Quotes of the Day:
“Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Democracy is a difficult art of government, demanding of its citizens high ratios of courage and literacy, and at the moment we lack both the necessary habits of mind and a sphere of common reference."
-Lewis H. Lapham
"Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character."
- Eric Hoffer
1. Confidential State Department Cable in July Warned of Afghanistan’s Collapse
2. As US military sticks to airport, British and French forces are rescuing their citizens in Kabul: reports
3. Afghan officer who fought with US forces rescued from Kabul
4. U.S. position on Taiwan unchanged despite Biden comment - official
5. How News Organizations Got Afghan Colleagues Out of Kabul
6. Failure in Afghanistan Won’t Weaken America’s Alliances
7. Will Afghanistan Become a Terrorist Safe Haven Again?
8. What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban
9. Evacuation proceeds, but fears of Taliban reprisal soar
10. US struggles to speed Kabul airlift
11. President Biden will speak Friday on the troubled evacuation effort.
12. How a Technology Revolution Powered the Taliban's Return
13. The Panjshir Afghanistan Resistance is No Coincidence
14. Harris' Asia trip carries new urgency after Afghan collapse
15. How the Taliban won: They leveraged Afghan history and culture
16. Taliban Takeover: Panjshir Valley Holdouts Offer Peace Deal to Taliban
17. CNN continues hammering Biden over Afghan turmoil: 'If this isn't failure, what does failure look like?'
18. Army Special Forces want to integrate more with other military units on info warfare
19. Lost trust in the US? One country differs.
20. Irregular Warfare is Great Power Competition - Part 2
21. Asymmetric Warfare and Military Modernization in the Philippines
22. Tsai says Taiwan needs to be stronger
23. Taiwan Wants Paladins. Congress Should Say No
24. As Chinese Vaccines Stumble, U.S. Finds New Opening in Asia
25. Opinion | Here’s why the U.S. national security apparatus keeps producing failures
26. Chinese espionage tool exploits vulnerabilities in 58 widely used websites
1. Confidential State Department Cable in July Warned of Afghanistan’s Collapse
People on the ground observe and report the ground truth.
Confidential State Department Cable in July Warned of Afghanistan’s Collapse
About two dozen State Department officials in Kabul sent an internal memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken
The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban, one of the people said.
The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it.
As of last weekend, some 18,000 Afghans who have applied for the U.S.’s Special Immigrant Visa program, as well as their families, remained on the ground in Afghanistan, with about half of them outside Kabul in areas already under Taliban control, and efforts to get them to the Kabul airport have grown more difficult by the day.
U.S. soldiers are guarding the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, where thousands of Afghans are waiting to get flights out of Afghanistan.
Photo: Shekib Rahmani/Associated Press
In all, 23 U.S. Embassy staffers, all Americans, signed the July 13 cable, the two people said. The U.S. official said there was a rush to deliver it, given circumstances on the ground in Kabul.
The cable was sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Director of Policy Planning Salman Ahmad. Mr. Blinken received the cable and reviewed it shortly after receipt, according to the person familiar with the exchange, who added that contingency planning was already under way when it was received, and that Mr. Blinken welcomed their feedback.
State Department spokesman Ned Price declined to address the cable, but told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Blinken reads every dissent and reviews every reply.
“He’s made clear that he welcomes and encourages use of the dissent channel, and is committed to its revitalization,” Mr. Price said. “We value constructive internal dissent.”
The existence of the confidential State Department cable adds to an expanding debate involving the White House, Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services over what U.S. officials understood about assessments of Afghanistan’s stability.
U.S. military and intelligence officials, struggling with the fallout from the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s government and armed forces, have sparred over U.S. intelligence assessments regarding the country’s stability.
Mr. Biden in July had said that a collapse of the government and a Taliban takeover were “highly unlikely,” pointing to the large numbers of Afghan National Security Force members, their U.S. training and modern equipment, including an air force.
On Wednesday, in an interview with ABC News, President Biden said that “the idea that somehow there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens.”
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, has said that a speedy demise of the U.S.-supported government and army was unanticipated.
“There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” he said at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
2. As US military sticks to airport, British and French forces are rescuing their citizens in Kabul: reports
Disappointing.
As US military sticks to airport, British and French forces are rescuing their citizens in Kabul: reports
As the Defense Department continues to stick to its plans of not reaching out into Kabul to assist U.S. personnel and Afghan helpers evacuate, British and French forces have done so to rescue their citizens, multiple outlets report.
The Daily Mail reported that London deployed an additional 300 troops to Kabul specifically to extract trapped British nationals earlier in the week. Within hours of touching down in Kabul, the British troops retrieved some 200 British nationals from around Kabul, the Telegraph reported. Prompting the mission were reports of Taliban hunting down former Afghan government officials, along with Britons stuck behind a web of Taliban checkpoints lining the route to the airport.
Additionally, France 24 reports that the French military has been conducting similar operations since Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron thanked French security forces on Twitter for executing a ‘sensitive operation’ which evacuated more than 200 French and Afghans.
Près de 200 Afghans qui ont travaillé pour la France ou qui sont menacés viennent d’être évacués de Kaboul. Ainsi que des Français et des ressortissants étrangers. À nos armées, policiers et équipes diplomatiques qui organisent ces opérations sensibles, merci. On continue. pic.twitter.com/xHSreTLOLI
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 18, 2021
News of these operations by NATO partners in Afghanistan leaves some Americans asking for Washington to follow suit. Matt Zeller, who served in Afghanistan as an Army intelligence officer, and is now a member of the Association of Wartime Allies, a group dedicated to relocating Afghans who helped the U.S., expressed his frustration on Facebook.
“Some of our NATO allies have already figured out better solutions. Some, like the French, are just going out with their Special Forces and getting their people by whatever means necessary. Mr. President, if the French can do it, so can we,” Zeller wrote.
Zeller’s frustrations stem from a chaotic scene around the HKIA that prevents potential evacuees from reaching safety. Earlier this week, Zeller told Military Times that the situation in Kabul was dire and shaping up to be “worse than Saigon.”
“There’s total chaos at the airport, this is the absolute fiasco we all learned about, and nobody listened to,” Zeller told Military Times. “They need to then begin establishing secure corridors in Kabul, so people can get to the airport because what’s happened is the Taliban have erected checkpoints everywhere.”
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Yesterday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said yesterday that despite the U.S. having at least 5,000 troops on the ground, he does not have the “capability” to reach out beyond HKIA.
“The forces that we have are focused on the security of the airfield. And you know how important that is, and you know what happens if we — if we lose the ability to provide that security,” Austin told reporters from a podium in the Pentagon.
Austin’s comments come amid reports of both British and French military units doing precisely that, pushing out into Kabul to secure the safety of their citizens. Occurring despite the Daily Mail reporting that the British contingent numbers less than 1,000 troops.
In his press conference yesterday, Austin acknowledged the challenges that Taliban checkpoints present for those seeking to leave Afghanistan. However, Austin stated that the U.S. government would continue to negotiate safe passage of evacuees with the Taliban rather than take action.
“We’ve gone back and tried to — and reinforce to the Taliban that if they have credentials, they need to be allowed through,” Austin said.
Thursday morning, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby and Army Maj. Gen. William D. “Hank” Taylor, deputy director for regional operations and force management for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated that the U.S. military mission in Kabul is focused solely on operations at HKIA.
Negotiating with the Taliban for safe passage is not enough for Zeller and others, particularly in light of actions taken by Britain and France.
“It’s ungodly, man. F---ing sinful,” Dane Bowker, who deployed multiple times to Afghanistan, including with a Joint Special Operations Task Force, told Military Times.
Zeller finished his message this morning by asking the president to take action, as the window to fly out both Americans and Afghans is rapidly closing. Among these actions was a request to use the U.S. troops on the ground to secure safe passage for those needing a flight out.
“The Taliban cannot be allowed to remain 100m from US Marines where they can commit atrocities in front of us knowing we will do nothing. They are thugs. We are the United States of America. Show them we won’t be bullied. Use the might of our forces to create a humanitarian corridor in Kabul — so that people can safely get to the airport without this chaos and constant Taliban interference,” Zeller wrote.
3. Afghan officer who fought with US forces rescued from Kabul
Some good news. Let us leave no one behind.
“He fought until he had nothing left to fight with,” Green said. “He was wounded. He was surrounded. His forces were not being resupplied. And echelons above him in the government had already begun to make their exit plan ... and striking deals. So people like him who were fighting were left stranded, and they were left without support.”
McCreary said Khalid originally sought protection only for his family while he kept fighting. Khalid and other fighters were completely surrounded by the Taliban last week and their location overrun, McCreary said.
At one point, rescuers lost contact with Khalid for several days, “and we all assumed that that he was killed,” McCreary said. “Just last week, we thought it was over, and then we were just going to ... keep working harder to protect his family.”
Khalid’s supporters said it would have been unthinkable to leave him behind after his years of partnership with Americans.
Afghan officer who fought with US forces rescued from Kabul
militarytimes.com · by Alex Sanz, Tammy Webber, The Associated Press · August 19, 2021
Time was running out for Mohammad Khalid Wardak, a high-profile Afghan national police officer who spent years working alongside the American military.
Hunted by the Taliban, he was hiding with his family in Kabul, constantly moving from place to place as they tried — and failed — several times to reach a rendezvous point where they could be rescued.
After at least four attempts in as many days, the family finally was whisked away by helicopter Wednesday in a dramatic rescue — called Operation Promise Kept — carried out under cover of darkness by the U.S. military and its allies, said Robert McCreary, a former congressional chief of staff and White House official under President George W. Bush, who has worked with special forces in Afghanistan.
The rescue of Khalid, as he’s called by friends, came after frantic efforts by his supporters in the U.S. military, who said he was a brother in arms who helped save countless lives and faced certain death if found by the Taliban. They sought help from members of Congress and the Defense and State departments.
“I don’t think people understand the chaos that is reigning right now in the capital, the brutality and the efficient lethality the Taliban are using ... to ensure their rise to power as they eliminate their greatest threat, which are these military and special police,” said U.S. Army Special Forces Sgt. Major Chris Green, who worked with Khalid in Afghanistan.
Khalid and his family were unable to get inside the airport where the Taliban controlled the entrances. He was widely known because of his position as police chief in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province and from television appearances, including one in which he challenged the Taliban to a fight, supporters said.
Green said he was “incredibly happy ... elated,” when he learned that Khalid and his family were safe, noting that some of his American rescuers had worked alongside Khalid, which he called “serendipitous.”
McCreary said multiple allies, including the British, helped, and that Khalid, his wife and their four sons, ages 3 to 12, were “safe in an undisclosed location under the protection of the United States.”
Officials said other Afghan partners, including police and military, also deserved to be saved and that more rescue efforts were in progress, but they could not discuss details.
Khalid’s friends said he had no intention of leaving Afghanistan, and planned to stand with his countrymen to defend his homeland after U.S. forces were gone. But the government collapsed with stunning speed, and the president fled the country.
“He fought until he had nothing left to fight with,” Green said. “He was wounded. He was surrounded. His forces were not being resupplied. And echelons above him in the government had already begun to make their exit plan ... and striking deals. So people like him who were fighting were left stranded, and they were left without support.”
McCreary said Khalid originally sought protection only for his family while he kept fighting. Khalid and other fighters were completely surrounded by the Taliban last week and their location overrun, McCreary said.
At one point, rescuers lost contact with Khalid for several days, “and we all assumed that that he was killed,” McCreary said. “Just last week, we thought it was over, and then we were just going to ... keep working harder to protect his family.”
Khalid’s supporters said it would have been unthinkable to leave him behind after his years of partnership with Americans.
Khalid came to the rescue in March 2013, when a special forces detachment in eastern Afghanistan’s Wardak province suffered an insider attack. Someone dressed in an Afghan National Security Forces uniform opened fire, killing two Americans.
When the outpost was almost simultaneously attacked from the outside, a U.S. commander called on Khalid, who within minutes raced into the valley with a quick-reaction force to defend his American partners.
In 2015, when Khalid lost part of his right leg in a rocket-propelled grenade attack, friends in the U.S. military helped get him medical care and a prosthetic leg outside the country. A month later, he was again leading special police operations in Afghanistan alongside the U.S., Green said.
Along the way, he helped apprehend al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. He went on to serve as police chief in Ghazni province and then Helmand province, where he was wounded again last month in a mortar attack and continued to direct the resistance from his hospital bed.
Khalid’s family has applied for refugee status in the U.S. based on fear of persecution, but it’s unclear how long that process might take or if they will be approved. Translators, interpreters and others who worked for the U.S. in Afghanistan are eligible to apply for special immigrant visas, but current Afghan military members or police officers are not, supporters said.
His supporters said it was most important to get them out of harm’s way and then figure the rest out later. People who are top Taliban targets because of their work with U.S. forces deserve special consideration, McCreary said.
“No one wants to live with the guilt of turning our backs or not ... honoring our promises,” McCreary said. That commitment and the collaboration it took to rescue Khalid “makes you proud to be an American.”
militarytimes.com · by Alex Sanz, Tammy Webber, The Associated Press · August 19, 2021
4. U.S. position on Taiwan unchanged despite Biden comment - official
Excerpts:
Biden replied that Taiwan, South Korea and NATO were fundamentally different situations to Afghanistan and appeared to lump Taiwan together with countries to which Washington has explicit defense commitments.
"They are ... entities we've made agreements with based on not a civil war they're having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doin' bad things to them," he said.
"We have made - kept every commitment. We made a sacred commitment to Article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with - Taiwan. It's not even comparable to talk about that."
A senior Biden administration official said U.S. "policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed" and analysts said it appeared that Biden had misspoken.
China's embassy in Washington and Taiwan's representative office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. position on Taiwan unchanged despite Biden comment - official
Flags of Taiwan and U.S. are placed for a meeting in Taipei, Taiwan March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A senior Biden administration official said on Thursday that U.S. policy on Taiwan had not changed after President Joe Biden appeared to suggest the United States would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held U.S. position of "strategic ambiguity."
In a interview aired by ABC News on Thursday, Biden was asked about the effects of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and responses in Chinese media telling Taiwan this showed Washington could not be relied on to come to its defense.
Biden replied that Taiwan, South Korea and NATO were fundamentally different situations to Afghanistan and appeared to lump Taiwan together with countries to which Washington has explicit defense commitments.
"They are ... entities we've made agreements with based on not a civil war they're having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doin' bad things to them," he said.
"We have made - kept every commitment. We made a sacred commitment to Article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with - Taiwan. It's not even comparable to talk about that."
A senior Biden administration official said U.S. "policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed" and analysts said it appeared that Biden had misspoken.
China's embassy in Washington and Taiwan's representative office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While Washington is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has long followed a policy of "strategic ambiguity" on whether it would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
Article 5 is a NATO agreement that states that an attack on one member of the alliance is viewed as an attack on all.
South Korea is also a U.S. treaty ally with a mutual defense agreement, but U.S. relations with Chinese-claimed Taiwan have been unofficial since Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
Some prominent U.S. academics and others have argued Washington should give Taiwan a more explicit security guarantee in light of increasing military pressure from Beijing, but Biden's Indo-Pacific policy coordinator, Kurt Campbell, has appeared to reject this, saying in May there were "significant downsides" to such an approach. read more
Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, called Biden's apparent mischaracterization "unfortunate."
"The U.S. had an Article 5 commitment to Taiwan from 1954 to 1979. The Biden administration isn't considering returning to that commitment, as indicated by public statements by Kurt Campbell."
Earlier this week Republican Senator John Cornyn erroneously tweeted that the United States has 30,000 troops in Taiwan, which has not been the case since before 1979. read more
Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked about Taiwan this week and called it a "fundamentally different question in a different context" to Afghanistan.
"We believe our commitment to Taiwan ... remains as strong as it's ever been," he said, without specifying what the commitment was.
Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis
5. How News Organizations Got Afghan Colleagues Out of Kabul
Our journalists are always resourceful and good people.
Excerpts:
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in recent days, the publishers of The Times, The Journal and The Post banded together on their evacuation efforts. Security personnel and editors shared information on morning calls. The publishers called on the Biden administration to help facilitate the passage of their Afghan colleagues, and discussions ensued with officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department.
By Sunday, bureaus had been closed and Kabul’s streets had grown chaotic. As American troops, contractors and security teams left the country, newsroom officials had less and less visibility into the situation on the ground. Some Afghan employees feared that Taliban forces would go door to door, intimidating or even kidnapping journalists known to have worked with American outlets.
How News Organizations Got Afghan Colleagues Out of Kabul
The evacuation of those who worked for outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post came after a global rescue effort stretching from the Pentagon to Qatar.
Hundreds gathered Monday near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane at the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.Credit...Shekib Rahmani/Associated Press
Aug. 19, 2021, 7:02 p.m. ET
For hours, they waited on the tarmac in the relentless heat, children and suitcases and strollers in tow, hoping for a flight to freedom that would not come. More than 200 Afghans from all walks of life — cooks, gardeners, translators, drivers, journalists — gathered on the runway of the Kabul airport, seeking escape from a country whose government had collapsed with shocking speed.
When Taliban forces surged into the crowded airport, the group — local employees of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, along with their relatives — heard gunfire. They quickly scattered, eventually returning to homes where their safety could not be assured.
It would be several long days until some members of the group were able to secure passage on Thursday out of Afghanistan — an exfiltration that came after a global rescue effort stretching from American newsrooms to the halls of the Pentagon to the emir’s palace in Doha, Qatar. One Times correspondent, a former U.S. Marine, who had been evacuated earlier but returned on a military plane to assist his Afghan colleagues, stayed inside the airport to help coordinate the escape.
The group’s ordeal was one of many that played out over the past week in Afghanistan, where citizens who worked side by side with Western journalists for years — helping to inform the world about the travails of their nation — now fear for their safety and that of their families under the Taliban. Media outlets from around the world have called on high-level diplomats and on-the-ground fixers to help their employees escape a situation that none expected to unfold so brutally, so quickly.
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in recent days, the publishers of The Times, The Journal and The Post banded together on their evacuation efforts. Security personnel and editors shared information on morning calls. The publishers called on the Biden administration to help facilitate the passage of their Afghan colleagues, and discussions ensued with officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department.
By Sunday, bureaus had been closed and Kabul’s streets had grown chaotic. As American troops, contractors and security teams left the country, newsroom officials had less and less visibility into the situation on the ground. Some Afghan employees feared that Taliban forces would go door to door, intimidating or even kidnapping journalists known to have worked with American outlets.
The American military had secured a portion of Hamid Karzai International Airport, just a few kilometers from the center of Kabul, but getting there, and then gaining access to the terminal, became nearly impossible. On Sunday, the group of more than 200 people connected to the three papers, including employees and their relatives, traveled to the airport’s tarmac, hoping to make contact with the American military, according to three people briefed on the events, some of whom requested anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Instead, they found a scene of mass confusion, with hundreds of other panicked Afghans seeking refuge. When Taliban forces arrived, the situation grew more dangerous; members of the group left dehydrated, hungry and dispirited, with no clear idea of what would happen next, the people said.
