Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners




Quotes of the Day:


“If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” or “against” is he mind’s worst disease.”
- Sent-ts’an c. 700 C.E.


“Educate the child and it won’t be necessary to punish the men.”
— Pythagoras


“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
— Marcus Aurelius



1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 1 (Putin's War)

2. What Ayman al-Zawahiri’s killing means for al-Qaeda

3. Winning in Ukraine requires a special representative and strategy to rebuild

4. Opinion | Did Russia or Ukraine slaughter Ukrainian POWs? It’s not a close call.

5. The Upside of Putin’s Delusions

6. FDD | ‘Securing India against China should matter to the world’

7. Justice for al Qaeda’s Zawahiri

8. Balkans Flare-Up Highlights Risk of Other European Conflicts

9. Blast Hits Ammunition Depot of Bulgarian Arms Dealer Involved in Ukraine Weapons Trade

10. ‘One miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’: The U.N. chief issues a grim warning, citing war.

11. As tensions rise over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, here’s what a US war with China would look like

12. How Far Could the Quad Support Taiwan?

13. How CIA spied on Ayman al-Zawahiri for six months before assassination

14. SOCOM Orders Cropduster Attack Planes from L3Harris Technologies

15. Don't Back Down: How Joe Biden Should Stand Up to China over Taiwan

16. Biden Taps China Apologist Who Blames Admin’s Rhetoric for Rise in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

17.  The Taiwan Crisis of 2022 Proves Why America Needs a New China Strategy By Wallace Gregson

18. Realism Is More Than Restraint

19. New Book Exposes Harsh Truths About Veterans-and America

20. Expert Who Blamed China Hawks for Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Joins Team Biden

21. Troops dump $100 million per year into Defense Department-owned slot machines





1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 1 (Putin's War)


Maps/graphics:https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-1


RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 1

Aug 1, 2022 - Press ISW


understandingwar.org

Kateryna Stepanenko, Layne Philipson, Katherine Lawlor, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 1, 7pm 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.

Russian forces are reportedly continuing to transfer troops from northern Donetsk Oblast to support defensive positions in southern Ukraine and may be halting the Slovyansk campaign for the time being. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence (GUR) Representative Vadym Skibitsky stated that Russian forces withdrew airborne tactical groups from Donetsk Oblast and redeployed the units to occupied Kherson Oblast territories two weeks ago.[1] Skibitsky added that Russian forces are also redeploying elements of the Eastern Military District (EMD) operating in Slovyansk to southern Ukraine and are transferring a large number of troops to Crimea to prepare to defend occupied Kherson and/or Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counteroffensives. The UK Defense Ministry also noted that Russian forces likely identified Zaporizhia Oblast as a vulnerable front in need of reinforcement, and the Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are regrouping in Zaporizhia Oblast.[2] Social media footage has showed Russian forces moving equipment and personnel to both Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts in recent weeks.[3]

The Russian withdrawal of some troops from northern Donetsk Oblast will deprive the Slovyansk effort of necessary combat power, in the same way that Russian forces neglected the Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts fronts during offensive operations in Luhansk Oblast. The withdrawal will likely create an opportunity for Ukrainian forces to launch a counteroffensive on the Izyum axis, just as Russian capture of Luhansk Oblast allowed Ukraine to set conditions for a counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast. The Russian redeployment of troops to Zaporizhia Oblast also suggests that Ukrainian counteroffensives are not confined to Kherson Oblast and will likely take place throughout the southern axis.

ISW assesses that Russian forces were responsible for the killing of 53 Ukrainian POWs in an explosion at a Russian-controlled prison in Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast on July 28. Two US officials anonymously confirmed to Politico on August 1 that no traces of US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Ukraine’s most precise artillery system, were found at the prison site.[4] The Kremlin alleges that Ukraine fired HIMARS and precision-guided rockets to kill Ukrainian POWs and deter Ukrainian defectors. Satellite and other imagery from the site indicate that the attack only damaged one building, did not collapse the walls of that building, and did not leave any shell craters in the vicinity, very strongly suggesting that the destruction of the prison was the result of either a precision strike or an internally planted incendiary or explosive.[5] One US official told Politico that “the evidence showed the attack was not conducted by Kyiv.” If Ukraine had used something other than HIMARS to conduct the strike, the attack would almost certainly have left collateral damage around the facility, including craters and other damaged buildings. Given the US assessment that HIMARS were not used in the attack, ISW assesses that Russia was responsible for this attack on Ukrainian POWs in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Key Takeaways

  • ISW assesses that Russian forces were responsible for the July 28 attack on the Olenivka prison that killed 53 Ukrainian POWs; two anonymous US officials confirmed that there is no evidence that Ukrainian forces used US-provided HIMARS, some of the only munitions Ukraine has that are precise enough to do the kind of limited damage seen in satellite and other imagery, to strike the prison.
  • Russian forces are transferring elements of the Eastern Military District (EMD) from the Slovyansk area to support defensive positions along the Southern Axis.
  • Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations north of Slovyansk or around Siversk.
  • Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground assaults on settlements south and southeast of Bakhmut.
  • Russian proxy authorities did not claim any territorial gains near Avdiivka as Russian forces launched unsuccessful ground assaults on Avdiivka and Pisky.
  • Russian regional officials are reportedly failing to provide promised payments to the “Atal” Volunteer Battalion of the Republic of Chuvashia.
  • The Kremlin is likely prioritizing propaganda and sham referenda over the welfare of Ukrainian civilians in occupied Ukrainian territories.
  • Russian occupation forces are likely increasing efforts to deter and suppress partisan movements in occupied territories as partisan attacks on Russian officials and Ukrainian collaborators continue.


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 two 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 unsuccessfully attempted to advance southwest of Izyum and continued to shell settlements on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line on August 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian reconnaissance-in-force operation near Mazanivka, about 22km due southwest of Izyum.[6] Russian forces also shelled Chepil, Husarivka, Nortsivka, and Protopivka (northwest of Izyum) and Hrushuvakha, Ridne, Virnopillya, Dibrovne, and Barvinkove (west and southwest of Izyum).[7] Geolocated footage of Ukrainian forces destroying Russian infantry fighting vehicles about 20km northwest of Izyum published on August 1 suggests that Russian forces may also be attempting to advance west of Izyum.[8] Continued shelling westward may indicate that Russian forces may be setting conditions seize more settlements in greater Kharkiv Oblast, as opposed to defeating Ukrainian strongholds in Slovyansk.[9] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) also reported that Russian forces are withdrawing elements of the Eastern Military District (EMD) committed to the Slovyansk effort and transferring them to support defensive positions in southern Ukraine.[10]

Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations north of Slovyansk or around Siversk on August 1. Russian forces reportedly shelled Adamivka, Dolyna, and Krasnopillya northwest of Slovyansk.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces did not attack any settlements in Siversk area due to declining morale in units that have suffered ”significant losses” of manpower and military equipment.[12] ISW has previously assessed that Russian offensive operations in this area would likely culminate in part because Russian commanders did not take enough time to reconstitute forces exhausted by the seizures of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.[13] Ukrainian forces have reportedly struck a Russian headquarters building in Pervomaisk, about 10km due east of Popasna.[14]

Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults on settlements southeast and northeast of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Ukrainian forces neutralized a Russian reconnaissance-in-force attempt in Yakovlivka and an assault on Soledar, about 17km and 13km northeast of Bakhmut, respectively.[15] Russian forces also launched an assault on Vershyna (approximately 12km southeast of Bakhmut) and attempted to improve tactical positions around Bakhmut, but were unsucessful and retreated.[16] Russian Telegram channel Voennyi Osvedomitel published footage of destroyed vehicles in a field, claiming that Russian forces are within two kilometers of Bakhmut.[17] ISW cannot independently verify that this footage is in Bakhmut’s immediate vicinity or if Voennyi Osvedomitel’s claim is true. Russian Telegram channel Z Kraken also claimed that fighting is ongoing east of Bakhmut.[18]

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Avdiivka and resumed assaults west of Donetsk City on August 1. Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked Avdiivka and Pisky and then withdrew.[19] Russian proxy authorities and military correspondents did not claim any new territorial gains around Avdiivka on August 1.[20] Social media footage showed large clouds of smoke in Avdiivka, reportedly after Russian artillery fire in the area.[21] Russian forces also attempted to conduct a reconnaissance-in-force operation in Mariinka, but Ukrainian forces neutralized the reconnaissance group and forced it to retreat.[22]

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 conducted a limited and unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operation in an unspecified area on the Kharkiv City Axis on August 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces withdrew after attempting a reconnaissance-in-force attempt in an unspecified area on the Kharkiv City Axis.[23] The Derhachi City reported that fighting continued near Dementiivka, and it is possible that Russian forces attempted the unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operation northwest of Kharkiv City.[24] Russian forces launched an airstrike on Mospanove, approximately 55km southeast of Kharkiv City, and maintained artillery fire on Kharkiv City and settlements to the north, northeast, and southeast.[25]

Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)


Russian forces maintained defensive positions along the Kherson Oblast administrative border and continued to undertake measures to hinder Ukrainian advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched airstrikes on Bila Krynytsia and Andriivka, both near Ukrainian bridgeheads across the Inhulets River, and Olhyne (along the northern part of the T2207 highway).[26] Russian forces maintained heavy artillery fire in northern Kherson Oblast, likely in an effort to prevent Ukrainian advances from the northeast.[27] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command also noted that Russian forces may form strike groups in the near future and that Russian forces continue to transfer units from Donbas to southern Ukraine.[28] Satellite images also showed Russian forces fortifications within irrigation systems in Pravdyne, approximately 33km northwest of Kherson City.[29] Ukrainian marines reportedly took 11 Russian servicemembers prisoner after conducting a localized counterattack in unspecified area of Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian forces claim to have liberated 46 settlements in total in the region since the start of the Russian occupation.[30]

Russian forces continued to target Mykolaiv City, Nikopol, settlements in southwestern Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and Odesa Oblast between July 31 and August 1. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces shelled Mykolaiv City with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles from occupied territories in Kherson Oblast.[31] Ukrainian National Police stated that strikes on Mykolaiv resulted in damage to 58 private homes, 13 apartment buildings, an emergency room, and other civilian infrastructure.[32] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration Head Valentyn Reznivhenko reported that Russian forces fired more than 60 rockets from Grad MLRS systems at civilian objects in Nikopol, and local Dnipropetrovsk authorities reported shelling in the Kryvyi Rih district that damaged railway infrastructure.[33] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command noted that Russian forces hit a dry grass field with two Iskander-type missiles launched from Crimea, but the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the strikes destroyed a Ukrainian anti-ship missile system.[34]

Ukrainian forces continued to disrupt Russian logistics by targeting Russian ammunition depots in northwestern and southern Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian warehouse in Skadovsk (about 65km due south of Kherson City), and social media footage showed large cloud of red smoke stemming from the warehouse on August 1.[35] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces also struck two Russian strongholds in Oleksandrivka and Blahodatne (both northwest of Kherson City), and electronic warfare (EW) stations in Bilyaivka in northern Kherson Oblast.[36] The Ukrainian General Staff announced receiving additional four HIMARS rocket systems from the US on August 1 and will likely continue to target Russian logistics and strongholds throughout southern Ukraine.[37]

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

Russian regional officials are failing to make promised payments to a volunteer battalion. The Russian liberal online outlet Dozhd reported on August 1 that the 40 servicemembers of the Chuvash “Atal” Volunteer Battalion have yet to receive payments for their enlistment and training period prior to deployment to Ukraine.[38] Recruits sent a written appeal to Russian Communist Party Parliamentarian Yuriy Shayeev, who released an interview with one of the servicemembers stating that the battalion will deploy to Ukraine in the coming days.[39] The Chuvashia Press Service had reported on July 11 that volunteers would receive 200 thousand rubles (about $3,100) upon enlisting and daily allowances of 2,000 rubles (approximately $30).[40]

Russian forces continue to face desertion and morale problems. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on July 31 that 200 marines of the Russian 810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade refused to return to war in Ukraine.[41] GUR Representative Vadym Skibitsky stated that this refusal to return delayed the reconstitution of the Brigade’s battalion tactical group (BTG). Skibitsky also stated that the combat potential of this BTG and the entire brigade will suffer.[42]


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 occupation officials are enhancing propaganda efforts and collaborator recruitment efforts to further the façade of a popular campaign for Russian annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories. The Russian Zaporizhia Occupation Administration head, Yevheny Balitsky, announced the establishment of ZaTV, a new “information flagship” regional television channel for Zaporizhia Oblast, on August 1.[43] Balitsky thanked local and Russian specialists for their support in establishing the station and “explaining the situation” to Zaporizhia Oblast residents. Balitsky delivered his remarks in front of a banner reading “Melitopol - Russia." Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on August 1 that Russian occupation officials opened a recruitment center in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast to recruit and pay collaborators to participate in pro-Russia demonstrations.[44] The GUR reported that occupation authorities are struggling to find sufficient numbers of Ukrainians willing to participate in such activities, even when offered monetary and aid incentives, and that occupation authorities are continuing to link the provision of humanitarian aid to cooperation with occupation forces, including participation in pro-Russian demonstrations. The GUR reported that the Kremlin sent Russian public relations specialists to Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast to foment pro-Russia protests and the creation of Russian propaganda. Members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party are staffing many humanitarian aid distribution stations and are likely participating in and coordinating the sham protests.

The Russian tying of humanitarian aid to pro-Kremlin demonstrations and the prioritization of propaganda before electricity both demonstrate that Russian occupation authorities are more concerned with controlling the Ukrainian information space and preparing for sham referenda than with providing basic services in occupied territories. Euromaidan Press reported on July 31 that trucks equipped with LED screens and speakers were set up to play Russian television channels in Severodnetsk, Luhansk Oblast. Most of Severodonetsk likely remains without electricity or running water.[45] The Russian Kherson Occupation Administration head, Kirill Stremousov, shared a video on July 31 depicting a United Russia representative promising to solve the concerns of Kherson residents. Stremousov said that the video demonstrated that the people of Kherson are “ready to become one big family with Russia.”[46] The increasing prevalence of United Russia members in occupied Ukrainian territories suggests that the Kremlin is focused on propaganda production not just to deter Ukrainian resistance, but also to placate the domestic Russian audience with falsified, feel-good stories about Russians providing aid to ”liberated” Ukrainians who seek to join Russia.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on August 1 that the Russian-sponsored organization “Volunteers for Russia” will take the lead on organizing the sham annexation referendum in occupied Kherson Oblast under the supervision of Russian forces.[47] The SBU reported that the group plans to disperse throughout the oblast to “imitate local support for the occupiers” and to create “staged stories” for Russian television audiences. The SBU reported that Russian collaborators are telling their handlers that Kherson residents are uncooperative and believe that Ukrainian forces will soon liberate the oblast.

Separately, Russian occupation forces are likely increasing their efforts to deter and suppress partisan movements in occupied Ukrainian territories as popular demonstrations and partisan attacks on Russian officials, Ukrainian collaborators, and militarily valuable targets continue. A partisan IED targeted the car of Ukrainian collaborator and local mobster Vitaly Efimenko in Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast on July 30, landing him in the hospital.[48] Partisans also reportedly set fire to a factory in Mariupol on July 31.[49] The advisor to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushenko, claimed on August 1 that Mariupol residents protested against occupation efforts to demolish damaged homes in the city and that Russian forces had to intervene to protect Russian occupation mayor of Mariupol, Konstantin Ivashchenko, from angry protestors.[50] Andryushenko claimed that Ivashchenko’s failures to pacify the remaining population are driving rifts in the occupation administration and could lead to Ivashchenko’s ouster. If so, Ivashchenko and other occupation authorities are likely incentivized to authorize increasingly draconian measures to repress partisan and anti-Russia activity and defend their positions.

The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on August 1 that occupation forces are intensifying repressive actions in response to an increase in successful partisan activity.[51] Those actions include wearing civilian clothes and driving cars with Ukrainian plates during raids, using drones to monitor mass gathering places like markets and public squares, and evicting Ukrainians from areas surrounding possible partisan targets. The Center reported that Russian forces evicted all residents who lived within a 400-meter radius of the railway station in Brylivka, Kherson Oblast so locals could not inform partisans of shipments of military equipment. The Center also reported that Russian occupation forces are intensifying checks of residents’ homes, smartphones, computers, and personal documents and are searching houses to seize any weaponry. Intensifying measures are likely having limited effects due to popular support for partisan activities.

[1] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/ukrainskyi-nastup-zmushuie-rosiiu-zbilshyty-viiska-na-okupovanomu-pivdni.html

[3] https://t.me/stranaua/55551; https://t.me/andriyshTime/2102; https://suspilne dot media/266449-vtorgnenna-rosii-v-ukrainu-den-159-tekstovij-onlajn/?anchor=live_1659365113&utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=ps; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1553439964360310785 ; https://...

[10] https://gur. dot gov.ua/content/ukrainskyi-nastup-zmushuie-rosiiu-zbilshyty-viiska-na-okupovanomu-pivdni.html

[28] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1026355388006648; https://gur. dot gov.ua/content/ukrainskyi-nastup-zmushuie-rosiiu-zbilshyty-viiska-na-okupovanomu-pivdni.html

[30] https://t.me/Bratchuk_Sergey/16538; https://t.me/spravdi/14538; https://suspilne dot media/266449-vtorgnenna-rosii-v-ukrainu-den-159-tekstovij-onlajn/?anchor=live_1659358783&utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=ps; https://suspilne dot media/266449-vtorgnenna-rosii-v-ukrainu-den-159-tekstovij-onlajn/?anchor=live_1659350672&utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=ps; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTYAIeTqvlg; https://t.me/spravdi/14536; https://t.me/stranaua/55520

[32] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/08/01/obstrily-mykolayeva-poshkodzheno-ponad-70-budynkiv-ye-zagybli-ta-poraneni/; https://www.npu dot gov.ua/news/stoprussia/ponad-70-poshkodzhenix-budinkiv-zagibli-ta-postrazhdali-mirni-meshkanczi-policziya-mikolajivshhini-prodovzhuje-zbirati-dokazi-vojennix-zlochiniv-rf/; https://t.me/senkevichonline/1889\; https://t.me/stranaua/55442; https://t.me/stranaua/55454; https://t.me/mykolaivskaODA/1971

[33] https://t.me/dnipropetrovskaODA/1427; https://t.me/mykola_lukashuk/859; https://t.me/vilkul/1664; https://t.me/Yevtushenko_E/376; https://t.me/Yevtushenko_E/377; https://t.me/spravdi/14516; https://suspilne dot media/266449-vtorgnenna-rosii-v-ukrainu-den-159-tekstovij-onlajn/?anchor=live_1659338487&utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=ps; https://t.me/rybar/36489https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1204550247007093https://t.me/dnipropetrovskaODA/1427; https://t.me/vilkul/1664; https://t.me/mykola_lukashuk/859; https://www.facebook.com/MNSDNE/posts/pfbid017m7QYxVNgz57R3v9wXhJhuUuMf5...

