fear of escalation to nuclear conflict, which limits their willingness to challenge him militarily.” Lieutenant General (ret.) Henry Obering III and Ambassador Robert Joseph have pointed out that Putin’s nuclear threats have “…barred vital weapons and targeting assistance [to Ukraine] that it believed would risk escalation to “World War III.”
The Biden administration seems terrified about the idea of threatening Russia. Without credible threats (declaratory policy) and credible capability to implement these threats there is no credible deterrence. The Biden administration has turned all of Russia into a sanctuary by restricting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to attack Russian territory. Russia can apply massive firepower against Ukraine without fear of the consequences. This is happening every day. If Putin or his successor were to attack NATO, the Biden administration would probably fail to launch strikes against Russian territory because of its fear of escalation. Its attitudes toward deterrence appear based on some unstated view concerning the effectiveness of some form of Minimum Deterrence.
Dr. Mark B. Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Before his retirement from the Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, Dr. Schneider served as Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commissions. He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.
Notes:
[1] “Russia classifies information on pre-emptive nuclear strikes – military,” BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, September 5, 2014, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/ 1560021754/fulltext/17EE0756B6D35B395AE/1?accountid=155509&accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=17EE0756B6D35B395AE/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_3a53fe1b0b25b4
[2] “France Triples Sea-Based Deterrent Patrols,” Warships International Fleet Review, May 2022, p. 7.
[4] John R. Harvey, “Speaking Notes: U.S. Strategy for Hedging Strategic Risk LLNL-LANL Conference: Strategic Weapons in the 21st Century (SW21),” MAY 26, 2022, mimeo., p. 3.
7. Army’s education waiver reversal stuns applicants, splits experts on impact
Let's examine how the propaganda activities will play out. The Army will be called the "dumb service" filled with soldiers who could not even graduate from high school. I cannot wait to see how the propaganda and agitation departments of Russia and China exploit this. This will be another line of effort to sow division in the US. Is anyone working on a counterproppagnada campaign for this?
However, the Army needs highly intelligent people for many jobs (to include infantrymen which requires a high level of intelligence itself). But specialities requiring technical skils, e.g., cyber, communications, medical, air defense, artillery, and many more, will become harder to fill with highly intelligenct people because they will not want to have the stigma of being in the "dumb service." Every soldier is going to have to defend their intelligence by saying, yes I did graduate from high school and I have a GT score of X. What happened to the days when we had people with some college and even college degrees enlisting?
But it could be a boon for the other services. Perhaps the Air Force, Navy, and even Marines will be thanking the Army in the future.
That said, there are many people who do not have high school degrees who are highly intelligent. I have served with a number of fine soldiers who earned their GEDs in the Army and have gone to senior ranks and some even earned bachelors and masters degrees.
I think what we need is talent management applied to recruiting. We need to be able to identify talent, regardless of their level of formal education. Sometimes we need street smarts over book smarts. We need life experiences over classroom experience. The question is how to attract a broad cross section of Americans and how to recruit and select the right ones for the right jobs. And the issue is we might never be able to identify such soldiers until they enlist and go through training. Many will bloom after putting on a uniform.
Army’s education waiver reversal stuns applicants, splits experts on impact
Aiden, a housing- and food-insecure teenager living in Miami, remembers the excitement he felt when the Army recruiter gave him the news late last month: the service was beginning to enlist applicants without high school diplomas or equivalencies like the GED amid a horrible recruiting year.
“I felt like I had 1,000 pounds lifted off my chest,” he recounted in a phone interview with Army Times, asking that his full name not appear in the story. “It was a prayer that got answered for me.”
An Indiana native, Aiden said he came one credit short of graduating high school after his stepfather kicked him out of his home on his 18th birthday. The only place he could find to stay was five miles away from his school and he “was living horribly,” he added.
“I couldn’t catch the bus [to school]...I just had to run there every single morning,” he explained. “I wasn’t even eating every day. I was struggling.”
RELATED
The year 2022 was publicly dubbed the military's "most challenging recruiting year” in decades.
So he quit high school. He eventually found himself in Miami, with a bad job and no money — but with dreams of joining the Army or the Air Force.
When the new education policy was announced, Aiden dropped everything — including two job offers — to start his enlistment process. He scored a 57 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, a score that placed him higher than 57% of Americans who take the test and made him eligible to join under the new education waiver program, which required applicants to have a 50 AFQT score and go to training before Oct. 1.
High school graduates need only score a 31 on the test, and an Army official confirmed to Army Times that soon that cutoff too will be waived for a limited number of recruits.
In crafting a policy exception that required higher AFQT scores, the Army recognized that recruits like Aiden may lack a completed high school education, but they still have the aptitude to perform as soldiers. And after Aiden joined, the Army’s policy still required that he complete a GED before he could reenlist.
RELATED
The service quickly backtracked on the policy, which was revealed last week.
“I just don’t understand,” he said. “They just pulled the rug out from under me. I don’t even want a complicated job — I will fill whatever spot they give me...let me go to [training] and let me get my GED [after joining].”
Experts split on program’s merits, Army quiet
It’s not clear why the Army suspended the program less than a week after it went public, and the service has not provided an official statement on why it pulled the plug.
An unnamed official told Military.com that the rollback was influenced by the backlash the policy received in some circles accusing the service of lowering its standards to fill the ranks.
Another Army official acknowledged the backlash in an interview with Army Times last week, but argued that the policy rollback was “more to do with ensuring that we set the recruits...up for success” rather than “perception of a lowered standard” to join.
Whatever the reason for the change, experts on recruiting quality and personnel policy split on whether the Army made the right call.
Kate Kuzminski, who heads the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank, said the Army made a “prudent” call in reversing the education waivers.
Kuzminski’s emailed statement cited studies that show “the percentage of high-quality recruits in a service at any given points correlates highly with tactical effectiveness (as measured through gunnery scores and other proficiency tests).”
New infantry soldiers-in-training conduct basic rifle marksmanship training at Fort Benning, Georgia, March 23, 2017. (Patrick A. Albright/Army)
She added that “higher waiver usage” frequently leads to “increased disciplinary removals from service.” She did concede, however, that those who managed to join during the brief window of opportunity “demonstrated a high desire to serve at a time when the Army is wrestling with a recruiting crisis.”
RAND’s top recruiting and retention policy expert, senior economist Dr. Beth Asch, sees the situation differently, although she noted in a phone interview that recruits who did not graduate from high school are more likely to wash out during their first contract, including both GED-holders and those without GEDs.
Yet, according to Asch, “it made eminent sense” for the service to waive the high school graduation requirement for a limited proportion of hopeful soldiers in today’s recruiting environment. Current Defense Department policy only requires that 90% of each recruiting cohort have high school diplomas, she explained, adding that GED-holders and high school dropouts have similar outcomes.
“If you look at the long history of the [all-volunteer force], there have been many years where the Army has brought in non-high school diploma graduates,” she said. “You can judge a recruit at the individual level...but from the standpoint of the enlistment cohort [all soldiers recruited in the same given year], bringing in some non-high school diploma graduates doesn’t really change the outcome of the cohort all that much.”
According to DoD data, tough recruiting years — such as fiscal 2008 — saw the service bring in as much as a quarter of its new enlistees without diplomas. And 367 of them didn’t have a GED that year, either.
The Army National Guard even established an accredited high school for troops without diplomas or GEDs in Indiana during the Global War on Terror’s surge years. More than 500 soldiers earned their diplomas at Patriot Academy, which closed in 2013. A sister program dedicated to helping Guard troops earn their GEDs graduated nearly 13,000 troops in seven years, according to an archived Facebook page.
An Army drill sergeant watches over trainees as they recover their gear on the first day of Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, June 12, 2017. (Spc. Madelyn Hancock/Army)
Asch said the service has “a little wiggle room” today, too, because virtually all of its recruits in recent years have been diploma holders. Her team at RAND developed a recruiting cohort outcome simulator that tries to project how a fiscal year’s new soldiers will perform overall based on their entry characteristics, such as education, age and more.
“Given that [the Army’s] having recruiting difficulties, it made eminent sense for them to [bring in non-graduates],” she said. “Having some percent that are non-high school graduates — especially if they’re higher aptitude — should not affect the overall quality of the force.”
An Army spokesperson declined to reveal how many applicants without a GED enlisted during this year’s short-lived window. It’s also not clear whether there was a maximum number of slots for the program or what proportion of this year’s cohort will have only GEDs.
Asch thinks that was a mistake that may have fueled some of the backlash.
“Where the Army might have confused people is whether this was going to be a limited program where some percentage of the recruits were going to be able to come in — within historical standards,” she noted. “It’s one thing to bring in some; it’s another thing to bring in a lot.”
Regardless of any perceived lower standards, or “so-called hollowing of the force,” she argued, the consequences of having an understrength Army outweigh the potential drawback of having a small proportion of new troops join without a diploma — if they don’t have any other factors against them such as moral or medical concerns.
“The devil’s in the details,” declared Asch.
Davis Winkie is a senior reporter covering the Army, specializing in accountability reporting, personnel issues and military justice. He joined Military Times in 2020. Davis studied history at Vanderbilt University and UNC-Chapel Hill, writing a master's thesis about how the Cold War-era Defense Department influenced Hollywood's WWII movies.
8. The RNC and DNC have time to prevent an electoral disaster in 2024
It would be great for both parties to commit to democracy and to ensuring free and fair elections and work together to ensure our great American experiments continues.
I know the (partisan) comments I will receive for the above statement. And they will smack of "whataboutism."
They bear responsibility.
Excerpt:
The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC), as designated party gatekeepers, are the two entities capable of influencing the elevation of individuals to the most important position in the world. They bear the political and moral responsibility to collaborate on reducing the danger to the American system of government.
The RNC and DNC have time to prevent an electoral disaster in 2024
BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/05/22 10:00 AM ET
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and their aftermath should have been warning shots to the Republican and Democratic parties on the fragility of our electoral system and the need for significant reforms.
In both elections, the parties put up deeply flawed candidates who, once again, presented Americans with a choice of “the lesser of two evils.” The inevitable result was a bitterly divided and disillusioned public, half of which was convinced election chicanery or foreign interference determined the outcome in each case. If things go horribly wrong in 2024, U.S. democracy itself will be placed in the balance. It should not be left to one man or woman to stand in the breach, as Vice President Mike Pence heroically did in January 2021.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC), as designated party gatekeepers, are the two entities capable of influencing the elevation of individuals to the most important position in the world. They bear the political and moral responsibility to collaborate on reducing the danger to the American system of government.
Without congressional or other governmental action, they can agree on two important measures to reduce the risk of a seriously impaired candidate from either party rising to the presidency.
First and foremost, the RNC and DNC should require that individuals vying for their respective party’s presidential or vice presidential nomination must be subject to the same background check mandated for all other employees working in sensitive federal government positions, as well as for government contractors. The examination process is designed to reveal any disqualifying criminal record, financial or business improprieties, transactional or relationship conflicts, or foreign influence. The candidates’ physical and mental health records and their last 10 years of tax returns should be included in the investigation.
The mere prospect of such a thorough vetting would deter many potential bad actors or otherwise unfit persons from submitting themselves to the higher level of scrutiny. That would make for a smaller, more credible field of candidates and a less encumbered nomination process.
We should have learned lessons from relatively recent history. In 1972, George McGovern’s vice presidential choice, Thomas Eagleton, was forced to withdraw after revelation of his multiple hospitalizations and electroshock treatments for serious depression. He had served competently as a Missouri senator, but the possibility of his finger on the “nuclear button” abruptly ended his candidacy.
Donald Trump’s shady business practices and character flaws were well exposed in 2016, but with the reporting coming primarily from a highly partisan press, it was easy for a sizable segment of the population to accept his dismissal of the charges as biased reporting and “fake news.” This was especially true after Trump secured the GOP nomination despite his questionable loyalty to the party. By then, the only political alternative was the widely distrusted team of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who were not known for their records of impeccable ethics in government positions.
The second major reform for 2024 would address the problem of fringe or decidedly minority candidates with a small but devoted constituency winning a plurality of the vote in a crowded field. That was precisely how Trump consistently won with a string of plurality victories in the 2016 Republican primaries and how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his committed following triumphed in the early Democratic races in 2020 against Joe Biden’s then-floundering campaign. It was only when Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) stepped in to halt the momentum of Sanders, whom he saw as a likely general election loser, that Biden’s candidacy was resuscitated.
The solution to the danger of minority zealots prevailing against divided mainstream opposition in both parties would be for the RNC and DNC to organize a series of randomly-selected weekly regional primaries — Midwest, Northeast, West Coast, etc. — starting the first week in February and ending by June 15. The parties could then conduct runoff votes for their respective top two delegate winners around July 15.
Such a process would significantly increase the likelihood of a choice in November between two mainstream candidates, one from each major party, who together reflect the majority views of the American people. It would make for a more moderate and civil campaign conversation, hopefully reducing the country’s poisonous political tensions, or at least not further exacerbating them.
Neither of these reforms would prevent third-party or independent candidates from competing in the election and skewing the result by taking votes from one of the major candidates. Many believe that Ross Perot cost President George H.W. Bush reelection in 1992 and Ralph Nader undermined Al Gore’s chances in 2000.
Trump threatened to do the same to the GOP nominee in 2016 if the party nominated anyone other than him. Last year, his typical self-absorbed approach to politics cost Republicans two Georgia seats and control of the Senate. Given his contempt for the party and any Republicans who do not pledge slavish fealty to him, Trump may well threaten to launch a third-party bid in 2024 if he is denied the nomination — unless he is disqualified from holding federal office by a criminal conviction or by congressional action.
Either of these proposals would increase the likelihood of Trump being denied the GOP nomination and launching a spoiler run, but the country cannot be constrained from making long overdue electoral changes because of the intimidation tactics of one discredited former president.
Democrats may disdain such reforms that likely would foreclose a Trump nomination, preferring to run against him, especially after the latest devastating revelations of his post-election behavior. But such a cynical strategy would be a gamble endangering American democracy every bit as much as those who still pledge their loyalty to the man who has proved so disloyal to them, to the Republican Party, and to our constitutional system.
At some point, both Democrats and Republicans must put patriotism ahead of partisanship — especially when standard-bearers fall short on loyalty to both party and country.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.
The Hill · by Amie Parnes · July 5, 2022
9. No, the West Should Not Appease Erdogan
Conclusion:
Overlooking the severity of Erdogan’s acts of governance in order to find a way to work with Turkey fundamentally undermines the objectives the West is seeking to achieve and uphold. Erdogan’s only recent positive outreach toward the West is removing his objections to
allowing Finland and Sweden to join NATO. However, this single move does not address any of the other and ongoing concerns listed above and beyond. It is imperative for the West to understand that it does not need Turkey to realize its security interests. For NATO, the United States, and the European Union, there is clear path for how to approach Erdogan: offer him the opportunity to do the right thing: this may involve offering an off-ramp to rid Turkey of its S-400s. In the case of NATO expansion, NATO members could have offered all the security guarantees to Finland and Sweden under Article V short of membership. In terms of supporting Turkey as a democracy, the EU and the United States should unequivocally encourage the rule of law and free and fair elections and call out Turkey’s frequent transgressions. The Western alliance is without doubt facing numerous challenges that threaten the core pillars of Western security. But this does not mean that the West should work with malign actors, who only stand to further harm it.