Back in New York and Washington, the papers’ leaders reached out to diplomatic contacts in countries with embassies in Afghanistan, chasing leads that could result in safe harbor and transportation for their employees. “There were many plans and many efforts that either failed or fell apart,” said Michael Slackman, an assistant managing editor for international for The Times. “You’d have a plan at night and two hours later the circumstances on the ground would have shifted.”
One option emerged when Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, offered a few seats for Afghan employees on a charter flight her team was trying to arrange to help Afghan women at risk, according to three people briefed on the discussions. The employees did not end up taking the flight.
On Tuesday, 13 people from The Washington Post — including two Afghan employees and their families and an American correspondent — were able to leave on an American military transport bound for Qatar with the help of “a number of people coordinating on different fronts,” according to a spokeswoman, Kristine Coratti Kelly. Fred Ryan, The Post’s publisher, had emailed the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, for assistance.
Three Wall Street Journal correspondents had left the country by Tuesday, and the newspaper was continuing to work on evacuating dozens of Afghan employees. A spokeswoman said on Thursday that there had been “positive progress and our colleagues are on their way to safe passage.”
“We will have more to share soon,” Colleen Schwartz, the spokeswoman, said.
A breakthrough for a group of 128 people from The Times came when the government of Qatar, a country with ties to both Afghanistan and the United States, agreed to help. Qatar is home to an American military base; it also has an embassy in Kabul and a relationship with Taliban leaders.
A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, said the company was “deeply grateful” to the government of Qatar, “which has been truly invaluable in getting our Afghan colleagues and their families to safety.”
“We also thank the many U.S. government officials who took a personal interest in the plight of our colleagues and the military personnel in Kabul who helped them make their exit from the country,” Mr. Sulzberger said in a statement. “We urge the international community to continue working on behalf of the many brave Afghan journalists still at risk in the country.”
News outlets remain focused on aiding the Afghans whose employment in some cases stretches back decades. Some are holed up in cities outside Kabul, unable to travel to the airport or pass Taliban checkpoints. The Kabul airport itself remains inundated by waves of Afghans seeking flights out of the country, with Taliban forces blocking various entry points.
Overnight on Thursday, employees of The Times and their relatives made another attempt to reach the airport. At first turned away by teeming crowds and guards at a Taliban checkpoint, the group eventually found an open entryway, according to the three people briefed on the events.
The group was aided by a pair of Times foreign correspondents: Mujib Mashal and Thomas Gibbons-Neff. Mr. Neff, a former Marine, had initially left Kabul with an early round of American evacuees. But he later flew back to Kabul on a military plane and stayed in the American-occupied wing of the airport, where he advised his Afghan colleagues on how and when to make their approach.
“State Department officials — both in Washington and Kabul — have been in constant, around-the-clock contact with U.S.-based media organizations regarding efforts to bring their reporters, employees and affiliates to safety,” the State Department said in a statement on Thursday. “It is a priority of ours, and we welcome today’s news.”
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.
Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.
What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.
The next steps for news outlets are unclear. For English-speaking correspondents who remain in Kabul, covering the still-unfolding story has grown more perilous.
On Thursday, a Los Angeles Times photojournalist, Marcus Yam, and a photographer for another American news outlet were beaten by a Taliban fighter who insisted they erase from their cameras any images they had taken. The photographers were detained for 20 minutes until an English-speaking fighter realized they worked for the Western media and released them.
Clarissa Ward of CNN changed into a full-length abaya in order to keep speaking with Afghans on the street.Credit...Brent Swails/CNN
Instead of armored cars, some broadcast journalists now rely on unmarked taxis, the better to avoid scrutiny or unwanted attention. After the Taliban took power, Clarissa Ward of CNN changed into a full-length abaya in order to keep speaking with Afghans on the street. Roxana Saberi of CBS News switched to Zoom when it became too difficult to freely conduct interviews in public.
Cellular service is unreliable, but some correspondents try to keep off satellite phones, “so our locations aren’t given away,” said Deborah Rayner, CNN’s senior vice president for international news gathering.
“People will be much more clandestine in their gathering of news, because they’ll have to be,” said John Lippman, the acting director of programming at Voice of America. “We’ll be covering Afghanistan from outside Afghanistan if we have to.”
Reporting remotely may be better than no reporting at all, but press freedom groups are concerned that a Taliban crackdown will keep the world from knowing what’s happening inside the country. “The local knowledge of Afghan journalists cannot be replaced,” Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.
One news organization has increased its staff in Afghanistan: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media and television network.
Mohamed Moawad, its managing editor, said this week that his correspondents were able to move mostly without restrictions in Afghanistan and that he had dispatched more reporters, including some traveling from Doha and neighboring countries. One veteran Afghan correspondent helped the network secure exclusive footage of the Taliban taking control of the presidential palace.
“Putting the focus on Afghanistan right now is very vital and crucial for the people of Afghanistan, to hold the Taliban accountable for their commitments that they have put on the table,” he said.
But Mr. Moawad expressed concern that global coverage of Afghanistan could fade as conditions deteriorate and foreign journalists, along with their Afghan colleagues, no longer feel safe. “We have to make sure the coverage continues,” he said.
Annie Karni and Michael Crowley contributed reporting.
6. Failure in Afghanistan Won’t Weaken America’s Alliances
Our adversaries will attempt to exploit this. The press and the pundits will criticize and predict our demise. But our allies know that alliances are key to US foreign policy and national security: ours and theirs. Then again none of us can take our alliances for granted. We all need to work on maintaining their strength.
Excerpts:
This still leaves the question of whether the United States’ rivals will take meaningful advantage of this moment of U.S. humiliation. Undoubtedly, they will try. The editor of China’s Global Times has already called the Afghan transition of power “more smooth” than the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations. The Russian government has been more circumspect, reflecting its fear that Afghanistan under a Taliban government might, wittingly or unwittingly, become a haven once again for terrorist groups that will be as threatening, if not more, to Moscow as it is to Washington.
But just as the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam did not derail the United States’ continued journey to economic and geopolitical dominance in the twentieth century, so the chaotic exodus from Afghanistan need not herald U.S. global decline in the twenty-first. Power in international relations is always relative. And in relative terms, the United States has far more going for it structurally and societally than its two main geopolitical rivals, especially if it works closely with its allies to achieve their mutual goals.
The messy end of the Afghan war need not distract the Biden administration from pursuing its shared priorities with its European partners and should instead drive both sides to demonstrate their continued commitment to each other’s security. The new initiatives that the Biden administration has put in place with its European and Asian allies in the past six months promise to be far more meaningful to the future of transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security than the legacy of its failures in Afghanistan.
Failure in Afghanistan Won’t Weaken America’s Alliances
U.S. Allies Know Washington Needs Them More Than Ever
When President Joe Biden’s administration decided in April to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, its pronouncement was met with displeasure bordering on fury from European officials, who felt they had not been adequately consulted. Yet occasional highhandedness toward European allies had been a feature of the last two Democratic U.S. administrations, not just recent Republican ones. And European policymakers could at least console themselves that there was now a highly professional cadre of senior officials in the White House, at the State Department, and at the Pentagon, most of whom they had come to know from previous government roles; these U.S. officials would ensure the Afghan intervention that the United States and its European allies had embarked on together two decades ago would be brought to an acceptable close.
Then came the Taliban’s lightning rout of the Afghan military, the collapse of the country’s government, and the scenes of chaos at the international airport in Kabul. These events not only revealed Washington’s profound misreading of the situation in Afghanistan but called into question European confidence in the Biden administration’s competence. Even more troubling, they caused current and former European officials and leading columnists to ask whether European governments and other U.S. allies could trust any U.S. administration, whether the Biden administration or a future Republican one, to stand by its external security commitments in the future.
Fortunately, Washington’s flawed and hasty exit from Afghanistan does not herald a broader rupture in transatlantic relations nor a weakening of Washington’s commitment to key alliances. At a time of growing global threats, the United States and Europe will continue to deepen the renewed transatlantic cooperation ushered in by the Biden administration.
STRONGER TOGETHER
Biden made clear from the outset that he would prioritize what National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his colleagues, then at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, have called a U.S. foreign policy for the middle class—that is, a foreign policy supported by or attuned to the interests of the majority of American voters, not just the received wisdoms of U.S. foreign policy elites. Rejoining the Paris climate accord while sustaining trade tariffs on China and, to a lesser extent, Europe reflected elements of this new U.S. approach. Ending the “forever” intervention in Afghanistan was its litmus test and a logical carryover from President Donald Trump’s administration.
This more domestically focused approach to U.S. foreign policy might make sense in the current political climate. But why should European governments and other U.S. allies suppose that the American middle class is any more concerned about the security of Latvia and Lithuania, or of Taiwan for that matter, than they are about the security of Afghanistan? And if Biden can be so quick to lay the blame on Afghanistan’s leaders for not standing up to the Taliban, why should he not be equally dismissive of the concerns of European governments that spend on average a little over one percent of their GDP on defending themselves from Russia and other threats in their neighborhood while still being overly dependent on the U.S. security umbrella? These questions have dominated the headlines since the spectacular fall of Kabul, but they miss the mark for three reasons.
First, nothing that has taken place so far in Afghanistan will shift the Biden administration’s focus away from confronting its number one foreign policy challenge: managing the rise of China. In fact, the Afghanistan withdrawal is a conscious and brutal effort to refocus U.S. strategic priorities away from the broader Middle East and toward the Pacific. Critically for Europeans, the Biden administration recognizes in ways the Trump administration did not that the China challenge can be managed successfully only in collaboration with allies. Washington’s European allies are central to this strategy—not, evidently, because of their geographic location but because of China’s vital interconnections with European economies and because of European countries’ strong voice in the multilateral institutions where China is trying to rewrite global rules of trade, investment, and technology governance. Transatlantic division weakens the United States’ China policy, whereas U.S. commitment to the transatlantic relationship helps buy Europe’s support.
The public debacle in Kabul will force Biden to demonstrate that the U.S. “back” globally where it matters.
Part of Europe’s unstated price for helping the United States manage China is continued American engagement with Europe on managing Russia, which is the more proximate and persistent threat to the interests of many European governments. Biden has not called this bargain into question. To the contrary, he used his June 14 summit with other NATO leaders, including a separate meeting with Baltic state leaders, to underscore the U.S. commitment to European security and to Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which obligates member states to consider an attack on one ally as an attack on all, even as European leaders agreed for the first time to highlight China in their NATO and EU-U.S. communiques.
Second, rather than heralding a break in the United States’ alliance commitments and a retreat behind its borders, the public nature of the debacle in Kabul—with its parallels to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975—is more likely to force Biden to demonstrate that the United States is indeed “back” globally where it matters. This will be largely alongside European leaders, as the Biden administration follows through on the pledges from its June summit meetings in Europe, such as those to establish the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council and an EU-U.S. COVID Manufacturing and Supply Chain Task Force and to participate in the EU’s project to enable faster troop movement across Europe. The Biden administration will also likely place greater emphasis on U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, follow through on defense industrial cooperation with India, and further efforts to institutionalize the Quad, given that Australia, India, and Japan are essential to U.S. plans to limit China’s growing influence in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Third, European governments are now irretrievably invested in the success of the Biden administration regardless of what happens in Afghanistan. Almost all European governments, including the largest—France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom—know they need to renew the transatlantic partnership in the face of a more assertive and confrontational China and Russia. The United States is also a vital partner in confronting the most urgent global issues on the minds of European governments and citizens—above all, the challenge of halting the rise in global temperatures. Europeans will not let Afghanistan or the Kabul fiasco distract them for long from working with the United States to prepare for the next pivotal UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November.
While the Afghanistan debacle has triggered predictable reminders of the importance of achieving greater European “strategic autonomy,” this autonomy need not come at the expense of transatlantic coordination. In some areas, such as the regulation of digital and financial markets, Europeans need to deepen their coordination, principally to negotiate more effectively with the United States. In others, they simply need to take greater collective responsibility for their own specific interests, such as in North Africa, the Sahel, and the eastern Mediterranean. The same goes for the future of Afghanistan, given that it will be a growing source of refugees and migrants to Europe and could reemerge as an incubator of international terrorism unless the situation there stabilizes rapidly. Steps to address these risks would make greater European strategic autonomy a complement to a stronger transatlantic relationship.
STILL GOT IT
This still leaves the question of whether the United States’ rivals will take meaningful advantage of this moment of U.S. humiliation. Undoubtedly, they will try. The editor of China’s Global Times has already called the Afghan transition of power “more smooth” than the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations. The Russian government has been more circumspect, reflecting its fear that Afghanistan under a Taliban government might, wittingly or unwittingly, become a haven once again for terrorist groups that will be as threatening, if not more, to Moscow as it is to Washington.
But just as the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam did not derail the United States’ continued journey to economic and geopolitical dominance in the twentieth century, so the chaotic exodus from Afghanistan need not herald U.S. global decline in the twenty-first. Power in international relations is always relative. And in relative terms, the United States has far more going for it structurally and societally than its two main geopolitical rivals, especially if it works closely with its allies to achieve their mutual goals.
The messy end of the Afghan war need not distract the Biden administration from pursuing its shared priorities with its European partners and should instead drive both sides to demonstrate their continued commitment to each other’s security. The new initiatives that the Biden administration has put in place with its European and Asian allies in the past six months promise to be far more meaningful to the future of transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security than the legacy of its failures in Afghanistan.
7. Will Afghanistan Become a Terrorist Safe Haven Again?
I hope professor Byman is right.
In the short term, both the Taliban and the United States will have their hands full. The Taliban need to consolidate their power throughout Afghanistan, much of which is in chaos, and it will take time for al Qaeda to fully reconstitute itself. The United States must focus on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the country and, in particular, aid the tens of thousands of Afghans who risked their lives to work with the U.S. military and the broader counterterrorism effort.
This short-term imperative, however, should not blind Washington to the need to have a strong counterterrorism capacity and to keep pressure on regional governments to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming the center of the global jihadi movement. Such an approach is hardly the grand victory over terrorism Americans hoped for after 9/11. But it is a manageable and sustainable strategy.
Will Afghanistan Become a Terrorist Safe Haven Again?
Just Because the Taliban Won Doesn’t Mean Jihadis Will
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power is a victory for al Qaeda. But just how much of a win is it? This question is at the heart of the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw from the country. Defending his choice despite the chaos and horror descending on Afghanistan as the government collapsed, President Joe Biden declared on Monday, “Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on [the] American homeland.”
Republicans are taking Biden to task on this very point. Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas and the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned, “We are going to go back to a pre-9/11 state—a breeding ground for terrorism.” General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned that al Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) could quickly rebuild their networks in Afghanistan.
The risk of an al Qaeda comeback is real, but Afghanistan’s reversion to its pre-9/11 role as a safe haven for jihadi terrorism is unlikely. Although the Taliban’s victory will undoubtedly make Washington’s counterterrorism policy far harder to carry out, al Qaeda’s weakness, the Taliban’s own incentives, and post-9/11 improvements in U.S. intelligence coordination, homeland security, and remote military operations all reduce the threat.
ANOTHER WIN?
With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban triumph, the jihadi world gains a propaganda victory similar to one it experienced more than 30 years ago. A core myth of the modern jihadi movement is that foreign fighters battling to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan were not only crucial to Moscow’s defeat in 1989 but also sped the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in general. This myth persisted even though foreign volunteers were not militarily important in the overall anti-Soviet struggle.
Today, al Qaeda will again claim the withdrawal of a foreign power as a victory, even though it was the Taliban whose fighting pushed out the United States and not that of al Qaeda or other foreign jihadis. This time, however, the argument will be more credible, since Washington itself justified the 20-year war as a struggle against international terrorism. The defeat of the United States is thus another superpower notch in al Qaeda’s belt. Its supporters are celebrating.
The risk of an al Qaeda comeback is real, but Afghanistan’s reversion to its pre-9/11 role as a safe haven is unlikely.
The collapse of the Afghan government also provides a jolt of energy to al Qaeda’s operatives in the country. There is no reason to think that with their victory complete, the Taliban will cut ties to the group. Links between the two have endured for over 20 years, despite U.S. pressure and inducements. The Taliban recognize the fighting skill and dedication of al Qaeda members and feel a sense of obligation to them for their sacrifices over the past 20 years. UN officials report that al Qaeda is heavily embedded within the Taliban, conducting joint operations and training. Al Qaeda, for its part, claims that it remains loyal to the leadership of the Taliban.
Not all jihadis, however, will benefit as much as al Qaeda. Al Qaeda’s rival, ISIS, also has an active presence in Afghanistan. ISIS is bitterly opposed to both al Qaeda and the Taliban, claiming that the latter have abandoned Islam in favor of Afghan nationalism. Beyond ideological differences, however, there is a power struggle for influence within the broader jihadi movement. The Taliban are likely to try to woo ISIS commanders to their side and crush those who refuse to bend the knee. This will deal another blow to ISIS’s brand, which has suffered since it lost the last shred of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2019.
The most important counterterrorism question, however, is not whether the Taliban will maintain their ties to al Qaeda and other foreign jihadis but whether the Taliban will again allow al Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base for international terrorist attacks. From the Taliban’s Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders were able to direct their group’s activities with relative impunity. Before 9/11, al Qaeda and other foreign jihadis ran an archipelago of camps in the country. Terrorists trained in these outposts, as did aspiring jihadis who went on to fight in conflicts in Algeria, Indonesia, Libya, Somalia, and other countries. In addition to providing training, al Qaeda was also able to forge connections among senior members of various jihadi groups and indoctrinate the thousands of volunteers who flocked to Afghanistan to train. Between 10,000 and 20,000 recruits passed through the camps from 1996 to 2001, according to U.S. intelligence. These volunteers began to share al Qaeda’s more global, anti-American worldview and committed numerous terrorist attacks.
NOT SO SAFE HAVEN
Losing Afghanistan will undoubtedly hamper U.S. counterterrorism efforts and increase the risk that al Qaeda will again use the country as a launch pad for attacks. Without troops in the area and contacts with the local population, the United States will have less intelligence on terrorist activities. U.S. and Afghan forces are no longer on the ground to prevent al Qaeda from establishing training camps or headquarters.
Despite these difficulties, however, an expansive safe haven comparable to the pre-9/11 period is unlikely. The Taliban’s own incentives to support international terrorism against the West are low, whatever bonds the group’s leaders might have with al Qaeda. The Taliban were not consulted about 9/11, and they didn’t favor previous terrorist attacks the group carried out, such as the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. The Taliban also paid a heavy price for 9/11, losing power for 20 years and seeing much of their core leadership die in the fight with the United States.