[40] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-volunteer-units-an...https://regnum dot ru/news/polit/3643993.html

[41] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/dvisti-morskykh-pikhotyntsiv-zi-skladu-810-rosiiskoi-bryhady-vidmovylysia-povertatys-na-viinu-v-ukrainu.html

[42] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/dvisti-morskykh-pikhotyntsiv-zi-skladu-810-rosiiskoi-bryhady-vidmovylysia-povertatys-na-viinu-v-ukrainu.html

[44] https://gur dot gov dot ua/content/okupanty-vidkryly-v-zaporizkii-oblasti-rekrutynhovyi-tsentr-dlia-kolaborantiv.html

[47] https://t.me/SBUkr/4732https://t.me/stranaua/55492; https://suspilne dot media/266449-vtorgnenna-rosii-v-ukrainu-den-159-tekstovij-onlajn/?anchor=live_1659337528&utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=ps

[48] https://t.me/zalpalyanytsya/1239; https://vgolos dot ua/news/v-kahovci-pidirvali-avto-kolaboranta-zlochincya-iefima_1425526.html

[51] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/01/okupanty-zminyuyut-taktyku-borotby-z-partyzanamy/

understandingwar.org



2. What Ayman al-Zawahiri’s killing means for al-Qaeda


Excerpts:


Analysts say that in the past, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the loss of leaders, with new figures emerging in their place. Today, though, the group is splintered, with branches and affiliates spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether those groups will focus on local conflicts or coalesce for more global ambitions.
Charles Lister, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said al-Qaeda “now faces an acute succession crisis.” Senior leader Saif al-Adel is technically the next in line to take the helm, but he is based in Iran, which has caused affiliates to question his credibility in the past, Lister wrote Monday. His potential ascension could be the “death knell” for al-Qaeda’s aspirations as a global organization as affiliates deepen their independence from the group, Lister said.
Al-Qaeda hasn’t carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years, following bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al-Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three American sailors at a U.S. base in Florida in December 2019. A knife-wielding assailant who fatally stabbed a man and a woman in an attack near London Bridge that same year had previously been a member of an al-Qaeda-inspired cell.


What Ayman al-Zawahiri’s killing means for al-Qaeda

The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett · August 2, 2022

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul.

The 71-year-old was largely considered the brains behind the notorious terrorist group and its vision for attacking the West — including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which catapulted al-Qaeda from relative obscurity to a household name in the United States.

President Biden said in an address to the nation Monday that Zawahiri’s death — after he evaded capture for decades — sent a clear message: “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

The strike is the latest successful U.S. operation against al-Qaeda and Islamic State leaders. Biden said Zawahiri’s death should help ensure Afghanistan can no longer “become a terrorist safe haven” and a “launching pad” for attacks against the United States.

Security experts say the operation demonstrates that the United States is still able to carry out precision strikes in Afghanistan after last year’s withdrawal of troops on the ground. On the other hand, it also highlights the Taliban’s apparent willingness to accommodate al-Qaeda operatives in the region.

Here’s a look at what Zawahiri’s death means for al-Qaeda.

When was al-Qaeda founded?

Al-Qaeda grew out of battlefield bonds forged in the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union, which was redirected toward fighting the West.

The group, founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, attracted disaffected recruits who opposed American support for Israel and Middle Eastern dictatorships.

When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996, it gave al-Qaeda the sanctuary that enabled it to run training camps and plot attacks, including 9/11.

What was Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role in al-Qaeda?

Americans knew him as al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy to bin Laden. In reality, longtime observers say, he provided the ideological direction, while bin Laden was the public face of the terrorist group.

Zawahiri merged his Egyptian militant group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s. For decades, he served as “the mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said Monday — including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more, and the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds and injured scores.

“To kill Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 screed.

After al-Qaeda’s forced retreat from its base in Afghanistan in early 2002, it was largely Zawahiri who led the group’s resurgence in the lawless tribal region across the border in Pakistan, The Washington Post wrote in an obituary Monday.

What happened to al-Qaeda after bin Laden was killed?

When bin Laden was killed in 2011, his No. 2, Zawahiri, took over as leader.

Although he was the intellectual force behind the terrorist movement, some experts say Zawahiri lacked bin Laden’s charisma. He remained as a figurehead but failed to prevent the splintering of the Islamist movement in Syria and other conflict zones after 2011.

His grip over a sprawling network of affiliates across Africa, Asia and the Middle East was weakened. The Islamic State terrorist group, which grew out of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, sought to position itself as a more ruthless alternative.

In his later years, Zawahiri largely shied from public view, presiding over al-Qaeda at a time of decline, with most of the group’s founding figures dead or in hiding.

At the time of the U.S. withdrawal last August, analysts described al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as “a skeleton of its former self,” after two decades of conflict and counterterrorism operations. A United Nations report in July estimated there were up to 400 al-Qaeda fighters remaining in Afghanistan.

Some security experts feared an al-Qaeda reboot under the Taliban. At the time of his death, U.S. intelligence indicated that Zawahiri, rather than hiding, was living with his family in downtown Kabul in a high-security residential district where many senior Taliban figures reside.

What will happen to al-Qaeda now?

Analysts say that in the past, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the loss of leaders, with new figures emerging in their place. Today, though, the group is splintered, with branches and affiliates spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether those groups will focus on local conflicts or coalesce for more global ambitions.

Charles Lister, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said al-Qaeda “now faces an acute succession crisis.” Senior leader Saif al-Adel is technically the next in line to take the helm, but he is based in Iran, which has caused affiliates to question his credibility in the past, Lister wrote Monday. His potential ascension could be the “death knell” for al-Qaeda’s aspirations as a global organization as affiliates deepen their independence from the group, Lister said.

Al-Qaeda hasn’t carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years, following bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al-Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three American sailors at a U.S. base in Florida in December 2019. A knife-wielding assailant who fatally stabbed a man and a woman in an attack near London Bridge that same year had previously been a member of an al-Qaeda-inspired cell.

Claire Parker and Joby Warrick contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett · August 2, 2022



3. Winning in Ukraine requires a special representative and strategy to rebuild


Excerpts:

The war is now at a turning point that requires new thinking about aligning strategic ends and means across the coalition supporting Ukraine. To date, the Biden administration has made a heroic effort to coordinate U.S. and partner support to Ukraine within the existing national security enterprise. The approach must evolve as the war changes and the scale and complexity of helping Kyiv end the war merge with the challenge of rebuilding a Ukraine that is oriented toward Europe, not Eurasia. The executive cannot act alone. Appointing a special representative to help guide Ukrainian reconstruction will require congressional support and consultation, based on Section 5105 of the Department of State Authorization Act of 2021. The more bipartisan the effort — a daunting but doable task, despite midterm elections — the better. War termination and building a new deterrence architecture in Europe need not be a partisan issue.
The United States and Europe, along with a coalition of democratic nations, showed they can help Ukraine fight. Now it is time to help Ukraine start planning its long walk along the road to reconstruction. To coordinate those activities, the Biden administration needs to work with Congress and appoint a new special representative. Strategy starts with aligning objectives with resources and priorities. Absent a special representative to coordinate efforts, that process almost certainly will get bogged down inside the bureaucracy in multiple capitals, despite best intentions.

“If you concentrate exclusively on victory, while no thought for the after effect, you may be too exhausted to profit by peace, while it is almost certain that the peace will be a bad one, containing the germs of another war.” B.H. Liddel-Hart


“If in taking a native den one thinks chiefly of the market that he will establish there on the morrow, one does not take it in the ordinary way.” Lyautey: The Colonial Role of the Army, Revue Des Deux Mondes, 15 February 1900



Winning in Ukraine requires a special representative and strategy to rebuild

BY BENJAMIN JENSEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 08/01/22 9:30 AM ET

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

The Hill · · August 1, 2022

Just as it is always darkest before the dawn, wars look the most uncertain before the system changes and reveals the next phase of the clash of wills. There are emerging personnel and logistical signs that Russia has reached a key decision point about the depth of its campaign objectives. Ukraine can exploit this turn to gain momentum and set conditions for the largest post-war reconstruction effort in modern history. The U.S. can help by sustaining, if not expanding, its massive logistical support to Ukraine and, more important but less appreciated, appointing a special representative to start coordinating wartime strategy with post-war reconstruction planning.

Just like World War II, planning how a war ends starts before the fighting stops. From the Casablanca and Cairo conferences to those at Yalta and Potsdam, allied leaders in the 1940s appreciated that military strategy and political strategy for rebuilding countries could not be separated. Political and military leaders aligned the desired end state with objectives, creating a framework to prioritize military campaigns and mobilizing resources. In Ukraine, that means starting the detailed planning now about how best to rebuild the country and ensuring the priorities inform ongoing diplomatic and military decision-making.

The war won’t end when the shelling stops. Like the aftermath of Russia’s invasion in 2014, it likely will shift back to a mix of provocation and gray zone coercion aimed at destabilizing Ukraine and limiting its economic and political potential. Winning that fight starts with setting strategic priorities and creating focal points for multilateral and public-private partnerships to rebuild a stronger, more Western-oriented Ukraine.

There are important signs of hope. The larger donor community met in Switzerland to start planning the challenge. The same month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) launched a bipartisan and international Ukraine Economic Reconstruction Commission. What these efforts need now is a focal point for coordination inside the U.S. government capable of coordinating across the myriad of agencies and bureaus that can all play an important role in rebuilding Ukraine.

Most commentary to date on rebuilding Ukraine focuses on mobilizing a Marshall plan of sorts, or determining the extent to which the effort can tap into seized Russian funds. The costs and scale of rebuilding Ukraine will be larger than the military aid mobilized to keep Kyiv in the fight against Moscow. As of early July, the Ukrainian government projected it will cost $750 billion, roughly 10 times the military aid mobilized to date. Those costs will only increase as the war drags on and could be complicated further by global inflationary pressures and supply chain challenges. The effort also will involve thinking about migration and mental health, as much as it does which infrastructure projects to prioritize.

Despite the fact the scale of the effort to rebuild Ukraine is well understood, the U.S. government has not yet appointed a focal person to coordinate with allies and partners, as well as the private sector, to rebuild Ukraine. The position seems tailor-made for a special envoy or representative, a senior appointee who can coordinate not just with partners but also the ongoing strategic effort providing intelligence and military support to Ukraine.

While special representatives, envoys and coordinators have been scrutinized recently, the position still plays an important role in helping coordinate government activities. Starting with efforts to reform the number and alignment of special representatives and envoys under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson through the intrigue surrounding activities in Ukraine linked to American domestic politics in 2020, there have been growing concerns about these diplomatic positions across both parties. Yet, crises on the scale of the war in Ukraine — which combine wartime strategy with forward planning for rebuilding the economy and reforming political institutions — are larger than what National Security Council staff and any one agency in government can manage. The complexity requires planning and creating focal points for coordination inside the U.S. government and across a diverse network of partners, a role that fits a special representative.

Absent a special representative, most government agencies will appoint their own lead and not harmonize efforts, leading to diminishing marginal returns and reducing the prospect of returns to scale. There will be duplicative reconstruction projects across bilateral and multilateral agencies not aligned with the larger security strategy. The fact is, the daunting task of reconstruction cuts across the federal bureaucracy, as well as a complex of international partners including the private sector. Multiple stakeholders create coordination challenges only overcome by creating a mechanism to exchange information and balance the range of strategic objectives held by each actor.

Plastics plague our oceans, killing marine mammals The real reason Xi is upset over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit

The war is now at a turning point that requires new thinking about aligning strategic ends and means across the coalition supporting Ukraine. To date, the Biden administration has made a heroic effort to coordinate U.S. and partner support to Ukraine within the existing national security enterprise. The approach must evolve as the war changes and the scale and complexity of helping Kyiv end the war merge with the challenge of rebuilding a Ukraine that is oriented toward Europe, not Eurasia. The executive cannot act alone. Appointing a special representative to help guide Ukrainian reconstruction will require congressional support and consultation, based on Section 5105 of the Department of State Authorization Act of 2021. The more bipartisan the effort — a daunting but doable task, despite midterm elections — the better. War termination and building a new deterrence architecture in Europe need not be a partisan issue.

The United States and Europe, along with a coalition of democratic nations, showed they can help Ukraine fight. Now it is time to help Ukraine start planning its long walk along the road to reconstruction. To coordinate those activities, the Biden administration needs to work with Congress and appoint a new special representative. Strategy starts with aligning objectives with resources and priorities. Absent a special representative to coordinate efforts, that process almost certainly will get bogged down inside the bureaucracy in multiple capitals, despite best intentions.

Benjamin Jensen, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The Hill · · August 1, 2022



4.  Opinion | Did Russia or Ukraine slaughter Ukrainian POWs? It’s not a close call.




Opinion | Did Russia or Ukraine slaughter Ukrainian POWs? It’s not a close call.

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · August 1, 2022

The moral relativism of self-consciously neutral journalism — “Jack says the moon is made of green cheese, Jill disagrees” — is bad enough when it comes to political reporting. It’s far more noxious in the case of war crimes. Yet many publications are reporting the sickening massacre of 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war on Friday with headlines like this one from The Post: “Ukraine and Russia trade blame for attack killing Mariupol prisoners.”

This might make sense for the Iran-Iraq war, but there is no moral equivalency between Ukraine and Russia. The Ukrainians are innocent victims of unprovoked aggression. They are not known to deliberately target civilians, much less their own captured soldiers. The Russians are notorious war criminals and liars who routinely blame someone else for every outrage they (or their allies) commit — including shooting down a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014 and slaughtering civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, this year.

It is, of course, possible that an errant Ukrainian artillery strike might have hit the prisoner-of-war camp near Olenivka, in eastern Ukraine. But the Ukrainians deny that they fired any artillery in the area on Friday, and the Russians aren’t claiming a “friendly fire” accident. Russian media claims that the Ukrainians deliberately slaughtered their own soldiers to discourage others from surrendering and to prevent these soldiers, who belonged to the Azov Regiment, from testifying about supposed Ukrainian war crimes.

As usual, Russian propaganda makes no sense. The Azov Regiment surrendered in Mariupol only after receiving orders to do so from Kyiv, and the only war crimes its members witnessed were committed by the Russians against the people of Mariupol. They are heroes in Ukraine, and governments — even governments far less democratic and law-abiding than the one in Kyiv — do not ordinarily kill their own heroes.

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The Russians, by contrast, have plenty of reason to murder these soldiers, whose desperate resistance in the Azovstal steel plant cost the Russians dearly and prevented them from shifting forces to the east. The Russian Embassy in London actually tweeted on Friday: “Azov militants deserve execution … because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.”

The way that Russians treat POWs was evident in a widely circulated video that appears to show a pro-Russian fighter castrating and executing a bound Ukrainian prisoner. The Russians — who have been accused of rape and sexual violence, in addition to killing and deporting countless Ukrainians — seem to be plumbing new depths of depravity in their genocidal war to eradicate the Ukrainian nation.

The invaders’ barbarism can seem atavistic and animalistic, and no doubt it is, but there is a certain logic to their cruelty. Because the Russian army lacks the requisite skill for maneuver warfare, it seeks to prevail by slaughtering civilians, instead. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has used such scorched-earth tactics before, in Chechnya and Syria, to eradicate all opposition. Only in Ukraine, the Russian barbarism isn’t working. Rather than leading the Ukrainians to capitulate, it is uniting them in armed defense of their nation.

It is not that Ukrainians are necessarily more courageous than Chechen or Syrian rebels. The difference is that, unlike earlier victims of Russian aggression, they have the means to resist the onslaught. Armed with artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, drones, antitank missiles, antiaircraft missiles and other weapons supplied by the West, the Ukrainians have been fighting back so effectively that the Russian offensive is at a virtual standstill.

The Ukrainians’ most effective weapons system is the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). That, no doubt, is why the Russians are blaming a HIMARS strike for the deaths of Ukrainian POWs in Olenivka, even though military experts argue that photos of the damage do not reveal the telltale signs of a HIMARS strike. Moreover, the prisoner camp was close to the front lines, and the Ukrainians have reserved HIMARS strikes for targets deep behind Russian lines.

There are other discrepancies, too, including a statement from a Donetsk official that no Russian guards were injured in the attack on Olenivka. How convenient. Now the Russians are refusing to let the International Committee of the Red Cross inspect the site. A senior Pentagon official is right to advise “that we apply some caution … to what the Russians are telling us, just because we know that they have made several claims in the past that have not been close to correct.”

I would go further and suggest that, unless it is proven otherwise, we should assume that every word out of the mouths of Kremlin spokespeople is a lie — including “and” and “the.” That doesn’t mean that Ukraine is always pure or always right. But its track record inspires far greater confidence than Russia’s.

The Ukrainians are trying to obey the laws of war despite the considerable provocations they confront, while the Russians routinely and brazenly flout every norm of civilized behavior. The Russians don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt — and the Ukrainians do.

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · August 1, 2022



5. The Upside of Putin’s Delusions


A hopeful conclusion:


For all these reasons, it seems unlikely that other countries will find much inspiration in Putin’s “self-inflicted debacle,” as Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune puts it. Putin admires the Russian leader Peter the Great and apparently wishes to emulate a version of his imperial rule. But Russia’s current tsar will likely go down in history not as Vladimir the Great but as Vladimir the Fool. And his failed and spectacularly counterproductive war seems unlikely to augur a new era of interstate war—rather, his folly will likely make other rulers even more trigger shy, and the decline of international war will continue.


“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”​ Plato or George Santayana or someone once said that.​



The Upside of Putin’s Delusions

Moscow’s Disastrous Invasion of Ukraine Will Reinforce the Norm Against War

By John Mueller

August 2, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency · August 2, 2022

When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered a “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24, Europe had been substantially free of international war for nearly 80 years. That is likely the longest the once most warlike of continents has gone without such a war at least since the days of the Roman Empire.

In recent decades, the aversion to international war, following Europe’s lead, has spread. The result is that, over the last 30 years, there have been only three other interstate wars, conventionally defined as armed conflicts with at least 1,000 battle-related deaths per year. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought one such war in the last years of the twentieth century. The two others were the United States’ brief 9/11-induced regime-toppling invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, which then devolved into extended counterinsurgency—or counteroccupation—conflicts.

Some analysts now fear that the long decline of interstate war may be about to reverse. In an article for The Economist published shortly before the Russian invasion, the Israeli writer Yuval Noah Harari declared the decline in international war to be “the greatest political and moral achievement of modern civilization.” But he also worried that a war in Ukraine could bring about “a return to the law of the jungle.” In an essay published in May in Foreign Affairs, the political scientist Tanisha Fazal expressed concern that Putin’s war could result in “an increase in not only the incidence but also the brutality of war.”

But five months into the current phase of the war in Ukraine, it seems more likely that Putin’s venture will reinforce and revitalize the aversion to and disdain for international war. The key objective is not so much about winning as making sure that the country that started the war is far worse off than if it had not done so. That has already been substantially achieved.

GLOBAL CONDEMNATION

The world has responded to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with nearly universal revulsion, much as it responded to Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait in 1990: as Fazal notes, “the outrage has been swift and broad.” Although some policymakers have expressed concern that China might find inspiration for an invasion of Taiwan, there doesn’t seem to be a groundswell of prospective imitators. Any would-be aggressors cannot help but notice the high costs the war has imposed on Russia in terms of casualties, economic losses, and international isolation. The kleptocratic Russian economy had already been on the skids for most of a decade, and Putin’s war, even if it is somehow settled, will likely alienate prospective buyers and investors for at least as long as he is in charge—and probably a lot longer.


Would-be aggressors may also note that even if Putin can hang on to his territorial gains in Ukraine, he will have to rebuild, subsidize, and rule them. In areas that Russian forces have occupied since the war began, they have struggled to govern: the Russians, it seems, are not very good at occupation and civil administration, and Russian forces seem inclined to commit the kinds of brutal acts that increase hostility toward foreign occupiers.

The world has responded to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with nearly universal revulsion.

Without a durable and reliable cease-fire, Russia will have to defend its new acquisitions, possibly for years or decades. Putin has repeatedly expressed outrage that Ukrainian forces have for seven years harassed and bombed the small Donbas enclaves that seceded from Ukraine in 2014 and then embraced Russian protection. The lands Russian now seeks to conquer and control—including the entire provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk—would present an even richer target for increasingly better armed and much more intensely hostile Ukrainian forces. There is also the prospect of having to defend the newly captured areas against years of partisan urban warfare from Ukrainian insurgents. To a degree, this has already started. For example, a Ukrainian man whom Russian forces had appointed as the new head of the Department of Youth and Sports in the city of Kherson was recently killed in a car bombing.