No, the West Should Not Appease Erdogan
Overlooking the severity of Erdogan’s acts of governance in order to find a way to work with Turkey fundamentally undermines the objectives the West is seeking to achieve and uphold.
A recent piece by Maximillian Hess in Foreign Policy magazine stumped many Turkey watchers, including myself, in stating that Turkish president Recep Tayyip “Erdogan is an unsavory character and will likely remain one. But it is in the West’s interest that he be on its side—not Russia’s—in order to weaken Putin and ensure Ukraine’s survival. The opportunity is there, and it would be unwise of the West not to try.” The article’s logic, as can be inferred by the quote, rests on the premise, that, yes, Erdogan is a bad actor, but given everything that is going on, we should find a way to work with him. This attempt to appease a malevolent actor should not be the standard that the West aspires to in trying to achieve its objectives for one very simple reason: it will not work.
From time to time, analyses surface that advocate for finding ways to work with Erdogan’s Turkey—despite Erdogan. As in the Hess piece, they follow a simplistic yet flawed assumption that Turkey is too important of a partner—even ally—to ignore. Such analyses have ramped up once more in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, arguing that we need to leave no stone unturned to spoil Vladimir Putin’s revisionist aspirations that threaten the very essence of the liberal international order, in addition to the security of our European allies. I do not quibble with this rationale, however, the way to achieve this goal is not by appeasing Erdogan. Finding a way to address Erdogan’s goals and then chart a joint course forward that will pull Turkey away from Russia and back into the Western fold is simply not realistic. Indeed, while I would like Turkey to be resituated as a reliable and responsible partner within the Western security architecture, it is not achievable under Erdogan. Put simply, when it comes to dealing with Erdogan’s Turkey, there is no stone that has yet to be turned over, and no “new thing” that has yet to be thought of. Finding a way to accommodate Erdogan’s interests would not only require the West to compromise on its values, but it would endanger the security and stability of the Western alliance.
The reasoning behind my indignant view is based on a long list of deplorable acts by Erdogan, which cannot and should not be overlooked and forgotten. Among the notable examples that help underscore this point is the Syrian conflict. This is the theater in which Erdogan worked tirelessly to undermine the international community’s security goals. In his obsessive quest to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus, which as a pursuit had no discernable strategic gain for Turkey or for the West, Erdogan enabled scores of foreign fighters to join the ranks of the Islamic State (ISIS), provided logistical and medical support to the organization, and sold and transferred weapons to an entity which arguably presented the single biggest security threat to the region since Al Qaeda. At the time (2012-2015), imbedded journalists in the region described Turkey akin to being a “jihadi highway” that witnessed scores of unchecked terrorists flow through its borders. Should this be forgotten? Should the West assume that it can work with Turkey against Russia? Not really.
In addition to his dangerous exploits, Erdogan has succeeded in seriously threatening NATO’s cohesivity by directly purchasing the S-400 Russian-made missile defense system, resulting in Turkey’s removal from the F-35 program, which it was a producing consortium member of. The S-400s, while remaining warehoused since 2019, have the potential—if deployed—to cause serious damage to alliance security, owing to their ability to collect significant targeting information on allied aircraft which can be shared with the Russians.
On the subject of Russia, while Turkey is seemingly aiding Ukrainian forces through the sale of Bayraktar drones, it refuses to participate in the sanctions regime against Russia. On the contrary, Erdogan is actively undermining Western sanctions by allowing the transfer and deposit of Russian financial assets into Turkish state banks. This concern resulted in the U.S. deputy secretary of the treasury visiting Turkey and warning it against continuing. Meanwhile, in return for Erdogan’s willingness to accommodate Russia’s need to access international financial markets, Putin is rewarding Turkey by allowing the shipment of stolen Ukrainian grain to Turkey—goods, that is, that were stolen from the Ukrainian people and are now being peddled on the international market for appropriate buyers.
But Erdogan has also taken further action against Western security: military escalation by Turkish naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean that directly challenge established territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of countries such as Cyprus and Greece; Turkey’s continued insistence on hosting representative of Hamas members inside of its borders and conferring legitimacy on them; not to mention daily assaults on democratic governance within Turkey itself. Within the last week, a judge appointed by Erdogan’s ministry of justice reduced the sentence of a woman’s murderer, whom he had raped, burned, and then tossed away in an oil drum. This is in addition to the unjust incarceration of scores of political dissidents inside the country, as represented in headline cases such as the human rights activist Osman Kavala as well as U.S. embassy personnel such as Metin Topuz.
Overlooking the severity of Erdogan’s acts of governance in order to find a way to work with Turkey fundamentally undermines the objectives the West is seeking to achieve and uphold. Erdogan’s only recent positive outreach toward the West is removing his objections to allowing Finland and Sweden to join NATO. However, this single move does not address any of the other and ongoing concerns listed above and beyond. It is imperative for the West to understand that it does not need Turkey to realize its security interests. For NATO, the United States, and the European Union, there is clear path for how to approach Erdogan: offer him the opportunity to do the right thing: this may involve offering an off-ramp to rid Turkey of its S-400s. In the case of NATO expansion, NATO members could have offered all the security guarantees to Finland and Sweden under Article V short of membership. In terms of supporting Turkey as a democracy, the EU and the United States should unequivocally encourage the rule of law and free and fair elections and call out Turkey’s frequent transgressions. The Western alliance is without doubt facing numerous challenges that threaten the core pillars of Western security. But this does not mean that the West should work with malign actors, who only stand to further harm it.
Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). He is also an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Command and Staff College-Marine Corps University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He tweets @sinanciddi.
Image: Reuters.
10. U.S. Aims to Expand Export Bans on China Over Security and Human Rights
Have our sanctions on Russia actually achieved desired effects? It seems so in terms of export controls, according to officials.
Excerpts:
In trying to develop a strategy on China, U.S. officials are not just looking at traditional military uses of technologies, but they are also considering the roles of Chinese companies in creating a surveillance state or building a security infrastructure and using forced labor camps to repress ethnic minorities in regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet.
“As China has become more aggressive, more belligerent, more active in its tech sector, the importance of managing the relationship with China through export controls has risen,” Alan F. Estevez, head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, the unit in the Commerce Department that oversees export controls, said last month at an event organized by the Center for a New American Security.
“We need to ensure that the U.S. retains technological overmatch,” he said. “In other words, China cannot build capabilities that they will then use against us, or against their neighbors for that matter, in any kind of conflict.”
American officials say the use of export controls on Russia is perhaps the greatest success so far in the sweeping campaign of economic punishment against President Vladimir V. Putin and his military. The United States and its partners have imposed broad restrictions on sending semiconductors, aircraft parts, equipment for the oil and gas industry and other goods to Russia, in an effort to cripple Russia’s military and its strategic industries.
U.S. Aims to Expand Export Bans on China Over Security and Human Rights
The Biden administration is applying lessons learned from controls on Russia during the Ukraine war to try to limit China’s military and technological advances.
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President Biden and his aides call China the greatest long-term rival of the United States, surpassing Russia.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times
July 5, 2022, 12:00 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — When Russian forces invaded Ukraine nearly five months ago, the Biden administration led dozens of governments in banning the export of advanced technology to Russia to hobble its economic and military development.
Now, the U.S. government is using the lessons it learned from those actions to expand restrictions on exports to China and other countries in cases where companies or groups might threaten U.S. national security or violate human rights, current and former American officials say. President Biden and his aides call China the greatest long-term rival of the United States, surpassing Russia.
The effort involves broadening the circumstances under which so-called export controls would be imposed and getting partner nations on board. It also aims to redefine what technologies are considered sensitive or critical and of potential use to militaries and security agencies — to encompass things like artificial intelligence, for example.
In trying to develop a strategy on China, U.S. officials are not just looking at traditional military uses of technologies, but they are also considering the roles of Chinese companies in creating a surveillance state or building a security infrastructure and using forced labor camps to repress ethnic minorities in regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet.
“As China has become more aggressive, more belligerent, more active in its tech sector, the importance of managing the relationship with China through export controls has risen,” Alan F. Estevez, head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, the unit in the Commerce Department that oversees export controls, said last month at an event organized by the Center for a New American Security.
“We need to ensure that the U.S. retains technological overmatch,” he said. “In other words, China cannot build capabilities that they will then use against us, or against their neighbors for that matter, in any kind of conflict.”
American officials say the use of export controls on Russia is perhaps the greatest success so far in the sweeping campaign of economic punishment against President Vladimir V. Putin and his military. The United States and its partners have imposed broad restrictions on sending semiconductors, aircraft parts, equipment for the oil and gas industry and other goods to Russia, in an effort to cripple Russia’s military and its strategic industries.
With China, efforts have been more targeted. The officials say their goal is not to weaken the broader Chinese economy, but rather to limit China’s access to technologies that would contribute to its military and scientific advancement. That in itself could help prevent armed conflict, U.S. officials say.
“My goal is to stop China from being able to use that technology to advance their military, modernize their military,” Mr. Estevez, also a former Pentagon official, told reporters last week at a Commerce Department policy conference in Washington, referring to advanced semiconductor chips, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
But China is the world’s second-largest economy, and any trade restrictions against it would carry much greater risks than those imposed on Russia. American executives warn that broad export controls could be deeply disruptive to global commerce and also provoke China to issue its own restrictions on some of the crucial products it supplies to the United States and other countries, including certain minerals.
Read More on the Relations Between Asia and the U.S.
And widespread use of the controls could erode American technological leadership and market dominance over the long term by encouraging foreign customers to find other sources of supply.
But Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, declared at the policy conference that export controls “are at the red-hot center of how we best protect our democracies.”
She underscored the impact of controls on Russia, saying that global semiconductor exports to the country had declined by 90 percent, and that its fleet of commercial aircraft could be decimated soon. “We also know that another autocratic regime — China — is watching our response closely,” she added.
The Biden administration has doubled down on a Trump administration policy of wielding export controls as a cudgel against Chinese companies.Credit...Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
The Biden administration on Tuesday put five Chinese companies on an export blacklist for continuing to support Russia’s military-industrial sector. It was the first time the U.S. government had taken action against Chinese companies for aiding Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February, though American officials say the Chinese government and most companies appear to be complying with the U.S.-led sanctions.
Even before those actions, the Biden administration had doubled down on a Trump administration policy of wielding export controls as a cudgel against Chinese companies.
Though some lawmakers say the government has moved too slowly on this, the department under both the Trump administration and the Biden administration has aggressively wielded a more targeted tool, called the entity list, which cuts foreign companies and organizations off from U.S. technology unless their American suppliers obtain a license to sell goods to them.
The Trump administration put Huawei and SMIC, two prominent Chinese technology companies, on that list.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Commerce Department under Mr. Biden was adding China-based companies and organizations to the list at a much faster rate than ones from any other country. Of 475 foreign entities added since January 2021, 107 are based in China, according to a new tally of data that the agency provided to The New York Times. By contrast, the administration put 23 Russia-based entities on the list before the war — then quickly added 252, in addition to imposing broader restrictions on entire categories of technology goods.
The administration has also blacklisted companies based in Pakistan, Belarus, Myanmar, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Britain, but those numbers are much smaller.
Most of the China-based entities listed during the Biden administration were judged by U.S. officials to have military roles or to be involved in systemic human rights abuses. Some have suspicious ties with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, countries with nuclear programs that the United States is trying to constrain, U.S. officials say. A few are linked to aggressive actions in disputed territory in the South China Sea.
The United States has also extended the reach of its export restrictions well beyond U.S. borders. It has forbidden companies anywhere in the world from exporting certain items if they are made with American technology to some listed entities, including Russian military groups and Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company. The United States can also restrict exports to listed entities of foreign goods that contain certain amounts of American products.
“One of the lessons from the use of that tool with Huawei is that it can be a pretty powerful mechanism,” said Samm Sacks, a researcher on technology policy at Yale Law School and New America. “It captures a lot of third-country suppliers.”
Some American lawmakers say further technology restrictions would be a potent tool to wield against Beijing, and that threats to broaden those controls might help deter potential hostilities by Chinese leaders toward Taiwan. But some analysts warn of possible retaliation from China.
“As the United States continues to exploit the extraterritorial reach of its regulations, the growing threat of a regulatory ‘arms race,’ particularly with China, adds to an already jittery business environment,” Jeanette Chu, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in March.
“The ‘tit for tat’ nature of export controls and sanctions today risks undermining the effectiveness of export controls and leaving policymakers with limited options,” she added.
Although the Chinese government denounces Washington’s use of sanctions, it has increasingly used its own form of economic punishments to harm countries that take stands contravening Beijing’s political views. Recent targets include Australia, Japan, South Korea and Norway. When Lithuania permitted Taiwan last year to open a representative office in its capital, China cut off its exports to Lithuania as well as imports.
In June 2021, Beijing enacted the “Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law,” aimed at punishing companies and individuals that comply with foreign sanctions against China. And the Chinese government has an export control law that it could use broadly.
China remains behind the United States in many technological fields but is catching up quickly. In some areas — biotechnology, artificial intelligence and 5G communications, for instance — China is at or near the fore. And it is set to overtake the United States in national spending on research and development within the next several years.
“Scientific and technological innovation has become the main battlefield of the international strategy contest, and the competition around the commanding heights of science and technology is unprecedentedly fierce,” President Xi Jinping of China said in a speech in May 2021.
Biden administration officials say the export controls imposed on Russia show that the strength of American actions comes from coordination with partner nations.
At Mr. Biden’s democracy summit in December 2021, the United States, Australia, Denmark and Norway announced they would begin building a new export control policy program to limit technologies going to authoritarian governments engaged in human rights abuses. The United States has been carrying out other discussions in its trade and technology dialogue with the European Union.
The most prominent global export regime now, the Wassenaar Arrangement, is intended to control sales of technology that can be used for military as well as commercial purposes, but critics say it has drawbacks, including that Russia is a member.
Any new multilateral system for export controls must be done with partners so that many countries impose the same limits, Mr. Estevez said last month. “As anyone knows, if you dam half the river, the water is still flowing,” he added.
When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the invasion of Ukraine five months ago, the Biden administration banned the export of critical technologies to Russia.Credit...Pool photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko
But Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned that many nations that have deep trade ties with China could resist efforts to impose broad export controls on the country.