Pakistan, the Taliban’s sponsor, also has reason to oppose al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the West. Bruce Riedel, a former senior U.S. intelligence officer, has argued that the latest Taliban offensive relied on Pakistani support, and the Taliban have long used Pakistan as a haven in their fight against the United States and the Afghan government. Given that Pakistan’s ally won, the country now has little reason to risk encouraging the return of U.S. forces—something that could occur in the aftermath of a spectacular al Qaeda attack on the West. Such violence does not serve any of Pakistan’s strategic objectives.
In the short term, both the Taliban and the United States will have their hands full.
That said, the United States cannot rely on Pakistan as a counterterrorism partner in Afghanistan. Pakistan may still favor using foreign jihadis to conduct terrorist attacks in India and wage war in Kashmir, as it has in the past. It might therefore want the Taliban to allow foreign fighters to train and otherwise improve their skills in Afghanistan, playing with fire in the hope that Pakistan can direct the blaze toward New Delhi. Pressure on Pakistan will therefore be vital. Unfortunately, U.S. efforts to coerce Islamabad to rein in the Taliban over the last decades largely failed. The United States may have more success now that it no longer depends on Pakistan’s goodwill to support operations in Afghanistan. But policymakers should lower their expectations, especially as the Biden administration has shunned Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rather than courting him as an ally. Washington should focus on making sure that Islamabad knows that it, too, will pay a price if its Taliban allies support international terrorism.
Although Pakistan’s help may be limited at best, al Qaeda itself has changed in ways that make it less able to take advantage of Afghanistan. The group has lost many leaders and much of its funding and has otherwise sustained significant damage since 9/11. Indeed, bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be dead. In response to its decline, al Qaeda has emphasized struggles within the Muslim world—working with local affiliates that embrace parts of its agenda but, in practice, often focus on their own limited concerns. Much of the energy of al Qaeda’s leaders has been spent trying to control and influence these affiliates. These groups are primarily a threat to their own countries and regions, although some, notably al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, have attempted or conducted terrorist attacks on the West. The most recent jihadi attack on the United States was the 2019 shooting of three sailors at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida, by a Saudi trainee influenced by al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.
Moreover, U.S. intelligence agencies have been preparing for a military withdrawal by ensuring that they maintain some collection capacity—enabling them to disrupt would-be al Qaeda trainees en route, identify potential plots against the West, and target terrorists. The U.S. military has explored ways to use air power from bases outside Afghanistan to strike al Qaeda camps or otherwise operate in the country if necessary. Now that the Taliban are in power, such efforts are needed more than ever. The United States already conducts long-distance operations in Somalia, Yemen, and other countries with active jihadi groups. Carrying out such strikes in Afghanistan would make it harder for al Qaeda and other groups to run large-scale training camps, as they did before 9/11, and would put their leaders at risk.
Finally, U.S. homeland security has improved dramatically since 9/11, and there is a global intelligence effort targeting al Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadi movements. Would-be recruits will find it harder to get to Afghanistan and, should they make it, risk detection and arrest upon return.
ALL TIED UP
In the short term, both the Taliban and the United States will have their hands full. The Taliban need to consolidate their power throughout Afghanistan, much of which is in chaos, and it will take time for al Qaeda to fully reconstitute itself. The United States must focus on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the country and, in particular, aid the tens of thousands of Afghans who risked their lives to work with the U.S. military and the broader counterterrorism effort.
This short-term imperative, however, should not blind Washington to the need to have a strong counterterrorism capacity and to keep pressure on regional governments to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming the center of the global jihadi movement. Such an approach is hardly the grand victory over terrorism Americans hoped for after 9/11. But it is a manageable and sustainable strategy.
8. What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban
Worth the read. Very insightful. I also assume the author was trained (educated) at DLI. From his story it is a testament to how well he learned the languages - and a testament to the capability of DLI (though I submit that language proficiency falls of the sutent with a combination of aptitude and attitude -the desire to learn as much as the ability to learn). Matt Armstrong flagged this and sent out this tweet.
Matt Armstrong
@mountainrunner
·
35m
A story of the psychological side of war and the importance of morale & hope, and how we focused on the wrong things. The parable of we have the watches, they have the time is really about how they were strategic while we were tactical.
What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban
When people ask me what I did in Afghanistan, I tell them that I hung out in planes and listened to the Taliban. My job was to provide “threat warning” to allied forces, and so I spent most of my time trying to discern the Taliban’s plans. Before I started, I was cautioned that I would hear terrible things, and I most certainly did. But when you listen to people for hundreds of hours—even people who are trying to kill your friends—you hear ordinary things as well.
On rare occasions, they could even make me laugh. One winter in northern Afghanistan, where the average elevation is somewhere above 7,000 feet and the average temperature is somewhere below freezing, the following discussion took place:
“Go place the IED down there, at the bend; they won’t see it.”
“It can wait ’til morning.”
“No, it can’t. They [the Americans] could come early, and we need it down there to kill as many as we can.”
“I think I’ll wait.”
“No, you won’t! Go place it.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes! Go do it!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Brother, why not? We must jihad!”
“Brother … It’s too cold to jihad.”
Yes, this joke came in the middle of plans to kill the men I was supposed to protect, but it wasn’t any less absurd for it. And he wasn’t wrong. Even in our planes with our fleeces and hand warmers, it really was too damn cold for war.
In 2011, about 20 people in the world were trained to do the job I did. Technically, only two people had the exact training I had. We had been formally trained in Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan, and then assigned to receive specialized training to become linguists aboard Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft. AFSOC had about a dozen types of aircraft, but I flew solely on gunships. These aircraft differ in their specifics, but they are all cargo planes that have been outfitted with various levels of weaponry that range in destructive capability. Some could damage a car at most; others could destroy a building. In Afghanistan, we used these weapons against people, and my job was to help decide which people. This is the non-euphemistic definition of providing threat warning.
I flew 99 combat missions for a total of 600 hours. Maybe 20 of those missions and 50 of those hours involved actual firefights. Probably another 100 hours featured bad guys discussing their nefarious plans, or what we called “usable intelligence.” But the rest of the time, they were just talking, and I was just eavesdropping.
Besides making jokes about jihad, they talked about many of the same things you and your neighbors talk about: lunch plans, neighborhood gossip, shitty road conditions, how the weather isn’t conforming to your exact desires. There was infighting, name-calling, generalized whining. They daydreamed about the future, made plans for when the Americans would leave, and reveled in the idea of retaking their country.
But mostly, there was a lot of bullshitting.
Pashto and Dari naturally lend themselves to puns and insults—there is a lot of rhyming inherent to the languages, and many words share double meanings. Part of this bullshitting stemmed from a penchant for repetition. The Afghans I met would repeat a name or statement, or anything really, dozens of times to make a point. But this repetition intensified when talking over radios. A man named Kalima taught me this. None of us know who Kalima was, though it’s generally accepted that he wasn’t anyone important. But someone—we don’t know who—really wanted to talk to him. So he called his name.
“Kalima! Kaliiiiiiima. Kalimaaaaaaa. Kalima Kalima Kalima Kalima Kalima.”
He called his name again and again, at least 50 times, in every possible combination of syllabic emphasis. I listened the whole time, but Kalima never responded. Maybe his radio was off. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to this guy. Maybe he was dead. It’s possible that I had killed him. I never heard a Kalima answer the radio after that.
All this bullshitting flowed naturally into the Taliban’s other great verbal talent, the pep talk. No sales meeting, movie set, or locker room has ever seen the level of hyper-enthusiastic preparation that the Taliban demonstrated before, during, and after every battle. Maybe it was because they were well practiced, having been at war for the majority of their lives. Maybe it was because they genuinely believed in the sanctity of their mission. But the more I listened to them, the more I understood that this perpetual peacocking was something they had to do in order to keep fighting.
How else would they continue to battle an enemy that doesn’t think twice about using bombs designed for buildings against individual men? This isn’t an exaggeration. Days before my 22nd birthday, I watched fighter jets drop 500-pound bombs into the middle of a battle, turning 20 men into dust. As I took in the new landscape, full of craters instead of people, there was a lull in the noise, and I thought, Surely now we’ve killed enough of them. We hadn’t.
When two more attack helicopters arrived, I heard them yelling, “Keep shooting. They will retreat!”
As we continued our attack, they repeated, “Brothers, we are winning. This is a glorious day.”
And as I watched six Americans die, what felt like 20 Taliban rejoiced in my ears, “Waaaaallahu akbar, they’re dying!”
It didn’t matter that they were unarmored men, with 30-year-old guns, fighting against gunships, fighter jets, helicopters, and a far-better-equipped ground team. It also didn’t matter that 100 of them died that day. Through all that noise, the sounds of bombs and bullets exploding behind them, their fellow fighters being killed, the Taliban kept their spirits high, kept encouraging one another, kept insisting that not only were they winning, but that they’d get us again—even better—next time.
That was my first mission in Afghanistan.
Time went by, and as I learned what different code words meant and how to pick voices out of the sounds of gunfire, I got better at listening. And the Taliban started telling me more. In the spring of 2011, I was on a mission supporting a Special Forces team that had recently been ambushed in a village in northern Afghanistan. We were sent in to do reconnaissance, which sounds impressive, but logistically means flying in a circle for hours on end, watching and listening to locals. We came across some men farming, working a plot of recently tilled land. Or so we thought. The ground team was sure that these were the guys who had attacked them, and that instead of farming, they were in fact hiding weapons in the field.
So we shot them. Of the three men in that field, one had his legs blown off. Another died where he stood. The last was blasted 10 feet away, presumed to be dead from the shock wave obliterating his internal organs. Until he got up and ran away. He and his friends came back, loaded the newly amputated man into a wheelbarrow, and carted him off to a car waiting nearby. It seemed that they were trying to escape, but revenge was just as likely a scenario, and the ground team was worried that they would get more men, or more weapons, and retaliate. But I could hear them, and they didn’t sound interested in retribution.
“Go, drive! We are coming. Abdul was hit. We have him in the car.”
“Keep going! Don’t let them shoot us!”
“Yes, we are coming. We will save him.”
They were trying to get their friend to a doctor, or at least someone who could save his life. And then their car slowed down.
“No, brother. He’s dead.”
The rest of them were no longer a threat, so we let them go.
Throughout my deployment, time and again, our kills outnumbered theirs, they lost ground, and we won. This happened so regularly that I began developing a sense of déjà vu. This feeling isn’t uncommon when you’re deployed; you see the same people, follow the same schedule, and do the same activities day in and day out. But I wasn’t imagining it. We really were flying the same missions, in the same places, re-liberating the same villages we had fought in three years ago. I was listening to the same bullshitting, the same pep talks, and the same planning, often by the same men, that I’d heard before.
On yet another interminable mission, we were supporting a ground team that had gone to a small village to talk with the elder. Together, they were establishing plans to build a well nearby. We circled overhead for a few hours, and nothing interesting happened. No one was doing anything suspicious on the ground; no one was talking about anything remotely militant on the radios. The meeting was successful, so the team headed back to its helicopters. And then the Taliban attacked.
“Move up, they’ve gone to the eastern ditch. They’re running, move up!”
“Bring the big gun; get it ready. They’ll be moving again soon.”
The ground team had to sit and wait for its helicopters to be safe to take off.
“Hey, gunship, where are they, what are they doi—fuck, I’m hit.”
The Taliban knew that they’d hit the team leader. I know because while I listened to his scream, I heard them celebrating.
“Brother, you got one. Keep going; keep shooting. We can get more!”
“Yes, we will, the gun is work—”
They stopped celebrating, because my plane shot them. This was the worst day of my life. It wasn’t the shooting or the screams or the death that made the day so terrible; I’d seen plenty of that by then. But that day, I finally understood what the Taliban had been trying to tell me.
On every mission, they knew I was overhead, monitoring their every word. They knew I could hear them bragging about how many Americans they’d managed to kill, or how many RPGs they’d procured, or when and where they were going to place an IED. But amid all that hearing, I hadn’t been listening. It finally dawned on me that the bullshitting wasn’t just for fun; it was how they distracted themselves from the same boredom I was feeling as they went through another battle, in the same place, against yet another invading force. But unlike me, when they went home, it would be to the next village over, not 6,000 miles away. Those men in the field may have just been farmers, or maybe they really were hiding the evidence of their assault. Either way, our bombs and bullets meant the young boys in their village were now that much more likely to join the Taliban. And those pep talks? They weren’t just empty rhetoric. They were self-fulfilling prophecies.
Because when it was too cold to jihad, that IED still got planted. When they had 30-year-old AK-47s and we had $100 million war planes, they kept fighting. When we left a village, they took it back. No matter what we did, where we went, or how many of them we killed, they came back.
Ten years after my last deployment, and after 20 years of combat with the world’s richest, most advanced military, the Taliban has reclaimed Afghanistan. Whatever delusions existed about whether this would happen or how long it might take have been dispatched as efficiently as the Afghan security forces were by the Taliban over a single week. What little gains have been achieved in women’s rights, education, and poverty will be systematically eradicated. Any semblance of democracy will be lost. And while there might be “peace,” it will come only after any remaining forces of opposition are overwhelmed or dead. The Taliban told us this. Or at least they told me.
They told me about their plans, their hopes and dreams. They told me exactly how they would accomplish these goals, and how nothing could stop them. They told me that even if they died, they were confident that these goals would be achieved by their brothers in arms. And I’m sure they would have kept doing this forever.
They told me how they planned to keep killing Americans. They told me the details of these plans: what weapons they would use, where they would do it, how many they hoped to murder. Often, they told me these things while doing the killing. They told me that, God willing, the world would be made in their image. And they told me what so many others refused to hear, but what I finally understood: Afghanistan is ours.
9. Evacuation proceeds, but fears of Taliban reprisal soar
Excerpts:
It’s a messy dynamic that now coincides with soaring doubts about the long-term intentions of the new Taliban leaders in Kabul, who have launched a major charm offensive to convince the international community that — unlike the last time they were in power — “amnesty” will be given to Afghans who worked against the Islamist militants and that women’s rights will be respected.
The U.N. document that became public Thursday sharply challenged the Taliban‘s public claims. The document was produced by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a private intelligence firm that advises U.N. agencies. It was first reported Thursday by The New York Times but began circulating a day earlier among U.N. officials.
The confidential document reportedly cites reports of Taliban fighters going door to door and “arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban.”
Widespread concerns remain in Washington and in the international community that the Taliban, who captured Kabul with almost no resistance from the U.S.- and NATO-trained Afghan security forces, will soon reimpose their harsh brand of Islamist rule over Afghanistan.
Evacuation proceeds, but fears of Taliban reprisal soar
A confidential United Nations assessment is warning that the Taliban are intensifying efforts to hunt down Afghans who worked with American and NATO forces over the past two decades and that the militants have threatened to kill or arrest their family members if the people sought cannot be found.
The sobering report circulating among U.N. officials this week became public Thursday as the Taliban‘s leaders sought to cement their rule by formally announcing the establishment of an “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” even as they faced persistent pockets of resistance and protests in Kabul and other Afghan cities.
Clashes and chaos continued Thursday around Kabul‘s only international airport, where Taliban fighters used gunfire at traffic chokepoints to halt throngs of Afghans desperately trying to access a U.S. military-led evacuation in its fourth day.
Unease over the future of Afghanistan was further elevated by warnings from regional experts that the Taliban will almost certainly provide a haven again for al Qaeda and other jihadi groups and that dire food shortages are likely to envelop Afghanistan during the coming months while the international community attempts to isolate the Taliban.
Republicans in Washington sharpened their criticism of the Biden administration. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas led the charge by asserting that Taliban “goons” were beating and stripping documents from people trying to escape via the airport, which remains under the control of U.S. military forces.
President Biden, facing growing criticism of how he handled the American withdrawal, sent some 4,500 U.S. troops back to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized Kabul on Sunday to coordinate the evacuation mission. But the troops are behind a strict fence line at the airport and have no control over activity on the streets of the capital just beyond the perimeter.
“It is total violent chaos outside of the airport, contrary to Joe Biden, who is … claiming that the Taliban is cooperating with us,” Mr. Cotton said on Fox News. “My office has been in touch with dozens of people on the ground outside the airport, where Taliban are beating people indiscriminately, taking their passports, taking their visa papers.
“All of this is happening just a few yards away from the gates, and American soldiers are not allowed to enter beyond that perimeter to try to secure American citizens who are making their way through these crowds of Taliban goons to get into the airport,” he said.
Although Mr. Biden has said no Americans will be left behind in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged to reporters Wednesday that troop levels deployed to operate the airport aren’t enough to clear a path for U.S. citizens trying to access evacuation flights.
Others have blamed the situation on the Biden administration’s mishandling of the U.S. troop withdrawal over recent weeks. Mr. Biden, in an interview this week with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, downplayed problems with the withdrawal. He said there was no way the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan could have been drawn down “without chaos ensuing.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, Nebraska Republican, responded with outrage Thursday. “Mr. President, wake up and lead,” the senator said in a statement. “Naively hoping the Taliban gives Americans and our allies safe passage to Kabul’s airport is not a plan — it’s a hostage situation. We have better options. Give American troops the power to push back the airport perimeter and create safe, American-controlled corridors to the airport. We cannot wait for Americans to find their own way. Go get them. It’s the duty of the commander-in-chief.”
Messy dynamic
It’s a messy dynamic that now coincides with soaring doubts about the long-term intentions of the new Taliban leaders in Kabul, who have launched a major charm offensive to convince the international community that — unlike the last time they were in power — “amnesty” will be given to Afghans who worked against the Islamist militants and that women’s rights will be respected.
The U.N. document that became public Thursday sharply challenged the Taliban‘s public claims. The document was produced by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a private intelligence firm that advises U.N. agencies. It was first reported Thursday by The New York Times but began circulating a day earlier among U.N. officials.
The confidential document reportedly cites reports of Taliban fighters going door to door and “arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban.”
Widespread concerns remain in Washington and in the international community that the Taliban, who captured Kabul with almost no resistance from the U.S.- and NATO-trained Afghan security forces, will soon reimpose their harsh brand of Islamist rule over Afghanistan.
The analysis also cited reports that the Taliban had a list of people they wanted to question and punish — and their locations — and that the militant group would target crowds of Afghans outside the airport. Members of the Afghan military and the police, as well as people who worked for investigative units of the toppled government, were particularly at risk, the document warned.
The report reproduced a letter dated Aug. 16 from the Taliban to an unidentified counterterrorism official in Afghanistan who worked with U.S. and British officials and then went into hiding before the insurgents came to the official’s apartment. The letter, according to The Times, instructed the official to report to the Military and Intelligence Commission of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Kabul. If not, the letter warned, the official’s family members “will be treated based on Shariah law.”
A haven for terrorists?
Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. who heads the South and Central Asia program at the Hudson Institute in Washington, said that despite previous assurances, there is little question that the Taliban will also provide a haven in Afghanistan for the al Qaeda terrorist group in the days to come. Al Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks from an Afghan sanctuary, prompting the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the first Taliban government.
