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Quotes of the Day:
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
- Sir Francis Bacon
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction”
- Albert Einstein
“We tend to think that, in a traditional organisation, people are producing results because management wants results, but the essence of a high-quality organisation is people producing results because they want the results. It’s puzzling we find that hard to understand, that if people are really enjoying, they’ll innovate, they’ll take risks, they’ll have trust with one another because they are really committed to what they’re doing and it’s fun”
- Peter Senge
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 20 (Putin's War)
2. Car explosion kills daughter of key Putin ally Alexander Dugin, Russia says
3. Who is Winning the Russo-Ukrainian War?
4. Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine
5. Russia’s Struggles
6. Odesa Is Defiant. It’s Also Putin’s Ultimate Target.
7. What Remains to Be Said About World War II? Plenty, These Authors Suggest
8. Beyond munitions: A gender analysis for Ukrainian security assistance
9. Lawrence Freedman: ‘Autocracies tend to make catastrophic decisions. That’s the case with Putin’
10. If the Marine Corps Isn’t Broken—and It Isn’t—Why Fix It?
11. American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic
12. Naval Special Warfare Command Holds Change of Command Ceremony
13. How female jihadis became the new face of terror in Southeast Asia
14. Australians Shocked at Bali Attacker’s Sentence Cut
15. U.S. Naval Special Warfare Establishes Assessment Command
16. An experiment showed that the military must change its cybersecurity approach
17. Russia-Ukraine: five lessons from the 19th-century Crimean war
18. $775 Million in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
19. Additional Defensive Weapons to be Shipped to Ukraine, Official Says
20. By the numbers: Keeping track of the single largest arms transfer in US history
21. 8 Afghanistan vets look back in anger — and pride — over America’s longest war
22. Exclusive: Hunt For Red October Remake In Development
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 20 (Putin's War)
Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-20
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 20
understandingwar.org
Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan
August 20, 9:30 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian occupation officials in Crimea reported another drone attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet Headquarters in Sevastopol on August 20. Russian-appointed Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed that Russian forces were unable to shoot down a drone, resulting in the drone hitting the roof of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters.[1] Razvozhaev then retracted his initial statement and claimed that a fleet air defense post shot down the drone, which landed on the roof and caught fire.[2] Social media footage showed a loud explosion and a cloud of smoke around the headquarters, and the drone likely detonated rather than being shot down. Some OSINT accounts have identified the drone as a commercially-available “Skyeye 5000mm Pro UAV.”[3] Ukrainian officials did not claim responsibility for the attack as of the time of this publication. ISW has previously reported that Crimean occupation officials have obliquely accused Ukraine of orchestrating a drone attack on the headquarters on July 31 during Russia’s Navy Day.[4]
Russian occupation officials in Crimea are likely considering strengthening security on the peninsula following the attacks on Russian military infrastructure, and such measures may draw Russian security forces away from the front lines. Razvozhaev stated that all security services in Sevastopol are operating in “high alert” mode and controlling all entrances to the city.[5] Razvozhaev claimed that Sevastopol residents are asking the occupation administration to increase patrols in the city and establish new checkpoints, returning the peninsula to a security posture such as it had after Russia initially seized it in 2014. ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces have been using all types of security forces, including Rosgvardia, as combat forces and will likely need to divert some of these forces from the front lines and from occupation security duties elsewhere to defend occupied Crimea.[6] Russia’s continued failures to stop attacks against occupied Crimea may also spark public discontent within Russian society. One Russian milblogger criticized Russian forces for not using more electronic warfare (EW) equipment following the first drone attack on July 31.[7] Social media footage already shows many Russians waiting in traffic jams to leave Crimea and go to Russia, which may indicate growing public concern for the effectiveness of Russian security measures.[8]
Key Takeaways
- Russian occupation officials in Crimea reported another drone attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet Headquarters in Sevastopol and are likely considering strengthening security on the peninsula.
- Russian forces conducted unsuccessful assaults across the Eastern Axis.
- Russian forces attempted limited, failed assaults north of Kharkiv City.
- Russian forces failed to advance after several assaults northwest of Kherson City and east of Mykolaiv City.
- Ukrainian forces continued to strike Russian ammunition depots and positions in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts.
- Russian and proxy forces are continuing mobilization efforts, including forced mobilization in occupied territories and advertising campaigns.
- Russian occupation authorities continued coercive measures to force civilian cooperation with the occupation administrations.
- Conditions in occupied territories continued to deteriorate, indicating ineffective governance.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
- Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults southwest of Izyum on August 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance to Novo Dmytrivka, Virnopillya, and Kurulka, approximately 25 km southwest of Izyum.[9] Geolocated footage showed Ukrainian forces striking Russian military equipment approximately 12 km northeast of Novo Dmytrivka on an unspecified date.[10] Russian forces also continued to shell Asiivka, Husarivka, Chepil, and Protopopivka northwest of Izyum and launched an airstrike on Zalyman on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line.[11]
Russian forces attempted several unsuccessful ground assaults on Siversk from the southeast on August 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched unsuccessful offensive operations from Spirne to Ivano-Daryivka and from Mykolaivka to Vyimka, all southeast of Siversk.[12] Russian forces also launched an airstrike on Ivano-Daryivka and shelled settlements around Siversk.[13] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces fired artillery near Pryshyb and Rozolivka, on the western bank of Siverskyi Donets River and just south of Sviatohirsk.[14] ISW previously reported that Russian milbloggers recessed Russian territorial control from Pryshyb on their maps.[15]
Russian forces continued to focus on advancing northeast and south of Bakhmut on August 20 but did not make territorial gains in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked Bakhmut, Soledar, and Bakhmutske (northeast of Bakhmut).[16] Russian forces reportedly failed to advance to Zaytseve and Kodema, approximately 9 and 13 kilometers southeast of Bakhmut, respectively.[17] Russian forces also conducted unsuccessful attacks in the direction of Horlivka-Mayorsk, about 21 km due southwest of Bakhmut.[18] The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Militia claimed that the DNR “Kalmious” Brigade is supporting Russian forces advancing north of Horlivka with artillery fire but did not make any territorial claims.[19] The DNR Militia also claimed that the DNR’s 3rd Brigade seized Ukrainian positions around Zaytseve, but ISW cannot independently verify the DNR’s claims.[20] The UK Defense Ministry noted that Russian forces have approached the outskirts of Bakhmut but have not broken into Bakhmut’s defensive areas.[21]
Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks northwest and west of Donetsk City on August 20. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces launched unsuccessful assaults on Opytne, Pisky, and Pervomaiske, all northwest of Donetsk City.[22] Deputy Commander of the DNR’s 1st Army Corps Eduard Basurin claimed that Russian forces are fighting for Krasnohorivka and Tonenke, 19 km west and 18 km northwest of Donetsk City, respectively.[23] Geolocated footage also showed Ukrainian forces striking an advancing Russian unit in the southern part of Mariinka, about 22 km west of Donetsk City.[24] Geolocated footage also showed that Russian forces are attempting to advance to Mariinka from its northeastern outskirts.[25]
Russian forces continued fighting near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border on August 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces carried out failed assaults on Zolota Nyva, about 20 km east of the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border but were unsuccessful and withdrew.[26]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces attempted limited ground assaults north of Kharkiv City on August 20, all of which failed. Official Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces attempted assaults northeast of Kharkiv City near Borshchova but failed and retreated.[27] The Derhachi City Council reported that Russian forces also conducted a failed assault on Pytomnyk, north of Kharkiv City.[28] Geolocated footage published on August 18 shows Russian forces operating around Dementiivka, indicating that Russian forces have only made marginal territorial gains toward Dementiivka north of Kharkiv City despite prolonged efforts to seize the settlement.[29] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted airstrikes near Ruski Tyshky north of Kharkiv City and Zolochiv northwest of Kharkiv City.[30] Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast Administration Head Oleg Synegubov reported that Russian forces conducted missile strikes on Kharkiv City and throughout Kharkiv Oblast overnight on August 19-20, damaging critical infrastructure.[31] Russian forces continued shelling Kharkiv City and surrounding settlements.[32]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces launched several assaults northwest of Kherson City and east of Mykolaiv City on August 20. Ukrainian military officials reported that a Russian platoon unsuccessfully attempted to advance to Tavriiske, about 38 km northwest of Kherson City.[33] Two Russian amphibious assault detachments also failed to advance to Partyzanske, approximately 44 km east of Mykolaiv City along the T1508 highway that goes to the Russian strongpoint in Snihurivka.[34] Geolocated footage also showed a small Ukrainian detachment raid an unspecified building in northern Snihurivka on an unspecified date, which could indicate that Russian positions shifted south within the settlement.[35] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces launched an Iskander missile at Voznesensk (about 81 km northwest of Mykolaiv City) hitting a residential building and continued striking Mykolaiv City with S-300 missiles.[36]