“I don’t think you’d see the level of unanimity that the sanctions on Russia would have, so that would risk splitting the coalition,” he said.
And the potential for further restrictions on China is already causing some concern among American business executives.
Myron Brilliant, executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the business community had been “steadfast in its support of the multilateral use of sanctions against Russia given that country’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine,” but that views on China were “more complex and nuanced.”
“The business community has deep concerns with China’s predatory and market distortion policies, yet we must also recognize that the two largest economies are very integrated,” he said. “So the impact of broad decoupling or extensive sanctioning of China would be much more destabilizing.”
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
11. How volunteers can help defeat great powers
"Volunteers enhance deterrence." We need to ponder and reflect on that thesis.
Excerpts:
Perhaps most important, and a lesson that the Finns have learned, is that volunteers enhance deterrence. While Ukraine was unable to deter Russia’s invasion, the impact of these volunteers in the current war may serve as a deterrent to future wars. The Baltic states have embraced this strategy. And this also has implications for deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan; China is much less likely to invade if it believes the entire population will take up arms against it and this force can actually be effective.
The defense of Kyiv demonstrated that volunteers can play an important role in maneuver and guerrilla warfare, although the latter was only minimally observed in the defense of Kyiv. Yet the impact of volunteers is likely more muted in the attrition warfare currently being waged in Ukraine’s east. With more static positions and shorter supply lines, it offers the volunteers fewer opportunities to leverage their strengths. Expect to see them organized into more traditional battalions as they were in 2014.
The war is far from over, but Ukrainian volunteers have left an indelible mark on how smaller nations fight.
How volunteers can help defeat great powers
The vast majority of Ukraine’s volunteers would never pass the physical fitness tests of the U.S. Army. And yet earlier this year, they pulled off a feat almost unparalleled in modern warfare: they helped defeat one of the largest standing armies in the world and held the capital. The Battle of Kyiv proved that volunteers could shape the course of a war, which holds important implications for the future of war, especially between large powers and their smaller neighbors.
When Russia’s 150,000-man army invaded Ukraine from multiple directions on Feb. 24, many analysts thought Kyiv would fall in a matter of days. What these analysts and the Russians did not anticipate was the will and capability of Ukraine’s “volunteers” and the important role that they would play in Kyiv’s defense. That is because the Russians expected the resistance to resemble the same feeble forces they witnessed in 2014, when they invaded and annexed Crimea with ease.
The importance of the volunteers cannot be understated. We just returned from Kyiv, where we interviewed dozens of Ukrainian Army, Territorial Defense Force and civilian volunteers, as well as visited dozens of sites. It was clear from the onset and confirmed throughout our visit that volunteers played a critical role in the defense of Kyiv, yet their role has not been systematically studied.
When tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed along Ukraine’s border in 2021, Ukraine sought to formally incorporate its volunteers into its national defense. Last year, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law “on the foundations of national resistance,” that took effect in January and established a Territorial Defense Force as a stand-alone branch within the military. The force included 10,000 career positions, supplemented by 120,000 civilian reservists organized into 20 regional brigades.
Russia initiated the invasion before Ukraine could formally organize its Territorial Defense Force; nonetheless, Ukraine was ready to arm its volunteers. In the days after the invasion, tens of thousands of Ukrainians poured into recruitment centers throughout Kyiv and around the country to receive an AK-47 rifle and two magazines. Lacking a formal structure, these volunteers largely self-organized to establish defensive positions within their towns. It was not until the defense of Kyiv was nearly over that these volunteers became formally organized. For example, the Territorial Defense Force battalion in the small city of Bucha, a city that played a critical role in the defense of Kyiv and is known for atrocities committed there, was not formally organized until March 31.
Who are the volunteers?
Most of the volunteers we met were male, but women also serve in combat and noncombat roles. Indeed, these volunteer units constitute a broad cross-section of Ukrainian society, ranging in age from 18-60; with some younger and older. All the volunteer fighters we met were highly motivated, even if they might not be able to pass a standard military physical exam.
When asked who gave them their orders during the opening days of the war, many provided similar answers: “No one. I acted on my own.”
An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Upon seeing a bridge or road unguarded, many volunteers took it upon themselves to pull other volunteers to provide the necessary defense. In some ways, it was the perfect execution of the U.S. Army’s mission command. Despite lacking true mission orders, each volunteer clearly understood the commander’s intent—defend the capital—and exercised the disciplined initiative to accomplish the mission. Everyone we talked to, both regulars and volunteers, trusted those around them. Volunteers and regular forces co-mingled throughout the defense of Kyiv.
A bridge too far
Take the ambush at Giraffe Bridge. Ukrainian National Guard and active duty forces defended against the Russian air assault at the Hostomel Airport on Feb. 24, but the Ukrainian regulars largely pulled back to defensive lines closer to Kyiv following their tactical victory. This left volunteers to defend forward of Kyiv’s main defensive lines, somewhat analogous to skirmishers in America’s Civil War defending forward of regular lines. In Kyiv’s northwest, regulars defended along the Irpin River, leaving the volunteers to lead the defense forward of the river in small cities such as Bucha and Irpin that sat just outside Kyiv’s city limits.
While many are familiar with the alleged war crimes Russians committed in Bucha and Irpin, less known is that volunteers, supported by regular army forces—primarily artillery—conducted much of the fighting there. The alleged Russian atrocities appear to be a direct result of the effectiveness of the volunteers as the poorly trained and poorly led Russian soldiers took out their frustrations on Ukrainian civilians.
Volunteers of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces talk to each other by a damaged vehicle at a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
By March 1, Russian forces had reached Bucha and were advancing on Irpin, a city of 60,000 just outside Kyiv. The Bucha River separates the two small cities, so the Russians had few routes into the city. The Ukrainians established an ambush on the primary route into Irpin. Ukrainian regulars established a defensive position along the Giraffe Bridge across the river in Irpin, with volunteers occupying positions along the road in Bucha.
As was common in the early stages of the war, the poorly trained Russians advanced as if they were on parade as opposed to expecting contact with the enemy. When the lead vehicle approached the bridge, Ukrainian regulars destroyed it with an anti-tank missile at the same time volunteers destroyed the trail vehicle. The closely packed convoy on the narrow street became pinned and an easy target for Ukrainian artillery which destroyed the entire convoy. Over the ensuing weeks, the Giraffe Bridge would see eight more similar skirmishes between Ukrainian volunteers and Russian soldiers.
Tank ambush at Brovary
On the east side of the Dnipro River, volunteers armed with RPGs and special operators armed with Stugna anti-tank missiles engaged a slow-moving Russian tank battalion.
Together with artillery, the Ukrainians destroyed a surprising number of tanks and forced the rest to flee.
Days later, the Russians would eventually enter the city, but that was as close as they would get to Kyiv from the east. On April 2, the Ukrainian forces recaptured the city and Russia troops aborted their attempt to seize the capital.
Volunteers as sensors
Volunteers also provided an important intelligence role. When Russian forces advanced toward Kyiv’s northeast, they established a resupply and refueling point in the town of Bervytsya.
An older Ukrainian woman living across the street notified appropriate authorities of the Russian position. Hours later, the Ukrainian military struck, killing all the Russians and decimating their position.
Volunteers of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces inspect a damaged military vehicle in the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko).
Luckily, the old woman and her house were unharmed. This was not a typical Western neighborhood that includes sidewalks, curbs and a wide paved street. It was a rural town with a narrow gravel road. Despite her house being less than 25 yards from the exploding ordnance, it, amazingly, suffered no damage.
Lessons learned
What the battle for Kyiv shows is that volunteers and local militias are a necessary component for smaller nations’ militaries. With a defense budget roughly 10% the size of Russia’s, Ukraine has sought NATO membership to enhance its defense, but membership seems unlikely, at least in the near term. A large standing army is prohibitively expensive, and Ukraine cannot match Russia battalion for battalion, so a volunteer force is an effective way to bolster its defense.
The battle also shows that civilian populations can be just as effective as technological sensors. Despite Russian electronic warfare and cyberattacks, Ukrainians were able to maintain communications and call in the positions of Russian forces. Rarely were calls made to a formal 911 call center characteristic of the United States. Often it was through communications apps, with civilians or volunteers communicating with someone in the military who they knew. That contact would then transmit intelligence to the right person.
Some of the volunteers we observed had extremely good weapons. When we asked how they obtained them, they said they retrieved them from Russian forces at Hostomel and other locations. Often, it was the only way for volunteers to get machine guns and RPGs since the Ukrainian Army lacked sufficient numbers of these weapons to distribute to volunteers.
Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces members train to use an NLAW anti-tank weapon on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
But volunteers require the support of a conventional army to be most effective. Just as infantry is most effective when fighting as part of a combined arms formation, the same goes for volunteers. While we heard stories of smaller volunteer teams engaging vehicles with RPGs, they are not sufficient against larger formations. The large ambushes at Bucha, Brovary, and other locations often involved a mix of volunteers, special operations forces, and the regular army.
To be sure, any decisions to use civilian volunteers can put civilians at risk. Any civilian that directly participates in fighting loses their protected status under the laws of war and is considered a combatant. Furthermore, even civilians who are just providing information can find themselves at risk of reprisals from frustrated and poorly disciplined invaders like seen in Ukraine. How and when civilians provide information must be a calculated, protected process.
Perhaps most important, and a lesson that the Finns have learned, is that volunteers enhance deterrence. While Ukraine was unable to deter Russia’s invasion, the impact of these volunteers in the current war may serve as a deterrent to future wars. The Baltic states have embraced this strategy. And this also has implications for deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan; China is much less likely to invade if it believes the entire population will take up arms against it and this force can actually be effective.
The defense of Kyiv demonstrated that volunteers can play an important role in maneuver and guerrilla warfare, although the latter was only minimally observed in the defense of Kyiv. Yet the impact of volunteers is likely more muted in the attrition warfare currently being waged in Ukraine’s east. With more static positions and shorter supply lines, it offers the volunteers fewer opportunities to leverage their strengths. Expect to see them organized into more traditional battalions as they were in 2014.
The war is far from over, but Ukrainian volunteers have left an indelible mark on how smaller nations fight.
Liam Collins is the executive director of the Madison Policy Forum, a member with the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow with New America. He also served as a defense advisor to Ukraine from 2016-2018. He is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Horn of Africa and South America. He is co-author of the forthcoming book, “Understanding Urban Warfare.”
John Spencer is the chair of urban warfare studies at the Madison Policy Forum. He served 25 years as a U.S. Army infantryman, which included two combat tours in Iraq. Together, he and Collins traveled to Ukraine in June 2022 to research the defense of Kyiv. He is the author of the book “Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connection in Modern War” and co-author of the forthcoming book, “Understanding Urban Warfare.”
12. Deterrence is Not Rocket Science: It is More Difficult
Perhaps it is more like brain surgery.
Dr. Payne provides an interesting framework. Will deterrence theorists find it useful?
Deterrence is Not Rocket Science: It is More Difficult
Keith B. Payne, Deterrence is Not Rocket Science: It is More Difficult, No. 527, July 6, 2022 – Nipp
Dr. Keith B. Payne
Dr. Keith B. Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, professor emeritus and former Department Head of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and former Senior Advisor to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
In a recent published article, two physicists offered remarks that illustrate a fundamental basis for the stark differences reflected in the public debate about deterrence. A “fundamental issue” raised by the authors is, “Who is qualified to participate in the debate over US nuclear weapons policy?” Their expressed concern is that “discussion of these policies” is held “within silos,” and that “one such silo is the US defense establishment,” which, they suggest, is that side of the nuclear policy debate that does not “promote arms control or disarmament.” The authors emphasize that all who engage in this discussion are “arm-chair generals” because no one has experience in nuclear warfare, and that “no political actors can know all the possible pathways of escalation from conventional to nuclear war.” Their fundamental point in this regard appears to be that the “defense establishment” has no great advantage in this discussion because, “deterrence theory is not rocket science. Except for aspects of mathematical logic or game theory applied to deterrence, this ‘theory’ is essentially a collection of suspect assumptions and speculations on how one state would respond to the actions of an adversary. We can all partake in those speculations.”
There are points of truth in these various observations. All the possible pathways to nuclear escalation surely are not known, thankfully. In some important aspects of this subject—we all are amateurs. And, deterrence theory is speculative. The prediction of foreign leadership decision making in unprecedented and stressful future circumstances is particularly speculative. This much has been recognized by some for generations. More than six decades ago, Herman Kahn emphasized the speculative character of deterrence theory and questioned the prevalent expectation that the reliable functioning of deterrence can be orchestrated: “In spite of our reliance on the idea that deterrence will work, we usually do not analyze carefully the basic concepts behind such a policy….This somewhat lackadaisical interest in bedrock concepts is probably related to a subconscious fear that our foundations cannot stand close examination.”
But the authors of the recent article appear to make these points to advance a broader conclusion that is both a non sequitur and mistaken, i.e., that there is not specialized knowledge and experience within the “defense establishment” regarding deterrence that enables some speculation about the functioning of deterrence to be more credible than other speculation. The interested commentator supposedly is as competent speculating about deterrence as those who spend their professional careers working on U.S. deterrence policy.
Speculation and Prediction
The basic principle of deterrence as applied to international relations in general is not complicated: a latent threat is posed with the expectation that an opponent may decide, via its calculation of cost, benefit, and risk, not to take an action for fear of that latent threat. “Redlines” are drawn in the hope that opponents will not cross them given this deterrent effect. This basic character of deterrence has endured for millennia as has its incomparable value for preventing war.
The principles of deterrence are simple and virtually anyone can become familiar with them and engage in speculation. Indeed, commentary by instant experts flourishes during times of international conflict and crisis. But the application of deterrence theory to actual deterrence strategies that can make the difference between war and peace is an extremely complex art demanding a broad range of specialized expertise to inform the speculation. Much of that expertise surely is not found only within the defense community responsible for deterrence policy, but it does have unique access to some of the information that is important, and it has the advantage of being able to assemble those with needed specialized expertise and a lifetime of invested work on the issue. On occasion, Democratic and Republican administrations have done just that.
Applying Deterrence: A Complex Analytical Challenge
Deterrence is a function of leadership decision making, which can be affected by many different factors. Consequently, the application of deterrence is an enormous and unavoidably difficult ongoing undertaking. Done properly, it requires understanding, to the extent feasible, the opponent to be deterred in the context of the engagement, including the opponent’s foreign and domestic goals (how those goals are prioritized and the opponent’s determination to achieve those goals), modes of decision making, willingness to accept risk, willingness to absorb and inflict hurt, cultural norms and values, perceptions of the deterrer, and even the health of key leaders, among many other factors potentially pertinent to decision making. There are few, if any, universal constants in this regard; instead there is a wide variety of operating factors, some seen, others unseen, that can vary greatly across time, place and opponent, and may be decisive in determining if and how deterrence will function.