DELUDED HUBRIS

In his speech announcing the invasion, Putin stressed that “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine,” which he analogized to the one presented by Nazi Germany before World War II. He argued that a showdown was inevitable, claiming even that Ukraine was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Putin is scarcely unique among world leaders in allowing himself to be consumed by such delusions. U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton absurdly insisted that a coup in Haiti presented “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” and their predecessors, U.S. Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson believed that a U.S. failure to intervene in civil wars in Korea and Vietnam would lead to world war. But Russia’s war against Ukraine has backfired and proved to be counterproductive in ways that will likely give pause to any would-be imitators.

Putin noted in his war kickoff speech that “with NATO’s eastward expansion, the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year.” Whether his war was to push NATO away from Russia’s borders, to create disunity within the alliance, to provide a stepping stone for further advances, or somehow to enhance Russia’s status (except as a pariah), it has been a massive failure. It has even inspired Russia’s long-neutral neighbors, Sweden and Finland, to seek admission. Thus, NATO enlargement has scarcely been stopped. The alliance has become far more hostile, united, and better armed, and it has effectively moved closer.

Corrupt and poorly led, Russian troops were repelled from Kyiv by defenders with far less training and equipment.

Putin’s war has also failed at another of his pronounced goals: keeping Ukraine from embracing the West and moving toward joining the European Union and NATO. But his efforts over the last decade have driven Ukrainians to look more to the West. In December 2012, according to a poll conducted by the Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a scant 15 percent of Ukrainians favored joining NATO. By January 2022, on the eve of war, that figure had risen to 64 percent, according to a survey conducted by the Ukrainian Institute of the Future. It has surely risen far higher since the invasion. In addition, under the impetus of the war, Ukraine has now been allowed to enter the formal process of joining the EU. And it is possible that the war, by enhancing Kyiv’s desperation to be admitted, might even cause it to finally deal with its endemic corruption problem, which had previously hampered its embrace by the West.


Putin has also said his goal in the war was “to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.” Demilitarization has obviously failed as arms pour into the country. And if de-Nazification means establishing a compliant regime, projecting a sphere of influence, or, as some suggest, destroying democracy in Ukraine, the Russian failure has been total. Hatred for, and hostility toward, Russia may well last for decades.

Putin has also declared that he wanted to rescue and protect Russian speakers in Ukraine. “It’s essentially impossible,” one insider told Newsweek, “to convince the people around power in Moscow that Russian speakers in Ukraine are not being discriminated against” and that “people can have a national identity that is separate from their linguistic identity.” Some Russian speakers in Ukraine have welcomed the Russian invasion. But the overwhelming majority have taken Ukraine’s side—something the government in Kyiv should be doing more to celebrate. As such, Russian-speaking Ukrainians will continue to be productive contributors to their country—although it is possible that the use of Russian, the language of the hated invader, will continue to slide as the country looks increasingly to the West.

During the crisis with Ukraine in 2014, Putin bragged that he had “1.2 million soldiers armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry” and that, if he wanted them to do so, “they could be in Kyiv in two days.” Over the ensuing years, he built up his army even more. If one goal of the current war was to display the might and effectiveness of the Russian military, the result could be chalked up as yet another failure. Corrupt, poorly led, and undermotivated, the Russian military was repelled from Kyiv by defenders with far less training and equipment. Any Russian gains in Ukraine’s southeast have been accomplished by pulverizing the territory from a distance and then taking charge of the substantially depopulated rubble.

For all these reasons, it seems unlikely that other countries will find much inspiration in Putin’s “self-inflicted debacle,” as Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune puts it. Putin admires the Russian leader Peter the Great and apparently wishes to emulate a version of his imperial rule. But Russia’s current tsar will likely go down in history not as Vladimir the Great but as Vladimir the Fool. And his failed and spectacularly counterproductive war seems unlikely to augur a new era of interstate war—rather, his folly will likely make other rulers even more trigger shy, and the decline of international war will continue.


Foreign Affairs · by The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency · August 2, 2022



6. FDD | ‘Securing India against China should matter to the world’


​Excerpts:


And that I think could really reassure people that India could be an economic destination that they not only could prosper from, but also that it could become, to a point, a model for the rest of the world.
And this is why the security of India should be something that everyone cares about, because it has such great potential for every single one of us on this entire planet. And if it falls into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the Wahhabis, or others that want to essentially destroy the country, then a huge hope for the world is lost.
Fundamentally, for anyone wondering why they should care about the security of India, my message is simple. If India falls to China, it will be a matter of time until all of Asia falls. India is viewed as one of the biggest threats to China because of its numerous potentials, particularly in its economy. The compromise of India’s security will result in a domino effect where other nations will suffer a similar fate. If you care about the sovereignty of your nation, especially in Asia, it’s logical for you to support the security of India.


FDD | ‘Securing India against China should matter to the world’

One of the things it comes down to is the CCP attempting to get rid of any entity that could be a threat to them, and I think India right now is one of the biggest threats that they face,’ says Se Hoon Kim.

fdd.org · July 30, 2022

In this edition of “Indo-Pacific: Behind the Headlines”, we speak with Se Hoon Kim, the Director of the Captive Nations Coalition of the Committee on Present Danger: China. For the last eight years, he has been advocating for the security of India as well as increased global economic ties with India.

Q: How did you become interested in India?

A: I’m part of what’s called the Kims of the Gimhae clan—descendants of Queen Suriratna who, around 2,000 years ago, came from India to Korea and married King Suro. They founded a very well-known kingdom that once existed in southern Korea.

The first people who told me the story were my mother and my father: “we don’t know much about India, but never forget that this is what you are from.” In Korea, anyone who has heard this story, is extremely fascinated by it.

Throughout college, I did more research about India. And I visited—Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, but most of my time was spent in Dharamsala. Everyone was extremely friendly. I fell in love with the country.

Not everything is perfect, but one of the key things that I’ve learned from India was its ability to really embrace a lot of people together, working on problems that may arise together. That’s one of the greatest things I was able to witness.

At the same time, I was very interested in the human rights situation in China in terms of countries they’ve taken over and occupied. So, in order to really understand the issue itself, I volunteered at the Tibetan administration in Himachal Pradesh—which was another great example of how open and diverse India is—and I was honored to have experienced it.

Q: You’ve done work highlighting security threats to India. How did that start?

A: Through my time in Dharamsala, one of the key things I learned was the importance of the security of India, obviously for Tibetans, but they also told me about the seriousness of the Indian border problem with China, not just in Ladakh, but the way it is claiming Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and what’s going on in Nepal and elsewhere.

That helped me to build up a solid knowledge about the importance and seriousness of India’s border situation with China. And, other than my personal liking for the country, I began to ask myself “if this country falls, what’s going to happen to the rest of Asia?”

That really motivated me to research a lot more about the security of India and what it means for the rest of Asia, and for the world. And my conclusion was that if India falls, then it’s a matter of time until all of Asia will fall.

I’ve seen interviews where some Indian politicians openly defend China. And we’re seeing CCP supporters in some Indian governments. If that support grows, we’re going to see a different India than we see right now.

India falling to the Chinese hands means that the biggest democracy in Asia will become another vassal state of China. At the same time, India is being threatened by Wahhabi terrorist organizations that are really good at infiltrating societies on a political and societal level. I can see them becoming a major voice, and working directly with the Chinese as they have done through Pakistan.

Q: Where else have you seen that linkage?

A: Like many around the world, I was extremely upset with the fall of Afghanistan in August 2021. It was particularly upsetting for me to see how India was essentially left to burden an additional threat on top of its problems with Pakistan and China. Not to mention countless innocent lives suffering now under the hands of the Taliban, most especially the Afghan Hazaras.

And if you think about it, before the complete fall of Afghanistan, who recognized the Taliban first? It was the Chinese Communist Party. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, actually met with the Taliban leaders and officially acknowledged them first. And the Taliban haven’t said anything about what the CCP is doing to the Uyghurs. So, obviously, you sense a strong alliance, or at least some sort of partnership between them.

And history has shown that whenever the CCP gets involved with some tyrannical group around the world, their narrative and work, begin to manifest extremely well—they become stronger than anyone had expected.

One of the things it comes down to is the CCP attempting to get rid of any entity that could be a threat to them—and I think India right now is one of the biggest threats that they face.

Q: When you talk about these issues in the US do you get pushback?

A: Definitely. When I was a graduate student at the University of Rochester, for example, a lot of Chinese international students openly attacked me—not physically, but that also was a concern to a certain extent. There were attempts to cancel our events and just basically shut down anything that we wanted to do, even though we invited speakers with different perspectives.

You see two types of hatred growing in universities all over the US, and I believe in Europe and maybe some parts of Asia as well: anti-Semitism and anti-Hindu sentiments. For instance, if you talk about what happened to the Hindus in Kashmir, that’s interpreted as “Oh, you hate Muslims”, and therefore you’re a terrible person.

You see this narrative growing exponentially in colleges of different parts of the United States. That’s something that concerns me a lot.

I think that reaction is the product of disinformation, and I’ve heard Pakistan’s ISI has invested in this disinformation to a certain extent. I think there is a growing fear among people to even just bring cases like the Kashmiri Pandits forward. And that fear is caused by everyday people who embrace those other narratives, either online or in conversation with other people, and try to make it the dominant narrative that cannot be challenged.

Unfortunately, it has taken a very, very solid form within society. And that’s probably one of the biggest threats that I’ve seen.

One of the most memorable things I did at university was, in 2014, I held an event called “India versus China”. My point was to tell the world that it’s not China that’s going to be a major superpower but, in my opinion, it’s going to be India that people need to focus on.

I invited Gordon Chang and he brilliantly explained how that could be possible, and what are some of the steps and challenges that India must face in order to achieve that goal.

And, of course, I definitely got setbacks from that. But I was particularly proud of that moment, because I knew for a fact that I was telling the truth.

It’s really important for people like myself, outsiders from India—although I have that ancestral connection—to really understand this point. Because if China were to become a permanent superpower, that would mean a disaster for the rest of the world. Whereas if it’s India, an open society that’s also open about its problems—which means it has the potential to mitigate and correct them—I think it’s a lot better for the world than Communist Party-run China.

Q: What are your thoughts on India’s role in the global economy?

A: Any Japanese, Taiwanese, or any company that’s operating, particularly in China, should consider India as a place where all of their dreams can roll very well, without the type of challenges they face in China. There’s a famous saying, “everyone wants to do business with China, but nobody really benefits from doing it, other than a few people”.

How has anybody truly benefited from doing business with China—they steal our technology, they steal our IP, they bribe people within governments and companies to come work for them. And that’s how they grow. The CCP is literally built on a massive cheating system that hasn’t been seen by the world before.

The reason I say India is the next destination is that it’s a federation, so you can work with different states, there’s plenty of land where industries can be set up, and I think the Indian people particularly will appreciate it a lot.

Korean companies can benefit a lot by being in India. India has many young people who are willing to jump into all types of industries, and that’s something Korean companies can easily provide. India is also known for its strong tech industry, and I’m sure if we utilize minds together it could definitely benefit the world, greater than what we can imagine.

And we’ve seen spiritual connections, we’ve seen ancestral connections—like myself—all over the world. India can say, “Hey, we welcome you, because we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bahai, all the different ethnic groups, all living together under the Indian flag, it’s not foreign to us.”

And that I think could really reassure people that India could be an economic destination that they not only could prosper from, but also that it could become, to a point, a model for the rest of the world.

And this is why the security of India should be something that everyone cares about, because it has such great potential for every single one of us on this entire planet. And if it falls into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the Wahhabis, or others that want to essentially destroy the country, then a huge hope for the world is lost.

Fundamentally, for anyone wondering why they should care about the security of India, my message is simple. If India falls to China, it will be a matter of time until all of Asia falls. India is viewed as one of the biggest threats to China because of its numerous potentials, particularly in its economy. The compromise of India’s security will result in a domino effect where other nations will suffer a similar fate. If you care about the sovereignty of your nation, especially in Asia, it’s logical for you to support the security of India.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian Special Correspondent as well as Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Follow her on Twitter @CleoPaskal. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

fdd.org · July 30, 2022


7. Justice for al Qaeda’s Zawahiri



Justice for al Qaeda’s Zawahiri

A U.S. drone strike kills Osama bin Laden’s former deputy in Kabul. Were the Taliban providing sanctuary?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-for-al-qaedas-ayman-al-zawahiri-afghanistan-taliban-osama-bin-laden-11659401229


By The Editorial BoardFollow

Aug. 1, 2022 9:00 pm ET



It took nearly 21 years, but the U.S. finally removed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri from the terrorist battlefield. President Biden said Monday evening that Osama bin Laden’s longtime deputy was killed Sunday in a counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan that others confirmed as a drone strike.

As Mr. Biden noted, the strike brings another measure of justice for the victims of the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil. The 71-year-old Egyptian co-founded al Qaeda and helped bin Laden build an operation that could spread radical Islam and murder innocents without remorse.

Mr. Biden praised the operation as a triumph of U.S. intelligence, but Zawahiri eluded detection for more than two decades. The President said he was located some months ago in Kabul, the Afghan capital, as he sought to reunite with his family. Perhaps he let his guard down after the Taliban captured Kabul and drove the U.S. out of Afghanistan last August.

A Taliban spokesman condemned the strike, but Zawahiri’s discovery in Kabul suggests close collaboration between the Taliban and al Qaeda. The Taliban provided sanctuary to al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001, and it’s impossible to believe that Taliban officials didn’t know Zawahiri was in their midst. The Taliban are giving safe harbor to jihadists even if they aren’t joining their plots to strike the U.S.

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The strike was the first known U.S. anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan since the chaotic U.S. departure. It’s encouraging that the U.S. could pull off the operation after the loss of listening posts on the ground. But it’s no guarantee that the U.S. can track the many al Qaeda and Islamic State camps and agents still operating in the country.

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The strike should be a warning to the Taliban that abetting al Qaeda is a bad survival strategy. If terrorists based in Afghanistan plot and kill Americans, the Taliban should understand that their leaders will also be targets.


Appeared in the August 2, 2022, print edition as 'Justice for al Qaeda’s Zawahiri'.


8. Balkans Flare-Up Highlights Risk of Other European Conflicts


Excerpts:


Nearly 4,000 NATO troops are stationed in Kosovo, a U.S. ally, under a United Nations mandate, while Serbia cooperates closely with Russia and shares deep cultural and religious ties with Moscow. The spokesman for the NATO forces there said on Sunday that they were ready to intervene “if security was jeopardized.”
Russia will support Serbia but wouldn’t get involved in a conflict, a Kremlin spokesman told Russian state media.



Balkans Flare-Up Highlights Risk of Other European Conflicts

As the Russia-Ukraine war grinds on, border dispute between Kosovo and Serbia could further test EU’s ability to manage security around its borders

https://www.wsj.com/articles/balkans-flare-up-highlights-risk-of-other-european-conflicts-11659378610?mod=hp_listc_pos3


By Bojan PancevskiFollow

Updated Aug. 1, 2022 4:30 pm ET



NATO and the European Union scrambled to calm tensions between Kosovo and Serbia after a weekend flare-up that some politicians and experts fear could be used by Russia to spark more instability in Europe.

On Sunday, NATO forces tasked with securing Kosovo threatened to intervene to prevent a bureaucratic dispute over cross-border trade from escalating beyond a war of words between Kosovo and Serbia. Kosovar authorities said shots were fired Sunday during a standoff between Kosovar police and ethnic Serbs near the Serbian border but no one was hit.

Kosovo, once part of Serbia, declared independence in 2008 following a brief and bloody conflict that ended after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombarded Serbia to compel its forces to retreat from its former province. Friction between the two continues to run deep, especially in northern Kosovo, which is mainly populated by ethnic Serbs and is largely outside the control of Kosovar government in Pristina.

A renewed conflict between the two neighbors could test the EU’s ability to manage a fresh crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already stretched Europe’s capacity to handle security challenges, experts said.

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Nearly 4,000 NATO troops are stationed in Kosovo, a U.S. ally, under a United Nations mandate, while Serbia cooperates closely with Russia and shares deep cultural and religious ties with Moscow. The spokesman for the NATO forces there said on Sunday that they were ready to intervene “if security was jeopardized.”

Russia will support Serbia but wouldn’t get involved in a conflict, a Kremlin spokesman told Russian state media.


Kosovo police patrolling a road on Monday in Zupce, Kosovo.

PHOTO: STRINGER/REUTERS

The weekend’s unrest erupted after ethnic Serbs blocked roads in northern Kosovo on Sunday in protest over a requirement to use Kosovar car license plates and documents.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti of Kosovo blamed the tension on what he called “illegal structures” from Serbia that he said were deliberately stirring trouble in his country.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters on Sunday that, “We will plead for peace, but I’ll tell you right away: there will be no surrender and Serbia will win.”

The standoff was defused late on Sunday, when Mr. Kurti agreed to postpone the administrative changes at the border, which would be imposed by Kosovo as part of a reciprocal agreement with Serbia, for a month, following a deal brokered by EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell.

“Open issues should be addressed through EU-facilitated Dialogue,” Mr. Borrell tweeted Sunday​.

The dispute is part of a simmering conflict between Belgrade and Pristina across a range of issues. The Trump administration was the latest U.S. government to attempt to broker a comprehensive agreement between the two parties, but a tentative deal was abandoned after all three countries elected new leadership.

Serbia’s bid to join the EU has been largely derailed by its inability to resolve the dispute with its neighbor, a prerequisite for a closer relationship with the bloc. And while the U.S. and most Western nations recognize Kosovo, others contending with their own separatist movements, such as Spain, have refused to do so. Significantly, Russia and China side with Serbia, blocking Kosovo’s admission to the UN.

The seemingly minor cause of the latest conflict reflects the volatility of the relations between the two countries as even small administrative changes are seen as a question of sovereignty, said Ivan Vejvoda, a permanent fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences, a Vienna-based think tank focusing on the region.

The EU has long struggled to pacify the west Balkan region, which is surrounded by members of the trade bloc, and a failure to integrate it could lead to conflict and foreign powers such as Russia and China exploiting the vacuum, Mr. Vejvoda said.


“Russia seeks to show the weakness of the EU and the West in their inability to integrate western Balkans,” Mr. Vejvoda said. “Failing to do so is a security risk for Europe.”

Many observers have questioned the EU’s ability to permanently defuse tensions in the region without a more active involvement by the U.S., which has in recent years shifted its focus away from Europe.

Western Balkan nations were all part of Yugoslavia, which collapsed in a series of bloody civil wars in the 1990s that were only stopped following a series of U.S.-led military interventions.

“It’s now crystal clear to all…that Kosovo and Serbia need a U.S.-led dialogue for mutual recognition and final peace, after EU’s continuous failure to bridge the two countries to a common denominator,” said Meliza Haradinaj, a former foreign minister of Kosovo.

Neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia also have a history of ethnic conflict that has the potential to reignite, according to Gerald Knaus, chairman of the European Stability Initiative, a pan-European think tank.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided among the Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities. The area dominated by ethnic-Serbs, known as Republic of Srpska, has in recent years welcomed an increased Russian involvement, including major investments by oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

The EU’s chief diplomat is Josep Borrell. An earlier version of this article misspelled his last name once as Borell. (Corrected on Aug. 1)

Appeared in the August 2, 2022, print edition as 'Tensions Are Rising in Balkans'.