Russian occupation authorities again accused Ukraine of shelling the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), while Russian forces continued to shell settlements in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast across the Dnipro River. Russian-backed Zaporizhia Oblast Military-Civilian Administration Head Vladimir Rogov claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled in the vicinity of one of the administrative buildings at ZNPP using Western-provided military equipment on August 20.[37] ISW cannot independently verify if shelling occurred on August 20. Editor and correspondent for NPR Science Geoff Brumfiel concluded that available satellite imagery from August 19 will not suffice to make assessments of whether or not shelling occurred without footage from the ground.[38] Russian occupation authorities have control of the narrative given that they have access to the occupied ZNPP and have notably failed to present clear evidence to support their claims. Ukrainian local officials reported that Russian forces continued to fire Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) rockets at Marhanets and tube artillery at Nikopol.[39] Ukrainian forces also shot down four Russian Kalibr cruise missiles over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[40]
Ukrainian forces continued to strike Russian ammunition depots and positions in Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts. Advisor to the Kherson Oblast Administration Serhiy Khlan reported explosions in Chornobaivka (about 7 km northwest of Kherson City), and social media footage showed three distinct smoke columns reportedly at the Chornobaivka airfield.[41] Khlan also reported that there were two Ukrainian strikes on unspecified targets near Nova Kakhovka and Beryslav on August 19.[42] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian aviation launched 11 airstrikes on Russian positions along the line of contact in Kherson Oblast.[43] Geolocated footage showed Ukrainian artillery striking Russian military equipment in northwestern Kherson Oblast.[44] Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base in Melitopol, noting that Russian forces did not intercept the missile because the main part of the Russian air-defense units has redeployed from Melitopol to Kherson Oblast.[45] Fedorov added that Russian forces fired a missile at Melitopol from the southern direction as a response to Ukrainian strikes against Russian military objects, although there is no evidence to support this assertion.[46] Kremlin-sponsored media claimed that Russian air-defense systems activated overnight and accused Ukrainian forces of striking civilian infrastructure.[47] Social media footage shows reported explosions in Melitopol, but the point of impact is unclear from the footage.[48]
Russian forces remain unable to restore a bridge crossing over the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. A Russian military correspondent showed the severe damage to the Kakhovka Bridge that Ukrainian strikes have caused and claimed that Russians used the bridge as an alternative route for “humanitarian help” after Ukrainian strikes against the Antonivsky Bridge.[49] The military correspondent claimed that the bridge is reparable and partially operational, but Khlan stated that Russian repair efforts have been failing in recent days.[50]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russian proxy republics in Donbas are continuing covert mobilization efforts but are struggling to generate sufficient manpower to create combat-ready units. Ukraine’s Resistance Center reported that Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) authorities are actively tracking down eligible men for military service, including by exchanging food for information on the whereabouts of eligible men and searching for eligible men near schools and kindergartens.[51] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Administration Head Serhiy Haidai claimed that LNR authorities are even mobilizing men with chronic illnesses due to a shortage of eligible men.[52] Ukraine’s Resistance Center reported that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and LNR are sending mobilized men to the front lines without adequate ammunition and equipment and called on civilians to flee territories under occupation or under risk of occupation to avoid mobilization.[53] Deputy Military Commissar of LNR Alexei Kurchenko denied reports of forced mobilization and claimed that LNR is recruiting volunteers for contract service.[54]
Russian and occupation authorities continue relentless advertising campaigns to recruit for contract volunteer military service. The Yekaterinburg military selection center reportedly placed advertisements at bus stops for four-to-twelve-month military contracts with 200,000-ruble ($3,361) monthly salaries.[55] A local Yekaterinburg outlet also reported on August 18 that a billboard advertising for “Orkestr W” appeared in the city and that the listed phone number is connected to Wagner Group.[56] The Ukrainian Mariupol City Administration posted screenshots on August 20 of text messages to Mariupol residents advertising Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) military contracts, reportedly offering 200,000-300,000-ruble ($3,361-5,042) monthly salaries.[57]
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov announced the formation of a second police regiment for the protection of oil and gas facilities in the Chechen Republic.[58] Rosgvardia North Caucasian District Commander Lieutenant General Alibek Delimkhanov stated that this new police regiment will have 2,000 personnel and that over 600 candidates have already applied.[59] Kadyrov stated that Chechen authorities have reorganized both police regiments to be combat-ready.[60] Kadyrov stated that having a new, combat-ready police regiment will expand Chechen forces’ ability to protect critical infrastructure in Chechnya.[61]
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian occupation authorities continued measures to coerce or force Ukrainian civilians into cooperating with occupation administrations in occupied areas. Ukraine’s Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are threatening to confiscate property from businesses that do not submit tax documents to the occupation administration.[62] Ukraine’s Resistance Center also reported that letters to these businesses threatened that occupation authorities will seize and transfer these businesses to other owners if they do not register by September 1.[63] Ukrainian Advisor to the Kherson Oblast Administration Serhiy Khlan stated that the Kherson Oblast occupation administration is demanding that Kherson City residents write letters explaining any delinquent rent or utility payments despite prior occupation administration assurances that it will forgive all debt.[64] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Administration Head Yaroslav Yanushevych stated that occupation officials are threatening parents who do not send their children to Russian schools with fines starting at 148,000 rubles and property seizures.[65]
Conditions in occupied territories continue to deteriorate. Khlan said on August 19 that Russian occupation authorities are restricting passage through the border between Kherson Oblast and Crimea and that weather conditions forced the closure of the Vasylivka checkpoint 45 km south of Zaporizhia City, preventing Ukrainians in occupied territories from evacuating.[66] The Ukrainian Mariupol City Administration reported on August 20 that there are constant firearm incidents in Mariupol and that shootings are becoming a new way of solving problems within the city, indicating poor governance in occupied Donetsk Oblast.[67] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) officials announced that the Verkhnyokalmiuska Water Filtration Station in Donetsk City ceased operations overnight on August 19-20 due to low water levels and will not resume operations for at least three days, exacerbating existing struggles to provide clean water to residents of Donetsk City and the surrounding areas.[68]
Kharkiv Oblast occupation authorities began passportization efforts on August 20. Kharkiv Oblast occupation head in Kupyansk Maxim Gubin reported that the first ten residents of Kupyansk received Russian passports on August 20.[69] The announcement came just one day after Kharkiv Oblast occupation head Vitaly Ganchev formally appointed former Krasnodar Mayor Andrey Alekseenko as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kharkiv occupation administration.[70]
Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushenko reported on August 20 that unknown actors, likely Ukrainian partisans, unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Russian collaborator and occupation Mayor Konstantin Ivashenko.[71]
Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.
[23] https://iz dot ru/1382191/2022-08-19/basurin-zaiavil-o-boiakh-za-naselennye-punkty-krasnogorovka-i-tonenkoe-v-dnr
[37] https://www dot interfax.ru/world/857542
[40] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0fdmqwXfYJ3NKFgkqUHk... https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/08/20/poblyzu-mista-dnipro-zbyto-4-rosijskyh-rakety-kalibr-valerij-zaluzhnyj/; https://t.me/dnipropetrovskaODA/1614
[47] https://ria dot ru/20220820/melitopol-1810900397.html; https://t.me/riamelitopol/65677; https://twitter.com/greywolf2320/statu...
[51] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/20/na-luganshhyni-okupanty-shukayut-cholovikiv-pryzovnogo-viku-dlya-mobilizacziyi-do-vorozhoyi-armiyi/
[53] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/20/na-luganshhyni-okupanty-shukayut-cholovikiv-pryzovnogo-viku-dlya-mobilizacziyi-do-vorozhoyi-armiyi/
[56] https://www.e1 dot ru/text/job/2022/08/18/71578418/
[62] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/20/rosiyany-pogrozhuyut-konfiskuvaty-majno-u-pidpryyemcziv-yaki-ne-stanut-na-oblik-v-okupaczijnij-podatkovij-sluzhbi/
[63] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/20/rosiyany-pogrozhuyut-konfiskuvaty-majno-u-pidpryyemcziv-yaki-ne-stanut-na-oblik-v-okupaczijnij-podatkovij-sluzhbi/
[69] https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/08/20/kupansk/; https://ria dot ru/20220820/grazhdanstvo-1810970338.html; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/08/19/byvshiy-mer-krasnodara-andrey-alekseenko-vozglavil-pravitelstvo-okkupirovannoy-chasti-harkovskoy-oblasti; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/08/17/mer-krasnodara-andrey-alekseenko-vozglavit-pravitelstvo-okkupirovannoy-chasti-harkovskoy-oblasti-v-dekabre-2021-goda-na-nego-zaveli-delo-o-vzyatke; https://t.me/stranaua/58722; https://t.me/stranaua/58708
[70] https://lenta dot ru/news/2022/08/20/kupansk/; https://ria dot ru/20220820/grazhdanstvo-1810970338.html; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/08/19/byvshiy-mer-krasnodara-andrey-alekseenko-vozglavil-pravitelstvo-okkupirovannoy-chasti-harkovskoy-oblasti; https://meduza dot io/news/2022/08/17/mer-krasnodara-andrey-alekseenko-vozglavit-pravitelstvo-okkupirovannoy-chasti-harkovskoy-oblasti-v-dekabre-2021-goda-na-nego-zaveli-delo-o-vzyatke; https://t.me/stranaua/58722; https://t.me/stranaua/58708
understandingwar.org
2. Car explosion kills daughter of key Putin ally Alexander Dugin, Russia says
Resistance potential inside Russia?
Car explosion kills daughter of key Putin ally Alexander Dugin, Russia says
By Rachel Pannett and Mary Ilyushina
August 21, 2022 at 3:53 a.m. EDT
The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett · August 21, 2022
The daughter of Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian nationalist who helped shape the ideas behind President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, was killed when the car she was driving exploded near Moscow, according to Russia’s main investigative authority.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it was looking into the incident and had opened a criminal murder case.