In short, rational leadership decision making can vary greatly because unique decision-making factors can drive leaders’ perceptions and calculations of value, cost and risk in surprising, unpredictable directions. Consequently, the functioning of deterrence “is heavily context dependent.” As a prominent historian working with a prominent political scientist observed: “Not all actors in international politics calculate utility in making decisions in the same way. Differences in values, culture, attitudes toward risk-taking, and so on vary greatly. There is no substitute for knowledge of the adversary’s mind-set and behavioral style, and this is often difficult to obtain or to apply correctly in assessing intentions or predicting responses.” Misunderstanding the opponent, however, “can result in the disintegration of even the best deterrence strategy.”
For the application of deterrence, generalizations are less helpful than an understanding of the opponent’s worldview, priorities, calculations and definition of reasonable behavior. As Kurt Guthe has observed, “In matters related to deterrence, generalizations can be useful, but specifics are essential. The questions that must always be kept in mind are: Who is being deterred? From what action? By whom? For what reason? By what threats? And in what circumstances?” Applying deterrence must be based on expectations about the future decision making of foreign leaders. Doing so in an informed fashion is extremely demanding because, simply put, that future is not obvious.
Who may contribute to the specialized expertise needed to help orchestrate the informed practice of deterrence? The list is very broad; it includes historians, psychologists, diplomats, anthropologists, economists, linguists, military experts, regional area experts, religious experts, physicians, and physicists, inter alia. Political science, which includes the study of international power relations, can be particularly helpful. But no single area of expertise or discipline is adequate.
For example, it is not a small point to note that while expertise in physics and other natural sciences led to the production nuclear weapons, it alone does not provide a basis for informed speculation about how deterrence is more or less likely to function in any real-world application. The atomic bomb helped end World War II, but it was the work of anthropologists focusing on Japan at the time that led the U.S. leadership to understand that respect for the position of the Emperor would be key to securing the surrender of Japanese armies. To use a sports analogy, knowing how to make a baseball conveys no special expertise for pitching a baseball or tailoring pitches to particular batters.
As noted, however, a broad interdisciplinary effort can help provide a measure of the informed understanding needed to best put deterrence into practice, i.e., informed speculation. This understanding can never be sufficient for fully confident prediction because the subject includes the inherent uncertainties of how a select leadership will make decisions in extraordinary conditions. There is incomplete data, ambiguous data, and conflicting data. But it is possible, via broad interdisciplinary study over time, to reduce ignorance and thereby avoid some potential deterrence mistakes. Of particular importance in this regard is to understand an opponent’s political goals, cultural norms, communication channels, and perceptions of power relations (regardless of how Washington may judge those relations). In short, a critical need is to understand the political, historical, and cultural background of any deterrence engagement. Doing so properly is a complex, interdisciplinary undertaking.
The defense establishment does not have a monopoly in the pursuit of that needed understanding, but it has some significant advantages and often makes a concerted effort to reach out beyond its “silo” for assistance. As such, it has advantages over many others who “partake” in relatively uninformed speculation. The latter typically appear to have limited or no access to at least some of the important information needed and no recognition of its value.
The framework below is a simplified presentation of the process involved and the information sought.
A Deterrence Framework
Step 1. Identify antagonists, issue, objectives, and actions.
1.1 Antagonists
1.2 Issue
1.3 Adversary’s objectives
1.4 Actions to be deterred
1.5 U.S. objectives
Step 2. Identify and describe those factors likely to affect the adversary’s decision making in the context of this specific flashpoint and U.S. deterrent threats.
2.1 Degree of rationality and predictability as indicated by past behavior
2.2 Leadership characteristics
2.2.1 Individuals with responsibilities for the issue at hand
2.2.2 Leadership motivations
2.2.3 Leadership determination
2.2.4 Operational code (worldview and strategic style)
2.2.5 Political-psychological profiles of key decision makers
2.2.6 Adversary’s understanding of and attention to the U.S.
2.2.6.1 Previous interactions with the U.S.
2.2.6.2 Attention to U.S. declaratory policy
2.2.6.3 Likelihood the adversary will (mis)comprehend U.S. demands and threats
2.3 Value and cost/risk structure
2.3.1 Location of the issue in the value hierarchy of the adversary’s leadership
2.3.2 Other relevant values of the adversary’s leadership
2.3.3 Cost/risk tolerance of the adversary’s leadership with regard to this issue
2.4 Options
2.4.1 Military options available to the adversary
2.4.2 Adversary’s freedom to conciliate or provoke
2.5 Adversary’s belief about the costs the U.S. will incur if its deterrent threat is executed
2.5.1 Costs from the adversary’s retaliation
2.5.2 Political costs at home and abroad
2.6 Communications
2.6.1 Optimal method for communicating with the adversary
2.6.2 Possibilities for misperception
2.7 Credibility of U.S. threats
2.7.1 Past pledges or actions demonstrating U.S. commitments
2.7.2 Other special circumstances
Step 3. Construct a strategic profile of the adversary with regard to the crisis in question.
3.1 Predictability of the adversary’s behavior
3.2 Cost/risk tolerance
3.3 Influence of considerations beyond immediate issue
3.4 Will, determination, and freedom to conciliate or provoke
3.5 Cognizance of U.S. demands and threats
3.6 Credibility of U.S. deterrent threats
3.7 Susceptibility to U.S. deterrent threats
Step 4. Assess whether the challenger is likely to be susceptible to deterrence policies in this particular case, and, if so, the nature of those policies.
Step 5. Identify available U.S. deterrence policy options.
5.1 U.S. policy
5.2 Punitive or denial threats
5.3 Military actions
5.4 Related diplomatic steps
5.5 Means for communicating threats
5.6 Likely adversary reactions and implications for options
5.7 Indicators for determining option effectiveness
5.8 Opportunities for learning
5.9 Possible real-time modifications to improve option effectiveness
5.10 Domestic and allied constraints on U.S. actions
5.11 Expected results
Step 6. Identify the gap between the likely requirements for deterrence and available U.S. deterrence policy options. Describe different, new, or additional military capabilities and policies that may be needed or force reductions that could be undertaken.
6.1 Key military capabilities for supporting the deterrent options most suited to the challenger in this case
6.2 Related declaratory policy and diplomatic measures
Politics: “More Difficult Than Physics”
According to some knowledgeable observers, the requirement for deterrence policy to be so informed about the political background of a deterrence engagement is more difficult than rocket science. Who thinks understanding politics is more difficult than the study of energy and matter? In 1947, Albert Einstein was asked, “Why is it that when the mind of man has stretched so far as to discover the structure of the atom, we have been unable to devise the political means to keep the atom from destroying us?” Einstein reportedly replied, “That is simple, my friend. It is because politics is more difficult than physics.”
Emanuel Derman, a trained physicist turned financial “quant” explains, in part, why this is true. Deterrence—as in finance—must confront considerable uncertainties beyond even those encountered in the physical sciences. “In physics you’re playing against God, and He doesn’t change His laws very often. In finance, you’re playing against God’s creatures, agents who value assets based on their ephemeral opinions.” And, “financial value…is therefore less inclined to yield to mathematics or science: there are no isolated social systems on which to carry out the repeated experiments the scientific method requires, and so it is hard to study the regularities that might reveal the putative laws that govern them.”
The application of deterrence theory is not a question of generally predictable interactions, known rules and other constants among opponents. If so, it would be relatively easy. Instead, it must follow from expectations about the decision making of multiple opponents with a variety of unique worldviews and diverse leaderships’ calculations that can determine the functioning of deterrence.
Recognition of the great variation in opponents’ worldviews and decision making, and the related need to understand them in their complexity for deterrence purposes, leads inevitably to the conclusion that speculation about deterrence that is more informed is likely to be much more useful than speculation that is not so informed. A 2014 study by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences emphasizes that taking account of such factors is critical in considerations of deterrence. The authors of the recent article referenced above rightly observe that all may “partake” in speculation about deterrence, but not all speculation is of equal value for deterrence policy. This should be unremarkable; the more informed speculation in most endeavors usually is the more valuable.
In short, if speculation about deterrence follows from serious efforts to understand specific opponents in pertinent contexts, i.e., informed speculation, it may be useful; speculation that follows from untutored generalizations about the opponent and context may, by luck, be useful, but is more likely to be misleading than enlightening.
This conclusion is at the heart of a bipartisan recognition in the deterrence policy community of the need to “tailor” the application of deterrence according to an informed understanding of opponent and context. Corresponding to this conclusion is recognition of the potential need for a diverse and flexible deterrence force posture that can provide the spectrum of U.S. threat options that may be necessary to deter diverse opponents in diverse circumstances. That is, recognition of the complexity of deterrence and the uncertainties involved leads almost inevitably to recognition of the need to hedge against a wide range of threats by having flexible U.S. deterrence capabilities and options.
This conclusion contrasts sharply with the policy recommendation, enduring in some quarters since the 1960s, that the U.S. deterrence posture can be well-served by a single type of deterrent threat, i.e., to destroy some number of an opponent’s cities—as if it is self-evident that such a capability somehow equates to a universally-credible deterrent. For example: “What nuclear weapons offer that is unique is the ability to put whole cities at risk and threaten populations in the tens or hundreds of millions. It is that which gives them their strategic value.” That deterrence standard may be met relatively easily and cheaply, but it is not a prudent general approach to deterrence given the diversity of opponents in the contemporary threat environment and the serious moral and legal problems associated with it.
Working to Understand Opponents: From “Assured Destruction” to “Tailoring”
The notion that deterrence could be based on a narrow and undifferentiated threat to cities and industry was reigning U.S. declared policy early in the Cold War; an “Assured Destruction” nuclear threat to population and industry supposedly would serve to deter “any industrialized nation.” This singular-declared approach to U.S. deterrence policy was the antithesis of the contemporary bipartisan conclusion that deterrence strategies should be informed by an understanding of the particular opponent and circumstances in a deterrence engagement. Indeed, it did not reflect any apparent attempt to connect deterrence strategy to the opponent’s unique perspectives or to the need to differentiate among opponents in this regard. Instead, expectations about deterrence appear to have been predicated on the untutored assumption that opponents adhere to familiar American values, perceptions and calculations (mirror-imaging). Broad generalizations about how deterrence should function essentially were based on the norms and reasoning of the U.S. leadership. The same unthinkable, deterring nightmare for U.S. leaders was presumed to be the unthinkable deterring nightmare for any “rational” leader. Deterrence policy correspondingly could be approached as a mechanical question uninformed by the opponent’s worldview and how that could affect its calculations: how many survivable, deliverable U.S. weapons were needed to wreck destruction on opponents’ cities and industry?
Former National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy captured this presumption about the type of threat needed to deter all foreign leaders with his observation that: “In the real world of real political leaders—whether here or in the Soviet Union—a decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one’s own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history; and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable.” From there, identifying an adequate deterrence force posture is an easy proposition and relatively easily met given the extreme vulnerability of undefended cities to nuclear weapons.
This remains the enduring basis for much continuing public deterrence commentary. It runs counter to the bipartisan theme of the U.S. defense policy establishment emerging since the mid-1970s, i.e., that considerations of how to deter and the requirements for deterrence should be informed by an understanding of opponents and the diverse factors driving their decision making. After considerable study of the Soviet leadership during the Cold War, for example, the United States concluded on a bipartisan basis that, “effective deterrence requires forces of sufficient size and flexibility” to threaten “a range of military and other targets,” and that “the ability to provide measured retaliation is essential to credible deterrence.” This conclusion was not based on opposition to arms control, but from efforts to better understand how to deter Moscow. By the mid-1980s, the United States had openly rejected its earlier declarations that its strategic deterrent was based on threatening Soviet cities.
Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger in the Nixon Administration and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown in the Carter Administration helped lead U.S. policy away from simplistic “counter-city” notions of deterrence by pointing to the need to pose a deterrence threat that actually spoke to the opponent and context in question, in this case, the Soviet leadership. Nevertheless, recognition of the need to understand opponents in all their possible diversity for U.S. deterrence purposes remains absent in much contemporary commentary on deterrence—which often continues to reduce deterrence to a simplistic jumble of assumptions and uninformed speculation based on mirror-imaging.
The contrary conclusion, that the practice of deterrence involves enormous complexity and requires a diversity of deterrence options, is not a function of an opposition to arms control or the obscure work of “siloed” government analysts. Rather, it follows from recognition of: 1) the significance of the great diversity in opponents’ perceptions and decision making for the functioning of deterrence; 2) the need for serious, ongoing, interdisciplinary efforts to understand opponents in context and to tailor U.S. deterrence strategies accordingly; and 3) the corresponding need for a diversity of deterrent options to hedge against the wide spectrum of decision making and behaviors among rational opponents and the inherent uncertainties of deterrence. This is not “worst case analysis”; it simply recognizes the realities of the contemporary threat environment.
Summary and Conclusion
In summary, if all opponents could be assumed to have similar world views and to calculate in predictable, familiar patterns—if there were a universally-accepted understanding of what constitutes reasonable decision making and behavior—deterrence policy would be a much easier endeavor. Opponents could be assumed to behave much more predictably. During the early years of the Cold War, for deterrence purposes, Washington’s mirror-imaging facilitated a belief that Soviet calculations were easily known and predictable—indeed, the same was expected to be true for any rational leadership. This convenient mirror-imaging essentially assumes away the factors particular to diverse leaderships’ decision making that likely affect their respective deterrence calculations. Such speculation about strategic deterrence is not informed by study of the unique character of opponent and context. Correspondingly, an “Assured Destruction” nuclear threat to cities, an unthinkable prospect for U.S. leaders, became the declared U.S deterrence standard vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, and all other opponents were conveniently deemed lesser included cases. This approach greatly simplifies the practice of deterrence, although imprudently so, because it dismisses the need for deterrence policy that is informed by the complexities of reality that matter.
By the mid-1970s, this simplistic approach to deterrence began to fade in official policy formulations on a bipartisan basis. It was replaced by recognition that Soviet decision making was unique in important ways and did not mimic the reigning thinking in Washington, and that the view from Moscow needed to be taken into consideration in U.S. deterrence policy.
Since the mid-1970s, and on a bipartisan basis, the U.S. defense establishment has increasingly accepted as a basis for deterrence policy that opponents’ decision making may be driven by a wide range of factors that vary greatly, and thus that deterrence must be “tailored.” Doing so greatly complicates the application of deterrence—demanding serious, interdisciplinary analysis of opponents and political contexts. A dynamic international threat environment complicates the matter further—requiring continuing efforts to understand opponents and to adapt deterrence policy according to that understanding; there is no last word on the subject. Nevertheless, many contemporary commentators essentially continue to subscribe to the notion that the application of deterrence is an uncomplicated endeavor and to the corresponding simplistic, early-Cold War definition of what constitutes an adequate deterrent posture.