9.  Blast Hits Ammunition Depot of Bulgarian Arms Dealer Involved in Ukraine Weapons Trade


Likely sabotage? Makes sense for the Russias to do.


Excerpt:



Tihomir Bezlov, a security expert at the Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy said the weapons exports made Bulgaria a natural target for Russian “wet operations” or violent sabotage. “Those exports of Soviet-type munitions have now become critical for the war,” he said.


Blast Hits Ammunition Depot of Bulgarian Arms Dealer Involved in Ukraine Weapons Trade

The complex is owned by Emilian Gebrev, who survived a near-fatal 2015 poisoning, for which Bulgarian prosecutors later charged three Russian citizens

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blast-hits-ammunition-depot-of-bulgarian-arms-dealer-involved-in-ukraine-weapons-trade-11659377798?mod=hp_listb_pos3


By Georgi KantchevFollow

 and Joe ParkinsonFollow

Aug. 1, 2022 2:16 pm ET


Authorities in Bulgaria are investigating an explosion at an ammunition depot owned by an arms dealer who Bulgarian officials say is a middleman for exports of munitions to Ukraine.

The complex is owned by Emilian Gebrev, who survived a near-fatal 2015 poisoning, for which Bulgarian prosecutors have later charged three Russian citizens.

The blast took place in the early hours of Sunday at a munitions facility near the city of Karnobat in the east of the European Union country. Nobody was hurt and it wasn’t immediately clear what caused the explosion as investigators were using drones to survey the site. Bulgarian authorities didn’t return requests for comment. Russia’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. Karnobat’s mayor, Georgi Dimitrov, said authorities couldn’t enter the premises for 72 hours after the blasts because of safety regulations.

The blast is the latest in a series of mysterious explosions at weapons and armaments facilities in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic over the past more than 10 years. Authorities in both countries have linked the explosions to Russia and have expelled Russian diplomats over the cases. Moscow has denied involvement.

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Mr. Gebrev told Bulgarian state radio that the blasts weren’t due to human error but didn’t speculate on the culprit. The dealer, whose companies have long distributed arms across Europe, who has previously denied exporting weapons to Ukraine, said the depots were housing old munitions that wouldn’t be used on the Ukrainian battlefield.

The blasts come as Bulgaria, a former Soviet satellite state with a sizable arms industry, has become one of the major exporters of ammunition and weapons to Ukraine, officials say. Bulgaria is one of the biggest exporters of Soviet-type ammunition and weapons, which Ukrainian officials have requested to counter Moscow’s forces.

Although Bulgarian authorities have publicly denied exporting munitions to Ukraine, officials and armaments companies have said Bulgarian arms manufacturers are increasingly sending supplies to companies in Slovakia and Poland, where they are ferried across the Ukrainian border. Russia has repeatedly warned the West not to supply Ukraine with weapons.


The Russian flag is seen in front of the country’s embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria.

PHOTO: VASSIL DONEV/SHUTTERSTOCK

Tihomir Bezlov, a security expert at the Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy said the weapons exports made Bulgaria a natural target for Russian “wet operations” or violent sabotage. “Those exports of Soviet-type munitions have now become critical for the war,” he said.

Mr. Gebrev has denied reports that he supplies weapons to Ukraine. He has said that he hasn’t exported weapons to Ukraine after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and supported separatists in the country’s East. Mr. Gebrev’s company that owns the facilities, EMCO, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The export of weaponry to Ukraine has created friction in Bulgaria—where swaths of the population retains strong economic and cultural ties to Moscow—and contributed to the collapse of its governing coalition in June. Shortly before, the government expelled 70 Russian diplomats, accusing them of using their diplomatic role as a cover for covert activities and spying.

Last year, Bulgarian prosecutors linked six Russian citizens who spent time in Bulgaria to four explosions at arms depots between 2011 and 2020. Some of the depots housed munitions by Mr. Gebrev’s EMCO, the prosecutors said.

The prosecutors said that some of the ammunition in the four depots were destined for Ukraine. Investigators didn’t find any specific technical malfunction or other causes of the blasts, the prosecutors said. They also said that they were investigating a link between the blasts and Mr. Gebrev’s poisoning.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com


10. ‘One miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’: The U.N. chief issues a grim warning, citing war.


Excerpts:


“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” the official, António Guterres, said. “And when crises — with nuclear undertones — are festering from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Mr. Guterres was speaking at the opening session of a conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York about upholding and securing the 50-year-old global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, aiming for eventual disarmament.
The conference took place after a two-year delay because of the Covid-19 pandemic and was attended by high-level representatives from member states, including the prime minister of Japan, the U.S. Secretary of State and dozens of foreign ministers and delegations.

‘One miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’: The U.N. chief issues a grim warning, citing war.

The New York Times · by Michael Levenson · August 1, 2022

LIVERussian Invasion of Ukraine


Citing conflicts in Ukraine, Asia and the Middle East, António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, said the threat of nuclear disaster has escalated to a level not seen since the Cold War.Credit...Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Farnaz Fassihi and

  • Aug. 1, 2022

The secretary general of the United Nations warned on Monday that humanity was “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” citing the war in Ukraine among the conflicts driving the risk to a level not seen since the height of the Cold War.

“All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” the official, António Guterres, said. “And when crises — with nuclear undertones — are festering from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Mr. Guterres was speaking at the opening session of a conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York about upholding and securing the 50-year-old global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, aiming for eventual disarmament.

The conference took place after a two-year delay because of the Covid-19 pandemic and was attended by high-level representatives from member states, including the prime minister of Japan, the U.S. Secretary of State and dozens of foreign ministers and delegations.

The threat of a nuclear confrontation or a nuclear accident emerging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a recurring theme in many of the day’s speeches.

Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War

President Vladimir V. Putin and other Russian have repeatedly suggested that nuclear war could erupt if NATO intervened in the war in Ukraine. His forces used the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as a staging ground in the spring and have now turned a nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, into a battle fortress.

In his remarks to the session, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the treaty had made the world safer but was under increasing strain. Mr. Blinken mentioned Russia, Iran and North Korea as examples of nuclear-related concerns.

Mr. Blinken condemned Russia for engaging “in reckless, dangerous nuclear saber rattling,” and said North Korea was preparing to conduct its seventh round of nuclear testing. He said Iran had not yet agreed to return to its commitments under a nuclear deal with world powers and “remained on a path of nuclear escalation.”

Russia and Iran are among the 191 signatories to the nonproliferation treaty. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, a stance the West has questioned, and that has prompted efforts to work out a deal with Iran to blunt its nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Blinken also criticized Russia for using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a staging ground for attacks on Ukrainian forces, saying the Ukrainians were unable to fire back out of concern they might strike a nuclear reactor or stored radioactive waste.

“That brings the notion of having a human shield to an entirely different and horrific level,” Mr. Blinken said.

The conference, which normally meets every five years, will be reviewing the three priorities of the treaty: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, promoting and supporting peaceful nuclear energy and working toward global disarmament. But little concrete outcome is expected, given the current divisions among world powers.

Mr. Putin, who put his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness” in the early days of the invasion in February, also sent a message to the nonproliferation conference.

“We believe that there can be no winners in a nuclear war, and it must never be fought,” Mr. Putin wrote, according to Tass, the Russian news agency. “We advocate equal and inseparable security for all members of the international community.”

The New York Times · by Michael Levenson · August 1, 2022


11. As tensions rise over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, here’s what a US war with China would look like


I notice Harry has a new gig. I have not heard of this project.  


Harry J. Kazianis is president and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national-security think tank. He is the author of “The Tao of A2/AD: Beijing’s Asymmetric Strategy to Defeat the United States on the Battlefield.”




As tensions rise over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, here’s what a US war with China would look like

New York Post · by Harry J. Kazianis · August 1, 2022

More On: china

Pelosi arrives in Malaysia, tensions rise over Taiwan visit

What drama? White House denies any tension around Pelosi’s Taiwan trip as China threatens

China military posts missile strike video as Taiwan preps for Pelosi arrival

China won’t ‘sit idly by’ as new report claims Pelosi will visit Taiwan

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is likely headed to Taiwan as early as Tuesday night EDT, meaning US-China tensions are about to boil over, bringing the two superpowers closer to conflict than they’ve been in decades.

And China wants us to know just how angry it is. Beijing’s media mouthpieces have already advocated shooting down her plane, starting what would probably be World War III if the Communists ever did such a thing.

But history tells us China loves to talk tough and do little when confronted, just like any grade-school bully. While the Chinese dragon’s fire will likely be hot air and no military action if Pelosi does head to Taiwan, though, that doesn’t mean an accident couldn’t start a crisis that sets off a chain of events sparking a war between Beijing and Washington.

To be frank, thinking through a path to war is pretty straightforward. What if a missile test off Taiwan’s coast goes bad and hits the island nation? Or what if a Chinese pilot gets too close to the fighter escorts Pelosi will undoubtedly use to travel to Taipei safely?

That happened in 2001, and the Bush administration had to bribe Beijing to get the pilots and EP-3 surveillance plane that bumped a Chinese fighter back to US soil.

One thing is clear to me. In various simulations, I have fought nearly 20 different US-China wars since 2013, and there is always one constant: Washington loses nearly every conflict with Beijing. That means America is no longer the world’s global superpower, and China reigns supreme.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan could be a disaster for the United States.

Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/S

The US would likely lose if a conflict with China broke out.

Chinese PLA

History tells us why. Thanks to the Obama-Biden defense cuts of the 2010s and the Biden administration today having no military strategy for China, Beijing has built a military ready to win the scenario we potentially face — a showdown over Taiwan.

If the dogs of war did run wild, China has a clear plan for how it would try to decimate US forces in Asia.

First, Beijing would attack all the ways US forces communicate and share information across the globe, the real but unsexy reason America is a superpower. China would unleash a massive cyberattack on the US military’s command-and-control assets, communications nodes and military bases worldwide. If the US military is blinded, it cannot fight or see what is coming next.

At the same time, China would destroy US commercial, spy and military satellites in orbit using sophisticated anti-satellite weapons it’s been developing for years and has demonstrated. The US military would then be blind and mute — unable to relay orders to forces to strike China back effectively.

The Chinese military is ready for a potential conflict over Taiwan.

Getty Images

Here’s where it gets even more dangerous. Beijing has built up a massive arsenal of cruise, ballistic and now hypersonic missiles to attack and destroy US bases and warships across the Indo-Pacific region. China would attempt to deploy all its military assets all over the region in one giant attack. We would see countless bases destroyed or rendered useless for weeks, aircraft carriers and cruisers sunk and tens of thousands of US servicemen killed in what would be minutes.

In effect, China’s armed forces would expose the mistakes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in less than an hour.

see also


China won’t ‘sit idly by’ as new report claims Pelosi will visit Taiwan

This bolt from the blue would happen all at once, all done to deter the United States and the American people from thinking about escalating matters further — to sap the will of any US president.

Think of it this way: If America has no operable bases to send forces to, if much of its Navy is at the bottom of the Pacific rusting away and the rest would have to fight its way across thousands of miles of ocean to strike back at China, at what point would Team Biden quit the fight like Afghanistan?

You know how this story goes: Joe Biden hands Asia to China. And Putin will see it as a green light, of course, to do whatever he wants in Europe.

The good news is that a war with China over Pelosi’s grandstanding visit seems pretty unlikely. History, however, tells us that conflicts can happen when you least expect them and can start over what seem to be minor events or accidents.

And unfortunately, if America and China were to come to blows for any reason whatsoever, the US military would lose that conflict.

Harry J. Kazianis is president and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national-security think tank. He is the author of “The Tao of A2/AD: Beijing’s Asymmetric Strategy to Defeat the United States on the Battlefield.”

Twitter: @Grecianformula

New York Post · by Harry J. Kazianis · August 1, 2022


12. How Far Could the Quad Support Taiwan?


Excerpts:


Given the importance of Taiwan in the regional theater, it is imperative for the Quad to treat China’s intimidation of Taiwan as a catastrophic scenario that could affect the entire world rather than just the Taiwan Strait. Proactive actions should be taken by the four powers, including concerted attempts to turn the Quad into a legalized and institutionalized mechanism as well as develop concrete strategic synergy and defense cooperation with Taiwan.
In return, Taiwan should strengthen its self-defense capabilities and prove itself as a crucial diplomatic card in the region by astutely persuading the Quad to initiate dialogues and communications with the island democracy. Additionally, Taiwan needs to play a proactive role in the Indo-Pacific, perhaps by leveling up its soft power engagement with regional countries through upgrading the current New Southbound Policy to the 2.0 version and enhancing ties with like-minded middle powers, such as New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
Given these recommended actions for both sides, both the Quad and Taiwan would also be able to uphold the regional balance of power while preventing a “power vacuum,” something which China could take advantage of to not only exert its coercive influence over Taiwan but also intimidate other relatively smaller Indo-Pacific nations. By and large, the security of Taiwan should not be taken for granted; a mistake would be a careless decision with massive consequences. Amid values-based and geostrategic divides between democracies and autocracies, both the Quad and Taiwan bear the responsibility of forging mutual cooperation to make deterrence relevant.



How Far Could the Quad Support Taiwan?​

The Quad is supposed to help counterbalance China’s rise, but it remains unclear whether the bloc would intervene in the event of a Taiwan Strait conflict.

By Huynh Tam Sang and Trang Huynh Le

August 02, 2022​

thediplomat.com · by Huynh Tam Sang · August 2, 2022

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With Beijing stepping up its military clout in the Indo-Pacific, the geopolitical challenge has weighed heavily on regional countries, including Taiwan and the members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad): Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Both Taiwan and the Quad have reasons to enhance ties with each other as China is pursuing regional hegemony and could pose a long-term challenge to the rules-based international order.

Indeed, there is a strong possibility of Beijing’s overthrowing regional powers and establishing supremacy in the Indo-Pacific if regional stakeholders fail to address its aggression. For Taiwan specifically, China is far more likely to pursue threats and intimidation if leaders in Beijing view the Quad’s reluctant response in counterbalancing China as a concession seeking to improve and stabilize the relationship between the group and China.

The Quad should remain cautious when it comes to predicting China’s behavior. Essentially, it is unrealistic to anticipate any concession from China when it comes to its so-called core interests, with Taiwan at the forefront of that list. Chinese President Xi Jinping has asserted that “unification” with Taiwan “is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Communist Party of China.” Beijing’s provocative actions in the Taiwan Strait, such as ramping up military aircraft incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and having warships sail through the Taiwan Strait, are meant to showcase China’s capability to project its military might abroad and forewarn regional powers about support for Taiwan.

Additionally, Russia’s war against Ukraine could encourage China to pursue outright aggression. That possibility, though slim, should not be overlooked. Hence, the deep freeze between Taiwan and China will likely continue or even intensify, moving from a long impasse into confrontation or military conflagration, with little prospect for improving the bilateral relationship.

Since liberal democracy is one of the leading shared values among Quad members, the security of Taiwan, the top “full democracy” in Asia and eighth-ranked globally, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, should be among the top concerns of the group. Reasonably, if Beijing is successful at taking Taiwan by force, the overthrowing of Taiwan’s democracy would display the triumph of China’s authoritarian model and possibly cause a Ukraine-like crisis in Asia. In essence, bolstering the security of Taiwan would help the Quad achieve its “promise” of supporting democracies in the Indo-Pacific and counterbalance China’s aggression.

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Fortified ties among the Quad members could make China rethink its intention of invading Taiwan. The grouping has enhanced ties within itself by strengthening diplomatic relations, facilitating trade expansion, and cooperating on an intelligence-sharing network among members. To “promote stability and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific region, the bloc has sought to strengthen its surveillance capabilities of Chinese actions, notably with enhanced regional infrastructure and an updated maritime monitoring program. Following the latest attempts to bolster collaboration in “practical areas,” such as COVID-19 vaccines, infrastructure aid and investment, maritime domain awareness, climate change, and critical technologies, the Quad has the potential to become a counterweight to Beijing’s growing economic and military power.

Yet, there remain deficiencies in the Quad’s efforts when it comes to the issue of counterbalancing China’s coercion. Despite its branding as an informal framework for consultation and its commitment to become “a force for good” aimed at “bringing tangible benefits to the region,” the Quad is not a formal alliance or an Asian NATO, as it lacks a worthwhile “muscular policy.” Additionally, the Quad has drawn criticism from some observers who believe it is more symbolic than substantive, and China first referred to it as “sea foam” that would dissipate.

So, how far the Quad can support Taiwan in the event of a military crisis or conflict is worth exploring, especially as China has warned of serious consequences should U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forge ahead with a planned trip to Taiwan.

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Will the Quad Be Willing to Back Taiwan?

The Quad’s perceptions on support for Taiwan are far from united. In May, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio underlined that “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is critical not only for Japan’s security but also for the stability of international society.” He also urged a coordinated response from the bloc to oppose China’s attempt to “change the status quo by force.” Recently, Japan’s 2022 Defense White Paper hailed Taiwan as Tokyo’s “extremely important partner” while stressing that the security surrounding Taiwan “must be closely monitored with a sense of urgency.”

On its part, U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, despite the U.S. officially maintaining its stance on the “One China policy.” Following the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. would most likely help Taiwan by at least granting it the “military means to defend itself.” At the Shangri-La Dialogue, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin condemned Beijing’s provocative activities near Taiwan, and underscored Washington’s commitment to “resist any use of force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan.” And U.S. Navy warships have recently sailed through the Taiwan Strait to showcase its support for Taiwan and demonstrate Washington’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific” region.

To express his support for Taiwan, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently confirmed that “there is no change in Australia’s position” with regard to Taiwan’s security. In the forthcoming time, Canberra is likely to walk the talk. Ties between Australia and China have worsened, mainly due to China’s economic coercion of Australia, leading to Canberra’s closer engagement with the Quad and AUKUS, a security pact between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in economic and trade ties between Canberra and Taipei alongside Australians becoming more in favor of Australia defending Taiwan. Yet, Australia’s commitment to the “One China policy” may still act as a roadblock that could prevent Canberra from engaging militarily in a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

And then there is India, the only member country that has yet to publicly endorse Taiwan to join the Quad. For India, Taiwan’s importance is more economic than political. In the eyes of Indian leaders, New Delhi would be adversely affected if it abandoned its developmental partnership with China. Intrinsically, India and China – both members of the BRICS platform for developing powers as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an Asian security grouping – “advocate for the reform of global economic institutions” while sharing “a common vision for a multipolar global order.” True to form, it is unlikely that India will support Taiwan verbally at the cost of undermining New Delhi’s ties with Beijing.

Up to now, Taiwan is still far from the top item on the Quad’s agenda. When the Quad does offer any support for Taiwan, it tends to be the consequence of deteriorating relations with Beijing. To the grouping, China’s ascendance toward global power is likely more of a concern than Beijing’s occupation of Taipei. Instead of an agreement-based standpoint, the Quad retains a broad-based outlook on the island. There is little real reason to hope to witness formal cooperation between the Quad and Taipei under a “Quad plus Taiwan” format.

Regardless, Taiwan has affirmed its pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific, both politically and economically. Besides serving as a democratic middle power in the Asia-Pacific and a strategic hub connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Taiwan has risen to be a significant partner of the Quad, especially in terms of economic cooperation. As a major hub of high-tech manufacturing in the world, Taiwan could be a crucial part of the “Supply Chain Resilience Initiative” proposed by India, Australia, and Japan “to address supply chain disruptions in the Indo-Pacific region.” Taiwan’s vital role as a “critical node” within the global semiconductor supply chain is also of strategic importance to the Quad amid the grouping’s deteriorating ties with China. Due to its strategically important role, the Quad has good reason to support Taiwan.

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What Is Next for the Quad on the Taiwan Issue?