A Toyota Land Cruiser “went off at full speed on a public highway” and caught fire, it said, adding the fire was likely caused by an “explosive device” installed in the vehicle. The driver, identified by the committee as “journalist and political scientist Daria Dugina,” died at the scene.
Dugina, 29, was reportedly driving her father’s car from a festival they both attended when the blast occurred, engulfing the car in flames, a friend of Dugin’s told the state-run media outlet Tass. Andrey Krasnov said he believed her father was the target of an attack, “or maybe the two of them.”
Dugin, a scathing critic of the United States, with close ties to the Kremlin, is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s brain.” Although he doesn’t hold an official government position, he has long called for the reabsorption of Ukraine into Russia, and Russia experts say his language and thinking about Russia’s supposed rightful place in the world have been echoed by the Kremlin and in recent speeches by Putin.
His daughter has also spoken publicly in support of the war in Ukraine and Russian imperial expansion. In March, she was sanctioned by the United States as part of a list of Russian elites and Russian intelligence-directed disinformation outlets, alongside her father who has been designated for sanctions since 2015.
“The car caught fire immediately [following the explosion]. She lost control, because she was driving at speed, and flew to the opposite side of the road,” Krasnov told the Russian state media outlet, describing it as a “very grave event.”
Krasnov said Dugin, who left the festival in a different vehicle, returned to the scene after the explosion. Videos circulating on social media appear to show a visibly distraught Dugin standing on a road strewn with debris, holding his head in his hands. The remains of a car were in flames on the roadside.
The blast occurred around 9 p.m. local time near the village of Bolshie Vyazemy, southwest of Russia’s capital, Moscow, the committee said.
The Kremlin has not yet commented on the incident.
The Treasury Department, upon adding Dugina to the sanctions list, said she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International, which had suggested that Ukraine would “perish” if it was admitted to NATO.
The website was developed by a Russian political influence operation called “Project Lakhta,” which Treasury officials say has used fictitious online personas to interfere in U.S. elections since at least 2014.
According to Treasury officials, Dugina’s father was first designated in 2015 for “being responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, or sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Dugin was a leader of the Eurasian Youth Union, which actively recruited individuals with military and combat experience to fight on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine that has played a central role in Putin’s justification for war.
In an interview with a Russian YouTuber in March, Dugina said that Ukrainian identity is mostly localized in western Ukraine, and that eastern Ukraine — including the Donbas region — was likely to accept a “Eurasian Empire” on the basis of religious faith and nationality.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment as the incident appeared poised to create a new flashpoint.
Denis Pushilin, a prominent separatist leader and key figure in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, immediately blamed Ukraine for Dugina’s death without providing any evidence for his claims.
The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett · August 21, 2022
3. Who is Winning the Russo-Ukrainian War?
Excerpts:
The agreement among Washington and European capitals seems to be that Kiev will decide how long to fight and for what objective, that nothing will be decided about Ukraine without Ukraine in the room, and that whatever Kiev believes to be necessary will be provided by the U.S. and Europe.
But Washington's responsibility is to make policy in the interests of the American people. Washington should not turn those decisions over to another government, but unfortunately, it does so frequently. In the late 1980s, for example, ethnic Albanians successfully lobbied to drag the U.S. into the guerrilla war raging in Kosovo, then part of Serbia. During the 1990s, Americans of Eastern European descent spurred the disastrous policy of expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders, violating numerous assurances made to Moscow. President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East demonstrated that Democrats as well as Republicans are willing to allow Saudi Arabia and Israel to control U.S. policy in the region.
For instance, early in the war Zelensky urged the U.S. to establish a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine. That would have been equivalent to a declaration of war: shooting down Russian planes and destroying Russian air defenses in both Ukraine and Russia. (Moscow’s forces launch attacks in and defend aircraft from Russian as well as Ukrainian territory.)
Unsurprisingly, Kiev has embraced virtually every other proposed American involvement, including admitting Ukraine to NATO. The reason Ukraine is not in the alliance now is U.S. officials recognized Kiev's status was not important to America’s future, and certainly did not qualify as a vital interest warranting potential war with a nuclear-armed power. Against the wishes of virtually the entire NATO membership, the George W. Bush administration initially promised Ukraine membership, demonstrating that its wild recklessness did not end with the invasion of Iraq. Subsequent administrations took a more responsible position.
Who is Winning the Russo-Ukrainian War? - The American Conservative
The American Conservative · by Doug Bandow · August 18, 2022
What’s happening in the nearly six-month-old Russo-Ukrainian war? It’s hard to say. Moscow expected a proverbial cakewalk and bungled its initial attack. After rebuffing Russia’s assault, the Zelensky government expanded its objectives, expressing its desire to reconquer portions of the Donbas seized by separatists with Russian support in 2014, as well as Crimea, which had been formally annexed by Moscow.
In recent months, however, Russian forces have made slow progress in the Donbas and now occupy a fifth or more of Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine and its advocates have been threatening counteroffensives against Moscow’s supposedly overstretched forces. Conflicting claims have been made about casualty levels, the impact of high-tech allied weapons sent to Ukraine, and both sides' prospects in the war.
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Both Russia and Ukraine have lied and will continue to lie in search of future advantage. Of course, it makes sense to mislead one’s enemies. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously observed: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
Alas, governments, including Washington, also lie to their own people. Virtually everything the George W. Bush administration claimed to justify its disastrous invasion of Iraq was false. Prior administrations and their allies shared fake atrocities to back earlier military interventions against Yugoslavia and Iraq. The Reagan administration made a series of unfounded statements after the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf in 1988. And the Johnson administration used spurious claims of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. forces to win passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized deployments that metastasized into the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 Americans died.
Ukraine has treated information as an independent battleground. Little that it says publicly can be relied upon uncritically. Fake stories of heroism and unconfirmed Russian casualty counts have been among Kiev’s most important strategies. This is unsurprising, but it is critical that U.S. policymakers ground their decisions in reality, not the talking points coming from Kiev.
The agreement among Washington and European capitals seems to be that Kiev will decide how long to fight and for what objective, that nothing will be decided about Ukraine without Ukraine in the room, and that whatever Kiev believes to be necessary will be provided by the U.S. and Europe.
But Washington's responsibility is to make policy in the interests of the American people. Washington should not turn those decisions over to another government, but unfortunately, it does so frequently. In the late 1980s, for example, ethnic Albanians successfully lobbied to drag the U.S. into the guerrilla war raging in Kosovo, then part of Serbia. During the 1990s, Americans of Eastern European descent spurred the disastrous policy of expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders, violating numerous assurances made to Moscow. President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East demonstrated that Democrats as well as Republicans are willing to allow Saudi Arabia and Israel to control U.S. policy in the region.
Washington cannot afford to make a similar mistake in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Kiev, the victim of unjustified aggression, merits support. However, any U.S. aid needs to be consistent with American interests, which means U.S. policymakers must decide whether it is in the national interest to back Ukraine’s objectives and strategies.
For instance, early in the war Zelensky urged the U.S. to establish a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine. That would have been equivalent to a declaration of war: shooting down Russian planes and destroying Russian air defenses in both Ukraine and Russia. (Moscow’s forces launch attacks in and defend aircraft from Russian as well as Ukrainian territory.)
Unsurprisingly, Kiev has embraced virtually every other proposed American involvement, including admitting Ukraine to NATO. The reason Ukraine is not in the alliance now is U.S. officials recognized Kiev's status was not important to America’s future, and certainly did not qualify as a vital interest warranting potential war with a nuclear-armed power. Against the wishes of virtually the entire NATO membership, the George W. Bush administration initially promised Ukraine membership, demonstrating that its wild recklessness did not end with the invasion of Iraq. Subsequent administrations took a more responsible position.
Zelensky recently urged the U.S. to designate Russia as a terrorist state, even though Moscow does not commit terrorism. It is a brutal aggressor, but so is Saudi Arabia, which has used U.S.-supplied weapons to immiserate, starve, and kill hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, amassing a far greater casualty toll than has been tallied in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president wants Europe to ban Russian tourists, a step that would do nothing to help Kiev but would further isolate that the Russian people, tightening the Putin government’s hold over them.
Washington must decide the extent of its support and its ultimate goals. Kiev is free to set whatever goal it wishes, but America or Europe are under no obligation to back it. For instance, Zelensky recently announced that if Moscow holds referendums over the annexation of conquered territory, he, and the West, will not engage in peace talks: “If the occupiers proceed along the path of pseudo-referendums they will close for themselves any chance of talks with Ukraine and the free world, which the Russian side will clearly need at some point.” However, it is not in the West’s interest to fight an endless proxy war to preserve every inch of Ukrainian territory.
Indeed, grant this demand and Zelensky’s next will likely be even greater. What if he tomorrow announced plans to invade Russia, annex St. Petersburg, and seize Moscow to force Putin to make peace? Would Washington and NATO provide the money and weapons necessary for that plan’s execution?
America’s core interest in Ukraine is helping to preserve the latter’s independence and sovereignty. In contrast, the allies have no great interest in preventing territorial loss by Kiev, let alone recovering land lost by Ukraine in 2014. Although such policies might be desirable for Kiev, a continuing war is a threat to America, with the possibility of escalation and expansion crossing NATO borders and ensnaring the U.S.