Deterrence theory is built on speculation in which all are free to partake. But it is a non sequitur and a mistake to conclude from those two points that all such speculation is of equal value for the application of deterrence. It is not. A broad range of specialized knowledge regarding specific opponents and occasions must be brought to the table to inform speculation about deterrence policy, and the “defense establishment,” writ large, is uniquely positioned to do so. Given the amount and types of information needed, it has some significant advantages in undertaking that analysis. Others can and should make every effort to be as informed as possible, but they will do so without comparable access to information in at least some important areas. Those who engage in speculation that is uninformed by a serious multidisciplinary effort to understand the opponent and context are unlikely to be helpful, or worse. They will be even less aware of what they do not know and its potential importance. In short, all can indeed partake in discussions of deterrence, but not all such discussions are of comparable value for its “real-world” application.
This does not, of course, mean that all studies conducted by the “defense establishment” will be done competently or will take advantage of its access to helpful information. Nor does it mean that all studies done outside that establishment must be incompetent. But those that do not bother to be so informed are more likely to mislead policy than those that seriously seek to be informed. Such is the nature of deterrence speculation
Stewart Prager and Alan Kaptanoglu, “Rebuttal: Current nuclear weapons policy not safe or sane,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 24, 2022, available at https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/rebuttal-current-nuclear-weapons-policy-not-safe-or-sane/.
Ibid.
Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 556.
Gordon A. Craig, Alexander L. George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, Third Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 192.
Ibid., p. 188.
Ibid., p. 189.
See, Kurt Guthe, “Nuclear Weapons Acquisition and Deterrence,” in Understanding Deterrence, Keith Payne, ed., (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 12. See also, Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 23.
Colin S. Gray, “The 21st Century Security Environment and the Future of War,” Parameters (Winter 2008-2009), p. 15.
There are numerous efforts in this regard. See, for example, Admiral Charles Richard, Commander’s Vision & Intent, U.S. Strategic Command, May 2020, p. 3, available at https://www.stratcom.mil/Portals/8/Documents/Commanders_Vision_and_Intent_May2020.pdf?ver=2020-05-19-145747-990.
From, Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001) pp. 112-114.
This reported statement can be found in many sources. For example, see TODAYINSCI, available at https://todayinsci.com/E/Einstein_Albert/EinsteinAlbert-PoliticsQuote500px.htm.
Emanuel Derman, Models Behaving Badly (New York: Free Press, 2011), pp. 140, 190-191.
National Research Council, U.S. Air Force Deterrence Analytic Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2014), pp. 35-39, 93-95.
“Just one boat [nuclear-armed submarine] can carry enough nuclear warheads to place two warheads on each of Russia’s fifty largest cities,” in, William Perry and Tom Collina, The Button (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2020), p. 119. “The possibility of even a few nuclear detonations in populated areas provides ample deterrence,” in McGeorge Bundy, William Crowe, Jr., Sidney Drell, Reducing Nuclear Danger (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), p. 95. See also, Bruce Blair, et al., “Smaller and Safer,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 5 (September-October 2010), p. 10; and, Jerome H. Kahan, Security in the Nuclear Age (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1975), p. 330.
Editorial, “The Nuclear Taboo: Thinking the Unthinkable,” The Economist (U.K.), June 24, 2022, p. 23.
Draft Memorandum for the President, Secretary of Defense [Robert S. McNamara] to the President [Lyndon B. Johnson], Subj: Recommended FY 1966-FY 1970 Programs for Strategic Offensive Forces, Continental Air and Missile Defense Forces, and Civil Defense, December 3, 1964, p. 4. (Originally classified; sanitized and declassified on January 5, 1983). See also, Robert McNamara, The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 76.
Draft Memorandum for the President, Secretary of Defense [Robert S. McNamara] to the President [Lyndon B. Johnson], Subj: Strategic Offensive and Defensive Forces, January 15, 1968, p. 8. (Originally classified; sanitized and declassified on January 5, 1983).
See, Alain Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961-1969 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 67, 174-196, 207-210. See also, Draft Memorandum for the President, Secretary of Defense [Robert S. McNamara] to the President [Lyndon B. Johnson], Subj: Recommended FY 1966-FY 1970 Programs for Strategic Offensive Forces, Continental Air and Missile Defense Forces, and Civil Defense, December 3, 1964, p. 17. (Originally classified; sanitized and declassified on January 5, 1983).
McNamara, The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office, op. cit., pp. 77-78.
McGeorge Bundy, “To Cap the Volcano,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 1 (October 1969), p. 10.
Harold Brown in, The Department of Defense Statement on Strategic Military Balance: Military Assessment, before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings, 96th Congress, 1st Session, July 11, 1979, p. 3. (Emphasis added).
Caspar Weinberger, “U.S. Defense Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Spring 1986), p. 682.
See for example, Deterring China in the Taiwan Strait, Special Issue, Journal of Policy & Strategy, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2022, pp. vii-115, available at https://nipp.org/journals/volume-2-2022/.
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13. Gas Becomes a Second Front in Putin’s War
Graph at the link.
Gas Becomes a Second Front in Putin’s War
July 5, 2022 at 6:00 AM EDT
Energy shortfalls were always part of the equation in the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But few were prepared for gas becoming a second front in President Vladimir Putin’s wider conflict with the US and its allies.
In less than five months of war, Moscow has retaliated against successive waves of international sanctions by tightening its supplies of natural gas to Europe. That’s contributed to a spike in prices, stoking inflation that’s hitting consumers and governments from the UK to Bulgaria.
It’s also triggered a free-for-all as Europe competes on the global stage to secure alternatives to Russian gas. With no time to build pipelines, countries from the Americas to the Middle East and Africa are being courted for shipments of liquefied natural gas.
But there isn’t enough to go around. The result is that gas now rivals oil as the driver of geopolitics.
Who’s Dependent?
Share of imported natural gas in total energy consumption
Source: Bloomberg calculations based on 2021 data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy
Plans to tackle climate change are falling victim as a result, even as a record drought in Italy highlights the costs of inaction.
A tighter squeeze is still to come.
At the outbreak of the war, Germany put on ice the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was due to start gas flows from Russia. Now, the first Nord Stream is about to undergo maintenance and Berlin is warning that Moscow may not bring it back online, risking the collapse of industries as Putin blackmails Europe’s largest economy.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, already in talks with gas giant Uniper over a possible bailout of as much as 9 billion euros, is preparing legislation that would enable the state to take stakes in further struggling energy companies.
Ukraine is suffering the frontal assault in this war. The rest of Europe, in aligning with Kyiv against Moscow, is straining with the repercussions too.
14. The Three Ps of Amplifying and Accelerating Domestic Extremism in the United States
Excerpts:
...Presently, we present an additional model which applies to the broader social milieu in the United States and has brought about the recent rise of domestic extremism described above. This model may appear to be sociological or political in nature, yet each of its components can affect the individual psychology of any American. Under these conditions, the ingredients of the lethal cocktail are made all the more potent, and any American can be at risk for radicalization to violent extremism. We have entitled this lethal cocktail-amplifying model the “3P” model of domestic extremism.
The first component of the 3P model is polarization.
...
The second component of the 3P model is propaganda.
...
In a polarized environment inundated with propaganda, the final component of an environment ripe for domestic extremism is promotion of violence.
...
To conclude, then, our 3P model can be considered one that describes the social context in which the lethal cocktail of terrorism is amplified and accelerated. When communities are polarized, they increasingly see those on the other side of any issue as being completely unlike them and opposing their sacred values. They are thus primed to believe the propaganda they see which portrays members of the outgroup as not only opposing, but actively threatening those values. When that propaganda and those who disseminate it promote the idea that violence can and should be used to defend their sacred values against such threats, individuals who ascribe to an ideology that is supported by their network, and have needs which they believe will be met through association with a violent extremist group, are likely to engage in domestic violent extremism. The 3P model in which the terrorism threat is both amplified and accelerated needs to be taken seriously if we wish to preserve our democracy.
The Three Ps of Amplifying and Accelerating Domestic Extremism in the United States
When communities are polarized, they increasingly see those on the other side of any issue as being completely unlike them and opposing their sacred values.
By
July 4, 2022
The question of the rise of domestic extremism in the United States is one which is regularly commented upon by journalists, political pundits, and scholars of numerous academic fields. The data supports a sharp rise in hate crimes over the past five years, including those directed at Asian-Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Violent extremist groups that have existed in the United States for decades if not centuries like the Ku Klux Klan and National Socialist Movement continue to gain members and sympathizers but are increasingly joined at rallies and protests, and in violent crime, by newer groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Notably, members of the latter two groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their actions during the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol; their violent attempt to keep former President Trump in power was one never seen since the end of the Civil War. What is it that has contributed to the observed rise in domestic extremism, in the United States in particular?
Our own research, as well as that of others, has consistently shown that the making of a terrorist or violent extremist consists of four parts: the group, its violence-justifying ideology, social support for that ideology which may exist in one’s local community or online, and individual needs and vulnerabilities. For those living outside of active combat zones, such as those becoming radicalized in the United States, those individual needs and vulnerabilities often include those for belonging, dignity, meaning, purpose, and significance. This “lethal cocktail of terrorism” is a psychosocial one which applies equally to violent extremists of all ideologies, whether they are militant jihadists, white supremacists, incel shooters, single-issue terrorists, or those on the far left. Presently, we present an additional model which applies to the broader social milieu in the United States and has brought about the recent rise of domestic extremism described above. This model may appear to be sociological or political in nature, yet each of its components can affect the individual psychology of any American. Under these conditions, the ingredients of the lethal cocktail are made all the more potent, and any American can be at risk for radicalization to violent extremism. We have entitled this lethal cocktail-amplifying model the “3P” model of domestic extremism.
The first component of the 3P model is polarization. It is important to note that there is legitimate pushback against “both-sidesism” as well as some media outlets’ portrayal as each side of a polarized argument being supported by approximately equal numbers of people (as a relevant example, 61 percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases). Nevertheless, it is clear that Americans are becoming more and more polarized, increasingly shifting their ideologies toward what may have been considered the fringes in decades past. The further away from one another Americans grow ideologically, the stronger and thicker the in-group/out-group boundary becomes. By this, we mean, Americans on opposite sides of the political spectrum see each other less and less as sharing common sacred values or even sharing a common reality and truth. This becomes even more relevant when social media algorithms and news outlets feed this polarization by creating echo chambers and isolating divergent views of reality and truth around issues, which are sacred for many. Whereas the boundary may previously have been blurred under the idea that everyone belongs to the greater in-group of Americans, talk of a “national divorce” indicates that the most polarized Americans view themselves as belonging to mutually exclusive groups, albeit with the same title. Indeed, extensive research has found that creating strict in-groups even based on the most trivial differences (i.e., the “minimal group paradigm”) can induce preference for one’s own group members and bias against if not outright animosity toward the out-group.
The second component of the 3P model is propaganda. Propaganda, as well as mis- and dis-information, has been an important topic of discussion in considering American polarization and the rise of domestic extremism. Propaganda is certainly not unique to the 21st century but has been amplified through the advent of social media. Social media not only allows for the rapid spread of falsehoods across the country, but also for the enabling of echo chambers. People who get their news from social media will see the information posted by those they follow – typically, those with whom they already agree. They will also see the posts recommended to them by the social media platforms’ algorithm which is designed not to present accurate, objective information, or both sides of an issue, but rather to present information which keeps the individual on the platform. Typically, this information is that with which the user agrees or that which enrages the user, thus leading them to engage more with other users. After the main social media platforms found themselves used by ISIS for massive spread of their propaganda for terrorist recruitment and incitement these platforms found ways to carry out takedowns, but clearly social media continues as a hotbed of propaganda for many groups and a dangerous one: 36 percent of U.S. adults report that they get their news from Facebook. With some overlap, 23 percent of U.S. adults say that they get their news from YouTube, 15 percent from Twitter, and 11 percent from Instagram. Thus, at least one-third of American adults are taking what they see on social media to be factual information regarding current events without realizing they may have been funneled into an isolation and echo chamber, and many lack the media literacy skills to discern which so-called “news” stories are true, what the other side of the story could be, and which are designed to rile them up and make them feel scared and threatened. Given the aforementioned polarization, these individuals are apt to believe that which they hear or see from their own side of the political spectrum, particularly stories that portray those on the opposing side as deranged or dangerous. Such propaganda is often disguised as legitimate news but actually contains vicious conspiracy theories which appeal to the existing beliefs of the target audience and are designed to convince them that their sacred values are at risk.
In a polarized environment inundated with propaganda, the final component of an environment ripe for domestic extremism is promotion of violence. As previously mentioned, polarization includes the perception that one’s in-group does not share sacred values with those in the out-group, and propaganda is often designed to convince the reader or viewer that their sacred values are at risk. We use the term “sacred values” here intentionally. Anthropologist Scott Atran describes sacred values, defined as beliefs, whether religious or secular, held by a particular group which serve to bind the group’s members to one another through ritual or understanding that such beliefs are supernaturally ordained. These beliefs are also strongly emotionally evocative for those who hold them. According to Atran, “sacred values act as moral imperatives that inspire non-rational sacrifices in cooperative endeavors and war, generating outsize commitment in low-power groups to resist and often prevail against materially stronger foes” (p. 855). For example, those who have killed doctors who perform abortions believe that their actions are righteous because they believe that abortion is murder and that they are saving thousands of lives by committing such a crime. Similarly, those who attack drag queens or pride parades may believe that they are protecting children from pedophilia if they believe rhetoric which says that LGBTQ+ people are “groomers.”
When thinking about sacred values in the American context, it is easy to see how perceived threats toward such could inspire violence. Broadly speaking, America’s “European (i.e., white) heritage” is frequently used by far-right violent extremist groups as a sacred value which must be defended against immigrants (particularly from the Middle East or South and Central America) as well as from the threats of increased voting power of Americans of color. These claims by white supremacists of a white genocide or white replacement being orchestrated by enemies of white people can underlie violent actions designed to incite a race war. For those who do not consider themselves to be racist or xenophobic, these threats about immigrants overtaking their country, as portrayed in the propaganda they see, can nevertheless ring true. In 2012, Ronald Brownstein wrote for The Atlantic that the American political landscape consisted of the “coalition of transformation” and the “coalition of restoration.” For those in the latter category, who had been served well by the status quo in the United States, those in the former group, who were advocating for systemic change, posed a threat to the America they knew and loved, one which prioritized the interests of white, straight, Christian men. It is clear to see the path from this perceived threat to white supremacist violence, including that committed under a slogan emblematic of “restoration”: Make America Great Again. This becomes dangerous when violence is promoted as the only way to defend their threatened sacred values. Similar promotions of violence in defense of sacred values can be seen among those who bomb abortion clinics, those who call for gun owners to defend their Second Amendment rights, and those who massacre Jewish worshippers because they believe that Jews are orchestrating white genocide or white replacement with an invasion of undocumented immigrants across the southern border. Polarization has also been tied to the promotion of violence among those who ascribe to the Antifa ideology and movement, following such advice as “Punch a Nazi [or a MAGA] in the face,” engaging in serious property damage, engaging in street brawls, and arming themselves for street protests, all framed as defensive violence on behalf of Black lives, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights, etc.