Given the importance of Taiwan in the regional theater, it is imperative for the Quad to treat China’s intimidation of Taiwan as a catastrophic scenario that could affect the entire world rather than just the Taiwan Strait. Proactive actions should be taken by the four powers, including concerted attempts to turn the Quad into a legalized and institutionalized mechanism as well as develop concrete strategic synergy and defense cooperation with Taiwan.

In return, Taiwan should strengthen its self-defense capabilities and prove itself as a crucial diplomatic card in the region by astutely persuading the Quad to initiate dialogues and communications with the island democracy. Additionally, Taiwan needs to play a proactive role in the Indo-Pacific, perhaps by leveling up its soft power engagement with regional countries through upgrading the current New Southbound Policy to the 2.0 version and enhancing ties with like-minded middle powers, such as New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Given these recommended actions for both sides, both the Quad and Taiwan would also be able to uphold the regional balance of power while preventing a “power vacuum,” something which China could take advantage of to not only exert its coercive influence over Taiwan but also intimidate other relatively smaller Indo-Pacific nations. By and large, the security of Taiwan should not be taken for granted; a mistake would be a careless decision with massive consequences. Amid values-based and geostrategic divides between democracies and autocracies, both the Quad and Taiwan bear the responsibility of forging mutual cooperation to make deterrence relevant.

GUEST AUTHOR

Huynh Tam Sang

Huynh Tam Sang is an international relations lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, a research fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation and a nonresident WSD-Handa Fellow at the Pacific Forum.

GUEST AUTHOR

Trang Huynh Le

Trang Huynh Le is Research Assistant at Vietnam-based Social Life Research Institute and Research Intern at Act for Displaced non-profit organization.

thediplomat.com · by Huynh Tam Sang · August 2, 2022



13. How CIA spied on Ayman al-Zawahiri for six months before assassination


Assassination? We killed a terrorist leader.


A long read (for a newspaper article).


A lot of photos at the link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11071327/How-CIA-spied-Ayman-al-Zawahiri-months-pounding-terror-chief-Hellfire-missiles.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist


But just keep in mind it is easier to get permission to put a hellfire missile on the forehead of a terrorist than it is to get permission to put ideas and information between people's ears. I am not at all saying that we should not target AQ or other HVTs. We must continue to remove them from the battlefield as they say. I just want us to be able to get authorities AND permissions to employ information and influence as easily as we can deploy a hellfire missile.




How CIA spied on Ayman al-Zawahiri for six months before assassination

How CIA hunted 9/11 mastermind al-Zawahiri for more than 20 years before dicing him with two twin blade Ninja missiles when he stepped onto his Kabul safehouse balcony at 6:18am

  • The CIA killed al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri, 71, in a drone strike Sunday at an Afghanistan safe house
  • The attacked followed a more than 20-year effort by US officials to assassinate the terrorist
  • As Osama bin Laden's number-two, al-Zawahiri took over as the leader of the terror group following his death
  • Al-Zawahiri was a key plotter of the September 11 attacks and has long evaded US forces
  • The assassination mission took six months to plan and involved a construction of the terrorist's 'pattern of life'

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE  and ALEX HAMMER and NATASHA ANDERSON  and EMILY GOODIN SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 23:02 EDT, 1 August 2022 UPDATED: 07:12 EDT, 2 August 2022

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance for MailOnline · August 2, 2022

It was 6.18am on Sunday and the sun was still rising over the Afghan capital of Kabul when an American MQ-9 Reaper drone - circling up to 50,000ft overhead - fired two R9X 'Ninja' Hellfire missiles at a house in the city's upmarket district of Sherpur.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's former deputy and leader of the Al Qaeda terror group since his master's death 11 years before, had just completed his morning prayer - the second of the day - and was watching the dawn from his rooftop balcony in keeping with a well-worn routine.

Moments later, the 71-year-old was no more - pulverised into oblivion by the R9X's 100lbs reinforced-metal warhead and six katana-like blades that would have silently popped out of the fuselage moments before impact.

It marked the end of at least 21 years of hunting by US intelligence and the military - seeking justice for the almost-3,000 victims of the 9/11 terror attack which Zawahiri had masterminded, and hundreds more killed in bombings on American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the USS Cole years before.

Zawahiri's death means that all of the plotters of 9/11 have now been captured or killed.

'No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,' President Biden said yesterday.

The strike was the culmination of six months of intensive intelligence work by the CIA which had tracked Zawahiri to the safe house, detailed his daily routine, and picked the ideal moment to hit him.

US officials said the operation dates back to April, when they received intelligence that Zawahiri's wife, their daughter, and her children had moved into a safe house in Kabul, in the old diplomatic quarter that used to house Western officials and embassies.

The family was being kept under the protection of the Haqqani network, a notorious terror organisation run by two brothers and their uncle who are closely associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban - which returned to rule in Afghanistan last August after America's shambolic withdrawal.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of the group's founder Jalaluddin, is the current Interior Minister for the Taliban government and leader of the network. One of his aides is thought to own the house where Zawahiri's family moved.

Over the course of three months the US carried out painstaking work to confirm that Zawahiri was also living there, which culminated with multiple sightings of him spending 'sustained periods' on the balcony.

Spies constructed a scale-model replica of the home and, through 'multiple intelligence sources', built up a detailed picture of Zawahiri's daily routine - trying to pick the ideal moment to strike him.

President Biden was kept briefed as the intelligence built up throughout May and June, and on July 1 he was given a run-down of the plan to kill Zawahiri by members of his cabinet in the Situation Room.

Biden is said to have closely scrutinised the plans - which called for a precision strike on the balcony - and was keen that every possible precaution was taken to ensure nobody other than Zawahiri would be killed.

On July 25, the cabinet re-convened to examine updated intelligence and look again at the blueprint for the strike.

Biden is said to have asked about other options and, satisfied that the best plan had been selected, 'authorized precise tailored airstrikes on the condition that the strikes minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the risk of civilian casualties.'


Ayman al-Zawahiri, mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and leader of Al Qaeda following Osama Bin Laden's death, was killed early Sunday in a drone attack on his safe house in the Afghan capital Kabul


An MQ-9 Reaper drone fired two R9X 'ninja' Hellfire missiles at Zawahiri as he stood alone on his balcony watching the sun come up, obliterating him with 100lbs metal warheads and six blades that popped out of the fuselage before impact


An image of the safe house after the attack shows how the missiles appear to have smashed through the floor of the rooftop balcony and damaged two of the windows in the room below - but did not harm anyone other than the terror leader


The strike was carried out early Sunday at an Afghanistan safe house the elderly terrorist had be holed up in, at 6:18 am local time and 9:48 pm Saturday in the US.


Smoke rises over Kabul in the wake of an early-morning US drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda leader


Labeled by US officials as Osama bin Laden's number-two, al-Zawahiri, 71, was a key plotter of the September 11 terrorist attacks and took over as the leader of the notorious terror group following bin Laden's death in 2011

Five days later, at 9.48pm on July 30 Washington time - early morning the following day in Kabul - the strike was carried out with lethal precision.

Photos of Zawahiri's safe-house after the attack appear to show how the Hellfire missiles smashed through the floor of the balcony and into the room below, breaking one window and blowing out another.

Despite Zawahiri's family being at home at the time - intelligence suggests the never left the building in all the months they lived there - the US says nobody other than the terrorist leader was killed.

Members of the Haqqani network are said to have swarmed the home shortly afterwards, moving Zawahiri's surviving relatives to a new location.

Though Pentagon chiefs were 'confident' Zawahiri was on the balcony at the time of their attack, they worked over the course of the next day to be sure he was dead before giving confirmation to the President.

Biden then made an address to the nation Monday night announcing Zawahiri's death, telling Americans: 'Justice has been delivered. And this terrorist leader is no more.'

Zawahiri 'carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests,' Biden said, adding that he hoped the death would 'bring one more measure of closure' to those who lost family or loved ones on 9/11.

Biden laid out al-Zawahiri's role in the terrorist organization, noting that, in addition to the 9/11 attacks, he was behind the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and the attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

It was the United State's most significant strike against al Qaeda since the killing of bin Laden in 2011. Al-Zawahiri replace bin Laden as the terrorist group's top leader.

Al-Zawahiri was on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list and there was a $25 million reward for information leading directly to him.

An Egyptian born to a comfortable family in Cairo in 1951, al-Zawahiri first came on authorities' radars in the 90s, shortly after the formation of the terror group in 1988 by Bin Laden - at which time al-Zawahiri was already a member.

The two terrorists reportedly met sometime in late 1980s, when al-Zawahiri reportedly kept the Saudi millionaire safe in the caves of Afghanistan from Soviet bombardments that then had been common in the region.

In 1998, he was named Bin Laden's deputy, further raising his profile, as he began to appear alongside the Saudi national at al-Qaeda held news conferences, airing anti-American sentiment and calling for other likeminded Muslims to join their cause.

That same year, al-Zawahiri, then 47, was indicted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

The August 7 attack saw nearly simultaneous bombs blow up in front of the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, killing 224 - including 12 Americans - and wounding more than 4,500.


The United States killed al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike Sunday, following a more than 20-year effort to assassinate the terrorist


Al-Zawahiri was Bin Laden's No 2 in Al-Qaeda, the radical jihadist network once led by the Saudi millionaire. The two are seen above in this September 2006 file photo


The terrorist leader was killed by two Hellfire missiles - fitted with extending blades - fired from CIA drones in a mission that took six months to plan. U.S. officials didn't confirm the model, but it is believed they used the R9X 'Ninja' missile that don't have explosives and limit collateral damage


Smoke rises from the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in this frame grabe from TV, after a suspected car bomb exploded outside in 1998; al-Zawahiri was indicted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya


Armed US Marines stand guard by the US embassy entrance in Nairobi in 1998 as FBI agents gather evidence in the bombing

At the time, al-Zawahiri - who was radicalized after he and hundreds of militants were tortured in Egyptian prison after Islamic fundamentalists' assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 - had bolstered the terror group by merging it with his own group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he had started in the 80s.

He would then help hone the group secretly in his home nation, all while evading Egyptian intelligence, until it achieved cells of followers all across the globe.

After years of quietly assembling suicide attackers, funds and plans, al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden and several others would carry out the infamous September 11 attacks, putting him and other conspirators at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted List.

Going into hiding, al-Zawahiri would then work to ensure that al-Qaeda members survived the global manhunt that would ensue - all while rebuilding the group's shattered leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, and serving as the supreme leader over branches in Iraq, Asia, Yemen,

In the years that followed, al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden would take credit for a series of attacks across Europe and Africa, as U.S. forces successfully rounded up several accused of masterminding the 9/11 plot.

Despite efforts that included a combination of unrelenting raids and missile and drone strikes, both al-Zawahiri bin Laden would successfully manage to evade U.S. forces, and hide elsewhere in the Middle East.

It would take roughly a decade before U.S. armed forces were able to track down at least one of the terror group's elusive top members, with a group of U.S. Navy seals successfully taking out bin Laden, then 54, at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

It was at this point that al-Zawahiri assumed leadership of the group, taking over immediately after the death of his friend.

U.S. intelligence would then learn over the course of several months from sources with 'increased confidence' that the terror leader's family had relocated to an unspecified safe house in the Middle East.

The next clue to the al-Qaueda kingpin's whereabouts would not come for another decade, after rumors swirled in 2020 that he had died from illness.

Those rumors were put to bed, however, the very next year, on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, when al-Zawahiri appeared in a video where he celebrated the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan 20 years after the invasion.

In that video, he proclaimed 'Jerusalem will never be Judaized' and praised al-Qaeda attacks – including one that targeted Russian troops in Syria in January 2021.

The sudden spot seemingly did not provide U.S. officials any clues as to where al-Zawahiri was hiding - however, seven months later, top U.S. security staffers were reportedly informed of 'developing intelligence' that he and his family were back in Afghanistan.

The breakthrough came in April, after U.S. officials learned that the terror leader's wife, daughter and children had relocated to Kabul, at an al-Qaeda safehouse - the one struck over the weekend.

Officials eventually determined that al-Zawahiri, too, was at the house - setting into motion a plan that would see officials construct a scale model of the multifloored, terraced property.

That model would eventually be brought it into the White House Situation Room to President Joe Biden, who along with several senior security officials, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, would plot the attack, knowing that al-Zawahiri was partial to sitting on the home's balcony.

The group then paintakingly constructed 'a pattern of life' for the terror leader, and said Monday that they had been confident he was on the balcony when the missiles flew.


Al-Zawahiri, 71, was in a safehouse in Sherpur, a wealthy area of downtown Kabul that's home to multiple Taliban officials, when he was taken out in the drone strike


Afghanistan's Taliban government confirmed the airstrike, but did not mention al-Zawahiri, pictured here in 2006, or any other casualties

Inside the administration, only a small group of officials at key agencies, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, were allowed into the highly classified planning process.

During this time, as the U.S. investigated the 'construction and nature of of the safe house' and building integrity so the strike could kill the target without putting civilians in danger, al-Zawahiri would continue to crank out videos attacking the U.S. and its allies

Shortly after, U.S. officials 'systematically eliminated all reasonable options' other than a strike, after confirming the identities of all the people inside.

'Key' agencies, officials said, were then brought into the process to make sure that intel was 'rock solid' before eventually carrying out the top-secret operation.

During the last few weeks of this period, Biden convened several meetings with advisors and cabinet members to scrutinize the intelligence and analyze various updates as to the situation at hand.

On July 1, Biden was briefed in the Situation Room about the operation, and closely examined the model of the home al-Zawahiri was hiding out in.

He gave his final approval for the operation on Thursday.

Just as U.S. officials had planned, the jihadist had been standing on the balcony of his hideout when the early-morning strike was carried out.

'He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we're going to make sure that nothing else happen,' Biden declared during his Monday evening address. 'This terrorist leader is no more.'

Afghanistan's Taliban government denounced the U.S. for killing al-Zawahiri in the drone strike, saying it 'strongly condemns this attack and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,' the 2020 U.S. pact with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of American forces.

'Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,' the statement said.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hit back, arguing the Taliban failed to 'abide by their commitment' to prevent Al Qaeda from operating in areas under its control - as outlined in the Trump-era deal.

'In the face of the Taliban's unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments, we will continue to support the Afghan people with robust humanitarian assistance and to advocate for the protection of their human rights, especially of women and girls,' Blinken said in a statement Monday.

He also applauded al-Zawahiri's killing and the U.S. military's 'commitment to act against terrorist threats.'

'We have delivered on our commitment to act against terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan.

'The world is safer following the death of al Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri,' he said before pledging: 'The US will continue to act against those who threaten our country, our people, or our allies.'


On July 1, President Joe Biden - pictured announcing the strike's success Monday - was briefed in the Situation Room about the operation, and closely examined the model of the home al-Zawahiri was hiding out in. He gave his final approval for the operation four days ago


Al-Zawahiri's FBI wanted poster - there was a $25 million reward for information on him

In June, UN security intelligence experts revealed that al-Qaeda was enjoying a 'safe haven' in Afghanistan under the Taliban and warned the country could become a base for international terrorist attacks once again.

Following the drone strike location reveal, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said: 'This news sheds light on the possible re-emergence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan following President Biden's disastrous withdrawal a year ago.

'The Biden administration must provide Congress with a classified briefing as soon as possible to discuss the resurgence of al-Qaeda in the region over the past year, the current foreign terrorist threat to America, and the steps we must take to keep our country safe and prevent terrorists from entering the United States.

Bill Roggio, military commentator and managing editor of The Long War Journal, warned DailyMail.com ahead of the address that Biden would tout Zawahiri's death as a victory.

'The message tonight is going to be that this was a huge counter-terrorism success.

'But really this means that al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan and never left.' Roggio said.

He also cautioned there is more concern the Taliban is again harboring al-Qaeda.

'The big lie the Biden Administration told us to get out of Afghanistan was that al-Qaeda was gone,' Roggio explained. 'It is likely the US got Zawahiri because was over confident and operating in Kabul.

'He wasn't hiding out in the mountains. We're hearing that he was being sheltered by a top Taliban deputy.

'The Biden Administration is going to tout this as some victory of their 'over-the-horizon' capabilities, but that's the spin.'


The six-blade 'ninja missile' used to mince terrorists: CIA deployed two R9X Hellfires to shred al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri - a month after it was used to wipe out ISIS thug in Syria

Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri became the latest victim of the feared Hellfire Ninja R9X missile that uses pop-out swords rather than an explosive to take down high profile targets, according to military experts.

Al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike in the Shirpur neighborhood of the Afghani capital of Kabul on Saturday, according to President Joe Biden. The terrorist leader was 71 years old.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on August 1 that a drone fired two Hellfire R9X missiles at the terrorist leader as he walked on to the balcony of his safe house.

The R9X carries 45kg of reinforced metal in its tip with six extendable blades designed to shred the target upon impact without triggering a blast that could prove deadly to those nearby.

The existence of the missile has not been confirmed by the US military. The official described the al-Zawahiri assassination as a 'precise tailored airstrike.'




The possibly closest look that has been given to a used R9X in Yemen in June 2022. The red ball is the pneumatic accumulator that helps to propel the missile

Osama Bin-Laden's former number two was staying in the home with members of his family.

It was the US's most significant strike against al Qaeda since the killing of bin Laden in 2011. In fact, the RX9 was considered when plans were being drawn up to permanently take down the 9/11 mastermind.

The R9X Hellfire missile has become one of the US military's favored weapons for precision assassinations as it carries a lower risk of collateral damage.

Developed during Obama's presidency in 2011 amid concerns over the number of civilians being killed in drone strike campaigns in the Middle East, the 'ninja' missile is so nicknamed because it foregoes the use of an explosive warhead.

It the result of a combined effort by the CIA and the Department of Defense.

The missile is made Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman. It is not clear how many R9X missiles that the Pentagon have in their possession.

The R9X is not mentioned in the 2022 budget requests for missile procurement.

The secretive military Joint Special Operations Command has confirmed the use of the R9X twice, in 2019 and 2020, reports the New York Times. But it has reportedly been used on nearly a dozen other occasions to take out specific targets.

During the Korean and Vietnam wars in the 1950s, the US military pioneered an idea of non-explosive kinetic bombs named Lazy Dogs.

The bombs were designed to kill using kinetic energy after being dropped from aircraft. The weighed between 560 and 625 pounds. Lazy Dogs did not prove to be popular among commanders and their development was halted in the 1960s.

The existence of the R9X was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2019. The newspaper said that the missile was used in attacks on persons in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.

The Journal said that those worked with the R9X is referred to as the 'flying Ginsu,' a reference to a popular brand of steak knives.

An unnamed official source told the newspaper at the time that the missile was created with the 'express purpose of reducing civilian casualties.'

The article referred to the weapon as being similar to a 'speedy anvil.'

The example that the Journal provides suggests that the R9X was so precise that if a target was in a car with an innocent driver, the missile would take out the target and spare the driver.

The same report said that the missile's blades can cut through buildings, and car roofs.

At the time of the WSJ report, Human Rights Watch's Letta Tayler wrote on the group's website that the RX9 should not necessarily be viewed as a more ethical weapon.

Tayler said: 'On its own, the R9X won't resolve the host of legal issues surrounding the US targeted killing program, which since 2002 has killed thousands of people with scant transparency.'

In August 2021, the R9X was thought to have been used to kill two ISIS militants in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. According to Task and Purpose, the missiles were fired from a MQ-9 Reaper drone.

Following that strike, Army Major General William 'Hank' Taylor bragged about the lack of civilian casualties adding: 'Without specifying any future plans, I will say that we will continue to have the ability to defend ourselves and to leverage over-the-horizon capability to conduct counterterrorism operations as needed.'