To set policy, Washington officials need the best information possible. Sympathy toward Ukraine, though warranted, should not blind the U.S. and others to the reality of the conflict. For instance, news sources favorable toward Moscow have been shut down throughout the West. Twitter has treated Russo-friendly posters as if they were regime propagandists and banned them. While it would be foolish to rely on such sources, it makes no more sense to bias the entire information ecosystem toward Kiev.
Yet U.S. and allied commitment to truth remains is in short supply. CBS produced a special report that found several barriers—most notably bureaucracy and corruption—prevented a large majority of allied military aid to Ukraine from reaching its intended recipients. CBS came under immediate fire and pulled the documentary to "update” it; the original video simply disappeared online, without explanation. The Ukrainian government was apoplectic, demanding “an internal investigation into who enabled this and why,” as if American journalists answered to Kiev.
Similarly received was the Amnesty International report detailing how the Ukrainian military essentially used human-shield tactics: “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.” The consequences were predictable: “Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.”
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Again, Kiev and its allies went on the offensive. Even Zelensky denounced the report. However, Amnesty stood behind its researchers. Agnes Callamard, the group's secretary general, said: “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls: they are all at it today attacking Amnesty investigations. This is called war propaganda, disinformation, misinformation. This won’t dent our impartiality and won’t change the facts.”
There are other reports of Ukrainian misbehavior and violations of international law, such as dropping anti-personnel mines in Russian- occupied territory in the Donbas. Such claims are unverified and have been attacked as being part of “a large volume of content coming from actors who can reach huge audiences very quickly and spread pro-Kremlin disinformation without the state actually having to be directly involved.” In Kiev’s view, however, anyone who criticizes Ukraine or allied behavior is a Russian stooge and should be denounced as such. (I briefly ended up on one such list, but mysteriously was removed the next day. Now, the entire report has vanished.)
It is difficult to assess the charges and counterclaims made in any conflict. The energy of Ukraine’s propaganda operation, determined to eradicate any questions about Kiev’s behavior, is no surprise. However, U.S. and allied policymakers must resist Ukraine’s attempt to replace unpleasant facts with comfortable fantasies. Washington needs the best information possible to protect the American people. They, not the Zelensky government, should be the Biden administration’s top priority.
The American Conservative · by Doug Bandow · August 18, 2022
4. Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine
Russia accuses Kyiv of poisoning some of its soldiers in Ukraine
Reuters · by Reuters
Aug 20 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry accused Ukraine on Saturday of poisoning some of its servicemen in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia in late July.
An adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said in response that the alleged poisoning could have been caused by Russian forces eating expired canned meat.
The Russian defence ministry said a number of Russian servicemen had been taken to a military hospital with signs of serious poisoning on July 31. Tests showed a toxic substance, botulinum toxin type B, in their bodies, it said.
"On the fact of chemical terrorism sanctioned by the (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy regime, Russia is preparing supporting evidence with the results of all the analyses," the ministry said in a statement.
It did not say how many servicemen had suffered or what their condition was now. It did not say what the "supporting evidence" was.
Botulinum toxin type B is a neurotoxin that can cause botulism when ingested in previously contaminated food products, but it can also have medical uses.
Ukraine's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko commented on the Russian allegation on the Telegram messaging app.
"The department (Russian defence ministry) does not clarify whether the poisoning could have been caused by expired canned meat, in which botulinum toxin is often found. Overdue rations have been massively complained about by the occupying forces since the first days of the invasion of Ukraine," he said.
The Russian defence ministry said it was conducting an additional investigation into an incident in which Volodymyr Saldo, the Russian-installed administration in Ukraine's occupied Kherson region, was taken ill.
Saldo, a former mayor of the city of Kherson who was appointed to head the region of the same name when Russian troops overran it in early March, fell ill in early August. read more
Russia says its "special military operation" launched on Feb. 24 is aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and protecting Russian speakers on what President Vladimir Putin called historical Russian land.
Ukraine and Western countries view it as an unprovoked war of conquest aimed at wiping out Ukraine's national identity.
Reporting by Reuters; editing by Timothy Heritage
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Reuters
5. Russia’s Struggles
Excerpts:
When we last updated you on the war in Ukraine, we laid out three possible scenarios for the near future. This morning, we’ll explain how the events of the past six weeks have affected the war, with help from our colleagues who are covering it from Ukraine, Washington and elsewhere.
The bottom line is that the most recent phase of the war has gone better for Ukraine than many observers expected after Russia’s progress earlier this year. “The Ukrainians are doing well,” Helene Cooper, a Washington correspondent, told us. “The Russians are measuring progress in feet, not even miles, at this point.”
As Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, puts it: “The Russians appeared to have lost some of the momentum they had earlier in the summer. If you look closely, you see the Ukrainians gaining a bit of momentum, even though not that much is changing on the map.”
Russia’s Struggles
We explain why the last several weeks of the war in Ukraine have gone poorly for Russia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/briefing/russia-ukraine-war-donbas.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist
A Ukrainian artillery unit last week.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
By David Leonhardt and Claire Moses
Aug. 19, 2022
You're reading the The Morning newsletter. Make sense of the day’s news and ideas. David Leonhardt and Times journalists guide you through what’s happening — and why it matters. Get it sent to your inbox.
When we last updated you on the war in Ukraine, we laid out three possible scenarios for the near future. This morning, we’ll explain how the events of the past six weeks have affected the war, with help from our colleagues who are covering it from Ukraine, Washington and elsewhere.
The bottom line is that the most recent phase of the war has gone better for Ukraine than many observers expected after Russia’s progress earlier this year. “The Ukrainians are doing well,” Helene Cooper, a Washington correspondent, told us. “The Russians are measuring progress in feet, not even miles, at this point.”
As Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, puts it: “The Russians appeared to have lost some of the momentum they had earlier in the summer. If you look closely, you see the Ukrainians gaining a bit of momentum, even though not that much is changing on the map.”
Victory, stalemate, defeat
As a reminder, here are the three scenarios we described last month, which were based partly on public comments by Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence:
-
Russia starts to win. Russia would continue to take over more of eastern Ukraine, as it did in the spring, and ultimately control all of the Donbas region. This progress might break Ukrainians’ will to fight elsewhere — and weaken support for the war in Western Europe and the U.S.
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The war falls into a stalemate. Many analysts, including Haines, consider this scenario the most likely. In it, Russia would dominate the east but would not be able to go much farther.
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Ukraine starts to win. Ukraine would halt Russia’s advance in the east and also succeed in launching counterattacks, potentially reclaiming some territory in the south, where Russia has also taken over some cities.
Looking back at this list now, we are struck that the recent events seem to fall somewhere between the second and third scenarios.
In the early summer, Russia seemed to be making progress toward taking over all of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which includes two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk. But that progress appears to have slowed. Russia controls only Luhansk, not all of Donetsk.
Image
Credit...The New York Times
“Russia has made little to no inroads in the Donetsk province, and U.S. officials don’t think they’ll take it this year,” said our colleague Eric Schmitt, a senior correspondent covering security issues. Colin Kahl, a top Pentagon official, has pointed out that Russia’s minuscule progress in the east has come at a high cost — about 20,000 troop deaths and another 50,000 or so injuries. Michael Schwirtz, a Times correspondent who has been covering the war in Ukraine, calls these numbers “astonishing.”
Seth Jones, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The Russians probably don’t have enough effective combat forces to fully take Donetsk,” at least not anytime soon. (This recent story by Helene has more details.)
Ukraine has been able to stymie Russia thanks in large part to weapons from the U.S., the E.U. and other allies. Especially important in recent weeks have been truck-mounted rocket launchers, known as HIMARS, whose satellite-guided missiles can travel nearly 50 miles. The U.S. has sent 16 of the launchers to Ukraine so far and helped train their crews.
The HIMARS are one reason that Ukraine has been able to strike more deeply into Russian-held territory than before. One target has been Kherson, a region in southern Ukraine that Russia controls and where Ukraine may be gearing up for a counterattack. Ukraine has also carried out successful sabotage attacks in Crimea, an area of southern Ukraine that Vladimir Putin annexed in 2014.
“To walk right in and start blowing up military bases in Crimea is a real embarrassment for Russia,” Michael said. (Here’s a profile of the resistance fighters conducting the sabotage operations, written from Ukraine by Andrew Kramer.)
Together, these attacks have forced Russia to divert several thousand troops from the east to defend areas that had previously seemed secure. As Helene said, “The Russians are now fighting a two-front war.”
Putin was hoping to be in a better position by now. After he was defeated in his initial attempt to oust Ukraine’s government, his fallback goal became taking over eastern Ukraine. That now seems unlikely to happen this year. “Russia is not even accomplishing its scaled-down goal,” Helene added.
A long war
With all this said, Russia still has some major advantages. Putin seems completely in control of Russia’s government, allowing him to play a long game. And Russia has a history of winning wars of attrition, recently in Syria and Chechnya and less recently during World War II — although not in Afghanistan, which demonstrates that Russia can also lose these conflicts.
In the current war, Russian troops may not be making much progress, but neither is Ukraine. It still has not recaptured large amounts of territory in the east or the south. Ukrainian troops and civilians have also suffered heavy casualties, Michael said.