To conclude, then, our 3P model can be considered one that describes the social context in which the lethal cocktail of terrorism is amplified and accelerated. When communities are polarized, they increasingly see those on the other side of any issue as being completely unlike them and opposing their sacred values. They are thus primed to believe the propaganda they see which portrays members of the outgroup as not only opposing, but actively threatening those values. When that propaganda and those who disseminate it promote the idea that violence can and should be used to defend their sacred values against such threats, individuals who ascribe to an ideology that is supported by their network, and have needs which they believe will be met through association with a violent extremist group, are likely to engage in domestic violent extremism. The 3P model in which the terrorism threat is both amplified and accelerated needs to be taken seriously if we wish to preserve our democracy.
Cinelli, M., De Francisci Morales, G., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The echo chamber effect on social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(9), e2023301118.
Diehl, M. (1990). The minimal group paradigm: Theoretical explanations and empirical findings. European review of social psychology, 1(1), 263-292.
Atran, S., & Ginges, J. (2012). Religious and sacred imperatives in human conflict. Science, 336(6083), 855-857.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by Homeland Security Today, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints in support of securing our homeland. To submit a piece for consideration, email Editor@Hstoday.us.
15. How commercial satellite imagery could soon make nuclear secrecy very difficult—if not impossible
Excerpts:
Outlook. Even though confidence in what is observed typically scales with sensor advancements and the increased number of satellites, there are inherent limitations to what a sensor can observe from the Earth’s orbit. Hosts can attempt to obfuscate their activities, camouflage objects, or otherwise deceive the observer. But hiding will become increasingly difficult as more data is collected, and persistency of coverage is improved.
Advanced satellite imagery allows counting objects of sufficient size, but cannot reveal sensitive information about their structure, chemical composition, or other confidential characteristics. This technical limitation could act as an advantage in nuclear inspection, as the host does not need to worry about the unintended disclosure of information.
Within the next few decades, swarms of commercial surveillance satellites could make real-time multispectral satellite imagery available to everyone. Aided by AI, this could be exploited to create an automated system that monitors sites and detects the appearance or removal of objects relevant to civilian and military nuclear programs, for all atmospheric conditions and during the night. Satellites may be able to track all vehicles entering or leaving nuclear sites anywhere in the world, be they uranium mines, enrichment plants, nuclear reactors, or weapons assembly, deployment, maintenance, storage, and dismantlement sites. Establishing secret nuclear programs—both for energy and weapons—and maintaining secrecy around existing ones could soon become extremely difficult, if not impossible.
How commercial satellite imagery could soon make nuclear secrecy very difficult—if not impossible - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Underground construction activities were detected in late 2020 using commercial satellite imagery south of the Natanz nuclear facility, Iran (Google, Image CNES / Airbus).
Emerging capabilities of commercial satellite imagery are enabling high-resolution observation of objects and activity over large areas or territories of entire states with a sub-hourly frequency. Existing constellations are being expanded and new ones are planned promising even higher resolution and frequency of observations, on a global scale. Coupled with AI-powered automatic monitoring and detection capability, this rapid technology development and deployment of advanced commercial satellites could soon make it very difficult—if not impossible—to establish secret nuclear programs or maintain secrecy around existing ones.
The burst of open-source intelligence. Satellites operated by private companies located in more than 30 countries now provide imagery that once was accessible only to a handful of governments. One must look no further than the daily coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine; satellite images captured the massing of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border, columns of military units, destroyed buildings, burning vehicles, and bodies scattered over streets. These images of war are now on our screens with unprecedented speed and detail. They are shared over social media by open-source investigators and combined with ground imagery of geo-located events captured by civilians with camera phones and soldiers with drones—a framework often referred to as open-source intelligence or OSINT.
Beyond conflicts, commercially available satellite images also provide an unobtrusive and cost-effective way to monitor the activity of civilian or military nuclear programs, as shown by the many recent analyses of sites in Iran and North Korea. Imagery is part of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s toolkit, with the agency’s inspectors combining commercial imagery with open-source information to look for direct and indirect signs of nuclear activities.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ database, as of January 1, 2022, there were 4,852 satellites in orbit, 72 percent of which being commercial systems. The civilian space industry is experiencing extraordinary growth made possible by advancements in technology, increased governmental and public demand for services, and cheaper space launches. Following this growth and relaxation of distribution restrictions, providers of commercial satellite imagery are launching new constellations and encouraging the development of novel applications of overhead imagery.
Capabilities of earth observation systems. Satellites can view ground objects only if they are larger than the sensor’s resolution, nothing is obstructing their view, and they are visible within the sensor’s observation bandwidth. In addition, the capacity to view the activity as it occurs or map out trends depends on the revisit time, that is the time interval between subsequent observations of the site. The quality of ground coverage during a given period of observation, therefore, mainly depends on spatial resolution the sensor can achieve from the altitude of the satellite, spectral information the sensor can acquire during the observation interval, and frequency of repeated observation.
Current commercial systems can acquire data with a 30-centimeter (cm) and 31-cm resolution in the panchromatic (black and white), respectively. By comparison, US government-owned spy satellites can produce imagery with a top resolution at the level of 10 cm; as evidenced by former President Trump’s tweet showing a failed Iranian missile launch in 2019.
Rather than trying to reach the highest level of image quality, commercial providers deploy instead multiple satellites built with cheaper, off-the-shelf components which they can easily replace if they malfunction or technology advances. In addition, using multiple sensors observing from different angles and orbits results in a higher persistency of coverage. For example, the US company Planet operates more than 150 Dove satellites with up to 3.7-meter resolution. The constellation is being constantly expanded and upgraded, and the data is combined to get a more comprehensive view of the surface.
Sensors with a wider spectral range make it possible to see details beyond the capabilities of the human eye, classify observed material and distinguish human-made from natural objects. Some sensors can also image in the infrared spectrum, allowing them to detect thermal sources on the surface, especially useful for tracking activity inside facilities. But most optical systems won’t see the Earth’s surface during the night or in conditions of poor illumination. Clouds cover most of the land surface at any moment in time, and some locations remain permanently hidden. This makes it difficult to observe any location on demand.
Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) systems can fill the observation gaps. Here, the image is produced by the radar antenna which transmits microwave pulses that bounce from ground targets and are then bounced back to the satellite. By measuring the phase and the intensity of the returned signal, the system can construct an image of the surface and accurately derive distances between objects, after a relatively extensive image conversion process. Atmospheric and illumination conditions will not affect the quality of the image. SAR systems are always watching.
Satellite super-constellation imagery. If all commercial satellites currently in operation were to be combined into one super-constellation, they would provide global coverage of the Earth’s surface with a frequency of only a few hours. Recent work has simulated what type of coverage can be provided by a super-constellation formed by 300 systems—265 optical imaging satellites and 35 SAR-equipped satellites. These systems were selected under the condition that they offer some form of public access to their data and have an imaging ground resolution of five meters or less, at which it becomes possible to identify many objects from space—even though lower-resolution imagery can and was regularly used for nuclear verification and monitoring.
The simulation calculates the ground coverage of the constellation over territories of states with active nuclear programs for a duration of 14 days. A successful pass was not defined simply as a ground track revisit but as a successful observation of some site considering orbit and sensor properties. For optical systems, it considers the effect of statistical cloud coverage and sun illumination, while for SAR it assumes this has no effect on observation quality. Coverage was calculated for different ground resolution intervals, equivalent to levels of detectability of ground objects. Optical and SAR systems were simulated separately because observations in different bands are not equivalent and do not provide the same type of information for a given resolution, even though data from different bands can be merged to provide more than the sum of its parts. Results from the simulations show that with combined commercial systems, it would be possible to observe most locations on the planet every 15 hours on average in the optical and under five hours with SAR, with a sub-meter resolution.
Applications in nuclear verification and monitoring. The current fleet of commercial imagery satellites allows inspectors to detect, identify and monitor most objects relevant to nuclear arms control and nuclear proliferation analysis. They also allow identifying signatures of activities associated with the development, acquisition, and maintenance of operational nuclear weapons capabilities. Commercial imagery satellites can also reveal the absence of items that are necessary for the normal operation of a site that was declared to have some other non-nuclear uses.
High resolution and high frequency of observation are not necessary for the detection of new structures and most immobile objects. Commissioning of nuclear facilities takes years and can easily be detected even with low-resolution sensors. For example, in 2006, imagery taken at a monthly rate was used to detect the construction of a nuclear reactor in Pakistan and later produce a three-dimensional model of the facility and estimate its plutonium production capacity. Even before construction begins, a future site of a nuclear facility can be recognized by tight security, the stockpiling of equipment and increased traffic at a remote location, or proximity to other sites of similar characteristics.
Satellite observations of a site at a weekly frequency provide more information on the facility operation and surrounding activity. Multispectral monitoring of thermal and vapor plume emissions and steam discharges enables monitoring of the operational state of a nuclear facility and can even help estimate the existing stockpile. Satellites can also be used as a tool to track the nuclear fuel cycle. For example, civilian inspectors were able to monitor the operation of North Korea’s nuclear reactor and Yongbyon radiochemistry laboratory. Established durations of activity match IAEA’s estimated time required to reprocess irradiated fuel and produce plutonium.
Even more frequent observation allows for more confident mapping of trends and an increased probability of detection of attempts at deceiving the observer. Using imagery taken daily, researchers from Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) were able to count trucks at a border crossing between China and North Korea, and in that way track trends in trade activity between the two countries.
With the enormous amount of data being downlinked to ground stations each day, AI algorithms are increasingly used for the processing of raw imagery, object classification, and identification of correlations and irregular behavior. For example, the retail industry uses such algorithms to count cars on parking lots and help companies evaluate commercial activity, whereas analysts use them to count the number of new oil well pads to predict global supply. Similar AI-powered detection capabilities can be used for nuclear verification and monitoring.
Integration of AI in data analysis. With the help of AI algorithms, researchers from open-source defense intelligence agency Janes and Stanford’s CISAC used imagery taken at a monthly rate between mid-2020 and early 2021 to automatically count vehicles on a parking lot of a nuclear facility in Iran. From this information, they inferred site personnel fluctuations and then the progress in the construction of a possible underground centrifuge assembly facility—despite the facility not being directly visible from space. Higher persistency of coverage could permit detection and tracking of individual vehicles entering and leaving nuclear facilities with much higher confidence. This can reflect staffing and material demand, allowing remote inspectors to evaluate the production status without the need to visit the site or place intrusive electronic sensors.
Monitoring of state nuclear activities can be performed even without satellites. Citizens can often see what is happening in their area and share information over the Internet. For example, Nukewatch—a volunteer-based civilian organization—tracks British nuclear warhead convoys. Then, crossing the observed level of activity and movement of trucks with official reports and publications, Nukewatch can analyze UK’s nuclear modernization and estimate the armament of their nuclear-capable submarines. But this kind of information gathering by concerned citizens is not possible in all countries. Even otherwise democratic societies often work hard to keep their nuclear programs far from the public eye.
Another simulation was performed with a satellite super-constellation by focusing the coverage on the territories of China and North Korea Chinese and Russian providers that might have objected to imaging of sensitive areas were removed from the sample of available systems. A similar analysis can be performed for other territories, such as the United States and Russia, by removing satellites operated by companies located in those countries. The results showed that on average all locations for every ground resolution in China and North Korea can be imaged at least once every 24 hours. If using the SAR technology, the entire territory of China can be imaged every few hours. This would, for example, allow detection of missile uploading at all known Chinese missile silo locations. (See Figure.)
Example of coverage achieved through satellite super-constellation imagery at locations of known missile silo sites in China. Observation resolutions were selected to allow detection of new construction (5-m optical), vehicles (3-m SAR), and missile uploading (1.4m optical). Image Igor Moric.
Outlook. Even though confidence in what is observed typically scales with sensor advancements and the increased number of satellites, there are inherent limitations to what a sensor can observe from the Earth’s orbit. Hosts can attempt to obfuscate their activities, camouflage objects, or otherwise deceive the observer. But hiding will become increasingly difficult as more data is collected, and persistency of coverage is improved.
Advanced satellite imagery allows counting objects of sufficient size, but cannot reveal sensitive information about their structure, chemical composition, or other confidential characteristics. This technical limitation could act as an advantage in nuclear inspection, as the host does not need to worry about the unintended disclosure of information.
Within the next few decades, swarms of commercial surveillance satellites could make real-time multispectral satellite imagery available to everyone. Aided by AI, this could be exploited to create an automated system that monitors sites and detects the appearance or removal of objects relevant to civilian and military nuclear programs, for all atmospheric conditions and during the night. Satellites may be able to track all vehicles entering or leaving nuclear sites anywhere in the world, be they uranium mines, enrichment plants, nuclear reactors, or weapons assembly, deployment, maintenance, storage, and dismantlement sites. Establishing secret nuclear programs—both for energy and weapons—and maintaining secrecy around existing ones could soon become extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Igor Moric
Igor Moric is a postdoctoral research associate in the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) at Princeton University. Prior to joining Princeton, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the MIMAC and PandaX dark matter detectors at Tsinghua University in Beijing and SJTU in Shanghai, respectively. During his PhD at CNES and Paris Sorbonne he worked on characterization and optimization of the space atomic clock PHARAO. He also holds an advanced master in “Space Systems Engineering” from ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse.
16. The Liberty Times Editorial: ‘Asian NATO’ might temper Chinese activity
We tried NEATO, SEATO, and CENTO.
Excerpts:
NATO in Europe has been in operation for more than 70 years, but so far the Asia-Pacific version only exists on paper, if that.
In the face of the threat from China, it would be quicker for NATO to expand into Asia by getting key members to play a role in Asia-Pacific security.
Such a security setup could not omit Taiwan, which is on the front line of resistance against an authoritarian regime. An Asia-Pacific version of NATO would ensure that threatened democracies are no longer left to fight alone. Instead, it would enable them to join forces to prevent conflict.
To prevent war, a nation must be prepared for war.
British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss last week said that the war between Russia and Ukraine shows that countries should support potential victims of aggression at an early stage and not wishfully expect the situation would not deteriorate.
This important lesson should also be applied to Taiwan, Truss said.
Her words were a warning that if countries are restricted by the idea of “one China” and are indecisive about their support for Taiwan, were Taiwan to get into trouble, the problem would surely spread throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Were that to happen — even with an Asia-Pacific version of NATO — breakthroughs by China would probably cause it to exist in name alone.