That strike was in response to the Hamid Karzai International Airport attack that killed 13 US servicemembers.

In addition to the August 2021 attack, the R9X is thought to have been used in the killing of al Qaeda second-in-command Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri in February 2017.

It was used again to take out Taliban leader Mohabullah in Afghanistan in January 2019, that same month the missile was used on USS Cole bombing suspect Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi in Yemen and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Ahmed al-Jaziri in June 2019

The following year, the missile was the cause of death of Hurras Al-Din leaders Qassam al-Urduni and Bilal al-Sanaani in Syria.

The latter featured the use of three 100-plus-pound warheads, according to the Military Times.

Al-Zawahiri joins a list of undesirables that includes, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in 2004 by the Israeli Air Force, who have been taken out by variations of the traditional Hellfire missile.

While in use by the US military, conventional Hellfire missiles have taken out Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda organizer as well as high-ranking Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in Pakistan in 2012, Al-Shabaab leader Moktar Ali Zubeyr, who met his end in 2014 in Somalia, not to mention Mohammed Emwazi aka Jihadi John who was killed in 2015 in Syria.

The explosive warhead on a traditional hellfire missile weighs around 20 pounds.

The last high-profile use of the Hellfire Ninja was when Abu Hamzah al-Yemeni - the leader of the Hurras al Din - was compromised in the city of Idlib in Syria in June 2022.

Images from that scene showed the twisted remains of a motorcycle strewn across the ground, suggesting the missile scored a direct hit on its target.

Hurras al Din is a relatively small but powerful armed group led by Al Qaeda loyalists, which was led by Yemeni until his death yesterday.

It's estimated to have 2,000 to 2,500 fighters in rebel-held Syria, according to the United Nations.

The R9X missile is also suspected of having been used in the air strike which killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January, catapulting Washington and Tehran to the brink of war, although this was never confirmed.

In his remarks following al-Zawahiri's killing, Biden repeatedly invoked the September 11th terrorist attacks and said the killing of al-Zawahiri demonstrated the resolve of the United States to go after terrorist leaders, no matter where they hide and how long it takes.

'Now, justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,' he said. 'We made it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.'


Is this Al-Qaeda's next terror chief? Secretive heir apparent who 'oversaw Black Hawk Down operation' and helped carry out 9/11 attacks is poised to take over after Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Afghanistan

The heir apparent to the al-Qaeda throne after tonight's confirmed death of Ayman al-Zawahiri is a canny, military-trained operative with experience killing British and American soldiers.

Egyptian ex-army officer Saif al-Adel was a founding member of al-Qaeda, having joined pre-cursor terrorist group Maktab al-Khidamat in the late-1980s.

There he met future allies Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, whose separate group Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) he would soon join.

Little else is known about Saif al-Adel, who at around 60 years of age is one of the younger al-Qaeda bosses.

Al-Adel was around 30 when he oversaw the infamous 'Black Hawk Down' operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, in which 19 American soldiers were killed and had their bodies dragged through the streets.

Seven more were slain when two helicopters were shot down in the east Africa ambush, including two British soldiers, three Turks and a Frenchman.

And since the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011, al-Adel has become an increasingly important strategist within the depleting terror cell.

The only thing standing in his way to become the next al-Qaeda leader is that he is likely stuck in Iran - and may well have been for the past 19 years.



Al-Adel is pictured (centre) on an al-Qaeda who's who published in 2005. Osama bin Laden is pictured top-left, with al-Zawahiri to his right and Mullah Omar to the right of al-Zawahiri. Saif is now one of the only original al-Qaeda leaders still alive



The FBI Most Wanted poster on Al-Adel states the reward of up to $10million for information

In 2003, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Javad Zarif refused to confirm nor deny whether al-Adel was being held in the country.



Al-Adel has risen to the top of al-Qaeda as much because of his own talents as by the United States' ruthlessness in killing his superiors

He told ABC News that terrorists tend to have multiple passports, with the Iranian government unable to confirm their identities.

With what's left of al-Qaeda now based in Afghanistan - and in coexistence with the Taliban - al-Adel's geographic isolation could stop him taking the helm, foreign policy analyst Charles Lister suggested tonight.

Yet Foundation for the Defense of Democracies senior fellow Bill Roggio remained bullish about al-Adel's chances of succeeding the role, telling Task and Purpose he remains the 'likely' candidate.

With his real name thought to be Mohammed Salah al-Din Zaidan, al-Adel's made-up moniker translates to 'Sword of Justice'.

Thought not as brainwashed by Islamist ideology as his al-Qaeda colleagues, al-Adel used his military training to rise to the top of the shadowy organisation in the wake of the September 11 attacks, in which senior operatives killed themselves.

Al-Adel was in fact against the so-called 'Planes Operation', as it was known by members of the terror cell.

But he helped organise the single most deadly terrorist attack in history after bin Laden became committed to the idea.

According to ex-FBI agent and counter-terrorism expert Ali Soufan, who suggested al-Adel would be 'al-Qaeda's next leader' last year, Saif possesses a 'poker face' and a 'caustic tongue'.



President Biden confirmed tonight in an address from the White House that an American drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan

When training young soldiers, he was known to kidnap them in the middle of the night and conduct savage beatings in order to harden the troops.

Al-Adel has risen to the top of al-Qaeda as much because of his own talents as by the United States' ruthlessness in killing his superiors.

Osama's assumed successor son Hamza was killed in 2019 and fellow senior strategist Abu Muhammad al-Masri was assassinated in 2020.

US intelligence states: 'Al-Adel is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.'

Two hundred and twenty-four people died in the three East Africa blasts, including 12 Americans, with more than 4,500 people wounded.

A $10million reward for information has been placed on al-Adel's head.

And with ex-leader al-Zawahiri now slain, the attention of America's terrorist hunters will likely go onto Saif al-Adel.

Al-Zawahiri, who took over Al-Qaeda after Bin Laden's death in 2011, was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan following a US airstrike this evening.

The terrorist leader is said to have guided Al-Qaeda to become one of the biggest radical movements, having been identified as a mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.



Saif al-Adel's rival, Osama Bin Laden's son Hamza, was killed by American forces in 2019



Hamza bin Laden (left as a child) is the son of deceased former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (right) who is believed to have groomed him to take over the terror group

At 15, the Egyptian spearheaded his own militant group, Jamaat al-Jihad, that championed large-scale attacks and the murder of civilians.

As it grew, he later merged it with Al-Qaeda in the 1990s, bringing this focus on indiscriminate killing to the terrorist group.

The 71-year-old was on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list, having declared the US 'the far enemy', with a $25 million reward for information leading directly to him.

The surgeon led a terrorist lab developing biological weapons and was the force behind Al-Qaeda's ambition to gain nuclear weapons.

'To kill Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it, Al-Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 manifesto.

Three years later, he helped plan the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Al-Zawahiri was planned follow-on attacks across the US, and started a biological weapons program in Afghanistan. He sent group disciples out to find lethal strains of anthrax and scientists that would engage with his plans.

However, the Egyptian abandoned the biological weapons laboratory after a US-backed military effort forced Taliban allies of Al-Qaeda out of power in Afghanistan.

It comes after a top ISIS official was assassinated by the United States early in July when he and his deputy were hit by an American drone strike in northwest Syria.

The strike killed senior ISIS leader Maher al-Agal, US officials said, taking credit for the daytime attack in the northern village of Khaltan in the Syrian countryside.

Al-Agal - one of the top five leaders in the terrorist group - was riding a motorbike in the village when he was targeted by the American missile, which killed him instantly.

Another senior ISIS official was also hit by the attack, officials said, but survived. The official, who was not named, was reportedly wounded.

Al-Agal's body, which was badly burned and mutilated in the attack, was transported to an Idlib hospital.

The attack took place in the Jenderies district in Afrin - an area northwest of Aleppo, near the country's shared border with Turkey.

The war-torn region has been under occupation by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) since March 2018.




The strike killed senior ISIS leader Maher al-Agal taking credit for the attack in the northern village of Khaltan in the Syrian countryside. Pictured are Syrian Civil Defence officials surveying the site



The attack took place in the Jenderies district in Afrin - an area northwest of Aleppo, near the country's shared border with Turkey. The region has become a haven for hundreds of ISIS terrorists and leaders in recent years, as the country continues to face a civil war




A $5million reward for any information leading to his capture was offered by the State Department. It was late doubled to $10million as al-Rimi was linked to numerous plots against the U.S.

In January 2020, the United States carried out an airstrike that killed a leader of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen after months of tracking him.

Qassim al-Rimi, 41, was killed in the January strike but officials had been waiting to confirm the information before making public statement.

In November, CIA personnel learned of al-Rimi's location from an informant. The government then started using surveillance drones to track him, according to an U.S. official who was briefed on the strike.

Local news in Yemen reports that the strike killed two militant suspects in the area of Wadi Abedah in central Yemen, but did not identify who those people were.

Al-Rimi is a veteran of the Queda training camps in Afghanistan and whose 'terrorist pedigree traces to the era before the September 11 attacks,' NYT reports.

He then returned to Yemen and was sentenced to five years in prison there for plotting to kill the American ambassador there.

Al-Rimi broke out of jail after only a year and quickly rose in the ranks of the Qaeda affiliate.

A $5million reward for any information leading to his capture was offered by the State Department. It was late doubled to $10million as al-Rimi was linked to numerous plots against the U.S.

In 2017, al-Rimi notably sent President Donald Trump an audio message taunting him for a Special Operations Forces raid on an al Qaeda compound in Yemen that led to the first military combat death under the Trump administration, CNN reports.



Qassim al-Rimi, 41, was killed in the January strike but officials had been waiting to confirm the information before making public statement

President Joe Biden confirmed the leader of ISIS was dead in February in what he described as a cowardly move to blow up himself and his family instead of facing justice for his terrorists acts.

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi set off a bomb that killed himself as well as his wife and two children during a raid by U.S. commandos on a house in northwest Syria.

'United States military forces successfully removed a major terrorist threat to the world,' Biden said in remarks at the White House.

Thirteen were reported killed, including six children and four women during the mission, which involved 24 Special Operations commandos backed by attack jets, Reaper drones and helicopter gunships.

'As a final act of desperate cowardness, [al-Qurayshi] with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up,' Biden said, adding the ISIS leader blew up 'that third floor rather than face justice for the crimes he has committed, taking several members of his family with him.'



ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi set off a bomb that blew himself up during a raid by U.S. special forces

'This horrible terrorist leader is no more,' he added.

After al-Qurayshi was named the head of ISIS in 2019, the United States put a bounty of up to $10 million on his head.

Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and national security aides monitored a live-feed of the operation from the White House Situation Room, according to a photo released by the administration.

'This operation is testament to America's reach and capability to take out terrorist threats, no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world. I'm determined to protect the American people from terrorist threats, and I'll take decisive action to protect this country,' Biden said in his short remarks where he took no questions.

'We remain vigilant. We remain prepared. Last night's operation took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield and sent a strong message to terrorists around the world: We will come after you and find you,' the president added.

In the raid, U.S. special forces landed in helicopters and assaulted the house in a rebel-held corner of Syria, near the border with Turkey, clashing for two hours with gunmen, witnesses said in local reports.

The raid targeted a large house in Atmeh in the Idlib region of Syria where the ISIS leader was hiding. The three-story house was left with its top floor shattered in the wake of al-Qurayshi's suicide bomb.

It was a gruesome scene, according to local reports, with blood splattered on the white bricks that constructed the home and body parts scattered around the area.

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, also known as Abdullah Qardash or Hajji Abdullah, became the leader of the ISIS terrorist organization after former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi also blew himself up in a similar raid by U.S. forces in 2019 in the nearby town of Barisha.



American helicopters carrying 24 commandoes arrived just after 1am. When they left two hours later ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was dead



A general view shows on February 3, 2022 the scene following an overnight raid by US special operations forces against a suspected high-ranking jihadist in Atmeh, in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, which left at least 13 people dead



A Syrian man takes a picture of a blood soaked kitchen at the scene of a US anti-terror raid in Atmeh, Idlib


The raid by the U.S. commandos targeted a suspected jihadist leader in a house in Syria's northern town of Atmeh. The operation, which residents say lasted about two hours, jolted the village near the Turkish border - an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria's civil war. The target was killed in Atmeh, located mere miles from the town of Barisha where former ISIS leader al-Baghdadi was killed in 2019


This combination of pictures created on February 3, 2022, from images released by the US Department of Defense shows the compound housing ISIS leader Al-Qurayshi


Proof the Taliban has welcomed Al Qaeda back? Bin Laden's No. 2 al-Zawahiri was staying at house in Kabul linked to Afghan deputy interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani when he was minced by US Hellfire missile

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a drone strike while staying at a house owned by a top aide to a senior Taliban leader in Kabul.

It has sparked questions as to whether the Taliban has welcomed the terrorist group back in Afghanistan, having previously developed ties with the terrorist group in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Al-Zawahiri, 71, was hiding out with his family in a downtown Kabul property owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official.

Speculation is rising as to whether this living arrangement could create further difficulties for the West's relations with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

It comes as US President Joe Biden's officials said that Haqqani Network leaders knew al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul.



Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a drone strike while staying at a house owned by a top aide to a senior Taliban leader in Kabul



US intelligence officials tracked Zawahiri to a home in downtown Kabul where he was hiding out with his family. The house was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani (pictured speaking in March 2022)

'Immediately after the strike, Haqqani operatives sealed off the area and relocated Zawahiri's relatives. A damning indictment of Taliban credibility,' said director of the Middle East Institute, Charles Lister.

It may add further credibility to recent intelligence claims from the US that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the official name of the Taliban government, has allowed al-Qaeda to re-emerge in Afghanistan, after taking over the country last year.

In June, UN security intelligence experts revealed that al-Qaeda was enjoying a 'safe haven' in Afghanistan under the Taliban and warned the country could become a base for international terrorist attacks once again.

Following the drone strike location reveal, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said: 'This news sheds light on the possible re-emergence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan following President Biden's disastrous withdrawal a year ago.

'The Biden administration must provide Congress with a classified briefing as soon as possible to discuss the resurgence of al-Qaeda in the region over the past year, the current foreign terrorist threat to America, and the steps we must take to keep our country safe and prevent terrorists from entering the United States.'



Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid (pictured August 2021) condemned the US air strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, alleging it 'violated international principles'

Bill Roggio, military commentator and managing editor of The Long War Journal, warned DailyMail.com ahead of the address that Biden would tout Zawahiri's death as a victory.

'The message tonight is going to be that this was a huge counter-terrorism success. But really this means that al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan and never left.' Roggio said.

He also cautioned there is more concern the Taliban is again harboring al-Qaeda.

'The big lie the Biden Administration told us to get out of Afghanistan was that al-Qaeda was gone,' Roggio explained. 'It is likely the US got Zawahiri because was over confident and operating in Kabul.

'He wasn't hiding out in the mountains. We're hearing that he was being sheltered by a top Taliban deputy. The Biden Administration is going to tout this as some victory of their 'over-the-horizon' capabilities, but that's the spin.'

The Taliban formed links with al-Qaeda between 1996 and 2001, when the Islamist group ruled over Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda reportedly paid the Taliban $20million each year to operate in Afghanistan, as the group orchestrated its attack on New York City's World Trade Centre, killing almost 3,000 people.

Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. As the Taliban and al-Qaida spilt across the region, many collaborated and regrouped in factions, with ISIS emerging in 2014.

The US's exit from Afghanistan last September gave al-Qaida the opportunity to rebuild.

US military officials, including General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faced limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban. Military leaders have warned that the group still aspired to attack the US.



Ayman al-Zawahiri's location has sparked questions as to whether the Taliban has welcomed the terrorist group back in Afghanistan. Pictured, a Taliban fighter stands guard at a market in Kabul on December 20, 2021



Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. Pictured, President Joe Biden confirms the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri

In 2020, the Taliban signed the Doha peace deal with Donald Trump's administration, saying that said it would keep ISIS and al-Qaida out of Afghanistan.

But critics at the time said that the Taliban would provide a 'safe haven' for terrorist groups.

'Al-Qaeda will probably come back,' UK defense secretary Ben Wallace warned at the time.

A statement from Afghanistan's Taliban government confirmed the air strike, but did not mention al-Zawahiri or any other casualties.

It said it 'strongly condemns this attack and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,' the 2020 US pact with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of American forces.

'Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,' the statement said.

President Joe Biden confirmed in a televised speech that a US drone strike in Afghanistan on Sunday killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, declaring 'justice has been delivered.'



Al-Qaeda is enjoying a 'safe haven' in Afghanistan under the Taliban, a UN report has warned. Pictured: A Taliban special forces soldier stands guard in Kabul in April



The experts said in the report to the U.N. Security Council that the country could become a base for international terrorist attacks once again (Taliban patrol in Kabul)



However, they added neither IS nor al-Qaeda 'is believed to be capable of mounting international attacks before 2023 at the earliest, regardless of their intent or of whether the Taliban acts to restrain them'

'This terrorist leader is no more,' Biden said in an evening speech from the White House.

'He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we're going to make sure that nothing else happens.'

The strike, carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, was confirmed by five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity before Biden was set to brief the American people.

Al-Zawahiri's loss eliminates the figure who more than anyone shaped al-Qaida, first as Osama bin Laden's deputy since 1998, then as his successor.

Together, he and bin Laden turned the jihadi movement's guns to target the United States, carrying out the deadliest attack ever on American soil — the September 11, 2001, World Trade Centre and Pentagon attack.

When the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida's safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahiri ensured al-Qaida's survival.

He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.

He also reshaped the organization from a centralized planner of terror attacks into the head of a franchise chain.

He led the assembling of a network of autonomous branches around the region, including in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Asia.

Over the next decade, al-Qaida inspired or had a direct hand in attacks in all those areas as well as Europe, Pakistan and Turkey, including the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 transit bombings in London.

More recently, the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen proved itself capable of plotting attacks against US soil with an attempted 2009 bombing of an American passenger jet and an attempted package bomb the following year.

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance for MailOnline · August 2, 2022



1​4. SOCOM Orders Cropduster Attack Planes from L3Harris Technologies


If I was considering how our adversaries might conduct propaganda operations to exploit the use of the term "cropduster" I would expect them to say that USSOCOM is procuring this as a means for chemical weapons delivery.


I hope the Public Affairs and J39 action officers are ready to deal with this possibility in the future.



SOCOM Orders Cropduster Attack Planes from L3Harris Technologies

The contract, which could grow to 75 aircraft, marks a major victory for proponents of prop-driven close air support.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

U.S. Special Operations Command has chosen L3Harris Technologies to supply up to 75 attack planes based on a cropduster aircraft in a deal that could be worth $3 billion.

It’s a huge win for the the country’s sixth-largest defense contractor which in recent years has looked to grow from a Florida-based electronics supplier to a lead contractor of high-end weapons and a disruptor among its larger peers.

“This rugged, sustainable platform will operate in permissive environments and austere conditions around the world to safeguard our Special Operations Forces on the ground,” USSOCOM Commander Gen. Richard Clarke said in an emailed statement.

L3Harris’ aircraft is a weaponized Air Tractor AT-802, a turboprop agricultural aircraft that typically flies around 150 mph. The initial contract awarded Monday is worth $170 million, but could reach $3 billion by 2029 if all of the options are exercised.

“We decided to take a clean-sheet approach to this program to align with the requirements,” L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik said during the company’s quarterly earnings call last week. “[The] team has spent a fair amount of money in [research and development] and capital. We've had lots of demos that have gone well that we think position us in a good place to potentially win this program.”

The goal of the plane “to procure a low-cost, reliable, rugged, multi-role, small- to medium-size aircraft system with multiple capabilities currently performed by specialized platforms such as close air support, precision strike, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance,” SOCOM said in a statement.