Although Taliban leaders vowed during negotiations with the Trump administration last year to no longer provide a haven for Islamic extremists and terrorists if U.S. troops left Afghanistan, Mr. Haqqani told The Washington Times in an interview that the militants used “very precise” language when they made such assurances.
“They said things like, ‘We will not allow an attack on another country from our soil,’” Mr. Haqqani said. “That is not the same thing as saying that fellow Muslims who have conducted an attack in another country will not be allowed to have refuge with us. It’s a huge difference … in the argument.”
Mr. Haqqani said partisan U.S. bickering over who is to blame for the Taliban takeover is counterproductive. He argued that the seeds for the current situation in Kabul were planted years ago.
“There are mistakes that were made in the last 20 days, there were mistakes that were made in the last two years, and then there are mistakes that were made over 20 years,” the former ambassador said. He noted that U.S. officials had been publicly signaling their desire to get out of Afghanistan for well over a decade.
“How could you win a war when for 16 of the 20 years you were discussing how to withdraw?” Mr. Haqqani said. “It signaled to your enemy that he just had to wait you out. It also created an inherent insecurity among your allies.”
Tension between the Taliban and Afghan citizens continued to spiral on Thursday. Anti-Taliban protests grew for a second day and spread to the streets of Kabul for the first time since the militant group seized the country’s capital,
Crowds in Kabul gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the country’s independence from British control more than a century ago, but the celebrations quickly turned into outbursts of defiance against the Taliban rule.
Videos circulating online showed demonstrators waving the Afghan national flag. The Associated Press reported that a procession of cars and people near Kabul’s airport carried long black, red and green banners in honor of the Afghan flag. Protesters in other cities reportedly tore down Taliban flags.
Taliban commanders have struggled to contain the protests. Reports said demonstrators were killed in at least one city, although it was not clear whether the deaths resulted from a crackdown by Taliban fighters or a stampede caused by tense crowds.
Reuters reported that several people were killed in Asadabad, the capital of the eastern province of Kunar.
“Hundreds of people came out on the streets. … At first, I was scared and didn’t want to go, but when I saw one of my neighbors joined in, I took out the flag I have at home,” Mohammed Salim, a witness in Asadabad, told the news service. “Several people were killed and injured in the stampede and firing by the Taliban.”
Fears are soaring that the group is preparing to bring back the hard-line Islamist government and theocratic police state it imposed on Afghans during its reign from 1996 to 2001, before U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan.
The demonstrations were a remarkable show of defiance after the Taliban fighters violently dispersed a protest Wednesday. At that rally, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, demonstrators lowered the Taliban’s flag and replaced it with Afghanistan’s tricolor. At least one person was killed.
Meanwhile, opposition figures gathering in the last area of the country not under Taliban rule talked about launching an armed resistance under the banner of the Northern Alliance, which provided key military support to the U.S. during the 2001 invasion.
The Taliban have offered no specifics on how they will lead, other than to say they will be guided by Shariah, or Islamic, law. They are in talks with senior officials of previous Afghan governments, but they face an increasingly precarious situation and a shortage of governmental management experience in their ranks.
“A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the head of the U.N. World Food Program in Afghanistan.
Beyond the difficulties of bringing food to a landlocked nation dependent on imports, she said, drought has claimed 40% of the country’s expected annual crop. Many who fled the Taliban advance now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul.
“This is really Afghanistan’s hour of greatest need, and we urge the international community to stand by the Afghan people at this time,” Ms. McGroarty said.
• Rowan Scarborough contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
10. US struggles to speed Kabul airlift
I am going to state the elephant in the room. What if this was a NEO on the Korean peninsula?
We have detailed plans for nzeo in Korea. What if it was being conducted under the "duress" of a north Korean attack: I hope we learn many lessons from Kabul, such as: The absolute necessity for an early decision to evacuate before the war begins. The absolute requirement for ROK government and security forces support for evacuation.
US struggles to speed Kabul airlift
PTI Washington | Updated on August 20, 2021
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Evacuations constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems
The United States struggled on Thursday to pick up the pace of American and Afghan evacuations at Kabul airport, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. With an August 31 deadline looming, tens of thousands remained to be airlifted from the chaotic country.
Taliban fighters and their checkpoints ringed the airport — major barriers for Afghans who fear that their past work with Westerners makes them prime targets for retribution. Hundreds of Afghans who lacked any papers or clearance for evacuation also congregated outside the airport, adding to the chaos that has prevented even some Afghans who do have papers and promises of flights from getting through. It didn't help that many of the Taliban fighters could not read the documents.
In a hopeful sign, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in Washington that 6,000 people were cleared for evacuation on Thursday and were expected to board military flights in coming hours. That would mark a major increase from recent days. About 2,000 passengers were flown out on each of the past two days, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
Evacuees unable to reach airport
Kirby said the military has aircraft available to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 people per day, but until Thursday far fewer designated evacuees had been able to reach, and then enter, the airport. Kirby told reporters the limiting factor has been available evacuees, not aircraft. He said efforts were underway to speed processing, including adding State Department consular officers to verify paperwork of Americans and Afghans who managed to get to the airport. Additional entry gates had been opened, he said.
And yet, at the current rate it would be difficult for the US to evacuate all of the Americans and Afghans who are qualified for and seeking evacuation by Aug 31.
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he would ensure no American was left behind, even if that meant staying beyond August, an arbitrary deadline that he set weeks before the Taliban climaxed a stunning military victory by taking Kabul last weekend. It was not clear if Biden might consider extending the deadline for evacuees who aren’t American citizens.
At the airport, military evacuation flights continued, but access remained difficult for many. On Thursday, Taliban militants fired into the air to try to control the crowds gathered at the airport's blast walls. Men, women and children fled. US Navy fighter jets flew overhead, a standard military precaution but also a reminder to the Taliban that the US has firepower to respond to a combat crisis.
No accurate figure
There is no accurate figure of the number of people — Americans, Afghans or others — who are in need of evacuation as the process is almost entirely self-selecting. For example, the State Department says that when it ordered its non-essential embassy staff to leave Kabul in April after Biden's withdrawal announcement, fewer than 4,000 Americans had registered for security updates.
The actual number, including dual US-Afghan citizens along with family members, is likely much higher, with estimates ranging from 11,000 to 15,000. Tens of thousands of Afghans may also be in need of escape.
Compounding the uncertainty, the US government has no way to track how many registered Americans may have left Afghanistan already. Some may have returned to the United States but others may have gone to third countries.
At the Pentagon, Kirby declined to say whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had recommended to Biden that he extend the August 31 deadline. Given the Taliban's takeover of the country, staying beyond that date would require at least the Taliban's acquiescence, he said.
He said he knew of no such talks yet between US and Taliban commanders, who have been in regular touch for days to limit conflict at the airport as part of what the White House has termed a “safe passage” agreement worked out on Sunday. “I think it is just a fundamental fact of the reality of where we are, that communications and a certain measure of agreement with the Taliban on what we're trying to accomplish has to occur,” Kirby said.
Of the approximately 2,000 people airlifted from the airport in the 24 hours ended Wednesday morning, nearly 300 were Americans, Kirby said. US lawmakers were briefed on Thursday morning that 6,741 people had been evacuated since August 14, including 1,762 American citizens and Green Card holders, according to two congressional aides.
Although Afghanistan had been a hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said Thursday that evacuees are not required to get negative Covid-19 results.
Published on August 20, 2021
11. President Biden will speak Friday on the troubled evacuation effort.
The main effort (and almost the only effort) now is NEO in Afghanistan. What if we were conducting NEO in Korea after the war starts? Think of the complexity.
President Biden will speak Friday on the troubled evacuation effort.
President Biden in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
By
President Biden, facing intense criticism over the chaotic push to get Americans and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan, will speak about the evacuation effort on Friday afternoon.
As of Thursday afternoon, the U.S. military had evacuated 7,000 Americans, Afghans and others since the Afghan government began to collapse on Saturday, well short of the 5,000 to 9,000 passengers a day that the military will be able to fly out once the evacuation process is at full throttle, officials said.
As many as 6,000 people — including former interpreters and cultural and political advisers — were also on standby to be flown out of Kabul’s airport early Friday.
Mr. Biden has said he may extend an Aug. 31 deadline he had imposed on the mission if necessary to continue evacuating Americans from the country. But he has defiantly defended his larger decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, while largely avoiding addressing the chaos of the withdrawal itself.
He also placed part of the blame on Afghan allies who “did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country.”
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said that some of the consequences of the withdrawal were inevitable.
“The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing — I don’t know how that happens,” Mr. Biden said.
12. How a Technology Revolution Powered the Taliban's Return
Not totally remaining in the 7th Century. Modern technology can be exploited for their political and military purposes.
How a Technology Revolution Powered the Taliban's Return
From makeshift drones to mobile videography, Afghanistan’s new rulers have come a long way from rejecting modernity entirely.
August 20, 2021, 3:12 AM EDT
Cellphones are also part of their arsenal now. Photographer: AFP/Getty
Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.
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When the Taliban was last in control of Afghanistan, the world used cellphones for voice calls, the Internet was accessed from desktop computers over copper phone lines, and digital photography was in its infancy.
But within a few years of defeat by the U.S. military in 2001, the militant Islamists who’d once eschewed technology were deploying makeshift surveillance drones and coordinating their political and operational messaging through a network of mobile handsets. The decision to embrace, rather than reject, the trappings of the 21st century went on to become a key to the movement’s survival and eventual retaking of the landlocked central Asian nation.
“They moved into much greater technology sophistication by about 2007. It's a sign of the group's capacity to adapt and learn and that's one of the reasons why they won,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at the Brookings Institution. “One of the things that they learned was to focus on communications, and away from the model of the 1990s, which was to move the country away from any kind of modernity.”
The organization originally emerged in the country’s rugged, rural heartlands and fought to the top of Afghanistan’s power struggles in 1996, advocating a return to the 7th century, when Islam was founded. It envisioned a nation of self-sufficient peasant farmers, ruled under Shariah, and rejected any need for modern technology. There wasn’t much, anyway: Afghanistan’s development was pulverized during the Soviet occupation and fighting between rival warlords.
Yet by 2007 and deep into insurgency against the Americans, the Taliban were using monochrome flip-phones bearing names like Nokia and Motorola to push propaganda and keep tabs on people. Felbab-Brown recalls visiting Afghanistan around that time, when the movement was sending both mass and targeted text messages. They included reminders to pay zakat (religious tax), and that the group knew where you lived.
One irony is that this broad rollout of telecommunications was enabled by U.S. and international companies, with NATO forces building the pylons that would hold cellphone antennas. Before long, Taliban spokesmen fluent in English were regularly updating Western media directly over text and voice, answering questions, and claiming victory in battles that journalists didn’t even know had happened.
The early Taliban were viewed by foreign powers, and perhaps even themselves, as a fast-moving light military force equipped mostly with rifles and RPGs. But with a more modern foe in the U.S. and its allies came the need to to add psychological operations. “That's where technology is crucial, there's no way around it,” notes Kamran Bokhari, director of analytical development at the Newlines Institute for Strategy & Policy. “Previously they were able to do without it, but after 9/11 the world changed.”
The Taliban needed to catch up with innovations on the battlefield, and learned fast. Around 2005, Bokhari recalls, a jerry-rigged drone — a camcorder strapped to a toy remote-controlled aircraft — was discovered near the border with Pakistan. And they weren’t learning only from their enemies. Fellow jihadists, such as al-Qaeda, ISIS and Hezbollah, had discovered the power of digital technologies to recruit members, threaten opponents and control messaging. The Taliban benefited from a cross-pollination of tradecraft in propaganda and information warfare.
These groups followed the arc of technology in the wider world. Early on, they engaged in a cat-and-mouse game of using websites to claim responsibility for attacks and to distribute messages and videos before foreign governments knocked them offline. That gave way to more sophisticated handheld devices and faster networks that meant a video could be shot on a cellphone and emailed directly to supporters or international media. The Taliban and their ilk became early adopters of platforms that made sharing information even easier — YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and WhatsApp.
A key strategy was to not only win battles, but shape perceptions of strength and capabilities, Bokhari notes. As the U.S. went deeper into its second decade of occupation, the Taliban kept up a steady drumbeat of messaging across all mediums, targeting local Afghan forces and overseas governments. The aim was to create the belief that the movement’s ascendancy was inevitable and resistance futile. The perception helped bring U.S. administrations to the table and may have fed the collapse of the military.
Western governments and corporations weren’t blind to the online threats. Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. say they have long-held bans on the group, while Twitter Inc. chose to take down individual pieces of violent content. But the Taliban’s flexibility in shifting messages and platforms made stamping out all presence impossible.
By the time they took Kabul, the Taliban had upped their presence on Twitter and taken to Whatsapp and text messages to engage with the local populace and outsiders. Spokesmen have used Twitter in recent weeks in an attempt to ease concerns about human-rights violations, forcing U.S. tech giants to reiterate their policies.
“The Taliban is under U.S. sanctions, which means that due to our dangerous-organization policies, we don’t actually allow any presence” by them on Instagram or any of the Facebook apps, Adam Mosseri, head of the company’s photo-sharing service told Bloomberg Television this week. WhatsApp banned a helpline the Taliban had set up to allow Afghans to report violence and looting.
How long tech companies keep the Taliban off their platforms may come down to U.S. policy. Any hope of controlling the narrative and neutralizing the movement’s initiatives will require coordinating with governments and corporations to curb access to technology. But the group’s ability to adapt makes a full freeze-out unlikely. Even if the Taliban can’t use mass outlets like YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp will remain an option thanks to the point-to-point nature of their service coupled with end-to-end encryption.
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The digital revolution doesn’t end here. With a vast country to run and disparate groups to placate, a Taliban government will rely even more on information, messaging and perception-shaping. For that, it can learn from the way neighbors like Iran, Pakistan and even China exercise control by censorship and surveillance. The latter, a global leader in facial recognition and artificial intelligence, has already made overtures to the Taliban and is likely to offer aid in the form of infrastructure that could include communications and surveillance capabilities.
Today’s Taliban has fought its way back to control over Afghanistan. It’ll rely on technology to stay there.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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13. The Panjshir Afghanistan Resistance is No Coincidence
Is there resistance potential and can someone support the resistance through unconventional warfare campaign? Or will such resistance simply be abandoned?
Excerpt:
In contrast to Ghani’s abject cowardice, Afghanistan’s vice president Amrullah Saleh, and now de facto president of free Afghanistan, has vowed to resist the Taliban. Forced out of Kabul, Saleh has taken up residence in Panjshir Valley, the region of his birth.
Saleh is joined in his resistance by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the Anti-Soviet mujaheddin leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who penned a stirring Op-Ed in the Washington Post vowing to resist the Taliban. Like his father before him, Massoud vows to resist his enemies from the Panjshir Valley. The brave Afghan men who are willing to fight the Taliban, rather than fleeing, are converging on Panjshir Valley to join the resistance.
The Anti-Soviet resistance emanating from Panjshir was able to succeed against Soviet occupation, will similar resistance succeed against the Taliban? It’s certainly possible. The Northern Alliance resisted Taliban rule in the 1990s in Northern Afghanistan. The Taliban never fully controlled Afghanistan, and the Panjshir Valley was one of the locations that did not fall.
The Panjshir Afghanistan Resistance is No Coincidence
The Panjshir Afghanistan Resistance is No Coincidence
Corruption made way for the Afghan government's fall, ethnic identity will dominate resistance.
by
August 20, 2021, 12:32 AM
Panjshir valley in Eastern Afghanistan mbrand85/Shutterstock.com
For the first time since 2001, the Taliban controls most of Afghanistan. US intelligence estimates made public just over a week ago predicted that the Afghan government could fall within 90 days. It fell in less than a week. While most of the country, including the capital of Kabul, is under Taliban control, there is a brewing resistance in the Panjshir Valley.
First, it is worth noting just how disastrous the Afghan National Army performed in their “resistance” against the Taliban. US intelligence should have expected such a disastrous outcome. Biden and various other administration officials have repeated the line that the Afghans had 300,000 military personnel. This is a blatant lie that even legacy media acknowledges. This figure includes nearly 100,000 Afghan National Police officers. Even with this fake third, 200,00 supposedly “well-trained” and certainly well-equipped troops were expected to hold against a roughly 75,000-man strong Taliban equipped with Soviet-era arms. The Afghan National Army, which the United States spent decades training and billions of dollars equipping, fell because of corruption and a lack of will. This 200,000 figure is likely a large overestimation, as corrupt Afghan military officials create “ghost soldiers” to line their pockets. When Afghan military leaders included fake or dead people on their rosters, they can pocket their salaries, wasting money and creating a false sense of military strength.
Even for the real soldiers in the Afghan National Army, a driving motivation for military service to the corrupt Afghan regime was money. The United States supported the salaries of the Afghan National Army, which is several hundred dollars per month for the average soldier. To an American, this is not very much, but in Afghanistan where the GDP per capita is around 500 dollars a year, a few hundred dollars a month made even the lowest Afghan soldier far richer than most of his countrymen. When faced with death at the hands of the Taliban, money will not get you anywhere, so massive numbers of the Afghan National Army surrendered without a shot fired, reminiscent of how Iraqi forces melted when faced with ISIS.
Afghanistan’s former president, a Columbia-educated and internationalist ethnic Pashtun, Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday and is now in the United Arab Emirates. Ghani cites seeking a peaceful solution as his rationale for leaving, rather than cowardice. It is alleged that Ghani brought millions of dollars with him in his exit from Afghanistan, though he denies these allegations.
In contrast to Ghani’s abject cowardice, Afghanistan’s vice president Amrullah Saleh, and now de facto president of free Afghanistan, has vowed to resist the Taliban. Forced out of Kabul, Saleh has taken up residence in Panjshir Valley, the region of his birth.
Saleh is joined in his resistance by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the Anti-Soviet mujaheddin leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who penned a stirring Op-Ed in the Washington Post vowing to resist the Taliban. Like his father before him, Massoud vows to resist his enemies from the Panjshir Valley. The brave Afghan men who are willing to fight the Taliban, rather than fleeing, are converging on Panjshir Valley to join the resistance.
The Anti-Soviet resistance emanating from Panjshir was able to succeed against Soviet occupation, will similar resistance succeed against the Taliban? It’s certainly possible. The Northern Alliance resisted Taliban rule in the 1990s in Northern Afghanistan. The Taliban never fully controlled Afghanistan, and the Panjshir Valley was one of the locations that did not fall.
It is worth noting that both resistance leaders, Massoud and Saleh, are ethnic Tajiks. Tajiks are a Dari Persian speaking ethnic group, the second-largest in Afghanistan. Panjshir Valley, known as the “five lions” in Persian, is majority ethnic Tajik.