Wed, Jul 06, 2022 page8
- The Liberty Times Editorial: ‘Asian NATO’ might temper Chinese activity
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As the geopolitical effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine become more obvious, the collective defense provided by NATO is the key security umbrella that unites European countries and protects them from further intrusion by their malicious eastern neighbor.
With Finland and Sweden having been invited to join NATO — which, if they join, would increase the number of member states from 30 to 32 — two more nations in the region are in line to be included in the regional security pact.
Meanwhile, the support that Russia has been receiving behind the scenes from China and other countries is one of the main reasons the war is still going on.
From NATO’s perspective, China is no less of a threat to Europe than Russia. A a summit in Madrid last week, NATO unveiled an updated version of its core mission — its “Strategic Concept” — which for the first time recognizes that China poses a “systemic challenge.”
The convergence of Russia and China has clearly prompted NATO to pay more attention to the Indo-Pacific region.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that China’s rise presents a challenge because of the diplomatic and military cooperation between China and Russia.
The Strategic Concept states that the alliance will work together to defend its security interests by addressing the systemic challenge that China poses to European and Atlantic security.
It says that NATO will defend its members’ common values and the rules-based international order, including freedom of navigation.
Another highlight of the NATO summit was the participation of leaders of four countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called for greater cooperation between the Indo-Pacific region and NATO. The Strategic Concept also reflects the common concerns of Asia-Pacific democracies. In response to China’s military expansion, its disruption of freedom of navigation and its attempts to turn the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and South China Sea into its spheres of influence, democratic countries are now supporting each other to restrain China’s ambitions.
For NATO, most of whose members are European countries, to concern itself with the Asia-Pacific region, is a thorn in Beijing’s side.
Chinese Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun (張軍) denounced the move, saying: “We firmly oppose the efforts of some forces encouraging NATO to extend its tentacles further into the Asia-Pacific or to rely on military alliances to construct an Asia-Pacific version of NATO.”
The “long-outdated Cold War script must never be re-enacted in the Asia-Pacific,” Zhang said.
China’s eagerness to oppose the move shows how the atmosphere of democracies rallying together is hindering China’s expansionism. Similarly, North Korea used its official media to criticize joint military exercises to be held by the US, Japan and South Korea, calling them a dangerous signal that an “Asian version of NATO” is being created.
By expanding its membership, bolstering its armaments and guarding its lines of defense on the European continent, NATO is slowing the pace of Russia’s westward advance. This model of collective defense is making autocratic countries such as China and North Korea nervous. It also shows that if democracies can join hands to create an Asia-Pacific version of NATO, it will become a strong force for global military stability.
The US is the main country that maintains order in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to its military presence, it has established a chain of bilateral security agreements, such as the US-Japan Security Treaty, while the AUKUS partnership between Australia, the UK and the US was formed last year. There is also the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), which has Japan, Australia, India and the US.
However, the vast Asia-Pacific region consists of many countries. Compared with NATO in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region clearly lacks multilateral security mechanisms for collective defense, which has allowed China to stir up trouble.
In a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington on June 26, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that the US should expand the Quad’s membership to include South Korea, the UK and France, which would envelop AUKUS.
The war has been confined to Ukraine and not spread into central and eastern Europe because of NATO’s structure of common defense. If an Asia-Pacific version of NATO established a similarly strong multilateral security structure, it would encourage China to be more cautious and less aggressive. As to whether it would turn into a “new cold war,” that would depend on whether China is prepared to cease its military aggression.
The structure of the Cold War rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union with its opposing eastern and western camps actually prevented the outbreak of a major war. Instead, a degree of stability was maintained based on mutual military restraint.
Some analysts believe the nations of the Asia-Pacific region are too different from each other and that some of them are vulnerable to Beijing’s divisive influence, making it difficult for them to join forces to resist China.
However, just as NATO was established mainly because of the grave threat posed by the Soviet Union, as aggression by China becomes more likely, security interests will become the overriding concern of its neighbors, whose survival will depend on first dealing with their common enemy.
The region should not wait for China to become more aggressive before thinking about how to deal with it.
NATO in Europe has been in operation for more than 70 years, but so far the Asia-Pacific version only exists on paper, if that.
In the face of the threat from China, it would be quicker for NATO to expand into Asia by getting key members to play a role in Asia-Pacific security.
Such a security setup could not omit Taiwan, which is on the front line of resistance against an authoritarian regime. An Asia-Pacific version of NATO would ensure that threatened democracies are no longer left to fight alone. Instead, it would enable them to join forces to prevent conflict.
To prevent war, a nation must be prepared for war.
British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss last week said that the war between Russia and Ukraine shows that countries should support potential victims of aggression at an early stage and not wishfully expect the situation would not deteriorate.
This important lesson should also be applied to Taiwan, Truss said.
Her words were a warning that if countries are restricted by the idea of “one China” and are indecisive about their support for Taiwan, were Taiwan to get into trouble, the problem would surely spread throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Were that to happen — even with an Asia-Pacific version of NATO — breakthroughs by China would probably cause it to exist in name alone.
Translated by Julian Clegg
17. How Nato’s stance on China has changed, and why it matters
Excerpts:
China is, for the first time, featured in Nato’s strategic concept. Certainly, Nato has been cautious by choosing to not raise China to Russia’s level on its threat assessment.
Nevertheless, one of the key long-term issues on its “watch list” is going to be the Beijing-Moscow axis, as it represents a threat to Nato’s values and interests. These circumstances underscore the role of the organisation’s Indo-Pacific partners despite the prioritisation of collective defence for Europe.
The global balance of power is shifting to the Indo-Pacific, and the Euro-Atlantic is working to catch up with it. Where the two sides meet is yet to be seen, but China might give us some clues. In the meantime, the Madrid Strategic Concept is the reference for understanding the alliance’s adjustment to an era of great power competition.
How Nato’s stance on China has changed, and why it matters
- Throughout Nato’s history, China has been both adversary and ally, but never before has it been so high up on the organisation’s agenda
- While the alliance’s focus remains on Europe, China’s relationship with Russia means that security in the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic are now far more closely intertwined
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Published: 9:15am, 6 Jul, 2022
By Patrizia Cogo South China Morning Post4 min
Illustration: Craig Stephens
Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and growing global economic, social and geopolitical uncertainty, one particular item on Nato’s agenda has gained importance: how to respond to the security challenges posed by China.
In the Madrid Strategic Concept, Nato allies went further than previously in characterising China as a security threat and for the first time agreed on a common strategy to deal with it.
Founded within a particular political context, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created with the purpose of addressing direct military threats to Europe. China had remained out of the organisation’s mission but that didn’t mean it was not previously on its radar.
From a historical perspective, China has been viewed as an adversary, an ally and something in-between, depending on developments during the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Times have changed. In the 1950s, China was described as a “junior partner in an axis” within the Soviet Bloc and, in the 1970s, as potentially “one of the most important Nato allies”. Now, Nato’s understanding of China has shifted significantly in its latest strategic concept, which provides a road map for the alliance for the coming decade.
This deviation was first signalled in the 2019 London Declaration, where China was described as a power that represented “both opportunities and challenges”. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg followed up the discussion by asking an expert group to prepare ideas on the alliance’s future priorities and concerns.
Last year, at the Nato Summit in Brussels, it was acknowledged that China presented “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security”.
However, the 2021 communique remained vague on the question of how Nato should respond. This question was given an answer at the Madrid summit, with a balanced though assertive approach to China in the alliance’s strategy.
The strategic concept outlines three elements that are key for Nato-China relations. First, it identifies Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security”, affirming that the priority for Nato is responding to the threat to collective security posed by Russia.
This implies that China does not represent the same kind of threat, certainly not in a traditional military sense. Indeed, Nato remains “open to constructive engagement” with Beijing. But it also highlights the challenges Beijing poses to Euro-Atlantic security.
In particular, the alliance looks at China through the lens of its “deepening strategic partnership” with Russia and their “mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order”.
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‘We will not stand by’: Nato heads of state meet to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Second, the strategic concept stresses that the European Union is an “essential partner” and calls for the strengthening of EU-Nato cooperation on issues of common interest, including the challenges posed by China.
This resonates with the EU’s Strategic Compass, the group’s version of a national defence strategy, which also emphasises the unity between the two organisations on European and global security.
Nato has embraced the multifaceted reality that Beijing represents and, in its own manner, the strategic concept emulates the 2019 EU-China Strategic Outlook. Among the myriad challenges posed by China, its technological capabilities and economic prowess are two of the most pressing on Nato’s agenda.
It is precisely in these fields where the EU’s know-how could make a difference in addressing Beijing’s cyber operations, investments in critical infrastructure, and disinformation campaigns. After all, Nato is a military alliance and the EU is better equipped to manage non-traditional military threats vis-à-vis China.
Third, the strategy acknowledges that developments in the Indo-Pacific can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security and therefore Nato will “strengthen dialogue and cooperation with new and existing partners” in the region “to tackle cross-regional challenges”.
The main threat derives from Russia but Nato is looking at security from a global viewpoint. This implies that exogenous factors are likely to have a growing impact in the Euro-Atlantic region and that Nato will have to adapt to unfamiliar dynamics.
The increasingly intertwined nature of security in both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions is best exemplified by the unprecedented attendance of Nato’s Indo-Pacific partners, namely Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand, at the Madrid summit.
The transatlantic community gathered in Madrid to set the course for Nato’s future. The strategic concept was influenced by the reality in which we find ourselves regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
How the situation develops will greatly affect the future of the international rules-based order, and will also have repercussions for the Indo-Pacific region, whose actors are watching attentively. Regional stability is not a given when it comes to the South China Sea and East China Sea maritime disputes, and less so for the status quo that, at least for now, is maintained in the Taiwan Strait.
China is, for the first time, featured in Nato’s strategic concept. Certainly, Nato has been cautious by choosing to not raise China to Russia’s level on its threat assessment.
Nevertheless, one of the key long-term issues on its “watch list” is going to be the Beijing-Moscow axis, as it represents a threat to Nato’s values and interests. These circumstances underscore the role of the organisation’s Indo-Pacific partners despite the prioritisation of collective defence for Europe.
The global balance of power is shifting to the Indo-Pacific, and the Euro-Atlantic is working to catch up with it. Where the two sides meet is yet to be seen, but China might give us some clues. In the meantime, the Madrid Strategic Concept is the reference for understanding the alliance’s adjustment to an era of great power competition.
Patrizia Cogo is a communications officer and research assistant at the EsadeGeo Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona, Spain
18. Mongolia’s Military Diplomacy Highlights Female Peacekeepers
Excerpts:
Mongolia’s global partners have been supportive of Mongolia’s initiation to include more women in peacekeeping and in military.
The United States has been the largest support system for Mongolia’s participation in peacekeeping missions. In recent years, the U.S. has provided training and support for female military personnel. In 2019, 23 women from Mongolia
enrolled in the Women’s Mentorship Program with the U.S. military, organized by the United States Indo-Pacific Command and the U.S. Army Pacific during Gobi Wolf Exercise.
From a foreign policy standpoint, the multi-faceted and multidimensional aspect of U.N. Peacekeeping operations is a force of engagement for Mongolia’s military diplomacy. The activities Mongolia engages in, including but not limited to U.N. Peacekeeping, Five Hills International Training, or its traditional military field training with its neighbors, strengthens Mongolia’s relations with multilateral organizations and defense ministries.
Mongolia’s Military Diplomacy Highlights Female Peacekeepers
Mongolia hosted a conference dedicated to the role of women in peacekeeping operations.
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This year marks the 20th anniversary of Mongolia’s first deployment with a United Nations peacekeeping mission. In a semi-celebratory move, the president of Mongolia, Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, initiated Mongolia’s first-ever international conference in support of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, “Women, Peace, and Security,” which “urges all actors to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts.” While the conference was a salute to all female peacekeepers, it was also a shining moment for Mongolia’s military diplomacy.
In 2002, Mongolia’s parliament passed legislation allowing the military to deploy soldiers in international coalition operations. As a result, Mongolia first sent two separate unarmed military observers to U.N. missions, one in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the other in Western Sahara, in 2002. Since then, the Mongolian military has deployed contingent troops, military police, as well as humanitarian and medical staff to countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kosovo, Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In 2019, the U.N. officially recognized Mongolia’s participation in humanitarian assistance, security, and medical services in parts of the world that desperately need additional support.
As Mongolia’s foreign policy pursues a multi-pillared approach, active participation in peacekeeping missions strengthens the country’s military diplomacy with multilateral organizations and defense ministries around the world.
During the Seoul U.N. Peacekeeping Ministerial meeting in 2021, Mongolia pledged to establish a Research Center on Peace Operations, increase female peacekeepers in U.N. missions, host an international conference, and equip units with renewable energy capacities.
The 2022 “Women, Peace, and Security” conference brought together female peacekeepers from 30 countries, including Mongolia, and 60 representatives and international researchers and scholars from the European Union and U.N. peacekeeping missions. At the conference, Under-Secretary-General for the U.N. Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix thanked all the female peacekeepers and emphasized Mongolia’s steadfast support of U.N. Peacekeeping operations over the past 20 years.
The conference aimed to support the implementation of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, passed in 2000. The conference’s main objective was to create an environment for female peacekeepers to share their experiences, ideas, and challenges.
Mongolia’s first female brigadier general, Bolor Ganbold, who previously served in U.N. missions multiple times, has been vocal about the importance of limiting gender disparity in the Mongolian military as well as in U.N. peacekeeping missions. In response to the general’s perspective and in line with U.N. goals, Khurelsukh pledged to increase Mongolian female peacekeepers to 15 percent of the country’s military contingent by 2027. Although the U.N. quota remains far from met, the presidential commitment to achieve that goal should be recognized.
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As Khurelsukh stated, “Mongolia has sent more than 20,000 military personnel to U.N. Peacekeeping and international military operations, and more than 900 of them are women. Mongolia ranked 20th in the number of women peacekeepers among the U.N. troop contributed countries.” According to Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Mongolian Institute for Innovative Policies, Mongolian female peacekeepers mainly participate in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (38 percent of all Mongolia’s female PKOs) and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (27 percent).
Mongolia’s contribution to peacekeeping missions embodies the country’s commitment to global security and humanitarian assistance. As the Mongolian government continues to support multilateral efforts in defusing hostile situations and providing protection and security for the vulnerable, the country’s military diplomacy is diversified and strengthened at bilateral and multilateral level.
France, also a major U.N. peacekeeping contributor, has recognized Mongolia’s efforts. Ambassador of France to Mongolia Sebastien Surun, who attended the “Women, Peace, and Security” conference, stated, “France is proud to be partnering with Mongolia on an international level. It is right to recognize the Mongolian female peacekeeper’s contributions as part of Mongolia’s commitment to the U.N. Peacekeeping missions.”