Editors’ Picks
One unexpected recent positive for Putin has been his ability to fight the war without having to resort to a draft. Some analysts had predicted that he would need to mobilize more troops from the Russian population, Anton notes. Instead, Russia has continued to fight using only its existing troops, and forcibly drafted residents of eastern Ukraine.
In coming weeks, Putin will likely try to bolster domestic support by holding show trials for Ukrainian prisoners of war from the southern city of Mariupol. Over the longer term, he seems to be hoping that European and U.S. support for Ukraine may flag, especially if he can keep energy prices high.
As well as the past few weeks have gone for Ukraine, Putin has overcome setbacks before, through a mixture of patience and brutality.
For more
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Dancers in front of a theater in Odesa in June.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
6. Odesa Is Defiant. It’s Also Putin’s Ultimate Target.
A very long article. Many photos at the link.
Odesa Is Defiant. It’s Also Putin’s Ultimate Target.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/world/europe/odesa-ukraine-putin-russia.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20220821&instance_id=69881&nl=todaysheadlines®i_id=175827&segment_id=101981&user_id=54b9a16840d44da182161a449f98dc7d
This most storied of ports remains the Russian leader’s obsession.
Not only because it holds the key to the Black Sea.
But because its openness and diversity embody all he wants to destroy.
President Vladimir V. Putin knows that Ukraine’s fate, its access to the sea and its grain exports hinge on Odesa. Without it, the country shrivels to a landlocked rump state.
By Roger CohenPhotographs by Laetitia Vancon
Aug. 19, 2022
ODESA, Ukraine — The Odesa Fine Arts Museum, a colonnaded early-19th-century palace, stands almost empty. Early in Russia’s war on Ukraine, its staff removed more than 12,000 works for safe keeping. One large portrait remained, depicting Catherine the Great, the Russian empress and founder of Odesa, as a just and victorious goddess.
Seen from below in Dmitry Levitzky’s painting, the empress is a towering figure in a pale gown with a golden train. The ships behind her symbolize Russia’s victory over the Ottoman Turks in 1792. “She’s textbook Russian imperial propaganda,” said Gera Grudev, a curator. “The painting’s too large to move, and besides, leaving it shows the Russian occupiers we don’t care.”
The decision to let Catherine’s portrait hang in isolation in the first room of the shuttered museum reflects a sly Odesan bravura: an empress left to contemplate how the brutality of Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president who likens himself to a latter-day czar, has alienated the largely Russian-speaking population of this Black Sea port, established by her in 1794 as Moscow’s long-coveted conduit from the steppe to the Mediterranean.
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Catherine the Great, abandoned. “Leaving it shows the Russian occupiers we don’t care,” a curator said of the painting.
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Odesa’s first killings of the war came in April, when a missile ripped through an apartment building.
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The Odesa Opera Theater reopened on June 17.
Odesa, grain port to the world, city of creative mingling, scarred metropolis steeped in Jewish history, is the big prize in the war and a personal obsession for Mr. Putin. In a speech three days before ordering the Russian invasion, Mr. Putin singled out Odesa with particular venom, making clear his intention to capture “criminals” there and “bring them to justice.”
Mr. Putin believed at the outset of the war that he could decapitate the Ukrainian government and take Kyiv, only to discover that Ukraine was a nation ready to fight for the nationhood he dismissed. As the focus of the fighting shifts to southern Ukraine, Mr. Putin knows that on Odesa’s fate hinges Ukrainian access to the sea and, to some degree, the world’s access to food. Without this city, Ukraine shrivels to a landlocked rump state.
“Odesa is the key, in my view,” said François Delattre, the secretary general of the French Foreign Ministry. “Militarily, it is the highest-value target. If you control it, you control the Black Sea.”
For three summer weeks, as the Russian bombardment of the broader Odesa region intensified, I listened to children’s voices and the squeaking of swings in the Old Market Square. There, I contemplated the statue of a Cossack leader, an emblematic figure of tangled Ukrainian and Russian history. I lived with the blaring of sirens warning of imminent attack. I heard occasional explosions, journeyed east toward the front and pondered the fate that a fratricidal war holds for this city with a history of feast and famine.
BELARUS
RUSSIA
Kyiv
Lviv
UKRAINE
MOLDOVA
Mariupol
Mykolaiv
Kherson
ROMANIA
Odesa
Sea of
Azov
CRIMEA
Black Sea
100 MILES
By The New York Times
Almost six months into the war, Odesa resists, not untouched, but unbowed. On its broad tree-lined avenues, redolent of linden blossom, where stray cats slither and a golden light bathes the gray-green, ocher and light blue buildings, a semblance of everyday life has returned. Restaurants and the storied Opera Theater, founded in 1810, have reopened. People sip coffee on the elegant Derybasivska Street. Insouciance is one expression of Odesan pride.
But an insidious unease lurks beneath it. The war is close, its front line no more than 80 miles to the east. Sandbags filled from deserted city beaches and anti-tank “hedgehog” obstacles of angled metal bars form barricades on many city blocks. Night patrols enforce an 11 p.m. curfew.
“You go to sleep and you don’t know if you will wake up,” said Olga Tihaniy, an insurance agent.
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The view from the restaurant Oblaka. Insouciance is one expression of Odesan pride.
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Playing chess in Sobornaya Square.
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The Arcadia district used to be a popular beach resort. Now the beaches are closed.
Odesa is the crux of the war not only because it holds the key to the Black Sea but also because in it the battle between Russian and Ukrainian identity — an imperial past and a democratic future, a closed system and one connected to the world — plays out with particular intensity. This is the city, of fierce independence and stubborn inclusiveness, that symbolizes all Mr. Putin wants to annihilate in Ukraine.
Odesans look in the mirror, see a face like theirs, speaking the same Russian language, sharing much of the same history — yet the face now belongs to a stranger intent on killing them. They live in a state of shock.
“Russia is destroying its claim to be a cultural nation, and Odesa is the intercultural capital of Ukraine,” said Gennadiy Trukhanov, 57, the mayor, himself a former Russian sympathizer. “Mr. Putin has turned Russia into the nation of killing and death.”
What follows here, told through the people who make Odesa, is a story of what happens when the barbarism that frenzied autocratic Russian nationalism has unleashed meets a city forged in diversity and openness.
This should have been the place, according to Mr. Putin’s understanding of Ukraine and his plans of capture, that would roll over for him as an invading savior. Instead, it did the opposite.
Echoes of Terror
Perhaps the most famous flight of stairs in the world, the 192 granite steps and 10 landings immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent movie “Battleship Potemkin” tether Odesa on its plateau to the water below. Named the Potemkin Stairs in the Soviet era, they are now sometimes referred to by an earlier name, the Primorskiy Stairs, a sign of the ongoing battle for Odesa’s identity.
Editors’ Picks
In the movie, the steps, now cordoned off for military reasons, were the scene of a brutal confrontation between Czarist troops and Odesan sympathizers with the revolutionaries on the Potemkin, who mutinied in 1905.
The implacable Cossacks firing down the steps, the crowd of every age in desperate tumbling flight, and above all a stroller propelled down the stairs by the baby’s mother as she fell to her death, have become universal symbols of the very terror now emanating from Moscow.
Mr. Putin seeks to seize Odesa by reviving, in twisted form, the spirit of the Great Patriotic War.
But Odesa now finds itself in a war of disentanglement from Russia’s tenacious hold.
Instead Mr. Putin’s crazed act has stirred an old defiance, forged in suffering.
The steps lead up to a statue of the Duke of Richelieu, the city’s first governor, a work admired by Mark Twain when he visited in 1867 and predicted that Odesa would yet become “one of the great cities of the Old World.”
Odesa always had that potential. In the 19th century, this was the Russian Eldorado, a raucous, polyglot city on the make, populated by Greeks, Italians, Tatars, Russians, Turks and Poles. Because they were freer here than anywhere else in Russia’s Pale of Settlement, the area of the empire where they were generally confined, Jews flocked from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to this booming port. By 1900, about 138,000 of Odesa’s 403,000 inhabitants were Jewish.
The bawdy world of smugglers, gangsters, shakedown artists and fast-talkers, concentrated in the Moldovanka district, is immortalized in Isaac Babel’s classic “Odessa Stories.” Babel — born in Odesa in 1894, executed by Stalin on fabricated charges in 1940 — captured in his antihero Benya Krik, the Robin Hood “King” of the underworld, some enduring essence of Odesa’s anarchic yet generous spirit.
“Benya Krik, he got his way, because he had passion, and passion rules the world,” Babel observes.
It is this freewheeling Odesan passion Mr. Putin seeks to quash by reviving, in twisted form, the spirit of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945. Then, in 1944, Red Army troops liberated the city from Nazi control; now Russian troops seek to impose on Odesa a repressive autocracy as part of the campaign to “denazify” a democratic Ukraine.
This twisted nightmare takes a particular form in Odesa, because its lingua franca is still Russian and its Russian sympathies lingered long after Ukrainian independence in 1991. A hub of the “New Russia” forged in the 18th century from conquered land bordering the Black Sea, the city now finds itself in a war of disentanglement from Russia’s tenacious hold.
In the 5,000-word essay written last year that revealed the depth of his obsession with Ukraine, Mr. Putin wrote that Russia and Ukraine formed the “same historical and spiritual space” and that “Russia was robbed, indeed” by Ukrainian independence. Ukraine, in short, was a fictive nation. His response became clear on Feb. 24: the absorption by force of Ukraine into Russia.