SOCOM will begin testing the plane, called Sky Warden, this year, L3Harris said. The company plans to add 100 employees to build the aircraft in a 90,000-square-foot factory in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

For more than a decade, the Air Force and Navy have each had numerous failed efforts to field small turboprops that could loiter above the battlefield and support troops on the ground. Their advocates argue that such planes could have saved the millions of dollars in fuel and wear and tear on larger, high-performance fighters and bombers that were used during two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Air Force leaders always valued such planes below new stealth fighters and bombers. In recent years, SOCOM took over, and put money behind the effort, which it calls Armed Overwatch.

“This award would not have been possible without the Air Force’s contributions of expertise and our industry partners demonstration of the art-of-the-possible for rapid integration of weapons and sensors on proven aircraft,” SOCOM acquisition executive Jim Smith, said in a statement. “The Armed Overwatch program will allow us to rapidly field an affordable, sustainable aircraft with the flexibility to grow and adapt with our SOF aviators’ missions in support of SOF ground elements.”

SOCOM’s choice is a major defeat for Textron’s Beechcraft, which has spent millions of dollars over the past decade developing an attack version of the T-6 trainer that the company hasn’t been able to sell in large numbers. The Sky Warden was also selected over the MC-145B offered by Sierra Nevada.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber



15. Don't Back Down: How Joe Biden Should Stand Up to China over Taiwan

Excerpts:


And just as the Pentagon increased its talks with Taiwan after the 1996 crisis, so too must Biden now consider how to tighten the United States partnership with Taiwan today in order to show Beijing that its threats will always backfire.
This could mean recognition of Itu Aba as an island belonging to Taiwan.
It should also mean an abandonment of the “One China” policy, a Kissingerian compromise that has no basis in history or, as Xi admits, international law.
It should also mean scaling back China’s diplomatic presence in the United States to just the embassy in Washington and China’s UN mission in New York.
Finally, this latest crisis should end the debate about whether Taiwan needs its own nuclear deterrence. It may be romantic and idealistic to believe that Taiwan can deter China without nuclear weapons, but it is foolish to believe so.
Biden may justify compromise in order to avoid war, but he must recognize that compromising with dictatorships never brings peace, but only encourages greater aggression. To stand firm on Taiwan today is to prevent a far greater chance of conflict tomorrow.




Don't Back Down: How Joe Biden Should Stand Up to China over Taiwan

19fortyfive.com · by ByMichael Rubin · August 1, 2022

Don’t blame Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Taiwan crisisShe is not the first American official to visit Taiwan, nor should she be the last. Twenty years ago, George H.W. Bush sent Carla Hills, the U.S. trade representative and the first Cabinet-level official to visit Taiwan. Bill Clinton dispatched his Secretaries of Transportation and Energy, as well as the head of the Small Business Administration. In 1995, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui spoke before an audience of 3,000 at Cornell University.

The reasons President Xi Jinping escalates this crisis now are threefold. As my colleagues Nicholas Eberstadt and Peter Van Ness show, China’s population is now likely shrinking. That has profound implications for China’s future economy. Xi’s mishandling of COVID-19 from the likely initial lab leak to his zero COVID lockdowns has also decimated the economy and international confidence in the Renminbi, China’s official currency. Xi reverts to the first chapter of every dictator’s handbook: To deflect blame for corruption and economic incompetence, play the nationalist card.

The second reason Xi escalates is Joe Biden and his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. By rebranding deterrence as “endless war” deserving of condemnation, Biden and Sullivan convinced dictators in Moscow and Beijing that aggression could work. The incompetence of the withdrawal from Afghanistan compounded that notion.

After all, for the five years prior to the withdrawal, the expense of the U.S. mission was not much greater than its deployments to Japan and Korea. Sullivan’s penchant for walking back Biden’s public commitments to defending Taiwan also sowed strategic confusion. The Anchorage Summit was a disaster. Chinese officials convinced themselves that Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken were unserious and weak when they allowed the Chinese team to abuse them and use them as foils in a manner unseen since the Mao-era meetings in Warsaw and Geneva.

The final reason Xi now escalates is that the White House mishandled the news of Pelosi’s trip from day one. There was no reason to announce the trip in advance. The White House – likely at Sullivan’s discretion – appears to have leaked word to the Chinese so that Biden could have it both ways: Pelosi would go, but Biden’s team would ingratiate itself to Beijing by telling Xi that they had tried. By the time they realized their mistake, the consequence of backing down had become far greater.

So what should Biden do now?

Two past episodes should give Biden insight into how he should now act.

Operation Paul Bunyan

In 1972, the United States reached an agreement to withdraw from Vietnam. While Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Prize for his efforts, North Korea interpreted the agreement as an indication that the United States was weak. The following year, North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung moved to seize five South Korean islands off the North Korean coast.

Between October and December 1973, North Korean military vessels crossed the maritime boundary around the islands almost every other day and then, in February 1974, seized one South Korean fishing vessel and sunk another. The U.S. military stood down in the face of such provocation. Kim misinterpreted both U.S. inaction and the end to the Vietnam War as a sign that he was negotiating from a position of strength. He demanded a new status quo in which there would be no American troop presence in South Korea. If Washington did not accede to his demands, he threatened war.

As the Ford administration wound down, North Korea struck at Americans in the demilitarized zone. As Captain Arthur Bonifas supervised trimming a tree that obstructed an American observation post, 20 North Koreans soldiers knocked Bonifas and Lieutenant Mark Barrett to the ground and hacked them to death with axes.

Pyongyang blamed the violence on American presence. Rather than diffuse the situation diplomatically or offer any compromise that would allow Kim to save face, the United States launched Operation Paul Bunyan. Ford dispatched the USS Midway strike group toward the Korean peninsula. B-52 bombers and jet fighters went on high alert, as did American troops and South Korean Special Forces. Against this massive mobilization, U.S. army engineers cut down the tree. The display of resolve worked. Not only did North Korea stand down, but the Dear Leader also offered regrets.

The Taiwan Strait Crises

The dispute over Pelosi’s visit is not the first time the Chinese Communist Party has blustered to intimidate.

In December 1954, the United States and Taiwan signed a mutual defense pact. Chairman Mao Zedong responded by shelling Quemoy and Dachen, smaller islands off the Chinese coast belonging to the government in Taiwan. Rather than back down and, as Mao expected, compromise by turning those islands over to Chinese Communist Party control, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stood firm and even threatened to use nuclear weapons. Communist China was not yet a nuclear power, so Mao blinked. Zhou Enlai, his premier and foreign minister, offered talks. Eisenhower accepted. Chinese aggression against the islands ceased, at least for a few years.

In January 1958, however, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in which he promised to “catch up with the United States.” To fan revolutionary spirit, he provoked another crisis by shelling Quemoy. Eisenhower again stood firm, deploying the largest flotilla in American history to show communist leaders they could not bully the United States.

It worked, this time for several decades but, in 1996, as Taiwan prepared for its first democratic presidential elections, Beijing decided to try again. The People’s Liberation Army twice shot missiles with dummy warheads into the Taiwan Strait as a signal to voters attracted to a pro-independence candidate. To his credit, Bill Clinton responded by dispatching two carrier strike groups to show intimidation would not work. The Pentagon subsequently began to talk with its Taiwanese counterparts more frequently to reinforce publicly their relationship.

Today, Xi has backed himself into a corner. He has promised military action but likely does not want a full-scale confrontation with the United States. Again, as Eberstadt has pointed out, decades of one-child policy and femicide have skewed demography. Should China launch an invasion of Taiwan, a topographically difficult target, it would likely cost tens of thousands of Chinese lives. Each Chinese soldier represents an only child on whose support his parents count. Xi understands the societal ripple effect this might have on Chinese stability, especially among the middle class and elite strata.

Reacting to China’s Next Move

Accordingly, expect China to focus its anger again on Matsu and Quemoy, Penghu (the Pescadores), or perhaps Itu Aba (Taiping), a Taiwanese island in the South China Sea. The question then becomes how the United States should react.

Xi is responsible, but Biden and Sullivan’s missteps helped create the perfect storm. What the lessons of the past show, whether in Korea or the Taiwan Strait, is that success requires proactive action; to be reactive is to fail. It is essential that Biden find his inner Eisenhower and send multiple carrier strike groups to the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. He must make clear that the United States will consider an attack on Matsu or Quemoy as no different than an attack on Taipei itself.

And just as the Pentagon increased its talks with Taiwan after the 1996 crisis, so too must Biden now consider how to tighten the United States partnership with Taiwan today in order to show Beijing that its threats will always backfire.

This could mean recognition of Itu Aba as an island belonging to Taiwan.

It should also mean an abandonment of the “One China” policy, a Kissingerian compromise that has no basis in history or, as Xi admits, international law.

It should also mean scaling back China’s diplomatic presence in the United States to just the embassy in Washington and China’s UN mission in New York.

Finally, this latest crisis should end the debate about whether Taiwan needs its own nuclear deterrence. It may be romantic and idealistic to believe that Taiwan can deter China without nuclear weapons, but it is foolish to believe so.

Biden may justify compromise in order to avoid war, but he must recognize that compromising with dictatorships never brings peace, but only encourages greater aggression. To stand firm on Taiwan today is to prevent a far greater chance of conflict tomorrow.

Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).

19fortyfive.com · by ByMichael Rubin · August 1, 2022




16. Biden Taps China Apologist Who Blames Admin’s Rhetoric for Rise in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes



​I have participated in a number of conferences and working groups with Ms Lee. Needless to say our views on north Korea (and China) are not aligned.​



Biden Taps China Apologist Who Blames Admin’s Rhetoric for Rise in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

Quincy Institute scholar Jessica Lee has lambasted the administration's rhetoric toward China, arguing it fuels anti-Asian hate crimes

freebeacon.com · by Adam Kredo · August 1, 2022

The State Department is tapping a China apologist who has blamed the Biden administration’s rhetoric toward the Communist country for a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and called for "a cooperative relationship" with North Korea, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Jessica Lee, a scholar at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an isolationist think-tank bankrolled by George Soros and Charles Koch, is joining the administration as senior adviser for legislative affairs at the State Department, two sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Free Beacon on Monday. Lee sent an email to her Quincy Institute colleagues Sunday advising them of the move.

Lee has been one of the most strident critics of what she called the Biden administration’s "anti-China" foreign policy, advocating for closer ties with the CCP and arguing that "over-the-top" warnings about China’s malign activities—including widespread hack attacks and domestic spying incidents—increase the likelihood of war with the country.

"The continual naming and blaming of China as a bad actor on seemingly every front, as the source of all of America’s problems, cultivates real fear and insecurity among Americans," Lee said in a May 2021 video. "And it directly fuels violence against Americans of Asian descent. From physical attacks to outright murder, evidence of violent racism fueled by our anti-China policy is alarming."

Lee’s move from the Quincy Institute to the State Department is a sign the American foreign policy community’s most dovish voices are making inroads with the Biden administration. She is one of several Quincy Institute members to join the administration, including Rachel Esplin Odell, a State Department employee who has claimed "the military threat posed by China to U.S. interests is limited in nature."

The move comes at a precarious time for the organization, which has seen two top staff members resign over its calls for a speedy resolution to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its opposition to the Biden administration's support for the Ukrainian resistance. In addition to China and Russia, the think tank is also home to several scholars who are calling for a more accomodationist posture toward Iran.

Lee has been one of the most prominent pro-China voices working at the Quincy Institute. In a May 2021 video posted online, Lee claimed that "a hostile relationship with China will make Americans less safe." She also bemoaned the potential to lose "cultural and student exchanges" with China, but did not mention that the CCP uses these programs to infiltrate U.S. institutions and spy on them.

The "most troubling" result of America’s "anti-China" foreign policy, according to Lee, is the rise in racist violence. "There is a clear link between the militaristic foreign policy that we’re seeing today and the rise of anti-Asian discrimination and hate crimes," the Quincy Institute wrote in an introduction to Lee’s video.

Lee's rumored hire comes at a pivotal point in the U.S.-China relationship and against the backdrop of the White House's softening stance toward China. While President Joe Biden has said in the past that the United States would defend Taiwan if it is invaded by China—comments that administration officials walked back—Biden recently warned Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi against visiting the contested island during her trip to Asia this week.

Lee also has advocated for the United States to end the Korean War and develop a "cooperative relationship" with the country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un.

"Over the long-term, Washington should also be open to the possibility of not just normalization of relations but to a cooperative relationship with Pyongyang as part of closing the chapter of the Korean War and stemming the growing arms race between the two Koreas," Lee wrote in a July 2022 analysis for the Quincy Institute.

Lee said that North Korea’s nuclear missile testing "makes sense" and that "over-emphasizing the nuclear threat fosters deterrence-centric solutions."

Lee, who will liaise with Congress as part of her role at the State Department, publicly griped in 2021 that Capitol Hill staffers are unable to comprehend North Korea policy issues.

"I saw firsthand the inherent challenges of getting 545 Hill offices to play a constructive role in [North Korea] related matters," she tweeted. There is a "lack of expertise, high staff turnover, and lack of sustained attention to Asia, just to name a few."

The State Department would not comment on personnel matters.

Update 3:57 p.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that Sasha Baker, a senior official at the Pentagon, was a former Quincy Institute official.

Published under: Biden AdministrationChinaForeign PolicyNorth Korea

freebeacon.com · by Adam Kredo · August 1, 2022



17. The Taiwan Crisis of 2022 Proves Why America Needs a New China Strategy By Wallace Gregson


Excerpts:


Today’s vastly different situation requires different policies. An increasingly belligerent Xi Jinping declared that Taiwan’s unification could not wait forever. Wolf Warrior diplomacy, combined with other assertive responses, are sure indicators that China will not be easily deterred. “Strategic Ambiguity,” aimed more at Taiwan than China, has run its course. Taiwan does not need restraint, and China won’t hear of it. What is needed is a strong deterrent in both our declared intentions and our capabilities.
This is the context facing Speaker Pelosi. She should visit. And we must upgrade our capabilities in the region. An undoubted capability to prevail is the most solid deterrence.




The Taiwan Crisis of 2022 Proves Why America Needs a New China Strategy

19fortyfive.com · by ByWallace Gregson · August 1, 2022

The Speaker’s Asian trip, with its potential Taiwan visit, sends observers and commentators on a trip through policies over four decades old. The context of the day when the earliest documents were drafted was a China with little ability to project power beyond its shores, facing a Taiwan under martial law and a military dictatorship. Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan’s long-tenured leader until his death in 1975, still claimed leadership over “mainland” China. He made plans to invade the mainland.

Chiang was an ally from WWII, and a factor in U.S. politics. He was much more appealing than the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” that racked China. The Cold War was on in earnest, as was the war in Vietnam. Fears of Communism’s expanding reach made Taiwan, or the Republic of China, a natural asset in that fight, despite their autocratic leadership and potential to provoke conflict. Taiwan’s geography was critical. It was, and is, the center of the First Island Chain where our allies reside. It was a preferred “R&R” destination for members of the US Armed Forces engaged in the Vietnam War, generating more appreciation for Taiwan among those who visited then. In today’s lexicon, Taiwan won that day’s information war.

Today’s context is very different, yet we still examine the old scrolls for guidance.

China now has immense power projection capability, civil and military. And they use it.

The civil power projection capability was amply demonstrated with their massive dredging operation in the South China Sea from December 2013 to October 2015. It created nearly 3,000 acres on top of coral reefs despite the likelihood of great environmental damage. These manufactured features are now thoroughly militarized despite promises to the contrary. One is bigger than Pearl Harbor, another larger than the area inside the DC Beltway. U.S. and global reactions were muted, at best. The Philippines was a lone exception.

China’s military capability, and its vast and continuing modernization and expansion, are well known.

Chinese military and naval intrusions and provocations in and around Taiwan are near-daily fare. Beyond Taiwan, China attempts to make good its claim of “undisputed historical sovereignty” over the entire South China Sea through harassment and dangerous activities close aboard U.S. and allied surveillance assets operating in recognized international waters and airspace.

The most significant change in the context across the Taiwan Strait from 1949 onward is Taiwan’s remarkable transformation from a military dictatorship under martial law to a vibrant, raucous democracy with a burgeoning economy. It’s been called a poster child for the global “third wave” of democratization that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.

This “democracy with Chinese characteristics” is Taiwan’s greatest affront to China. It leads China to threaten both Taiwan and the U.S. should we continue to support Taiwan. As a result, China increases the pressure on Taiwan and the U.S. across the spectrum of competition, stopping (so far) just short of active military engagement.

Today’s vastly different situation requires different policies. An increasingly belligerent Xi Jinping declared that Taiwan’s unification could not wait forever. Wolf Warrior diplomacy, combined with other assertive responses, are sure indicators that China will not be easily deterred. “Strategic Ambiguity,” aimed more at Taiwan than China, has run its course. Taiwan does not need restraint, and China won’t hear of it. What is needed is a strong deterrent in both our declared intentions and our capabilities.

This is the context facing Speaker Pelosi. She should visit. And we must upgrade our capabilities in the region. An undoubted capability to prevail is the most solid deterrence.

Lieutenant General Wallace “Chip” Gregson joined The Roosevelt Group as a Senior Advisor after over 30 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. Prior to retirement, Chip served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. He also served as Commanding General of Marine Corps Forces Pacific and Marine Corps Forces Central Command, where he led and managed over 70,000 Marines and Sailors in the Middle East, Afghanistan, East Africa, Asia, and the United States.

19fortyfive.com · by ByWallace Gregson · August 1, 2022



18. Realism Is More Than Restraint


Excerpts:


The fact is, there is a hot-blooded and literary quality to the march of events, set against a shrinking, increasingly fluid, and crowded world-geography that cannot be neatly or mechanically divided according to greater and lesser interests. Restrainers and offshore balancers, limited as they are to the geopolitical chessboard of a world that is far more interwoven than they may realize, have a long way to travel before approaching this higher level of realism.
Nevertheless, given the debacles of the recent past, and the immense stakes of great power rivalries that might lead us into future blunders, merely by staking out their positions as they have, restrainers and offshore balancers serve as a useful force for moderation and encourage us to better think through our decisions. Moreover, they raise the most serious of moral questions in the foreign policy realm: What is the price the average American citizen must pay for a foreign policy that seeks to set the world to rights? Treating restrainers and offshore balancers with the utmost consideration and seriousness is a small price to pay for the carnage of two misbegotten wars.




Realism Is More Than Restraint

What is the price the average American citizen must pay for a foreign policy that seeks to set the world to rights?

The National Interest · by Robert D. Kaplan · July 29, 2022

In his first book, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822, Henry Kissinger wrote that, “Every statesman must attempt to reconcile what is considered just with what is considered possible.” What is considered just depends on one’s own domestic values, but what is considered possible depends not only on the resources at your disposal but of the resources and values of opposing states. In other words, we can’t always get our way in a complex and intractable world. This may be one of the most useful and simply stated definitions of realism. A related definition is embodied in the “particularism” of George F. Kennan. Particularism stands against universal values and the legalistic rules that uphold them, and implicitly accepts the world as it is, with all of its cultural and philosophical differences that require different strategies. Because realism comprehends the sheer variety of the world, it has traditionally been the friend of area specialists: the Arabists, Sinologists, and others whose deep cultural knowledge has argued for particular approaches to different regions that abjure one-size-fits-all universalist strategies.

But comprehending the world with all of its limitations and variations also means something deeper: recognizing, especially in the cyber age, just how ferociously claustrophobic and interconnected the world actually is. The protection afforded by oceans still matter, but less and less so. Of course, this was true even during the Cold War. Because it was a world struggle, the Cold War witnessed both hard-headed realism and internationalism. The world today is even more inextricably linked than it was then. A world now united by financial markets as much as by the spread of disease, to say nothing about how a war in Ukraine is affecting food supplies in sub-Saharan Africa, is a world in which realism requires intense international engagement at many levels merely in order to operate effectively and be realistic.