The Taliban by contrast is a Pashtun organization. Pashtuns, or just “Afghans” are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Pashtuns speak an Eastern Iranian language that long ago split from proto-Persian. While there are certainly religious differences between Tajiks and Pashtuns, both are Sunni, so the coming conflict will be primarily ethnic rather than religious.
There was never and never will be strong resistance to the Taliban within the Pashtun community.
Ghani, unable to overcome the organic political manifestation of the Pashtuns, failed to rally his co-ethnics in opposition to the Taliban.
Afghanistan, in its present form, will never have peace. Afghanistan maintained relative stability for nearly 200 years under the Barakzai Dynasty, which ended with the deposition of King Zahir Shah in 1973.
The Royal house of Afghanistan was Pashto, in the 19th century it brutally suppressed other ethnic groups, particularly the Hazara; but in the 20th century, it had a relatively hands-off approach that fostered localism and kept the other ethnic groups relatively content. Today, without that stabilizing force, ethnic tensions will not end.
The future for Afghanistan is not certain, but allowing the various ethnic groups; Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Turkmen, and Balochis to pursue their separate futures would likely produce better results. The Tajik-led resistance in Panjshir is a strong indicator that this is the way forward.
14. Harris' Asia trip carries new urgency after Afghan collapse
Planned before the Afghanistan situation developed. She is going to face some challenges:
“She’s walking into a hornet’s nest, both with what’s taking place in Afghanistan, but also the challenge of China that looms particularly large in Vietnam,” said Brett Bruin, who served as global engagement director during the Obama administration and was a longtime diplomat. “On a good day, it’s walking a tightrope. On a not so good day, it’s walking a tightrope while leading an elephant across. There’s just an enormous set of issues that she will run into from the moment that Air Force Two touches down.”
Harris' Asia trip carries new urgency after Afghan collapse
AP · by ALEXANDRA JAFFE · August 20, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has given new urgency to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tour of southeast Asia, where she will attempt to reassure allies of American resolve following the chaotic end of a two-decade war.
The trip, which begins Friday and includes stops in Singapore and Vietnam, will provide a forum for Harris to assert herself more directly in foreign affairs. She will have opportunities to affirm what she and President Joe Biden view as core American values, including human rights. That’s especially important given concerns about the future for women and girls in Afghanistan with the Taliban back in power.
But there are also substantial risks. A longtime district attorney and former senator, Harris is largely untested in international diplomacy and foreign policy. Her swing through Vietnam could draw unwanted comparisons between the humiliating withdrawal of U.S. troops there in 1975 and the tumultuous effort this week to evacuate Americans and allies from Afghanistan. And it’s all happening in the shadow of China, whose growing influence worries some U.S. policymakers.
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“She’s walking into a hornet’s nest, both with what’s taking place in Afghanistan, but also the challenge of China that looms particularly large in Vietnam,” said Brett Bruin, who served as global engagement director during the Obama administration and was a longtime diplomat. “On a good day, it’s walking a tightrope. On a not so good day, it’s walking a tightrope while leading an elephant across. There’s just an enormous set of issues that she will run into from the moment that Air Force Two touches down.”
Harris struggled at points in June when her first major trip abroad took her to Guatemala and Mexico. Her unequivocal warning to migrants not to come to the U.S. angered some progressive Democrats while doing little to mollify Republican critics who said the administration wasn’t doing enough to address a growth of crossings at the southern border.
She’ll have a fresh chance to make a global impression when she arrives in Singapore, the anchor of the U.S. naval presence in southeast Asia.
On Monday, Harris will speak with Singapore President Halimah Yacob over the phone, participate in a bilateral meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and deliver remarks on a U.S. combat ship visiting Singapore.
On Tuesday, she plans to deliver a speech outlining the U.S. vision for engagement in the region, and participate in an event with business leaders focused on supply chain issues.
Harris then heads to Vietnam, a country that holds both strategic and symbolic significance for the U.S. Leaders there have echoed U.S. concerns about the rise of neighboring China and the potential threat that could pose to global security. But it’s also a nation etched into American history as the site of another bloody, costly war with an ignominious end.
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The vice president will almost certainly address that parallel when she takes questions from the press in Singapore during a joint press conference with the prime minister Monday. It’s a potentially awkward position for Harris because Biden expressly rejected comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam in July, insisting there would be “no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy” in Afghanistan, a reference to historic images of a helicopter evacuating a U.S. embassy in Saigon in 1975.
But the harried effort to get Americans to the airport in Kabul this week defied that prediction.
While the disorderly conclusion of the Afghan war dominated Washington in recent days, China may be a bigger priority for Harris’ trip. Biden has made countering Chinese influence globally a central focus of his foreign policy. Relations between the U.S. and China deteriorated sharply under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, and the two sides remain at odds over a host of issues including technology, cybersecurity and human rights.
And with Beijing’s incursions in the disputed South China Sea, engagement with Vietnam and Singapore is key to the Biden administration’s diplomatic and military goals in the region.
Former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam David Shear said Harris must be careful to offer a “positive” message to the nations, and avoid focusing entirely on China during her trip.
“Our relationships with these countries are important in themselves, and they don’t want to be thought of solely as a pawn in a U.S-China chess game. They want to be thought of on their own terms, and they want their interests to be considered on their own terms,” he said.
Instead, analysts say they hope Harris will focus in particular on trade issues during her trip. The White House has been considering a new digital trade deal with countries in the region, which would allow for the free flow of data and open up opportunities for U.S. companies for greater cooperation on emerging technologies in a fast-growing region of the world.
And COVID-19 is certain to be top of mind in two countries facing starkly divergent virus trends. Singapore has experienced just a few dozen pandemic-related deaths and has a relatively high vaccination rate, and the country is getting ready to ease travel and economic restrictions this fall. Vietnam, meanwhile, is facing record-high coronavirus infections driven by the delta variant and low vaccination rates.
The U.S. has provided more than 23 million vaccine doses to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and tens of millions of dollars in personal protective equipment, laboratory equipment and other supplies to fight the virus.
During her visit to Vietnam, Harris is planning to hold a virtual meeting with ASEAN health ministers and tout the launch of a regional office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gregory Poling, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said showing a commitment to the region on the coronavirus pandemic is key for Harris’ trip.
“I think on COVID, the administration realizes that this is the singular issue. If they’re not seen as leading vaccine distribution in the region, then nothing else they do in Asia matters, or at least nothing else they do is going to find a willing audience,” he said.
AP · by ALEXANDRA JAFFE · August 20, 2021
15. How the Taliban won: They leveraged Afghan history and culture
War takes place in the human domain. We neglect history and culture at our peril.
Excerpts:
The Taliban’s homegrown strategy, years before the U.S. departed, took advantage of intimidation, official corruption, and extensive networking to roll up the Afghan countryside. Part 1 of two.
“They used age-old Afghan traditions, as was the case when they came to power the first time [in 1996],” says Doug London, former CIA counterterrorism chief for South and Southwest Asia. “It wasn’t through a series of military conquests. The Taliban leveraged negotiations and bribery with local and provincial officials.”
The Taliban’s sweeping, concluding military offensive as the U.S. withdrew was just the final push of a dogged, homegrown insurgency that was years in the making. Their long-term strategy was grounded in the countryside, utilizing local relationships to win territory, guns, and recruits – valley by valley – eventually allowing the militants to encircle and cut off the cities. And they deftly waged psychological warfare on social media to spread a narrative of their inevitable victory, demoralizing Afghan government forces.
For 50 days, Abdul Hanif and his small Afghan paramilitary force had been battling Taliban fighters putting a stranglehold on the city of Asadabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province.
The Taliban were gaining ground, and Mr. Hanif, a tall, lanky provincial official and longtime Taliban nemesis, was rushing from one front to the other urging the Afghan National Army to fight.
“We are fighting on one side, and on the other side the ANA just lets the Taliban come through, and gives them their own weapons and ammo, and even their armored trucks,” he said in a phone interview, his words sometimes punctuated by gunfire.
How the Taliban won: They leveraged Afghan history and culture
By Ann Scott Tyson Staff writer
The Taliban’s routing of Afghanistan’s national security forces – which saw more than half of the country’s provincial capitals topple like dominoes in just one week – shocked much of the world.
Yet the story of how the Taliban gained the advantage over a large 350,000-strong Afghan national security force, trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of about $85 billion, starts with Afghan history and culture.
Why We Wrote This
The Taliban’s homegrown strategy, years before the U.S. departed, took advantage of intimidation, official corruption, and extensive networking to roll up the Afghan countryside. Part 1 of two.
“They used age-old Afghan traditions, as was the case when they came to power the first time [in 1996],” says Doug London, former CIA counterterrorism chief for South and Southwest Asia. “It wasn’t through a series of military conquests. The Taliban leveraged negotiations and bribery with local and provincial officials.”
The Taliban’s sweeping, concluding military offensive as the U.S. withdrew was just the final push of a dogged, homegrown insurgency that was years in the making. Their long-term strategy was grounded in the countryside, utilizing local relationships to win territory, guns, and recruits – valley by valley – eventually allowing the militants to encircle and cut off the cities. And they deftly waged psychological warfare on social media to spread a narrative of their inevitable victory, demoralizing Afghan government forces.
For 50 days, Abdul Hanif and his small Afghan paramilitary force had been battling Taliban fighters putting a stranglehold on the city of Asadabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province.
The Taliban were gaining ground, and Mr. Hanif, a tall, lanky provincial official and longtime Taliban nemesis, was rushing from one front to the other urging the Afghan National Army to fight.
“We are fighting on one side, and on the other side the ANA just lets the Taliban come through, and gives them their own weapons and ammo, and even their armored trucks,” he said in a phone interview, his words sometimes punctuated by gunfire.
Why We Wrote This
The Taliban’s homegrown strategy, years before the U.S. departed, took advantage of intimidation, official corruption, and extensive networking to roll up the Afghan countryside. Part 1 of two.
“It’s been really tough to hold because we are trying to convince the ANA to fight,” he said, asking that his real name be withheld for his protection. Running low on ammunition and other supplies, he estimated they could fend off the enemy for three or four more days.
As it turned out, Asadabad fell to the militant group the next day, Saturday. It was one of the last major cities to be captured by the insurgents before they rolled into Kabul and took over Afghanistan Sunday.
The Taliban’s routing of Afghanistan’s national security forces – which saw Asadabad and more than half of the country’s provincial capitals topple like dominoes in just one week – shocked much of the world.
Yet the story of how the Taliban gained the advantage over a large, 300,000-strong Afghan national security force – trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of about $85 billion – starts with Afghan history and culture.
“They used age-old Afghan traditions, as was the case when they came to power the first time [in 1996],” says Douglas London, former CIA counterterrorism chief for South and Southwest Asia. “It wasn’t through a series of military conquests. The Taliban leveraged negotiations and bribery with local and provincial officials.”
Gains, valley by valley
The Taliban’s sweeping, concluding military offensive was just the final push of a dogged, homegrown insurgency that was years in the making.
“Contrary to popular belief, this was the ... quick end to a campaign they had been waging for quite a long time,” says Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at CNA, a research and analysis organization in Arlington, Virginia. “Since 2015, when the U.S. [troop] surge ended and the U.S. transitioned to the advise-and-assist model, the Taliban have been steadily encroaching.”
The Taliban’s long-term strategy was grounded in the countryside. It leveraged local relationships to win territory, guns, and recruits – valley by valley – eventually allowing the militants to encircle and cut off the cities. It took advantage of shifting political calculations among Afghan warlords and commanders triggered by the U.S. military withdrawal. And it deftly waged psychological warfare on social media to spread a narrative of their inevitable victory, demoralizing Afghan government forces.
The Taliban used “an isolation strategy that had an extremely adroit information component to it,” says Dr. Schroden.
In sharp contrast, the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani focused on concentrating power and building national forces to defend large, populous cities – a strategy that runs counter to Afghanistan’s history of decentralization, he says. In a January assessment, he warned that the Taliban would have “a slight military advantage” over Afghan security forces if the U.S. withdrew all its forces.
Home turf
The Taliban projected confidence as they encircled the dusty, rugged town of Asadabad, nestled in the Hindu Kush mountains about 8 miles from the border with Pakistan. They were laying siege to the capital with thousands of men, including fighters from allied extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, Mr. Hanif said.
“We are left with only about 300 people who are fighting,” said Mr. Hanif of his paramilitary force. Some had been redirected to bolster Herat, the large oasis city in western Afghanistan, he explained. About 900 men from local tribal militias had stood up, but between them they only had 80 AK-47 rifles.
“I don’t have weapons for them,” he said, exasperated. “It’s hard for the central government to do resupply because the fight is going on all across the country,” he added. Two of his soldiers were killed by the Taliban the day before, and two lay wounded. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” he said.
Emrah Gurel/AP
Young men who say they deserted the Afghan military and fled to Turkey through Iran walk in the countryside in Tatvan, in Bitlis province in eastern Turkey, Aug. 17, 2021. Turkey says it's concerned about increased migration across the Turkey-Iran border as Afghans flee the Taliban.
Lopsided battles like the one at Asadabad played out in cities across the country, with elite units such as the Afghan special forces being among the few to put up a fight.
And the Taliban had the advantage of fighting on their home turf.
Most Taliban come from rural villages, where they are members of the same tribal clans and subclans as government officials and military commanders – making them relatives or neighbors. Starting at the district level, they created shadow governments and militaries in every province. Then they offered deals to switch sides.
“About a year ago, the Taliban started reaching out to lower-level government troops and fighters, offering money for their weapons and to abandon their posts. And then they ratcheted up the process to reach more senior provincial leaders,” says Mr. London.
The Taliban’s control over rural areas, which had grown steadily since the U.S. military handed over security to Afghan forces in 2014, rose dramatically as U.S. forces began their final pullout this summer. In one month, from June to July, the number of districts under Taliban control doubled from 104 to 216, according to tracking by the Long War Journal.
U.S. departure
Critically, the departure of the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops and U.S. military air power (before the current evacuation mission) deprived the Afghan army of a powerful, quick reaction capability against the Taliban. This freed Taliban forces to move rapidly to seize large swaths of territory and road networks and posts along the Iran, Tajikistan, and Pakistan borders. All of this left Afghan army units increasingly surrounded, isolated, and vulnerable, as they could only be resupplied by air, severely overtaxing the Afghan air force.
The Taliban then began attacking cities, first in the north. Contrary to the popular narrative, initially some Afghan units did stand and fight, says Dr. Schroden. But, he says, “they very quickly ran out of ammunition, food, water. They called for airstrikes, and none would come. They called for reinforcements, and none would come.”
Long-standing problems with corrupt commanders and “ghost soldiers” – fighters who existed only on paper, in order to line the commanders’ pockets – as well as the lack of pay and the incongruence of the model of a central, integrated military in a country that functions on ethnic and tribal lines, had weakened allegiances to the national army.
“If you know that help is not coming, and you’re not totally invested in the government with all your heart and soul, when the fight finally comes to your doorstep, why would you stand and fight?” Dr. Schroden says. “That just became an avalanche of desertion.”
Displaying social media savvy, the Taliban amplified these events by texting images and video of their fighters walking around army bases and driving Humvees. The posts went viral on social media, advancing the narrative that a Taliban victory was inevitable.
The psychological impact of this message of the Taliban’s imminent return to power ran deep, especially as all Afghans knew the Taliban had never left.
The Afghan government and Pentagon planners had counted on the Afghan army to defend hardened positions – a “ring of steel” around the cities – to force the Taliban to mass in concentrations that would make them vulnerable to bombing from above. But morale broke among much of the force before that ever happened.
Many elite forces, including Afghan special forces and paramilitary units such as that under Mr. Hanif, did fight until the last possible moment. Unlike the regular army, these units were organized largely along community and tribal lines, with elders vetting new recruits.
“They have kind of an obligation to one another,” says Mr. London, author of “The Recruiter,” a book about the CIA’s post-2001 transformation. “Given their reputation after years of bleeding the Taliban ... such troops realized that surrender was less likely to be an option and amnesty highly unlikely,” he says.
Mr. Hanif had to fight his way out of Kunar and is on the run. “We will fight until our last breath,” he said in his last phone call.
16. Taliban Takeover: Panjshir Valley Holdouts Offer Peace Deal to Taliban
They are in the latent or incipient phase of protracted warfare. They will use political tools to buy time while they mobilize the resistance. A peace deal could buy them time. Are we assessing this? Are we going to support this? Remember our only successes in Afghanistan have been through unconventional warfare supporting the Mujahideen in the 1980's against the Soviets and in 2001 supporting the warlords and Northern Alliance. Could we be successful again? But of course given the ongoing crisis we just do not have the stomach for this right now. But according to Eliot Cohen and John Gooch all military failures are a failure to learn, a failure to adapt, and a failure to anticipate. We need to anticipate what might happen with the resistance and ensure we are in the right position to act in our interests. But it will take presence, patience, and persistence.
Taliban Takeover: Panjshir Valley Holdouts Offer Peace Deal to Taliban
Mahdi Housaini, an assistant to Massoud, announced that the group had made contact with the Taliban and offered a peace agreement. While the precise terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the outline was that the Taliban would remain outside of the valley and would agree to a multi-party system of government.
In July and August 2021, the Taliban’s offensive brought about the fall of the Afghan government and netted the group control over thirty-three of the nation’s thirty-four provinces. The last remaining province, Panjshir, has been claimed by the “National Resistance Front of Afghanistan,” led by local commander Ahmad Massoud and former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who declared himself Afghanistan’s interim president, following the departure of Ashraf Ghani to the United Arab Emirates.
Mahdi Housaini, an assistant to Massoud, announced that the group had made contact with the Taliban and offered a peace agreement. While the precise terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the outline was that the Taliban would remain outside of the valley and would agree to a multi-party system of government.
The Taliban’s reaction was also unspecified, although the Emirati newspaper the National reported that the group had also sent a message to Massoud offering its own deal.
Housaini said that Massoud’s forces were prepared to resist the Taliban with military force, but that he and Saleh preferred a political solution as an alternative to bloodshed. At the same time, however, a letter from Massoud was published in the Washington Post, indicating that the Panjshir militants would continue to resist the Taliban militarily and requesting financial and military assistance from the United States.
The Panjshir Valley holdouts are surrounded on all sides by Taliban-controlled territory, and it is unclear how supplies and relief forces will reach the province, although some media have noted that the roads into the province have not yet been closed by the Taliban. While Amrullah Saleh, who has claimed to be present in Panjshir along with Afghanistan’s former defense minister, claimed that 10,000 troops defended the valley, Western experts and media sources have estimated the number is closer to 2,000 to 2,500, although their ranks have since increased following an influx of soldiers from the now-defunct Afghan National Army.
At the beginning of its offensive, the Taliban was estimated to have roughly 80,000 troops, and its forces were bolstered during the offensive by the capture of vast quantities of U.S. military equipment.
Ahmad Massoud is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a famed mujahideen leader during the 1980s and 1990s who fought against the Soviet Union, various other Afghan warlords, and the Taliban before his assassination by Al-Qaeda members in September 2001.
Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.
Image: Reuters
17. CNN continues hammering Biden over Afghan turmoil: 'If this isn't failure, what does failure look like?'
This is not a partisan comment. This is a comment about the 4th Estate and its importance to our democracy.
Fox News is surprised that CNN is doing its job, reporting the facts, and criticising and trying to hold the Biden Administration accountable.
CNN continues hammering Biden over Afghan turmoil: 'If this isn't failure, what does failure look like?'
'Biden no longer gets credit simply for not being Donald Trump'
In media news today, Biden faces intense backlash for avoiding questions on Afghanistan following address, Biden says ongoing ‘chaos’ in the country was ‘priced’ into the withdrawal decision, and an MSNBC opinion piece compares Republicans to the Taliban
Clarissa Ward, CNN's chief international correspondent who's been reporting from Kabul, called what she's witnessed an "absolute mess" and offered a stunning rebuke to Biden's claim to ABC News that the pullout of troops out of Afghanistan which quickly resulted in a takeover by the Taliban was not a "failure."
"I think a lot of people outside that airport, particularly those taking the kind of extreme actions we're just talking about would like to know if this isn't a failure, what does failure look like exactly?" Ward asked Thursday.
Later in the day, CNN’s counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd went off on the State Department for failing to say how many Americans are left in Afghanistan.
"That was unacceptable," Mudd reacted. "I’m not interested in hearing a U.S. Government spokesperson talk about how unprecedented this is with other U.S. presidents and how other presidents didn’t have to deal with this."
"I’m interested in understanding why we did only 2,000 people in 24 hours, how we increase that pace over the next 24 hours, what the total number is that we want to get out, and how long that’s going to take. That was pathetic!" Mudd exclaimed.
Mudd even took a swipe at State Department spokesman Ned Price, saying "That guy needs some training fast. That was horrible."
An analysis piece published on CNN's website also offered a scathing response to Biden's defense of the Afghan withdrawal.
"Biden is failing to adequately explain why he so badly failed to predict the swift collapse of the Afghan state. And his credibility has been sullied because his confident downplaying of the risks of the withdrawal has been repeatedly confounded by events. Seven months into his term, Biden no longer gets credit simply for not being Donald Trump," CNN White House reporter Stephen Collinson wrote on Thursday. "Biden's defensiveness, imprecision and apparent changes of position hardly project confidence or competence during an extraordinarily sensitive crisis on hostile foreign soil. Anytime a commander in chief does not appear in control or is in denial of obvious developments is a moment that threatens to inflict political damage."
Collinson insisted Biden gave Republicans "their clearest opening of a presidency in which he has been a hard political target" and how the president's "appeal lies in his candor and competence. Both are taking a hit."
"The President's image abroad is also taking a beating. His goal of reviving US relations with allies after declaring 'America is back' following the Trump administration have been complicated by dismay over the possibility that interpreters and other workers who helped US troops over 20 years could be left behind to face reprisals from the Taliban," Collinson wrote.
18. Army Special Forces want to integrate more with other military units on info warfare
Operations in the human domain, whether face to face or in the cyberspace.
Excerpts:
Additional lessons learned included the importance of low-equity electronic warfare and cyber-capable tools to degrade the adversary’s capabilities aimed at keeping U.S. forces outside its primarily sphere of influence.
“Our role as the SOF task force integrating information, electronic warfare, intelligence and other special operations activities is the key to achieving the information advantage,” he said. “The critical piece here is the importance of moving data and information at speed, scale while protecting the integrity of our command and control structures.”
Raetz also mentioned the role that the newly established Information Warfare Center at Fort Bragg is playing in special forces’ ability to contest adversaries below the threshold of armed conflict.
Psychological operations forces have been organized to form the core of the Information Warfare Center, focusing on top nation-state threats and collecting personal information of particular actors using open source tools and data aggregators to synthesize trends and identify narratives and key communications.
“We leverage our unique cultural and language expertise, develop content and engage target audiences online daily,” he said. “Our unique capability to impact the cognitive dimension where beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are impacted is integrated with our special warfare capabilities to see, sense and react to events in the information environment.”
“The Information Warfare Center offers a significant advantage of providing forward deployed forces with situational awareness above the tactical level and informed by intelligence capability with a message that we can craft rightly with the content and if necessary, deliver to target audiences nearly anywhere in the world.”
Army Special Forces want to integrate more with other military units on info warfare
AUGUSTA, Ga. — U.S. Army Special Forces have worked to develop top tier information warfare capabilities and want to mix their skills more often with conventional military units.
For example, a Special Operations Joint Task Force participated in July in the Army Defender Pacific exercise — a division-sized war game for joint multidomain operations in support of Indo-Pacific Command — to test its ability to win against a peer adversary, Col. Joshe Raetz, chief of staff 1st Special Forces Command, said in an Aug. 17 talk at TechNet Augusta.
“We integrated with I Corps as the joint force line component command and the Multidomain Task Force to converge capabilities to impose costs and introduce multiple dilemmas for our adversaries,” he said. “In this scenario, it was a war that we hope not to fight and through our approach to information warfare, we deterred our adversaries and not only survived, but thrived in competition short of armed conflict. Information warfare played a vital role in shaping the environment, deterring this adversary and preserving freedom of maneuver in both the operational and information environments. This vital contribution allowed the joint force and Army to seize the initiative and dominate the information environment.”
Army Special Forces are deployed to over 70 countries daily and engaging hostile actors while still being able to effectively message portions of a population, meaning they have been at the tip of the spear when it comes to developing and maturing information warfare capabilities.
The conventional forces are learning the importance of harnessing these capabilities as adversaries are using a variety of techniques to posture forces and undermine the U.S. and its forces. The Army, as a result, is pursuing an emerging idea called information advantage, which seeks harness information-related capabilities to enable commanders to maintain decision advantage over enemies.
Raetz told C4ISRNET following his remarks that Special Forces are looking to partner more frequently with conventional forces, noting that experimenting with regionally aligned Army forces was one success of the exercise.
“I think what we learned was to partner early and planning with the Army forces and other joint forces, and that may catch an adversary off guard. In this case, that’s what happened,” he said.
Additional lessons learned included the importance of low-equity electronic warfare and cyber-capable tools to degrade the adversary’s capabilities aimed at keeping U.S. forces outside its primarily sphere of influence.
“Our role as the SOF task force integrating information, electronic warfare, intelligence and other special operations activities is the key to achieving the information advantage,” he said. “The critical piece here is the importance of moving data and information at speed, scale while protecting the integrity of our command and control structures.”
Raetz also mentioned the role that the newly established Information Warfare Center at Fort Bragg is playing in special forces’ ability to contest adversaries below the threshold of armed conflict.
Psychological operations forces have been organized to form the core of the Information Warfare Center, focusing on top nation-state threats and collecting personal information of particular actors using open source tools and data aggregators to synthesize trends and identify narratives and key communications.
“We leverage our unique cultural and language expertise, develop content and engage target audiences online daily,” he said. “Our unique capability to impact the cognitive dimension where beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are impacted is integrated with our special warfare capabilities to see, sense and react to events in the information environment.”
“The Information Warfare Center offers a significant advantage of providing forward deployed forces with situational awareness above the tactical level and informed by intelligence capability with a message that we can craft rightly with the content and if necessary, deliver to target audiences nearly anywhere in the world.”
During the Defender Pacific exercise, Raetz said operators learned about the optimal integration of the Information Warfare Center and sensitive activities to present multiple dilemmas to adversaries and enable decision dominance.
In addition, Raetz said Army Special Forces are working with U.S. Cyber Command to deter malign actors in cyberspace.
“Controlling the information environment is so crucial to winning in both competition and high-intensity conflict,” he said.
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
19. Lost trust in the US? One country differs.
Irony.
Lost trust in the US? One country differs.
The abrupt US exit from Kabul may seem like Saigon 1975. But Vietnam today still holds strong trust in the US as leader of world order.
- By the Monitor's Editorial Board
For many of its friends and allies, America’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan has not only drawn parallels to the 1975 U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam; it has also dealt a similar blow to U.S. credibility as a trusted power. Yet it says something about the resiliency of America’s global role that one of its friends – Vietnam itself – has said nothing about lost trust since the Aug. 15 images of helicopters lifting people from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. In fact, on Aug. 24, Hanoi will play host to Kamala Harris, the first U.S. vice president to visit Vietnam since 1975.
The visit will help further seal the warming – and healing – of postwar ties between Vietnam and the United States that began 26 years ago with the normalization of official relations. While the ruling Communist Party largely ignores U.S. promotion of human rights and democratic values, Vietnam sees Washington as a reliable friend – “a leading partner” – in upholding world order.
The two are working closely to counter China’s military encroachments on islands in the South China Sea – including Vietnam’s own islands. The U.S., for example, has helped beef up Hanoi’s maritime forces, while in 2018 Vietnam allowed an American aircraft carrier to dock at Da Nang.
The U.S. has become Vietnam’s largest export market, while the U.S. has helped Vietnam deal with the pandemic. The closeness of their ties is reflected in the fact that Ms. Harris’ only other stop in Southeast Asia will be Singapore.
The relationship may well serve as a symbol of the ability of the U.S. to bounce back as a steadfast leader after its historic mistakes during the Cold War and the war on terror.
The war on terror has yet to be won, but as former U.S. diplomat wrote for the Atlantic Council on Aug. 17: “As it turns out, U.S. strategy during the Cold War – supporting freedom and resisting Soviet communism – succeeded, even in the face of Washington’s blunders in Vietnam and elsewhere. We must have been on to something about the attractive power of freedom and about the resilience of the U.S.-led liberal international system – and the United States itself.”
A healthy debate has begun in the U.S. on what it did wrong – and right – in Afghanistan. A similar debate after the Vietnam War (or what Vietnamese call “the American War”) eventually led to a revival of U.S. preeminence, including its role in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. As a country based on ideals, the U.S. can often lose sight of those ideals – and lose the trust of allies. Vietnam experienced both sides of that America. Perhaps it knows something more than other countries.
20. Irregular Warfare is Great Power Competition - Part 2
Captain Ferguson continues his thoughtful and important analysis.
IRREGULAR WARFARE IS GREAT POWER COMPETITION – PART 2
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an article released here on 19 August 2021
Paradoxically, a global retraction of U.S. forces in the interest of avoiding war would create a proportional reduction of sensors and human networks crafted with the very intention of mitigating in their infancy the conditions that precipitate armed conflict.
Breaking the Stigma
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster cautions against the return of “Vietnam syndrome” in his new book Battlegrounds. The fear of sleepwalking into another Iraq or Afghanistan, he submits, could have adverse effects that shy the U.S. government away from integrating comprehensive peacetime security cooperation strategies. Far from a tertiary capability, short of the DoD simply being “ready” for competition to escalate into war, and thereby trusting that such readiness will serve as a sufficient deterrent to escalation itself, IW is the DoD’s tool of record for competing proactively against what David Maxwell describes as the dominant threat in GPC: Political warfare supported by hybrid military approaches. Political warfare is the naturally occurring competitive exchange between states in the absence of armed conflict, so defined in a 1948 memorandum drafted by diplomat George Kennan: “Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace…[It is] the employment of all means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives.”
Paradoxically, a global retraction of U.S. forces in the interest of avoiding war would create a proportional reduction of sensors and human networks crafted with the very intention of mitigating in their infancy the conditions that precipitate armed conflict. Irregular Warfare in GPC could, and should, seek less to remake the world in America’s own image and more to prevent parts of the globe from deteriorating into an image from which none would benefit, save those revisionist powers eager to fill ensuing vacuums with malign influence. Skills cultivated through IW operations, such as regional expertise, familiarity with foreign languages, and joint, interagency, and multinational experience thereby become essential to realizing the DoD’s broader objectives in GPC.
Published in 2016, DoD Instruction 3000.11 recognized these needs by directing the department to refine its practices related to personnel who possess foreign military advising experience and capabilities. The document labeled such service members a “critical element of the DoD’s ability to conduct the full range of military operations in support of U.S. policy.” As the preferred tools of America’s competitors push the world further into a realm of interstate competition below the threshold of armed conflict, IW and its functions are likely to become critical strategic tools that both push and pull U.S. foreign policy. The IW Annex stated as much by declaring an end to the era of ad hoc reactions to situations short of war and commanding the DoD to “embrace IW as an enduring and fundamental form of warfare.” Special Operations Forces, or SOF, have and will continue to bear the brunt of this burden, but the Army’s new Security Force Assistance Brigades, if properly trained and employed, present unique opportunities to connect tactical actions to strategic effects in the competitive arena.
Bridging the SOF-Conventional Gap
The SOF truths, joint doctrine, DoD instructions, and most recently the IW Annex all make clear that conventional forces are, or at least should be, an essential element of IW. Language in the annex commands the DoD to “institutionalize irregular warfare as a core competency for both conventional and special operations forces,” adding that IW is a “core competency for the entire Joint Force.” But despite these proclamations, the 2020 NDAA links IW exclusively to SOF. The U.S. Army’s 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) remains the proponent for all things irregular, and in 2008 the DoD designated U.S. Special Operations Command the proponent for its Security Force Assistance (SFA) programs. Yet the newly formed Security Force Assistance Command, which serves as the higher headquarters for the five-active duty SFABs, falls under U.S. Forces Command. The resulting capability gap is evident. Calls to brand IW a core competency across the joint force are eclipsed by the reality that outside of overseas contingency operations and multinational training exercises, conventional experience in IW exists largely by exception. This reality drove numerous studies of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the same conclusion: The U.S. military as an enterprise needs to get better at theater-level IW campaigns.
Part of this endeavor involves bridging the capacity gap between a partner nation’s SOF—often trained by U.S. Special Forces—and its comparatively untrained but numerically superior conventional force. In many instances, the leaders of such forces will rise to become service chiefs or even heads of state in their countries. And if most U.S. special operations require non-SOF assistance to remain effective, then surely the same is true of partner SOF. Col. Michael Sullivan, a Special Forces officer and commander of the 2nd SFAB, emphasized this critical disconnect in a recent podcast with Maj. Gen. John Brennan, commander of 1st Special Forces Command, and now Maj. Gen. Scott Jackson, commander of Security Force Assistance Command. Both leaders see their organizations as “complimentary and symbiotic,” each delivering forward-deployed human sensors capable of de-escalating tensions through a presence-based deterrence effect or setting conditions in theater should deterrence fail. The IW Annex frames this capability as a “concerted deterrent and shaping effect” that imposes heavier costs on adversarial actions. There is doctrinal precedent for this outlook as well. Joint Publication 3-20, Security Cooperation, explains how the execution of security assistance activities “for shaping in the theater campaign may contribute to…a measure of deterrence to prevent the requirement for U.S. forces having to conduct a contingency operation.”
The reactive and ephemeral nature of the U.S. Army’s attempts to build a conventional IW enterprise in line with the type of advisor units first proposed by Lt. Col. John Nagl in 2007 has done little to help bridge this gap. The SFABs in their current composition seem to be the answer to Nagl’s question and the above DoD mandates for a conventional IW capacity focused purely on security assistance. That said, they are also the product of nearly two decades of counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East that often entailed various types of advising missions that either stripped Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) of their leadership, or threw BCTs abruptly into IW roles with little more than a counterinsurgency manual to guide them. Mixed results and in some cases “expensive to build but easy to crack” ‘Fabergé egg’ armies emerged.
Unlike the operational silos of Iraq and Afghanistan where NATO forces maintained an exclusive foreign military presence, the United States must now vie for influence with competitor states in numerous regional spheres.
Earlier organizational concepts, such as the U.S. Army’s Military Transition Teams and Security Force Advisory and Assistance Teams came and went, so it’s no surprise that the idea of another advisor unit elicited degrees of uncertainty. Although the primary logic driving Gen. Mark Milley’s intent to commission the SFABs focused more on freeing up BCTs to prepare for largescale combat operations than improving the Army’s advise and assist capability, that secondary function may prove more decisive in competition. Unlike the operational silos of Iraq and Afghanistan where NATO forces maintained an exclusive foreign military presence, the United States must now vie for influence with competitor states in numerous regional spheres. In other words, the West no longer has a monopoly on the security assistance market as other “suppliers” now flood the field.
The five geographically aligned SFABs supported by a sixth National Guard SFAB are in a position to demonstrate with a high degree of transparency U.S. commitment to partner nations and international stability. The unique and at times diplomatic mission of the SFABs is well known to most SOF, which makes coordination between the two communities essential to the successful implementation of SFAB advisor teams—a reality that U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) already recognized in its 2035 vision. As so-called “combat” deployments evaporate for western militaries, the DoD’s expanding IW capability should become the tool with which the United States chooses to exercise its military instrument of national power below the threshold of war.
Casting a Wider Net
As Hal Brands observed in 2018, the unipolar moment experienced by the United States after the Cold War has generally afforded it the luxury of sacrificing innovation in the competitive space (the most likely scenario) to pursue innovations that could pay dividends at war (the most dangerous scenario). The DoD can no longer afford such a tradeoff because the war for influence and access with revisionist powers is already here, and the United States faces clever, enterprising opponents who pursue strategies designed to “win without fighting.” A revolution in irregular innovation is long overdue.
If the current environment stands, it speaks to an urgent need to reform the DoD’s capacity to respond collectively to a broader spectrum of non-military threats, such as foreign malign influence on U.S. partners and allies. A more robust and integrated IW architecture could blunt these efforts by hardening communities to authoritarian influence campaigns and building joint, multinational operational capacity in their armed forces. In this way, IW’s tactical actions become tied to the U.S. government’s strategic objectives outlined in the NSS, NDS, and IW Annex. The DoD’s IW enterprise should consider the following actions toward this end:
- Work to align the mission windows and objectives of theater IW assets rather than employing them in a vacuum. This requires further coordination between U.S. embassy staff, conventional forces employed by geographic combatant commanders, and the corresponding Theater Special Operations Commands as outlined in USASOC’s 2035 vision and supported by DoD directives. As of this writing, SFABs do not have SOF liaisons or any kind of standardized exchange program to de-conflict with their SOF counterparts in theater.
- Incorporate key elements of the IW Annex into the next NSS and NDS, expanding upon existing guidance related to SOF-Conventional integration in theater-level strategies and tying related effects in the information space to national strategy.
- Recognize that political warfare is the historical tool of choice with which great powers compete and IW is its military vehicle. Acknowledge that the DoD must actively compete in this space by prioritizing security cooperation in strategically critical areas to de-escalate tensions while expanding influence and generating options for policymakers during periods of emerging crises.
Identifying IW as a joint core competency demonstrates America’s commitment to a mutually supporting international network of free nations as directed by the National Defense Strategy. The IW enterprise operates at ground zero of this effort to compete through a system of global security cooperation that builds trust between the United States and its allies, partners, and friends. Should it do so effectively, it may be able to sustain the ideals of prosperity and security it spent the last 75 years defending without seeing competition escalate into conflict.