Mr. Putin has reminded humankind that the idiom fascism knows best is untruth so grotesque it begets unreason.
It is of the nature of crazed acts to provoke the antithesis of their desired effect. As Odesa, perhaps more than any other Ukrainian city, illustrates, Mr. Putin has spread and redoubled Ukrainian national consciousness.
“There’s been a tectonic shift,” said Serhiy Dibrov, a researcher on recent Odesan history. “People crossed the line to full belief in Ukraine.” Still, he said, a substantial minority of Odesans retain some sympathy for Russia.
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Moldovanka captures Odesa’s anarchic yet generous spirit.
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Hospitable House, one of the relief centers that have made Odesa a destination.
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Ukraine’s national colors are nearly everywhere.
Lilia Leonidova, 46, and Natalia Bohachenko, 47, run Hospitable House, a center that provides help to some of the tens of thousands of displaced Ukrainians who have fled to Odesa since February. They listen to stories of rape; they see children from the devastated Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin who wet themselves when sirens sound.
Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War
Sitting in a room full of blankets, clothes, eggs, diapers and stuffed animals, Ms. Leonidova, a former schoolteacher, told me: “Russia is close but Russia is very far away now. Our differences were not so explicit before, but with independence we grew completely apart.”
“Yes,” said Ms. Bohachenko, who has volunteered to help the Ukrainian Army since Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. “Russia evolves backward.”
“They want to rule as czars,” said Ms. Leonidova.
Ms. Bohachenko laughed. “It’s such a huge country and almost no opposition to Putin! How come? When we were oppressed we had the Maidan” — a reference to the 2014 uprising that led to the ouster of Viktor F. Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who had acted as Mr. Putin’s toady. “Russians can do the same!”
Daubed on almost every building in Odesa are lines of blue and yellow paint, the national colors. Flags flutter over heavy wooden doors. A billboard proclaims, “Russian Soldier! Instead of getting flowers, you’ll get bullets here.” Another wastes no words: “1941: Fascist occupation. 2022: Russian occupation.”
An old Odesan defiance, forged in suffering, has stirred. “People can’t live without Odesa. It’s like a magnet,” said Yevgeniy Golubovskiy, 86, a writer. “I watch some of the people who left coming back, even with a curfew, and the sea closed.”
A loud explosion interrupted him. The book-lined room hung with the Odesan paintings that adorn his home shook. Mr. Golubovskiy scarcely flinched. “A few kilometers away,” he said. “I got used to it. What can we do? I am a fatalist.”
Sobs and laughter
Cherries, strawberries, cheese, sausages, tomatoes and bread adorned a table. Liudmyla Gryb has a firm family rule: no mention of Mr. Putin over a meal. Some Odesans have an app that provides a daily bulletin on whether Mr. Putin is alive or dead. Suffice to say the Russian president would not be missed.
A cousin in Russia had sent greetings for Ms. Gryb’s 71st birthday the previous day but did not want to speak in order to avoid “these discussions.” Another relative in Odesa remains fiercely pro-Russian, nostalgic for the Soviet empire.
Ms. Gryb’s husband, Andriy, cannot comprehend this. “We fought alongside Russians to defeat fascism and now they come to slaughter our grandchildren,” he said.
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Sergiy, rear, and Oleg Gryb at Oleg’s home. “Mr. Putin wants to eradicate us,” Oleg said.
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Much of life takes place on internal courtyards.
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Tetiana Melnyk renamed her Moscow sausage for a village where the Russians took heavy losses.
Everyone in Odesa, it seems, has a relative in Russia. Generally they have broken off all contact because any communication is futile. They share a language but have no shared conception of truth.
We were gathered at the house of Oleg Gryb, 47, the couple’s older son, a doctor. As soon as the war broke out, he packed his wife and two children off to Switzerland, enlisted in the Territorial Defense Forces (akin to the National Guard), and put his skills as an emergency-room surgeon and anesthetist to work.
His parents and younger brother, Sergiy, a financial adviser, moved in to take care of the house and the cat. As we ate, Ms. Gryb ironed her son’s military uniform with painstaking care.
“When I joined up on Feb. 27, I told my commander that I am a Christian and a doctor and I want to take people off the battlefield and save lives,” Dr. Gryb, dressed in his olive-green military uniform, had told me earlier, when we met at a dismal self-serve restaurant near his base.
In his Odesan youth, he said, he had thought China might invade Russia and he would then fight to defend the brotherhood of Slavic peoples. “Fighting against fellow Orthodox Christians, that I could never imagine,” he said.
Dr. Gryb’s world has been upended. His private medical clinic, treating addictions and Covid, was a financial success. He had recently renovated his spacious house on a typical Odesan internal courtyard — vines grow on trellises, climbing roses crisscross walls, the scent of honeysuckle lingers, and neighbors are intimately, even critically, observed.
Dr. Gryb’s son, 5, and daughter, 12, would play there. Now he misses them acutely.
“I have told my family they have to stay away for another year,” Dr. Gryb said around the dinner table. “The Russians will attack. They will target Odesa ultimately. Mr. Putin wants to eradicate us.”
At the start of the war the only question was how Russia would attack Odesa, not if. Would the assault come from the sea? Would paratroopers land? Dr. Gryb’s unit scrambled from place to place. But Mykolaiv, an embattled city about 65 miles to the east, resisted, the Russians were pushed back at sea, and Odesa exhaled, for now.
After Mykolaiv, about 65 miles east up the coast, resisted Russia’s assault, Odesa exhaled, for now.
But families displaced from the fighting arrive in Odesa in need.
“The city can lull you into a dream, but it is also a nightmare because the war is right there,” one Odesa resident said.
Dr. Gryb’s younger brother, Sergiy, sat listening. “The city can lull you into a dream, but it is also a nightmare because the war is right there,” he said.
One day I went to the sprawling central street market with Sergiy Gryb. He was buying rabbit sausage from Tetiana Melnyk, who talked of how worried she is about Ukrainian soldiers. As she described people willing to sacrifice themselves to safeguard something they believe in, he broke into uncontrollable sobs.
Suddenly all the tension Odesa tries hard to hide was visible. It was not easy to ask Mr. Gryb why he sobbed: “It’s just a Ukrainian idea of our land and our freedom, and she to me is all of that.”
Then, as suddenly, he laughed. Ms. Melnyk said she had renamed a local specialty known as Moscow sausage. It was now Chornobaivka sausage — a reference to a village near Kherson where Ukraine has repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on Russia.
It’s curious, Mr. Gryb mused later, how many countries overcame the disease of imperialism in the 20th century, but not Russia.
“Well, they cannot invent Microsoft or Tesla so they have to go back to history and re-fight the Great Patriotic War,” his brother, Dr. Gryb, said.
Discussion turned to language. Dr. Gryb said that in his unit, “90 percent of people speak Russian, and maybe half of them can speak Ukrainian.” He himself can speak Ukrainian but is more comfortable in Russian — “the language of the hymns I learned and of Soviet schooling.”
His 12-year-old daughter has already taken five years of Russian. Only recently, with the onset of war, have these classes been abolished.
“The common ground is the nation, not the language,” Dr. Gryb said. “The war is not about language, it is about freedom.”
“I am a profoundly religious person,” Dr. Gryb said. “The Devil is the father of lies. Mr. Putin and all of Russia are now built on lies. The invaders are sick with his propaganda, and so the sad reality is I have to go out and shoot them.”
Andrij Sorakaletov, a Ukrainian soldier, was killed on May 27 in the Kherson region. His Russian mother, living in the Moscow suburbs, “would not accept that he was dead or that Russians could do such a thing,” said his sister-in-law, Oksana Magey, 27.
Ms. Magey fled to Odesa early in the war with her husband and two small children from Mykolaiv. She said her bereaved sister was in shock at the Russian refusal to see reality as lived in her family.
I asked Dr. Gryb when all this would end. “This will only be over when God or some cosmic force brings common sense to the Russian leadership,” he said.
A new ‘de-Judaization’?
The seamy district of Moldovanka, filled with low-slung buildings and small factories, was to the Jewish community of Odesa what the Lower East Side once was to New York’s Jews.
I went for a walk. On one street corner, under an acacia tree, sat a musician playing “Hava Nagila.” Hearing “Let’s rejoice!” in Hebrew seemed an appropriate retort to revived Russian imperialism in the form of Uragan rockets and cluster munitions.
Finishing the song, the musician said that he was now going to sing in Ukrainian and in Polish and in Hebrew. He announced all this in Russian.
The flea market in Moldovanka stretched away down the cobblestone streets, filled with table after table of knickknacks, Soviet army knives and silver-plated flatware.
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Morning prayer in the Chabad Jewish Community synagogue.
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A Holocaust memorial.
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Rabbi Avraham Wolff says more than 20,000 Jews have left.
A 1944 Soviet bond, inscribed with the words “Death to the German Occupier,” was on sale at a modest price. One merchant swept a bank note over every object on his table. “I do that because it’s my first sale of the day and it brings luck,” he said.
Superstition, like fatalism, is big in Odesa, which has seen enough upheaval to suspect that mystical forces must be at work. Rules are not really its thing. Most of the drivers I met had a detached seatbelt tongue to insert into the buckle and so silence any beeping alarm.