Indeed, the world may be as divided as ever, but the relentless power of technology is rendering the world more and more a single system, in which crises can migrate from one part of the earth to another as never before, and affect each other as never before. The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann explained that whereas in the past a sparsely populated geography had acted as a safety mechanism against military and technological advances, as the years and decades advance geography itself has been losing the battle against population growth, urbanization, and weapons development. The very “finite size of the earth” has become a force for instability, in other words.

In this singular and highly unstable world system, becoming more unstable by the day, a school of policy belief has emerged counseling restraint and off-shore balancing, as the attributes of a new post-Cold War realism. There is nothing wrong with this belief on its face. Restraint is a good in and of itself, and is synonymous with prudence. Offshore balancing boasts the good of establishing priorities and a hierarchy of needs. The problem they have is not an intellectual flaw, especially considering that the lack of restraint and the failure to establish priorities were strong features of America’s recent debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the issue lies not in their logic, but in their limitations. The fact is that realism means more than those things.


In a world more interconnected than ever before, placing restraint on a pedestal may mean you’ll sacrifice any principle for the sake of it, and consequently run the risk of signaling inaction and weakness. Never tell your enemy what you’re not going to do, is a dictum of realism that an obsession with restraint violates. A foreign policy should not be that doctrinaire and predictable. Offshore balancing, by essentially stating publicly that the United States shall defend some parts of the world (Europe, Northeast Asia, the Persian Gulf) but not necessarily others may set off a mad scramble for influence in those other parts, such as the South China Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, as well as limiting our options in ambiguous crises that simultaneously involve multiple parts of the world in this hyper-global age.

Restraint and offshore balancing are faithful to realism in theory but not necessarily in practice. The theory of realism, harking back to Thucydides and progressing forward to the likes of Hans Morgenthau, essentially emphasizes national interest in a debased world, with its dim accounting of human nature and historical precedent, as opposed to abstract principles of justice. But restrainers and offshore balancers take this too far. They indicate that the United States is generally about looking out for itself and relatively little more. That is no way to exercise leadership for the world’s greatest diplomatic, military, and economic power. And leadership matters because alliances—so helpful in a nervous, chaotic world—are not self-organizing. Like all large groups, alliances depend on their strongest member for coherence.

Realism in actual practice has always been synonymous with something far greater than restraint and offshore balancing: that something is statesmanship, just as Kissinger alluded to in A World Restored.

A statesman must combine two opposite sensibilities, both of which are synonymous with realism.

The first is geopolitics, which judges whole populations according to their natural resources and position on the map. Interests rather than values are paramount. Then there are the psychologies, fears, and passions of great protagonists in a world crisis. For example, Ukraine’s geography, so engulfed by Russia, makes it doomed to be a neutral state, according to the geopolitician. But one can also declare that Ukraine’s fate will ultimately be decided by the actions and sensibilities of individual men: such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin. The first sensibility constitutes the realm of fate; the second the realm of human agency. It is in the interaction of these two seemingly opposite tendencies that statesmanship is forged. Statesmanship is about seeing the wisdom and limitations in both positions. And that is the height of realism.

Likewise, great statesmen, such as Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker III, and Richard Holbrooke, have focused on the geopolitical context as well as the personalities involved, with whom they’ve had to deal. Their genius was not just a matter of cold geopolitical strategy or political science, but of reading the minds of their interlocutors. That is why realist internationalism is a sensibility, not an ideology, and cannot be reduced to a simple one-dimensional theory or two. Realism in practice comprehends a world of tragic limits, even as its best practitioners know they must always push to the edges of those limits whenever possible. Contrarily, restrainers and offshore balancers seek safety within a narrower geopolitics that only sets the context of events and deemphasizes the human element that ultimately decides them. Indeed, the deals—and the failure to make deals—within those events is the province of individual men and women with whom the statesman engages, in order to transcend the status quo. Not just great men, but those immediately below them, too, all in the throes of passion as well as of logic, dramatically affect world history.

The fact is, there is a hot-blooded and literary quality to the march of events, set against a shrinking, increasingly fluid, and crowded world-geography that cannot be neatly or mechanically divided according to greater and lesser interests. Restrainers and offshore balancers, limited as they are to the geopolitical chessboard of a world that is far more interwoven than they may realize, have a long way to travel before approaching this higher level of realism.

Nevertheless, given the debacles of the recent past, and the immense stakes of great power rivalries that might lead us into future blunders, merely by staking out their positions as they have, restrainers and offshore balancers serve as a useful force for moderation and encourage us to better think through our decisions. Moreover, they raise the most serious of moral questions in the foreign policy realm: What is the price the average American citizen must pay for a foreign policy that seeks to set the world to rights? Treating restrainers and offshore balancers with the utmost consideration and seriousness is a small price to pay for the carnage of two misbegotten wars.

Robert D. Kaplan holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of twenty-one books, including The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power, forthcoming in January with Yale University Press.

Image: Reuters.

The National Interest · by Robert D. Kaplan · July 29, 2022



​19. New Book Exposes Harsh Truths About Veterans-and America






New Book Exposes Harsh Truths About Veterans-and America. - Beyond Chron

beyondchron.org · by Randy Shaw · August 1, 2022


Why America Fails its Vets

Health care, housing, climate change, education, racism and the war on democracy typically top the list of America’s problems. The mistreatment of veterans and America’s outrageously high military budget get less attention. Yet veterans are linked to most of these issues. This interconnection is demonstrated in Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs, the brilliant new book by Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early and Jasper Craven.

This is the first book I have come across that addresses the social, political and personal impacts of what it means to be a military veteran in the United States. Many of America’s policy failures are found in its mistreatment of veterans—-despite all the flag waving and demands to “support our troops.”

Vets and Health Care

Central to the book is the broken politics surrounding veterans’ health care.

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) offers a great public health care model. Since the United States is the only industrialized nation lacking universal health care, the VHA’s success helps build political support for Medicare for All.

Unfortunately, the right-wing Koch brothers and other corporate interests view veterans’ positive health care experiences as a threat to the private health industry. They have prioritized privatizing the Veteran’s Health Administration. Our Veterans details how corporate interests and their media allies have helped undermine the VHA. These anti-public health political forces succeeded in getting the federal government to divert billions of dollars into private medical companies without requiring much if any accountability.

Our Veterans explains how private health care companies get away with taking public dollars despite failing to meet the high standards of the VHA. Suzanne Gordon has written many stories (some for Beyond Chron), critical of these privatization efforts. The authors show how the NY Times and other media created a false crisis around VHA care involving waiting times and other issues. And even when private health care performs worse on these exact issues, the all-in on privatization momentum—fueled by campaign contributions—continues.

Before reading this book I thought all vets could get VHA care. Wrong. Only vets whose health problems can be shown to be service related. And vets who get “bad paper” discharges—not surprising disproportionately issued to soldiers of color—get no VHA care no matter how bad their service-related disability.

The authors convincingly show how veterans’ health care is sacrificed to serve right-wing and corporate interests. This point was again proved last week. As I wrote this review Republican Senators used the filibuster to defeat the PACT Act, which would “establish a presumption of service connection for 23 respiratory illnesses and cancers related to the smoke from burn pits” for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also created similar protections for certain toxins veterans of the Cold War, Vietnam, and other conflicts were exposed to.

PACT would benefit about one in five living veterans. Yet we have the same Republicans who attack athletes for not standing up for the national anthem denying desperately needed health care to vets.

Post-Discharge Transitions

Many low-income people enlist in the military due to a lack of other job or educational options. The military offers recruiting bonuses and the potential for college funding. The authors note that many cities have recruiting offices for the military while the federal government has nothing similar for other federal jobs, such as at the post office or for other non-military functions. The goal is to provide such limited alternatives that low-income people feel that the military is their best if not only real option.

Military service is said to further post-military job prospects. But Our Veterans shows that we have come a long way from the days when WW2 vets got generous benefits from the GI Bill. Today, these post-service opportunities primarily apply to officers, not enlisted personnel. Finding jobs can be difficult for other veterans due to negative and false stereotypes about their emotional stability.

Our Veterans describes how many vets join local police forces. These military vets are far more likely to engage in shooting incidents on the job. The militarization of police forces, seen prominently in response to Black Lives Matter protests, encourages veterans to see policing street protests in the context of foreign wars.

The Power (and Failure) of Veterans Organizations

The book devotes two chapters to a subject that has long deserved greater scrutiny: the role of veteran’s advocacy organizations. Why do vets experience so many problems when many multi-million dollar veterans organizations claim to support veterans? The book tells the tawdry story of corporate and right-wing interests using veterans’ groups to promote their political goals—and it names names.

Our Veterans also reports on the more progressive vets groups that emerged to help those in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. San Francisco is blessed to have the most impactful progressive veterans group of all, Swords to Plowshares. The book also praises the Paralyzed Veterans of America for being alone among the older, large national veterans’ organizations to address racism in the wake of the George Floyd protests.

The detailed accounts of large veterans groups working against the interests of veterans is disturbing. Most of these groups joined most vets backed draft-dodger Donald Trump in 2016. Let’s hope the light shone by this book on the anti-vet activities of many veterans groups—along with many vets in Congress—forces a change.

That’s why people need to read this book. Our Veterans can help build progressive activism and public support for more favorable policies toward veterans. The book is a page-turner, and reads like a series of fast paced magazine articles.

The social justice policies that help veterans also help most Americans. Our Veterans greatest triumph may be in demonstrating this connection.

(Authors Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early will be speaking about Our Veterans in San Francisco at an event to benefit KPFA radio on September 7, 6-8pm at the Veterans Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue, Room 206. Tickets available here.)


Randy Shaw

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw's latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist's Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco

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Filed under: Book Reviews

beyondchron.org · by Randy Shaw · August 1, 2022

20. Expert Who Blamed China Hawks for Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Joins Team Biden



Ms Lee is getting a lot of press with her political appointment.


Expert Who Blamed China Hawks for Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Joins Team Biden

A screenshot of Jessica J. Lee, former senior research fellow on East Asia at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.(Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft/YouTube)





By JIMMY QUINN


August 1, 2022 3:17 PM

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/expert-who-blamed-china-hawks-for-anti-asian-hate-crimes-joins-team-biden/?utm_source=pocket_mylist

A former fellow for a controversial think tank has been appointed to a senior State Department role.

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think-tank expert with a history of controversial views on China and North Korea recently joined the Biden administration as a political appointee, National Review has learned.


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Up until late last month, Jessica Lee was a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft — a George Soros– and Charles Koch–funded think tank, which has taken relatively soft stances toward China, Russia, and Iran. During her tenure there, she urged policy-makers to abandon hard-edged criticism of Beijing, while also blaming China hawks for a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes.

Congressional sources confirm to NR that she has since joined the State Department in its legislative-affairs bureau. Her paper trail on a variety of issues is likely to raise eyebrows in foreign-policy circles.

In an essay for Foreign Affairs in July 2021, for one, she and co-author Russell Jeung implied that the Biden administration exaggerates the threat posed by the Chinese regime, and they urged it to hire experts who disagree with its hawkish stances:

If Biden truly wants to reduce anti-Asian violence at home, he must adopt a more constructive China policy that does not depend on an exaggerated depiction of Beijing’s challenge to the United States. For one, such an effort should include bringing in personnel with a diverse set of opinions on U.S.-Chinese relations, including those who do not believe that the only course forward is extreme caution.

Jeung is the co-founder of an activist group, Stop AAPI Hate, that similarly blames anti-Asian hate crimes on China hawks’ rhetoric and preferred policies.

They continued: “Without a conscious effort to diversify internal deliberation on China policy, Washington’s behavior will continue to foster anti-Asian racism — just as it did during the Trump era.”


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The piece accused China hawks of using “conspiratorial language” and of “demonizing an entire nation.”

Despite the Quincy Institute’s splashy launch in late 2019, and the largesse of its billionaire co-founders, it has been beset by a series of scandals that have undermined its effectiveness. Among other things, critics such as Senator Tom Cotton as well as former employees have accused it of peddling antisemitic views, denying the Chinese Communist Party’s mass atrocities against Uyghurs, and paying insufficient attention to Russian war crimes.

As of this week, Lee’s Twitter account was set to private, with a bio calling her an “expert on East Asia and legislative affairs.” A congressional staffer told NR that she is now a senior adviser to the State Department’s legislative-affairs bureau — the office that manages the department’s relationships with congressional offices.

Despite the Quincy Institute affiliation, Lee appears to have made significant inroads with the Biden administration over the past year and a half.

In 2021, Lee launched a monthslong campaign to urge the Biden administration to take a softer posture toward the Chinese Communist Party, citing anti-Asian hate crimes as reason to soft-pedal U.S. criticism of China. In addition to co-authoring the above-quoted piece for Foreign Affairs, she shared that message at several events across the federal government.


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Last October, she was a panelist at a Department of Homeland Security event called “How Misinformation Fueled the Rise in Anti-AAPI Targeted Violence.” That event was co-hosted by the Asian American Foundation, a nonprofit group co-founded by the pro-CCP billionaire and Alibaba executive Joseph Tsai. Speaking about a purported link between a tough U.S. stance toward China and anti-Asian hate incidents, Lee claimed credit for lobbying the State Department to shift to a softer tone.

“My communication with Asian-American diplomats at the State Department shows that the work that we’re doing to shine light on these issues is having a positive impact in ensuring that we don’t use sweeping terms like ‘malign influence’ to describe China’s influence,” she said during the event.

The State Department later confirmed to NR that it did in fact move away from using the phrase “malign influence,” referring to CCP behavior, out of concern that it was too sweeping. It did not deny that Lee and the Quincy Institute played a role in that apparent change.


The institute and the State Department did not respond to a request for comment for this report.

News that the State Department had hired a different Quincy Institute alum, Rachel Esplin Odell, in its intelligence research bureau caused an uproar in Washington last month, after NR reported that she made a series of comments blaming the U.S. for undermining its One China policy, according to which Washington maintains only unofficial ties with Taipei. China policy experts, several senators, and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo variously condemned Odell’s comments and questioned the propriety of her decision to speak in such a public forum opposing the administration’s policies.

Lee’s hiring raises similar concerns, pertaining as well to her work urging reconciliation with the North Korean dictatorship. In a July 19 article for Quincy’s in-house blog, she argued that the U.S. response to North Korean belligerence should be to seek a closer diplomatic relationship with Pyongyang.

“Over the long-term, Washington should also be open to the possibility of not just normalization of relations but to a cooperative relationship with Pyongyang as part of closing the chapter of the Korean War and stemming the growing arms race between the two Koreas,” she wrote.

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JIMMY QUINN is the national security correspondent for National Review. @james_t_quinn




21. Troops dump $100 million per year into Defense Department-owned slot machines



And overseas a lot of non-military and foreigners do so as well.


And it all goes to support MWR, right?​


Excerpts:


The machines are managed by each military branch’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) groups. MWR groups tend to focus on service members’ home lives, family resilience, and general wellness. The Army MWR website, for example, provides resources for everything from child and youth services and soldiers’ financial challenges, to substance abuse and recreational activities like camping and sports.
And according to one Pentagon spokeswoman who spoke to NPR, the slot machines contribute “significantly to the non-appropriated fund and many other recreation and entertainment overseas programs.” Never mind the massive budget the Defense Department receives, which reached $773 billion total in the most recent request submitted in May.


Troops dump $100 million per year into Defense Department-owned slot machines

Just giving your hard-earned pay back to the government.

BY HALEY BRITZKY | PUBLISHED AUG 1, 2022 12:55 PM

taskandpurpose.com · by Haley Britzky · August 1, 2022

Because hundreds of billions of dollars in an official budget apparently isn’t enough, the Defense Department has been raking in roughly $100 million a year from service members using official U.S. military slot machines overseas.

According to a report from NPR, there are more than 3,000 U.S. military-run slot machines at American installations overseas. And while people cannot legally enter most casinos in the U.S. until they’re 21, service members as young as 18 can use the Pentagon’s slot machines.

The machines are managed by each military branch’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) groups. MWR groups tend to focus on service members’ home lives, family resilience, and general wellness. The Army MWR website, for example, provides resources for everything from child and youth services and soldiers’ financial challenges, to substance abuse and recreational activities like camping and sports.

And according to one Pentagon spokeswoman who spoke to NPR, the slot machines contribute “significantly to the non-appropriated fund and many other recreation and entertainment overseas programs.” Never mind the massive budget the Defense Department receives, which reached $773 billion total in the most recent request submitted in May.

Kadena Air Base residents tour the game room of the Rocker Enlisted Club May 16, 2018, at Kadena Air Base, Japan. The game room features more than 80 entertainment slot machines. (Senior Airman Omari Bernard/U.S. Air Force)

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Of that request, $1.8 million is meant for the department’s MWR programs, which the Pentagon’s budget overview says improve service members and their families’ quality of life. A total of $9.2 million was requested for various family support programs, including child care and youth programs, family services, Defense Department schools, and MWR programs.

“As the Department continues to reshape its forces for current and future missions,” the overview says, “it is committed to sustaining a balanced portfolio of family assistance programs that are fiscally sustainable and continue to promote service member and family readiness.”

Some veterans said the slot machines on-base reduced the chance for service members to get into trouble off-base in their free time. One Navy veteran said he spent “hours in front of the slot machines,” and rarely lost or won more than $50.

“I don’t see where that is really going to create an issue,” the veteran, Ed Grabowski, told NPR. “I could drop $50 in a pinball machine.”

A soldier deposits funds into a safe in a finance office, Nov. 4, 2013, at Bagram Air Field, Parwan province, Afghanistan. (Sgt. Sinthia Rosario/U.S. Army)

But experts raised concerns about the impact gambling could have on service members. The National Council on Problem Gambling estimated that roughly 4% of troops “meet the criteria for moderate to severe gambling problems,” which is two times the national average, NPR reports.

“Everything we know about military personnel — that they tend to be young, male, risk-takers, likely to be suffering from higher rates of substance abuse, stress, depression, PTSD or traumatic brain injuries — is conclusively correlated with problem gambling,” NCPG’s executive director, Keith Whyte, told NPR.

Dr. Timothy Fong, co-director of the Gambling Studies program at UCLA, said that he met service members who became addicted to gambling in part because of the “easy access to slot machines” while stationed overseas.

“My concern is they’re managed by the DOD — not by a public health institution or by groups that regulate gambling,” Fong said.

U.S. Air Force Col. John Creel, 39th Air Base Wing commander, counts cash for a customer’s withdrawal request as part of his immersion tour with the wing staff agency July 30, 2020, at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. (Senior Airman Matthew Angulo/U.S. Air Force)

Lawmakers have tried and failed to address the problem with legislation, NPR reported. They took issue specifically with the way gambling could make troops susceptible to blackmail or disrupt their ability to get security clearances. For some military jobs, receiving a high-security clearance takes into consideration service members’ financial situations and any possible debt they might have.

The Defense Department has said there are “extensive controls in place to minimize potential abuse,” NPR reported, including limited hours of operation and access to the slot machines, as well as limiting the potential winnings. But an Army veteran who spoke to NPR, Dave Yeagar, said when he was stationed in South Korea in 2001, there didn’t seem to be any oversight on how often he gambled.

And since then, he said, not much has changed.

“There were literally days that I would go in there when the slot room opened on a Saturday morning and leave when it closed,” Yeagar said. “Nobody came up to me and said, ‘You’ve been here too long.’ Nobody. Nothing.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Haley Britzky · August 1, 2022







De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com


V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

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