Capt. Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, has nearly 20 years of infantry and intelligence experience throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He has advised foreign security forces from the tactical to strategic level and holds a Master of Science in Homeland Security from the California State University at San Diego.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Description: U.S. and Australian Special Operations Forces (SOF) conduct a military freefall parachute insertion at night with zero natural illumination from 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) altitude, July 2019 during Talisman Sabre. By inserting behind enemy lines SOF conduct surveillance and reconnaissance to enable precision targeting. Talisman Sabre is a bilateral exercise that tests the two forces combat training, readiness and interoperability.
Photo Credit: U.S. Marine Corps photos by Lance Cpl. Nicole Rogge
21. Asymmetric Warfare and Military Modernization in the Philippines
Perhaps we should consider establishing a Resident Special Forces Detachment (with cross functional teams as envisioned by the 1st Special Forces Command to help advise and assist in developing asymmetric capabilities) along with one in Taiwan (which we had from about 1957 through 1974.
Asymmetric Warfare and Military Modernization in the Philippines | Geopolitical Monitor
A Clausewitzian perspective of war, i.e. achieving victory by defeating the opponent’s army, is what most conventional strategies and organizations base their logic on. Quoting Minberger and Svendsen (2013): “Small states have been copying the larger nations way of planning for war, with limited analysis of whether this is the most effective strategy for them. Analyses of large numbers of historical cases show that a conventional approach is a road to defeat for small states when facing larger conventional opponents. Another solution might be to change the national strategy to an irregular one.”
In research entitled Irregular Warfare as a National Military Strategy Approach for Small States, the authors present the potential for small states to improve the effectiveness of their militaries by adopting an irregular strategy rather than the traditional or conventional approach. In terms of strategy, they further argue that a small state should avoid open confrontation with a larger opponent’s military forces, while making any attack by an aggressor costlier (politically, militarily and/or economically) than the aggressor is willing to pay, hence, developing an indirect strategy that leads to an irregular warfare approach rather than a conventional one. This is based on the premise that the small state is inferior in military terms and obviously cannot win a war fought conventionally.
Moreover, Minberger and Svendsen offer another perspective to summarize their ‘ends, ways, and means’ strategy for small states. They believe that for a small state to resolve a conflict, it must not rely on the military means alone but rather utilize in combination other means available to it – “the use of all the state´s tools (diplomacy, informational, military, and economics), aimed at spreading the conflict into the international context, and, thereby, producing the psychological pressure required for an aggressor to reconsider his plans.”
Further, Dusan Gregor’s Master’s thesis entitled, David’s Sling: Irregular Warfare as a Small State’s Strategy Option, argues that as powerful states continue to increase their military might, small states, on the other hand, face both a political and military challenge of deciding what vital military capabilities to keep and how to possibly overcome an adversary which is technologically and numerically superior. He purports that because small states often try to imitate great powers with regard to their ability to fight wars, such an approach is considered risky: “Due to limited financial, technological, material, and human resources, a small nation’s military [does] not pose a credible deterrence and, if deterrence fails, may not repel a superior assailant.” By introducing irregular warfare concept as a strategic option, the possibility of a small state winning a war against a conventionally superior enemy increases. He then explores this concept under the regular joint military functions of command and control, information, intelligence, fires, movement and maneuver, protection, and sustainment.
In Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars, author Andrew Mack, who was the first to introduce the term ‘asymmetric conflict,’ contends that an actor’s relative determination or interest explains the successful outcome or failure in such conflicts. He argues that military superiority is not a guarantee of success in war. The crux of the matter is that regardless of material power resources, the victor will be the actor with the most resolve. Mack concluded an interesting aspect of asymmetric wars, such as the Vietnam War, that many strong actors do not win the conflict in a military sense, nor are they defeated militarily. Such a military defeat would have been impossible as the insurgents (Vietcong) could not launch an invasion.
Philippine Context of Asymmetric Defense
In analyzing the security policy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) capability upgrade program, more particularly the development of an asymmetric warfare capability, we can further determine if the approach of procuring conventional weapons to boost the AFP’s defense capability is still rational, responsive, and adaptive to the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) security environment that our military forces are operating in.
The AFP’s asymmetric warfare capability as a strategic option falls primarily under deterrence and defense purposes, but may also include calculated pre-emptive offensive actions. This capability is understood to be limited to a state-on-state, weak versus strong power dynamics not involving non-state actors (although not negating the fact that such capability may be harnessed by the Philippine government later to address this type of adversary). On capability development, the term is aptly directed to refer to a state or country with weak military capabilities. Additionally, the definition of “asymmetry” by Metz & Johnson was used to help readers achieve a full grounding or establish a common operational understanding of what asymmetry in warfare is. The asymmetries of method, technology, and organization is used.
As a basis, the Republic Act No. 7898, also known as the “AFP Modernization Act,” RA 7898, which was signed into law by President Fidel V. Ramos on February 23, 1995, is an act providing for the modernization of the AFP. As stated therein: “It is hereby declared the policy of the State to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to a level where it can effectively and fully perform its constitutional mandate to uphold the sovereignty and preserve the patrimony of the Republic of the Philippines.”
In this sense, one of the main thrusts of the modernization program is “The development of a self-reliant and credible strategic armed force along the concept of a “Citizens Armed Force”; the reconfiguration of the Armed Forces of the Philippines structure; and the professionalization of the AFP.” Additionally, under Section 4, Capability, Material, and Technology Development (CMTD) is cited as one of the components of the program which “…entails the development and employment of certain capabilities that can address the assessed threats: Provided, that the acquisition of air force, navy and army equipment and material of such types and quantities shall be made in accordance with the need to develop AFP capabilities pursuant to its modernization objectives.” The law was designed for a 15-year duration, with a 50-billion-peso initial budget covering the first 5 years. However, due to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, funding was halted and consequently neglected by succeeding presidencies until its eventual expiration in 2010.
The Revised AFP Modernization Program (RAFPMP), RA 10349, is an act amending Republic Act No. 7898. It was signed into law by President Benigno Aquino III on 11 December 2012, serving as a supplemental law extending the previous program by another 15 years. It allocated 75 billion pesos as an initial budget for the first five years in order to continue modernizing all the Major Services of the AFP. The RAFPMP is being implemented in three phases called Horizon I (2013 – 2017), Horizon II (2018 – 2022), and Horizon III (2023 – 2028), respectively.
Now, out of the total budget for Horizon 1, which amounts to PHP 96.5 billion, 65% or PHP 62.7 billion of the budget goes to the projects capable for territorial defense in the West Philippine Sea, while the remaining PHP 33.8 billion goes toward ISO/HADR & counter-terror capabilities.
Meanwhile, the general assessment of the RAFPMP, as contained in the Revised AFPMP Year-End Report CY-2020, shows that underlying factors have made it fall short on completion. Delivery and completion dates after contract signing normally range from 2 to 5 years and seller countries usually do not readily provide data on high-end weapons systems, as these projects normally undergo government-to-government (G2G) arrangements or bilateral agreements for information sharing, while other projects require host systems or platforms to be completed first prior to integration and/or installation. These factors have caused delays in the implementation of the RAFPMP, even if the projects are already on its contract implementation stage.
That significantly affects not only the attainment of the AFP’s target equipment readiness, which is the main component in modernizing the AFP, but also yearly financial performance. Relatedly, limited funding is one of the problems encountered in implementing the projects for the modernization program. For Horizon 2, which will end next year (2022), with a total budget cost of PHP 285 billion, only 57 billion or 20% was released between 2018-2020.
In summary, in order to attain a full mission capability for territorial defense in WPS or minimum credible defense as per the Horizon 2 objective, the AFP shall continue to procure and implement the remaining Horizon 1 and 2 approved project list and the additional “game changer” projects, with a total of PHP 362.49 billion being projected for annual programming between 2021 to 2027.
In realizing the DND vision set for year 2028, which guarantees: “(1) Philippine security, sovereignty and territorial integrity, (2) a reliable partner in national development, and (3) a strategic player in the Asia-Pacific region,” efforts as outlined in the National Defense Strategy (NDS) 2018-2022, i.e., building and sustaining the readiness of a defense force composed of highly trained and well-equipped soldiers and significantly increasing defense capability and capacity through modernization, are purposively indicated.
The credible defense posture of the NDS, which falls under Force Structure and Organizational Development, states that: “It is the mission of the Defense Department to maintain an armed forces that is efficient and responsive to engage in conventional and unconventional warfare such as internal and external operations as well as disaster relief and rescue operations, while continuously contributing to economic development and other non-traditional military roles.” Moreover, it says that “…activities during times of conflict include peace enforcement, counter terrorism, and conventional and unconventional warfare.” Hence, in relation to the threats that the DND has identified, the Philippines has to address these challenges across the whole spectrum of defense and security – requiring the collaboration and coordination of various government sectors, the armed forces, and the people, in general.
Furthermore, the NDS echoes the current administration’s firm resolve to “allocate modernization packages for the military as can be surmised upon the government’s agenda to ensure sustained efforts for upgrading the armed forces,” in the light of the country’s positive economic outlook.
From the AFP’s end, the AFP should develop asymmetric warfare capabilities, and this was mirrored in the Joint Operating Concept (JOC), stating that asymmetric warfare should be one of the enabling concepts of the JOC. The first move to progress into having asymmetric capability is to develop the necessary technology and we need to give attention to the new dynamics of Self-Reliant Defense Posture (SRDP), which is one of the foundations of asymmetric warfare.
The AFP is developing conventional warfare capabilities because it represents the standard that the armed forces can use to measure itself, and other states’ armed forces are also being measured in the same manner. This development of the AFP’s conventional warfare capabilities will be the staging point for asymmetric warfare, because the former is also a key source of technology enrichment for the armed forces. One cannot develop an asymmetric warfare capability without already mastering the technologies of conventional warfare, which are in turn refocused and recalibrated toward asymmetric purposes.
In the political arena, the Philippines lags behind in so-called political warfare. China, being a big and powerful country, is in fact the world leader in this kind of warfare despite United States’ recent pushback via the QUAD Security Order in the Indo-Pacific region. Regional security concerns are highly dependent on developments in this arena. They have been at the forefront of political warfare, and it is high time that the Philippines looked into this highly complex front. It does not depend directly on having superior weaponry, so poor and small countries can get involved.
Against this complex backdrop, and guided by the National Security Policy (NSP) and National Security Strategy (NSS), the Philippines, through its armed forces, must demonstrate to the world that it is capable of protecting and defending what it owns by realizing its strategic objective of developing a defense capability for the protection of the country’s territory, sovereignty, and maritime interests in the face of China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea (SCS), particularly in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
In this context, the success of a small state (i.e. Philippines and other ASEAN nations) winning against its strong enemies has few exceptional historical proofs (for example, the case of Israel in the Six-day War). But the tendency of small states to imitate or copy great powers in their defense planning with respect to military capabilities, i.e. building on conventional or traditional strengths, often proves counter-productive, likely to lead to defeat in war, and in some instances, cause internal political, economic, social, environmental, and security challenges in the end.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com
22. Tsai says Taiwan needs to be stronger
Again, it could be useful to re-establish a Resident Special Forces Detachment in Taiwan to advise and assist on developing thesome of the capabilities Taiwan needs, e.g., resistance operating concept.
Thu, Aug 19, 2021 page1
- Tsai says Taiwan needs to be stronger
- ‘SELF-RELIANCE’: The president said the discussion over Afghanistan leads to the conclusion that Taiwan needs to be more united and more resolute in defense
- AFP and Bloomberg, with staff writer
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Afghanistan’s return to Taliban rule following the withdrawal of US forces shows that Taiwan needs to be “stronger and more united” in ensuring its own defense, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
The sudden departure of US troops from Kabul has sparked discussion in Taiwan as to whether Washington can be relied upon to come to Taipei’s defense.
“Recent changes in the situation in Afghanistan have led to much discussion in Taiwan,” Tsai wrote on Facebook. “I want to tell everyone that Taiwan’s only option is to make ourselves stronger, more united and more resolute in our determination to protect ourselves.”
- US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a news briefing at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters
She said that Taiwan should practice self-reliance.
“It’s not an option for us to do nothing ... and just to rely on other people’s protection,” she wrote.
She added that Taipei cannot rely on “momentary goodwill or charity from those who will not renounce the use of force against Taiwan,” an apparent reference to Beijing.
Beijing’s state media have reveled in the US pullout from Afghanistan, publishing a series of editorials predicting that Washington would not come to Taiwan’s aid in its hour of need.
Analysts have said that Afghanistan and Taiwan are not comparable.
Taiwan “is a core interest for the US in that it is a well-functioning
democracy, loyal ally, [with] a capable military and directly standing up to America’s most important competitor,” said Robert Kelly, an international relations expert at Pusan National University in Busan, South Korea.
“Afghanistan was on the fringe of US interests. A better analogue ... is Israel,” Kelly wrote on Twitter.
Separately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday thanked Washington for reiterating its commitment to Taiwan and other allies.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has repeatedly expressed its “rock solid” commitment to Taiwan and supported the sentiment with practical action, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said.
Taiwan would resolutely continue to improve its self-defense capabilities to safeguard the lives and property of Taiwanese, as well as their free and democratic way of life, Ou said.
Cooperation between Taiwan, the US and other nations would ensure stability in the Taiwan Strait, she said, adding that Taiwan would continue contributing to lasting peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
The ministry made the comments after US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday reaffirmed Washington’s “sacrosanct” commitments to its allies, including Taiwan, pushing back at concerns about its resolve after its departure from Afghanistan.
“We believe that our commitments to our allies and partners are sacrosanct and always have been,” Sullivan told a news conference in Washington.
“We believe our commitment to Taiwan and to Israel remains as strong as it’s ever been,” he added.
When asked how Washington is countering questions about its resolve from Beijing and Moscow, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: “We, of course, are in touch with the Chinese and the Russians.”
“Our message is very clear: We stand by partners around the world who are subject to this kind of propaganda that Russia and China are projecting, and we’re going to continue to deliver on those words with actions,” Psaki said.
Max Baucus, a former US ambassador to Beijing, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) might be emboldened to test the US over Taiwan.
“The development in Afghanistan is going to cause Xi Jinping to probe a little bit,” Baucus said. “He’s going to test to see the degree to which we are going to stand up for Taiwan.”
Xi will “look for openings,” he said. “He’ll probe here, probe there. That’s their history.”
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23. Taiwan Wants Paladins. Congress Should Say No
The authors make a comment about "bending the will of a resolute people." But they fail to discuss one of the major asymmetric capabilities that should be developed. Not only a defense in depth by the Taiwan military but also a defense in depth through mobilization of the population in support of a resistance operating concept.
Excerpts:
Make no mistake: Paladins are a bad idea. They are outdated, based on a design that dates back to the Vietnam War. They are also expensive. Taiwan will spend $750 million on 40 howitzers. That is before training, maintenance, and ammunition costs are factored in. Worst of all, Paladins will be sitting ducks in a shooting war. At 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 30 tons in weight, these vehicles are ill-suited for the island’s endless winding roads, narrow bridges, and waterlogged fields.
The fact is that Paladins are exactly the sort of weapon that defense experts have long tried to get Taipei to stop buying. Most serious analysts think that Taiwan already spends too much on small numbers of expensive platforms. Since Taiwan's military cannot possibly afford enough jets, ships, and tanks to offset the ever-growing cross-Strait military imbalance, over-investing in these weapons makes the island dangerously vulnerable to first strike and preemption.
American analysts and think tanks have instead tried to get Taiwan to adopt an asymmetric force posture. Asymmetry means reorganizing the island’s defense around large numbers of cheap things—weapons like drones, coastal defense missiles, naval mines, portable air defenses, and mobile ground forces. It also means training combat units to wage a prolonged defense in depth instead of trying to engage an invasion force in a decisive battle for the beaches.
Taiwanese admirals and generals counter this push for asymmetry by claiming they need expensive jets and ships to respond to China’s so-called “grey zone” provocations. Although it is unclear how Paladins will help with this task, the more important point is that naval and aerial intrusions alone cannot bend the will of a truly resolute people. If they can, then it means Taiwan has far deeper problems than American-made weapons alone can solve.
Taiwan Wants Paladins. Congress Should Say No
By BRIAN DAVIS and MICHAEL HUNZEKER
Taipei’s only hope for an effective defense is not armor but asymmetry.
The Biden administration recently notified Congress of a proposal to sell Taiwan 40 Paladin self-propelled howitzers. As mundane as this announcement might seem, it should be of deep concern to anyone who cares about U.S.-Taiwan relations.
Beijing is, after all, ratcheting up its aggression toward the island. A war over Taiwan’s status is a distinct possibility and would prove unimaginably catastrophic for Taiwan. Americans also have skin in the game, since Washington will face enormous pressure to intervene.
Taiwan should therefore do everything it can to deter China by improving its defenses. Unfortunately, this proposed sale is stark proof that far from undertaking long overdue defense reforms with a sense of existential urgency, Taiwan is acting like it is business as usual.
Make no mistake: Paladins are a bad idea. They are outdated, based on a design that dates back to the Vietnam War. They are also expensive. Taiwan will spend $750 million on 40 howitzers. That is before training, maintenance, and ammunition costs are factored in. Worst of all, Paladins will be sitting ducks in a shooting war. At 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 30 tons in weight, these vehicles are ill-suited for the island’s endless winding roads, narrow bridges, and waterlogged fields.
The fact is that Paladins are exactly the sort of weapon that defense experts have long tried to get Taipei to stop buying. Most serious analysts think that Taiwan already spends too much on small numbers of expensive platforms. Since Taiwan's military cannot possibly afford enough jets, ships, and tanks to offset the ever-growing cross-Strait military imbalance, over-investing in these weapons makes the island dangerously vulnerable to first strike and preemption.
American analysts and think tanks have instead tried to get Taiwan to adopt an asymmetric force posture. Asymmetry means reorganizing the island’s defense around large numbers of cheap things—weapons like drones, coastal defense missiles, naval mines, portable air defenses, and mobile ground forces. It also means training combat units to wage a prolonged defense in depth instead of trying to engage an invasion force in a decisive battle for the beaches.
Taiwanese admirals and generals counter this push for asymmetry by claiming they need expensive jets and ships to respond to China’s so-called “grey zone” provocations. Although it is unclear how Paladins will help with this task, the more important point is that naval and aerial intrusions alone cannot bend the will of a truly resolute people. If they can, then it means Taiwan has far deeper problems than American-made weapons alone can solve.
Instead of piddling around in the grey zone, Taiwan’s military should focus on the real threat: invasion. A genuinely asymmetric force posture is its best option for doing so.