The market brought to mind Babel’s stories. If Jews thrived in this freewheeling city, then they also suffered.
In 1905, a savage Russian pogrom took hundreds of Jewish lives. Babel, translated by Boris Dralyuk, describes it in the largely autobiographical “The Story of My Dovecote.” He had always dreamed of a dovecote. His father gives him money for three pairs of doves. No sooner has he bought them than he is attacked. “I lay on the ground, the crushed bird’s innards sliding down my temple.”
As the “tender gut” slips over his face, Babel, age 10, shuts his eyes so as not to see “the world laid bare before me. This world was small and terrible.” He walks “adorned in bloody feathers” past the window of a Jewish home being smashed. An old man lies dead. The Russians, a yard keeper observes, “they hate to forgive.”
For Mr. Putin, Ukrainian independence was ultimately unforgivable. His “denazification” has entailed the “de-Judaization” of a city with deep Jewish roots.
“My grandfather left Nuremberg for Palestine to survive the Nazis,” Rabbi Avraham Wolff said. “Now I bring Jewish children to Germany to save them from Russia! Can you believe it?”
Rabbi Wolff, then 22, came to Odesa from Israel in the early 1990s to revive Judaism in an independent post-Soviet Ukraine. As the chief rabbi of the city and of southern Ukraine, he has overseen the building of Jewish kindergartens, schools, orphanages and a university — until the unraveling of his work began this year.
Over the past five months, more than 20,000 Jews, or at least half the community, have left, many of them to Germany, Austria, Romania and Moldova. The Holocaust Museum is closed. The Jewish Museum is closed. Buses took 120 children from an orphanage to a hotel in Berlin, along with 180 mothers and children whose husbands and fathers had gone to the front. The women and children are under Rabbi Wolff’s direct care.
The rabbi is incandescent. Odesa has been the best place after Israel for a Jew to live for the past three decades! Then Mr. Putin comes along and says he wants to free me from the Nazis! He starts killing what we have accomplished! Please, Mr. Putin, don’t liberate me, just let me live!
“He wants to annihilate 40 million Ukrainians,” an Odesa Holocaust survivor said of Mr. Putin. “How much clearer does the West need him to be?”
If Jewish children do not return to Odesa, the city’s chief rabbi said, it would be a victory for Mr. Putin’s nationalism.
Odesa’s Moldovanka district was to the Jewish community what the Lower East Side once was to New York’s Jews.
Seated in his office at the Beit Chabad Synagogue, Rabbi Wolff noted that Russian conquest had removed Crimea in 2014 and the city of Kherson in 2022 from his authority. “Now,” he said, “I am chief rabbi of Odesa and a small part of Berlin.”
“We do not know if the Jews who left will come back,” Rabbi Wolff said. “I suspect that if the war continues until Sept. 1 and children start school wherever they are, they will never return.”
This, he says, would be a disaster, a victory for Mr. Putin’s nationalism, and so the rabbi stays on with his wife and hopes his example will inspire others.
Mr. Grudev, the art curator, who is Jewish, now lives in his mother’s apartment. She left for Italy at the start of the war. He moved in to look after her dog, and brought his cat. His partner, Bogdan Zinchenko, moved in with him.
They bought plane tickets to leave for Israel, where Mr. Grudev’s sister lives, on March 7, but never used them. He could not bear to leave his books or paintings. Now when sirens blare, the couple takes refuge in the bathroom.
The laundry hanging on a wrought-iron balcony opposite his mother’s apartment drove Mr. Grudev crazy. At one point he calculated that the pink shirt that caught his eye had been drying for 112 days. Before his epiphany: The laundry had been deliberately left to give the impression the apartment was still occupied and so deter thieves.
This, he reckoned, was a very Odesan ruse; laundry as protection.
Mr. Grudev, a stud in each ear, smiles. Humor is also a survival mechanism. An old joke, in a city famed for them, tells of a barber who insists on talking politics in time of Stalin’s terror. Exasperated, his client asks why. “Because your hair is easier to cut when it stands on end.”
“Putin wants to save me — a gay, Jewish, Russian-speaking man living in Odesa — from Nazis!” Mr. Grudev says. “Please.”
Roman Shvartsman, 85, is an Odesan Holocaust survivor. He lost his childhood, lived the antisemitism of the Soviet years, and had hoped for a quiet old age. Now he fears for his grandchildren.
In his pale blue eyes, one reddened by recent cataract surgery, was all of Babel’s terrible world and all of humanity’s defiant hope. “Putin says openly that there is no such state as Ukraine and that he wants to annihilate 40 million Ukrainians. How much clearer does the West need him to be?”
Shifting identities
One night, I joined a patrol composed of volunteers and police officers who enforce the 11 p.m. curfew. Closing down at that hour has not been an easy adjustment for a city notorious for its nightlife, particularly in the gaudy Arcadia district.
Nikolay Iljin, a grain broker, drove. His business has collapsed as a result of the Russian blockade, now eased under a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations.
“You want to know the Russian principle on grain?” he said. “If you can steal it, steal it. If you can’t, destroy it.”
Mr. Iljin was with a bunch of hunting buddies. They had brought their shotguns. Giving this time is their form of service. In some ways Odesa is like a city-state in the fierce allegiance it inspires.
The car screeched to a halt. Two startled young men raised their hands. They showed their military IDs. Dmitrian, 20, military call sign “Skin,” and Dmitriy, 19, call sign “Ryzhyi,” said they were on leave from their unit in Mykolaiv, where the bombardment of Russian rockets is unrelenting. Each hastily married his girlfriend when they enlisted.
“This is what Ukrainian young men do now,” Mr. Iljin said. “Marry and go to die.”
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Nikolay Iljin, second from left, joined a patrol composed of volunteers and police officers.
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Military and first aid training for Odesa residents.
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After 11 p.m., the city is mostly deserted.
We proceeded down the wide boulevards with their electric tramlines first built by a Belgian company in 1910. Pointing to an elderly woman, and using a Russian term for her, Mr. Iljin said: “See that babushka, let’s make an exception for her.”
“She’s probably a K.G.B. agent,” said one of his friends, laughing, as she was left to go on her way with her bundles.
No Odesan laughter is without its measure of tension. All over the city, people volunteer. Oleksandra Savytska, 48, a teacher of autistic children, has joined a basic military training course offered by one of the city’s universities.
Why? “Because anything could happen and I want to be useful,” she said. An instructor barked orders. “Thumb on the safety catch as you walk, so you can release immediately if something happens!”
I asked Ms. Savytska, whose two children are in their 20s, if she was ready to kill for her country. “Kill someone? Maybe 30 percent there, but generally I am ready.”
She gazed at her weapon. “It’s strange to hold a gun,” she told me. “Hard, heavy, interesting.”
Ukraine, discovered
Odesa has always been a city of flux, of comings and goings, of mass immigration and mass emigration. If there is a Little Odessa in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, it’s for a reason. Its spirit has always been free: Lenin and Stalin never set foot here; nor has Mr. Putin.
“Odesa is a nationality,” said Mr. Golubovskiy, the writer who was unperturbed by an explosion.
Pushkinska Street was named for the Russian author Pushkin, who lived there for about a year from July 1823 while writing part of his masterpiece “Eugene Onegin.” It was previously Italyanskaya Street, or Italian Street, in honor of the large community of Italian traders lured, like Greeks, by Odesa’s promise.
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Clearing debris after a Russian strike in Mykolaiv in June.
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A memorial dedicated to Odesa’s defense during World War II.
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A billboard demanding housing for displaced Ukrainians near a checkpoint in the suburbs of Odesa.
Another name change for the street may be coming as a de-Russification campaign gathers pace. Petro Obukhov, a local politician, has drawn up a list of about 200 Russian street names that will be reviewed by city authorities. If Moscow “wants to erase the name Ukraine,” he believes, Odesa needs to efface most traces of Russia.
Just about every postwar Odesa building constructed under Stalin has a nuclear bomb shelter. They are now being revived as protection against Mr. Putin, who draws some inspiration from Stalin. Mykola Chepelev, an architect, took me to one with a bed and even a carpet. “The metal door weighs over 4,000 pounds,” he said.
The gyre of history keeps changing this city that conceals itself from outside powers and so arouses suspicion. Its independence always went with a certain conceit. Odesa stood alone.
An old joke tells of a man in a well-cut suit who is asked where he found it. “Paris,” he says. And how far is that from Odesa? “Oh, about 1,300 miles.” The Odesan is astonished: “So far from here, and they know how to sew so well!”
But Odesa stands less alone now.
East of Odesa, I saw the devastation in Mykolaiv. Residential buildings reduced by Russian missiles to twisted wreckage; a red dustpan propped against an icon in a kitchen full of shattered glass; lives blotted out under concrete slabs, as if they were no more than flies Mr. Putin chose to swat.
Vlad Sorokin, 21, a port worker from Odesa, clung to life in a hospital, his lungs and liver torn, ribs and hip broken by shrapnel from a cruise missile. “Russians think it’s normal to attack others,” he said.
“Russians think it’s normal to attack others,” said Vlad Sorokin, 21, a port worker from Odesa, his lungs and liver torn by a cruise missile.
More Ukrainian, less Russian, Odesa suddenly sees the embattled country it is part of.
All over the city, people volunteer, some making flak jackets for those who have taken up guns.