Mongolia’s global partners have been supportive of Mongolia’s initiation to include more women in peacekeeping and in military.
The United States has been the largest support system for Mongolia’s participation in peacekeeping missions. In recent years, the U.S. has provided training and support for female military personnel. In 2019, 23 women from Mongolia enrolled in the Women’s Mentorship Program with the U.S. military, organized by the United States Indo-Pacific Command and the U.S. Army Pacific during Gobi Wolf Exercise.
From a foreign policy standpoint, the multi-faceted and multidimensional aspect of U.N. Peacekeeping operations is a force of engagement for Mongolia’s military diplomacy. The activities Mongolia engages in, including but not limited to U.N. Peacekeeping, Five Hills International Training, or its traditional military field training with its neighbors, strengthens Mongolia’s relations with multilateral organizations and defense ministries.
19. Russia doing everything to make Europe experience the biggest crisis in history this winter – Zelensky
Winter is not that far off. Is everyone preparing for it now?
Russia doing everything to make Europe experience the biggest crisis in history this winter – Zelensky
The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the opening of the 26th Annual Economist Government Roundtable, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
According to Zelensky, it is only through greater unity in Europe and effective security guarantees that we can respond to those threats that are currently destabilizing the continent. In his words, the future of Europe – calm and peaceful – is simply impossible without it.
“We need such a unity in Europe that will become the largest in history. Of course, a lot has already been done for this. But not everything yet. For example, what is happening on the energy market in Europe and is happening right now should be viewed as a war. With its gas game, Russia is doing everything to keep inflation growing and to make Europe experience the biggest crisis in history this winter. However, at the same time, we see Greek companies providing almost the largest tanker fleet for the transportation of Russian oil,” Zelensky told.
According to the President of Ukraine, “this is happening precisely when another Russian energy resource is being used as a weapon against Europe and against the family budget of every European”. Zelensky expressed confidence that this does not meet the interests of Europe, Greece, or Ukraine.
In his words, this is just one example of the need for even greater unity, so that Russia is forced to seek peaceful solutions, namely in the hybrid wars it is waging.
“And if we mention the Russian banking system, is it already cut off from the global financial market? No. Connections are still maintained. And, therefore, there is still hope in Moscow that in the future it will somehow be possible to deceive the democratic world, somehow it will be possible to break the resistance, in particular, of European countries. Because if they made concessions in something, why won’t they make concessions in something else? This is the question,” the Head of the State stressed.
A reminder that, in late May 2022, the European Union introduced the sixth sanctions package against Russia, including a partial ban on Russian crude oil imports delivered by sea.
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20. The Risks of US Military Assistance to Ukraine
Yes we must take prudent measures.
However, when evaluating risk we must assess the gravest risk of all: What if Ukraine loses?
The Risks of US Military Assistance to Ukraine
With arms pouring into a wartorn country, we must take steps to ensure they are not stolen or misused.
The donated weapons pouring into Ukraine—more than $6.1 billion so far from the U.S. alone—have been welcomed by Kyiv, but they also carry a variety of potential national security and strategic consequences. Defense planners, lawmakers, and the public should develop safeguards to keep these weapons from feeding future conflict, violence, and instability.
The most serious and talked-about risk is provoking a direct response from Moscow. President Biden insists that escalation risks are being carefully measured, yet Vladimir Putin has attempted to target Western supply lines to Kyiv, conducted strikes dangerously close to the borders of NATO member states, and taken to repeatedly reminding the world about Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Reassurances aside, conflict escalation is perilously hard to predict, frequently occurs beyond the control of the powers involved, and often defies the assumptions and cold logic justifying a given course of action. Amid increasing concerns for Putin’s state of mind, the risk calculus taking place in Washington could easily be off.
In the longer term, managing the tens of thousands of small arms, heavy weapons, and other military hardware transferred to Ukraine since the invasion will pose a security challenge long after the guns fall silent. The pace and scale of the transfers, notwithstanding the clear frontline needs, are likely stretching Ukraine’s absorptive capacity to its limits, and possibly beyond, creating severe risks that equipment could be lost or find its way to illicit markets.
Ukraine’s long history as a nexus of the illicit arms trade is not reassuring. After the Cold War, criminal entrepreneurs capitalized on massive Soviet-era stockpiles left behind in Ukraine and, by some estimates, made away with $32 billion in military equipment between 1992 and 1998. Those weapons made their way to battlefields in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. While the new influx of Western arms may satisfy narrow U.S. legal requirements intended to assure the appropriate stewardship and security of U.S. arms, conventional end-use monitoring procedures—insufficient under the most stable of circumstances—are woefully ill-suited for active combat zones.
The nature of some of the weapons makes their potential loss even more concerning. For example, Stinger missiles, which Washington has sent to Kyiv by the thousands, have long worried the U.S. counterterror community for the unique national security threat their diversion can pose.
Even arms delivered and properly safeguarded by Ukrainian forces create risks for civilians and non-combatants that should be heeded by Western planners. The eight-year-old war in the Donbas has seen indiscriminate attacks by Ukrainian forces, and although Russian troops have mounted the vast majority of attacks on cities since February’s invasion, human rights organizations have derided the historical use of explosive weapons with wide effects in urban areas and unguided rockets by both sides of the conflict.
Finally, in the rush to harden Ukrainian defenses, the United States risks arming units with troubling histories, including elements of the Azov Battalion, an ultranationalist Ukrainian militia-turned-national guard element, whose ranks have included avowed neo-Nazis. Though Moscow has greatly and cynically exaggerated the scale, prominence, and scope of Azov’s role in Ukraine’s national defense, inadvertent U.S. material support to their troops risks adding some truth to Russia’s great lie that its invasion is in a battle against Western-backed fascists.
U.S. military aid to Ukraine will continue to expand. While the White House has already provided $6.1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, Congress has made up to $23 billion available for military aid related to the conflict. Accordingly, the time to plan and implement risk-mitigation measures is now. And though the announcement that the Pentagon is considering deploying civilian weapons inspectors to Ukraine is a welcome first step, any such effort should be part of a wider strategic risk management plan that includes:
- Bespoke end-use monitoring procedures that reflect the difficulty and complexity of Ukraine’s operating environment and that takes an expanded view of the systems typically marked for enhanced monitoring.
- Measures for post-delivery checks and unit vetting, and robust monitoring, including by U.S. intelligence, of the use or misuse of U.S. weaponry.
- Systematic and transparent mechanisms to facilitate civil society engagement and reporting on Ukrainian security force behavior and weapons use.
- Clear conditions in all transfer agreements between Washington and Kyiv related to indiscriminate attacks, civilian harm, and other abuses of international human rights.
Vitally, the United States should be engaging the Ukrainian government and external civil-society experts to develop and implement plans for secure weapons storage and stockpile management, mechanisms for accounting for and tracking transferred arms, and plans for returning or destroying surplus stocks, especially after the conflict ends.
The people of Ukraine deserve the world’s support in defending against Russia’s invasion. For arms exporters, and the United States in particular, this should mean responsible arms transfers matched with mechanisms for risk mitigation that will inure Ukraine and others from the potential harm of the West’s unprecedented military assistance effort.
Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program.
21. Nuclear Power Gets New Push in U.S., Winning Converts
Just think where we would be if we had continued to build nuclear power plants throughout the nation.
Nuclear Power Gets New Push in U.S., Winning Converts
With challenges in meeting clean energy goals and new electricity demands, politicians in both parties seek to prolong and even expand reactor use.
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The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Avila Beach, Calif., supplies almost 10 percent of the state’s electricity.Credit...Michael Mariant/Associated Press
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July 5, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET
Driven by the difficulty of meeting clean energy goals and by surging electricity demands, a growing number of political leaders are taking a fresh look at nuclear power — both extending the life of existing reactors and building new ones.
Even past skeptics, largely Democrats, have come around to the idea — notably in California, where the state’s sole remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, is scheduled to close in 2025. The search for clean energy has given nuclear power a spark that has drawn bipartisan support that added billions in funding for existing and new projects.
But critics of the nuclear industry argue that a veneer of clean energy has not changed the concerns about the technology, including aging facilities in need of potentially costly improvements, the challenge of nuclear waste disposal and steep cost overruns for new projects that are years late — if they reach completion.
“The industry knows it does not have a good story to tell,” said Edwin Lyman, a physicist and the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s still plagued by the same issues.”
President Biden wants to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the power industry by 2035, and he said a Supreme Court ruling last week limiting federal regulatory authority would not halt such efforts. But the supply chain issues that have hurt wind and solar power development have presented the latest hurdle to reaching that goal.
As a stopgap, the Biden administration has established a $6 billion fund to help troubled nuclear plant operators keep their reactors running and make them more economically competitive against cheaper resources like solar and wind power. The application deadline is Tuesday, though it might be extended and the requirements amended to broaden eligibility.
“The Biden administration has been very clear that we will get to the net zero goals,” Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Department of Energy, said at a recent conference of the American Nuclear Society. “They’re incredibly aggressive goals, and nuclear is a part of that solution, a very big part potentially.”
In addition to the $6 billion fund, the administration is providing $2.5 billion for two projects meant to demonstrate new nuclear technology, in Washington State and Wyoming.
A separate bipartisan measure introduced last year is aimed at preserving and expanding nuclear energy in the United States. The bill, whose backers include Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, and Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, would provide financial assistance like tax credits, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax policy organization.
Ms. Capito has argued that coal-fired power plants, which have been closing as the nation moves away from fossil fuel sources, could become sites for nuclear reactors. That would provide benefits for places like her home state, which has produced coal and relied on it as fuel for power generators.
“Ultimately, you get to a point where you need something that’s not weather dependent, something like nuclear to make the grid reliable,” said John Kotek, who ran the Office of Nuclear Energy during the Obama administration and is now vice president for policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. “There are other technologies that are candidates to play that role, but if you look at what is available today across the widest scale, that’s nuclear energy.”
The rising costs of other sources of power have made nuclear energy more competitive around the world, including in the United States, which has the largest fleet of nuclear plants of any country. They produce about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity and 50 percent of the clean energy.
The United States maintains 92 reactors, though a dozen have closed over the last decade — including, a month ago, the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, about 55 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.
The owner, Entergy, decided to shut the plant after a power-purchase agreement with a utility expired. Entergy said it could not find buyers for the plant, and decommissioning has gone too far to bring it back online, even with the money from the federal government.
Diablo Canyon is next on the decommissioning list, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed extending its life. The plant, on California’s central coast, supplies almost 10 percent of the state’s electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric, which owns the plant, announced in 2016 that it planned to close it when its licenses expired, saying it would focus more on solar and wind power as renewable energy sources.
Among those backing an extension is Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, who had supported closing the plant. To meet clean energy goals while addressing power demands arising from climate change, “Diablo must keep operating, at least for the time being,” she declared in an essay in The Sacramento Bee under a headline that said, “Why I changed my mind.”
A study last year by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that keeping Diablo Canyon open for 10 years could reduce the California power industry’s carbon emissions by more than 10 percent from 2017 levels and reduce reliance on natural gas. It also could save $2.6 billion in electricity costs and help prevent brownouts.
Brownouts and blackouts are an increasing concern, especially with more extreme weather events. The California Independent System Operator, which operates the electric grid that supplies power to about 80 percent of the state, says this summer could bring the highest load in the system operator’s 24-year history.
PG&E won’t say whether it supports extending the life of the plant, only that it will follow any decision and guidance from the state.
Diablo Canyon is scheduled to close in 2025. If kept open, it could save $2.6 billion in electricity costs and help prevent brownouts, a study found.
A leading critic of keeping Diablo Canyon open is Arnie Gundersen, the chief engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, a nonprofit organization focused on the perils of nuclear power. The organization often points to the radioactive leak from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, a disaster that cost public support for reactors.
Mr. Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who once worked in the industry and is a frequent expert witness on utility matters across the country, said he thought Diablo Canyon would need significant improvements to operate beyond 2025.
“To keep uneconomical nukes running will use much more than the $6 billion that Biden has proposed,” Mr. Gundersen said. “That’s chump change for nuclear to remain competitive. I think he’s got some really smart people in his brain trust, yet he’s reaching out for political fig leaves to get the nuclear industry off his back.”
To proponents of nuclear energy, Diablo Canyon represents a pivotal moment. Coupled with solar, wind and hydroelectric power, they say, nuclear power would make 100 percent clean energy possible.
“I can easily see a doubling of nuclear generation in this country,” said Steven Nesbit, a nuclear engineer who spent decades at Duke Energy and is the immediate past president of the American Nuclear Society, an organization of scientists, engineers and industry professionals. “We are solar and wind’s best friend. They just can’t do the job themselves.”
Industry leaders recognize that the age of new large-scale nuclear plants in the United States has passed, chiefly because of runaway costs. Two new units at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Waynesboro, Ga., expected to come online in 2023, are costing about twice the original estimate of $14 billion. A nuclear project in South Carolina drove the utility developing it into bankruptcy.
But many in the industry say smaller reactors that can be expanded over time offer promise of avoiding long delays and high cost. These reactors, they say, can be built in factories and delivered to approved sites. And the reactors’ high-temperature steam could also yield significant amounts of hydrogen, a carbon-free alternative fuel to natural gas.
The project locations can plan for as many as a dozen units but start with just one. But a plant with 12 units would produce half the electricity or even a little less than many other large nuclear facilities.
None of the smaller reactors have been certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which approves licenses and operations of the nation’s nuclear power plants. But NuScale Power, a company that designs and markets small reactors in Oregon, expects to receive certification of its design by the end of the summer. A developer then would need approval for a license to build and operate the unit.
Thomas Mundy, chief commercial officer for NuScale Power, said his company’s product could be built and put into use in about three years, a fraction of the time it takes to build larger reactor units. And the cost, Mr. Mundy said, is competitive with new natural gas facilities at a levelized cost — the electricity price needed to break even at the end of the plant’s life — of $45 to $65 a megawatt-hour.
By comparison, a utility-scale solar farm costs $28 to $41 a megawatt-hour and a wind farm $26 to $50, according to the latest analysis by Lazard, the investment firm.
Mr. Mundy said his company’s product would be built by BWX Technologies, a manufacturer of naval nuclear reactor cores based in Lynchburg, Va., as well as by companies in South Korea and Japan.
Concerns about safety, cost and construction delays are not going to be the same as with earlier reactors, he said, because the new ones will have fewer components and will have uniform manufacturing processes, reducing the likelihood of the kinds of failures that come with making each plant unique.
“I think those people are not studying the realities,” Mr. Mundy said of the critics of the new reactors. “We need to continue to educate.”
But at least one of those critics, Mr. Gunderson, is unconvinced. “We’re falling for the same mistakes that we’ve fallen for over the last 50 years,” he said. “I will shut up and retire if you can show a nuclear plant that was built at cost and on schedule.”
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