Unfortunately, Taiwan’s pursuit of Paladins serves as yet more proof that these moves were just lip service and that Taiwan’s military remained unserious about asymmetry. In 2019 alone, Taiwan spent $8 billion on 66 F-16 fighter jets and another $2 billion on 108 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks. The Tsai administration still wants to spend $16 billion USD on eight indigenously developed and built submarines. And Taiwan’s 2021 Quadrennial Defense Review makes clear in substance and style that asymmetry remains a low priority.
Of course, the blame is not Taiwan’s alone. Despite pushing for asymmetric defense reform, the United States continues to send mixed signals about what it will sell the island. If American officials are as serious about asymmetry as they say they are, they would have squelched the Paladin deal long ago.
The Executive and Legislative Branches need to get on the same sheet of music. Their message must be clear: Taiwan has all the tanks, planes, and ships it needs. The United States will stand firm by its commitment to “make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” However, Washington—not Taipei—will define “sufficient self-defense capability” from here on out.
Taiwan is a thriving liberal democracy and a critical partner of the utmost geostrategic importance. It is a friend worth helping. Yet there is a difference between being a friend and being an enabler. Even if the Paladin deal is too far along to stop without losing face, the United States must find a way to get the island to stop squandering its limited time, money, and resources on inappropriate weapons. Getting Taiwan’s military to change course will of course be difficult, costly, and painful. The price tag for ignoring the problem will almost assuredly be higher.
Brian Davis is a Ph.D candidate at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is a retired U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer.
Michael A. Hunzeker is an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He served as an active duty Marine Corps armor officer from 2000-2006.
24. As Chinese Vaccines Stumble, U.S. Finds New Opening in Asia
As Chinese Vaccines Stumble, U.S. Finds New Opening in Asia
By Sui-Lee Wee and Steven Lee Myers
Several Southeast Asian nations are raising doubts about the efficacy of China’s vaccines. The Biden administration has recently offered to provide shots, “no strings attached.”
Malaysia’s health minister said the country would stop using China’s Sinovac vaccine once its supply ran out. The AstraZeneca vaccine was used to vaccinate people in Kuala Lumpur in May.Credit...Ahmad Yusni/EPA, via Shutterstock
Aug. 20, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ET
Instead, countries across the region are quickly turning elsewhere to look for shots.
China, eager to build good will, stepped in, promising to provide more than 255 million doses, according to Bridge Consulting, a Beijing-based research company.
The setback to China’s vaccine campaign has created a diplomatic opening for the United States when relations between the two countries are increasingly fraught, in part because of the coronavirus. China has criticized the American handling of the crisis at home and even claimed, with no evidence, that the pandemic originated in a military lab at Fort Detrick, Md., not in Wuhan, where the first cases emerged in late 2019.
As more countries turn away from Chinese shots, vaccine aid from the United States offers an opportunity to restore relations in a region that American officials have mostly ignored for years while China extended its influence. The Biden administration has dispatched a crowd of senior officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who is scheduled to arrive on Sunday to visit Singapore and Vietnam. It has also, at last, made its own vaccine pledges to Southeast Asia, emphasizing that the American contribution of roughly 23 million shots as of this week comes with “no strings attached,” an implicit reference to China.
Anti-China sentiment runs high in Vietnam, but the country accepted a donation of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm in June, causing a backlash among citizens who said they did not trust the quality of Chinese shots.
Several countries in the region have been eager to receive the more effective, Western doses. Although they remain far outnumbered by Chinese shots, they present an attractive alternative. China’s “early head-start advantage has lost its magic already,” said Hoang Thi Ha, a researcher with the Asean Studies center of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
For most of the year, many developing countries in Southeast Asia did not have much of a choice when it came to vaccines. They struggled to acquire doses, many of which were being made by richer nations that have been accused of hoarding them.
China sought to fill those needs. The country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, traveled through the region in January, promising to help fight the pandemic. In April, he declared that Southeast Asia was a priority for Beijing. About a third of the 33 million doses that China has distributed free worldwide were sent to the region, according to the figures provided by Bridge Consulting.
Much of Beijing’s focus has been directed at the more populous countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, and its longstanding allies like Cambodia and Laos.
Indonesia was China’s biggest customer in the region, buying 125 million doses from Sinovac. The Philippines obtained 25 million Sinovac shots after the president, Rodrigo Duterte, said he had turned to Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, for help. Cambodia received more than 2.2 million of China’s Sinopharm doses. It has inoculated roughly 41 percent of its population, achieving the second-highest vaccination rate in the region, after Singapore.
Then, signs started emerging that the Chinese vaccines were not as effective as hoped. Indonesia found that 10 percent of its health care workers had become infected with Covid-19 as of July, despite being fully vaccinated with the Sinovac shot, according to the Indonesian Hospital Association.
In July, a virologist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok said a study of people who had received two doses of the Sinovac vaccine showed that their level of antibodies, 70 percent, was “barely efficacious” against the Alpha variant of the coronavirus, first detected in Britain, or against the Delta variant, first detected in India.
The governments in both Indonesia and Thailand decided that they had to make a switch to other vaccines, like those provided by the United States, Britain and Russia.
“Now that they have more choices, they can make other decisions,” said Nadège Rolland, senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington. “I don’t think it’s politically motivated. I think it’s pragmatic.”
Yaowares Wasuwat, a noodle seller in Thailand’s Bangsaen Chonburi Province, said that she hoped to get the AstraZeneca vaccine for her second shot after being inoculated with Sinovac, but that she would take whatever was available.
“I have nothing to lose,” she said. “The economy is so bad, we are gasping for air. It’s like dying while living, so just take whatever protection we can.”
Lloyd J. Austin III, the U.S. secretary of defense, met with President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila in July. The United States said it would deliver millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines to the country.Credit...Malacanang Presidential Photo/via Reuters
China’s early moves in the region stand in marked contrast with the United States, which was slow to provide assistance.
Understand the State of Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.
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Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
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Vaccine rules . . . and businesses. Private companies are increasingly mandating coronavirus vaccines for employees, with varying approaches. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.
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College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.
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Schools. On Aug. 11, California announced that it would require teachers and staff of both public and private schools to be vaccinated or face regular testing, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots.
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Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.
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New York. On Aug. 3, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced that proof of vaccination would be required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations, becoming the first U.S. city to require vaccines for a broad range of activities. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.
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At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops “no later” than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.
The calculus has now changed under President Biden. Both Lloyd J. Austin III, the American secretary of defense, and Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, had meetings with top officials in Southeast Asia in recent weeks. They noted the donations of roughly 20 million shots.
After Mr. Austin visited the Philippines, Manila restored a defense agreement that had been stuck in limbo for more than a year after Mr. Duterte threatened to terminate it. The agreement, which would continue to allow American troops and equipment to be moved in and out of the Philippines, could thwart China’s goal to push the American military out of the region.
Still, some Southeast Asian analysts have misgivings about Washington’s belated vaccine diplomacy.
“The fact remains that the U.S. was really slow off the bat,” said Elina Noor, director of political-security affairs at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “And given that rich countries were hoarding vaccines when they became available, I think that sour taste still lingers.”
China continues to be seen to be a reliable supplier for the vaccines it has produced. It has delivered 86 percent of the doses that it has promised to sell. And there remain concerns that the American companies have been slow to make deliveries. For those reasons, most Southeast Asian countries have not openly criticized China — and have not abandoned Chinese vaccines.
Anti-China sentiment runs high in Vietnam, but the country accepted a donation of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm in June, causing a backlash among citizens who said they did not trust the quality of Chinese shots.
“Even right in the middle of this emergency, I have no reason to trade my life or my family’s for a Chinese vaccine,” said Nguyen Hoang Vy, a manager for health care operations at a hospital in the city of Ho Chi Minh.
It later emerged that the donated Sinopharm shots were meant for priority groups outlined by Beijing, deepening the cynicism toward China.
“There are always some conditions attached,” said Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who specializes in Southeast Asia, referring to China’s vaccine deals.
Vietnam continues to battle an outbreak, and vaccines remain in short supply. Despite the earlier public anger, a private Vietnamese company acquired five million doses of Sinopharm for distribution, which local authorities began to administer this month.
Muktita Suhartono and Vo Kieu Bao Uyen contributed reporting. Claire Fu and Elsie Chen contributed research.
25. Opinion | Here’s why the U.S. national security apparatus keeps producing failures
Yes, sometimes less is more. But bureaucracies are always expanding unless checked by leadership.
Fareed Zakaria reminds me of the adage: "Any problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it."
But we have to have meetings to communicate, coordinate, and synchronize. They are easy to criticize and mock but good and effective meetings are necessary.
Opinion | Here’s why the U.S. national security apparatus keeps producing failures
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Fareed ZakariaColumnist Today at 5:50 p.m. EDT · August 19, 2021
If you want one statistic to explain the failure of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan it is this: The National Security Council met 36 times since April to discuss it. Even more remarkable, this number was shared with the media to illustrate how well the administration had handled things. The U.S. foreign policymaking apparatus has transformed itself into a dinosaur, with a huge body and little brain, a bureaucracy where process has become policy.
The more meetings you have, the less efficient an organization becomes. “Deputies would be in there for meetings for hours and hours on end. It comes at a cost,” recalled Frances Townsend, who served as Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush. People spend precious time in meetings talking rather than executing. Everything gets whittled down to the lowest common denominator. Preparation and memos for meetings become a substitute for effective action. The Wall Street Journal describes the run-up to the Afghanistan withdrawal: “The administration had been holding meetings for months . . . [but] there was little instruction to various government agencies on how to prepare for the transition of power.”
The United States fought the Cold War with a large bureaucracy but one that, especially at the top, was surprisingly lean and effective. The modern National Security Council, for example, created by Henry Kissinger, had no more than 50 people. It stayed around that level for most of the 20th century, though even so, by 2000 it had crept up to about 100. In the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, it doubled again. Under Barack Obama, it doubled yet again. Donald Trump shrunk it some, but President Biden has brought it back to more than 350, with lots of deputies, layers and complexity.
The larger an organization gets, the more layers it develops, and the more layers, the harder it is to navigate them. Consider the Defense Department, which is staggering in its size and complexity. With an annual budget of more than $700 billion, it is probably the fattest bureaucracy on the planet. And it has grown mightily in the past two decades. New York University scholar Paul Light says that the top five tiers of the Pentagon have gone from 363 people in 1998 to 870 in 2020. At the assistant secretary level alone, the numbers have gone from 193 to 629. There are now 33 layers of bureaucracy at the top of the Defense Department.
In large organizations, the challenge of navigating the bureaucracy gets far more attention than actual policymaking. Information is always internally generated; nothing from the outside can seep into the building. This reality might explain perhaps the most startling fact about the Afghanistan intervention — that for 20 years, the U.S. government deluded itself and the world into believing it was making genuine progress, and that the Afghan army, in particular, was growing in strength and effectiveness.
Today, with the policy failure evident, all the bureaucracies in Washington are furiously leaking that they actually got it right. But consider what the Pentagon has been saying for the last two decades. In 2011, Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, then the head of the training command in Afghanistan, asserted that the Afghan army was “the best-trained, the best-equipped and the best-led,” and added, “they only continue to get better over time.” Two years later, Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said, “I am much more optimistic about the outcome here, as long as the Afghan security forces continue to do what they’ve been doing.” Obama’s troop surge of 2009-2012 was declared a success, even though, by 2015, the Taliban held more territory than at any time since the war began.
Many insiders had come to realize that the mission was doomed, but the information stayed trapped within the bureaucracy. As The Post has documented in its “Afghanistan Papers” reporting project, officials would, when pressed, privately express their skepticism. But the official narrative was always sunny. “Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, senior counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan, told government investigators. Outside information never quite penetrated — such as that of Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings expert, who found that the Afghan army had annual attrition rates of 20 to 30 percent because of desertions and casualties. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction repeatedly pointed out the problem of “ghost soldiers” and raised alarm over an Associated Press report indicating that despite an official tally of over 300,000 troops, Afghan security forces really numbered only 120,000.
Phase 1 of the Afghanistan withdrawal has been a failure. Phase 2, the evacuation of tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans, could yet be a success. The evidence so far — see David Rohde’s piece in the New Yorker this week — is that the evacuation is still utterly chaotic, lacking urgency and effective action. The administration can still make this happen, but it needs to stop meeting and start doing.
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Fareed ZakariaColumnist Today at 5:50 p.m. EDT · August 19, 2021
26. Chinese espionage tool exploits vulnerabilities in 58 widely used websites
Chinese espionage tool exploits vulnerabilities in 58 widely used websites
Catalin Cimpanu
August 17, 2021
A security researcher has discovered a web attack framework developed by a suspected Chinese government hacking group and used to exploit vulnerabilities in 58 popular websites to collect data on possible Chinese dissidents.
Fifty-seven of the sites are popular Chinese portals, while the last is the site for US newspaper, the New York Times.
In addition, the tool also abused legitimate browser features in attempts to collect user keystrokes, a large swath of operating system details, geolocation data, and even webcam snapshots of a target’s face—although many of these capabilities weren’t as silent as the exploits targeting third-party websites, since they also tended to trigger a browser notification prompt.
Tetris is a complex web-based spying tool
Named Tetris, the tool was found secretly uploaded on two websites with a Chinese readership.
“The sites both appear to be independent newsblogs,” said a security researcher going online under the pseudonym of Imp0rtp3, who analyzed the Tetris attack framework for the first time in a blog post earlier this month.
“Both [sites] are focused on China, one site [is focused on China’s] actions against Taiwan and Hong-Kong written in Chinese and still updated and the other about general atrocities done by the Chinese government, written in Swedish and last updated [in] 2016,” the researcher said.
According to Imp0rtp3, users who landed on these two websites were first greeted by Jetriz, the first of Tetris’ two components, which would gather and read basic information about a visitor’s browser.
If the user had the browser set to use the Chinese language, the would-be victim would be redirected to the second Tetris component.
Named Swid, this component would load 15 different plugins (JavaScript files) inside the victim’s browser in order to perform various actions.
Eight of the plugins would abuse a technique called JSON hijacking to open connections to popular websites and retrieve public data about the user on those sites.
While this technique didn’t include passwords or authentication cookies, Imp0rtp3 said the attacker could collect information such as usernames, phone numbers, or real names, which could be sometimes used to link a visitor to one of their public personas
The behavior to scrape data from the 58 third-party websites was completely silent. However, if the attackers couldn’t collect enough information to unmask a user, they also had additional plugins at their disposal that, while noisier, could be used as a last-ditch attempt to unmask users.
An inventory of all the Tetris Swid plugins is available below:
- Eight plugins to collect data from remote websites via JSONP hijacking.
- One plugin to collect geolocation data via the user’s browser. A permission request would be shown to the user in this case, making the attack easy to spot.
- One plugin to collect the user’s internal network IP address via the WebRTC API.
- One plugin to attempt to take a photo of the user via the local webcam. This plugin would also trigger a browser permission request.
- One plugin to log the user’s keystrokes on the watering hole domain (but not on third party sites).
- One plugin to determine if the user is using Tor.
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One plugin to connect to the user’s system via a websocket and steal local secrets via this technique.
- One plugin to collect extensive technical data about the user’s system.
According to Imp0rtp3, data that the attackers could collect through Tetris from third-party websites included:
DomainAttributesGlobal Alexa RankChinese Ranktmall.comisLogin31qq.comuserId,nickName,headURL,userHome42baidu.comuserId,userName53sohu.comnickName,headURL,userHome,profile,userName64taobao.comisLogin85jd.comuserName,headURL107weibo.comuserId148tianya.cnuserName4217aliexpress.comisLogin44–gome.com.cnuserId,nickName,headURL8926163.comnickName,headURL9727nytimes.comuid,subscriptions113–zol.com.cnuserId31050iqiyi.comuserinfo,qiyi_vip_info39053outbrain.comuserName419–58.comuserName,userId,phone46858zhibo8.ccuserId,nickName,background,headURL48269dianping.comuserId,nickName61993renren.comuserId,nickName,userName,headURL,birth69694youku.comuserId,userName,sex,headURL710104dangdang.comddoy,loginTime799109anjuke.comuserId,userName,lastUser,profileURL844119smzdm.comuserId,nickName,headURL1489207ifeng.comisLogin,isLogin16072187k7k.comuserId,userName,nickName,headURL,level1902216zhaopin.comuserName25872894399.comisLogin,gameInfos2764254ctrip.comuserName,level318534610086.cnuserName4047383hupu.comuserId,userName4440543vip.comlevel,lastLogin60741519pconline.com.cnuserId,nickName7303773xunlei.comnickName,payName,userName86802126xcar.com.cnheadURL,userName,userName108681157qunar.comisLogin111851708pcauto.com.cnuserId114102117jumei.comnickName,userId14264172637.comuserName,lastLoginIP,lastLoginTime149051548hexun.comuserId,userName,headURL,sex206532480suning.comphone,headURL,level288832845lu.comuserId,sex,realName,userName,mobile291842985tiexue.netuserId,userName314303235baihe.comuserId,nickName,gender,age,headURL,cityID36791–bbs.360safe.comuserName,userId,email,adminId,lastVisit,group39660–qyer.comusername,userid43347–56.comuserHome48982–zongheng.comlevel,headURL59346–ziroom.comuserName743643702bitauto.comuserId,userName84849–chinaiiss.comuserName119808–2144.cnuserId,userName,nickName199953–yhd.comuserName,headURL343737–letv.comuserId671069–readnovel.comuserName,headURL1167917–duoshuo.comuserId,userName,userHome,headURL,social_uid,email––aliyun.comuserId––huihui.comuid,userName––daijun.comuserName––
Tetris framework usage linked to a Chinese threat actor
But while analyzing the technical intricacies of cyber-espionage tools is all fine and dandy, knowing who uses these tools and against who is also of importance when it comes to warning and protecting their victims.
On this front, the researcher assessed with high confidence that the group using the framework was working on behalf of the Chinese government.
This assessment is backed by the threat actor’s attempts to limit the attack to a very narrow category of users who use Chinese keyboards and are accustomed to reading news articles critical of the Chinese government—and most likely part of the Chinese opposition movement, activists, and dissidents.
The researcher also noted that the abuse of the JSONP hijacking technique to retrieve user details from third-party sites when a user visits a “watering hole” portal has also been seen before in 2015. During that campaign, a Chinese threat actor used what appears to be a simpler version of the Swid plugins against Chinese visitors of NGO, Uyghur, and Islamic websites.
While web-based attack tools like Tetris aren’t a common sight in cybersecurity reports these days, as most threat actors like to rely on spear-phishing and malware, they are still useful for attackers as they can be used to identify possible targets of interest that can be arrested in the real world or targeted at a later day with malware.
Imp0rtp3 said that users who’d like to protect themselves against such tools are recommended to use the NoScript browser add-on or to visit sites using Incognito (Private Browsing) Mode.
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Catalin Cimpanu is a cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He previously worked at ZDNet and Bleeping Computer, where he became a well-known name in the industry for his constant scoops on new vulnerabilities, cyberattacks, and law enforcement actions against hackers.
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David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