“The people of Mykolaiv are our defenders,” said Oksana Dovgopolova, who works on the subject of collective memory in Odesa University’s philosophy department. “It used to be some small city near Odesa. Now we see it as a heroic city, no longer inferior. Every day we send it food, medicine, weapons.”
More Ukrainian, less Russian, Odesa suddenly sees the embattled country it is part of.
Eight years ago, on May 2, 2014, the city split, with street fighting between armed Russian sympathizers and pro-Maidan democracy supporters. “It was a battle between those who still wanted to live in a nonexistent Soviet Union, or in an existent, modern, European Ukraine,” said Mr. Dibrov, the researcher, who worked on a documentary about the violence.
In a city of traders more than fighters, the battle was a violation of Odesa’s conciliatory principles. It posed a fundamental question: Are you ready to fight for Ukraine or for Russia? In Mr. Dibrov’s words, “It was the moment people realized how dangerous Russia could be.”
After the pro-Russian demonstrators initiated the violence by killing two pro-Maidan activists, they lost four of their own, before holing up in the Trade Union Building. A fire broke out, its exact origin unclear, killing 42 pro-Moscow Odesans.
It is an episode Mr. Putin has never forgotten.
“One thing is clear,” Mr. Dibrov said. “It was the first day of war in Odesa.”
Homo Sovieticus
From the hospital in Mykolaiv, where I met Mr. Sorokin, I went to that city’s Black Sea Shipyard. It was there, over decades, that the Soviet Union built the submarines and aircraft carriers projecting its global might. There, the command economy of a sprawling Communist state heaved itself into military competitiveness with the United States.
Today it is in part an immense graveyard of Soviet shipbuilding and five-year plans. Stray dogs wander across a disused dry dock and sniff at piles of rusted metal.
Mr. Putin has called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. For a hundred million central Europeans liberated from Soviet totalitarianism, it was anything but that.
Still, at the shipyard, it was hard not to feel the immensity of the dissolution a little more than three decades earlier of the Soviet empire, from which an independent Ukraine emerged. This was an event akin in its scale and reverberations to the French Revolution.
Decades of turmoil followed the storming of the Bastille in 1789. Within 15 years, revolutionary France had an emperor, Napoleon. Russia, in Mr. Putin, has a leader resembling an emperor, a man obsessed by all that was lost in 1991, consumed by the “ancien régime” of Russia, and intent on recovering it by force.
Here lie the roots of the war. “The past is never dead,” said William Faulkner. “It’s not even past.”
Andriy Checheta, 57, is haunted by the past. He lives in Odesa and drives out every day, past golden wheat fields to his 5,000-acre farm where he grows sunflowers, wheat, corn and barley. Born in Grozny to a Chechen father and Ukrainian mother, Mr. Checheta worked all over the former Soviet Union.
“Nothing changed for me with the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he said. “I feel it as my common space as acutely as ever.” He looked at me intently. “How would the United States feel if Texas broke off?”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, trees were felled for energy and water became polluted. Weeds were everywhere when Mr. Checheta first bought land in 2002.
“And, now, again, we have a catastrophe for agriculture in general!” he said, springing up from his desk. He grabbed a bottle of antiseptic soap and inverted it. “Imagine if you had a 20 liter canister attached to this same narrow neck. That’s where we are.”
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A barley field in the Mykolaiv region.
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Andriy Checheta said that he “will not be able to sell anything until November.”
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The Black Sea Shipyard in Mykolaiv is in part an immense graveyard of Soviet shipbuilding.
Because of the war, Mr. Checheta’s entire wheat harvest is wrapped in huge white plastic cylindrical containers out in the fields. He has been unable to move them.
Despite the July deal that has seen a few ships loaded with grain sail from Odesa and other ports, Mr. Checheta said in a later telephone conversation that he “will not be able to sell anything until November and that is an optimistic forecast.”
Whom, I asked when I met him, does he blame? “When couples split, both are responsible,” Mr. Checheta said. “The West provoked instability.” His view of Odesa: “Administratively it is a Ukrainian town, historically it is not.”
I encountered such views more than once — a nostalgia for the Soviet Union, skepticism over Ukrainian statehood, anger at the West for fomenting trouble. Aleksandr Prigarin, an anthropologist at Mechnikov University in Odesa, told me the main thing he was concerned with protecting right now was “Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Chekhov.”
Nobody on either side of the arguments believes the shooting will stop any time soon. “Only a complete idiot can be happy with war,” said Mr. Checheta, gazing at his fields. “Russia and Ukraine must negotiate soon or there will be a total disaster.”
One evening, on the eastern outskirts of Odesa, I saw two soldiers in the twilight digging trenches in the rich soil of Europe. It was a timeless image, with its own strange beauty, of the repetitive failure from which the continent believed itself delivered.
The Naked Sentry
One other work remains in the Fine Arts Museum, Maria Kulikovska’s “Venus,” a naked woman modeled on the artist’s own body and cast in 2019 from ballistic soap with infused flowers. It was too delicate to move.
Ballistic soap is used by the arms industry to test the damage projectiles will inflict on a body, how big the hole is at the entry point and what direction sundering will take. “It has a similar consistency to the human body,” Ms. Kulikovska told me.
The extraordinary statue stands alone now in the museum’s central baroque room, under a chandelier, beneath the decorative cherubs. It seems intensely human and vulnerable, everything Catherine the Great in her portrait is not.
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Maria Kulikovska’s “Venus.” “It is like a female guard that protects my people,” she said.
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Morning service at the St. Ilyinskiy Male Orthodox Monastery.
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After curfew.
Ms. Kulikovska, 34, is from Kerch, an ancient city in Crimea perched on the meeting point of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. She was last there in 2013, the year before Russia’s annexation. “Now,” she said, “the place I am from does not exist, it’s just gray, an occupied territory not there on maps, the home to which I cannot send a postcard or money to my grandma.”
At the time she made “Venus,” she said, she was missing her home very much. Odesa, with its colors, its sea, its architecture, reminded her of Kerch. “That’s why I put all these flowers under the skin, as a reminder of the fragility of human life. Yet I am alive, even if there is pain inside.”
When fighting broke out in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ms. Kulikovska had three figures cast from her body, in pink, green and white, but without flowers, on show at the Izolyatsia arts center in Donetsk.
“The Russian separatist terrorists made them a target, fired volleys of bullets into them, and destroyed them,” she said. “I was denounced as a degenerate artist, presenting a forbidden and disgusting naked female body.”
The arts center was turned into a prison. People were tortured in the garden where the statues had stood, in the name of Mr. Putin’s vision of a restored Russian imperium.
I asked Ms. Kulikovska about her figure standing alone in Odesa’s Fine Arts Museum.
“There is something beautiful about it,” she said. “This Russian propaganda facing my simple naked body, mine, standing up against this aggression.”
She paused for a moment. “It is like a female guard that protects my people, in Odesa and beyond, waiting at the gate of Crimea to go back home.”
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Scenes From Southern Ukraine
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June 30, 2022
Roger Cohen is the Paris bureau chief of The Times. He was a columnist from 2009 to 2020. He has worked for The Times for more than 30 years and has served as a foreign correspondent and foreign editor. Raised in South Africa and Britain, he is a naturalized American. @NYTimesCohen
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 21, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Odesa Is Defiant. It Is Also Putin’s Obsession.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
7. What Remains to Be Said About World War II? Plenty, These Authors Suggest
Conclusion:
So it turns out that, once again, there is indeed more to say about World War II. Unfortunately, much of it reinforces the hard lesson that there is no end to the ways in which human beings can abuse one another.
What Remains to Be Said About World War II? Plenty, These Authors Suggest
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/books/review/nimitz-at-war-craig-symonds-james-gavin-gavin-at-war-ernest-andrews-jr-a-machine-gunners-war-bob-moore-prisons-of-war.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=pocket_mylist
Adm. Chester Nimitz in 1944.Credit...Associated Press
By Thomas E. Ricks
Sometimes it seems as if half the books of military history being published are about some aspect of World War II. I generally try to avoid these works because there are so many other conflicts to discuss. But on occasion I give up and try to pick out a few good books from the incoming flood.
There is always room on the bookshelf for a solid account of how a top commander handled his part of a war, which is precisely what the veteran naval historian Craig Symonds delivers in NIMITZ AT WAR: Command Leadership From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (Oxford University, $29.95).
Symonds focuses on some notable qualities of Adm. Chester Nimitz, the senior Navy officer in the Pacific in World War II. First, Nimitz possessed the enviable ability to work calmly and patiently with all sorts of people. In taking command of the Navy at Pearl Harbor just weeks after the Japanese attack there, Nimitz told the rattled members of the headquarters staff, “I have complete confidence in your ability and judgment” — and then shook the hands of each one. His ability to weigh ambiguous data probably enabled him to overcome his cautious nature and take some chances. In 1942, he gambled successfully in approaching two crucial sea battles, at the Coral Sea and near Midway Island.
Such thinking was in the air during the war, it seems. On the other side of the planet, contemplating death before going into battle for the first time, James Gavin wrote in his wartime diary, “I’ll take the calculated risks.” Gavin was one of the most interesting Army generals of the era. He grew up partly in an orphanage and dropped out of school in the eighth grade, but managed as an enlisted soldier to study his way into West Point. He was promoted to brigadier general at the tender age of 36.
GAVIN AT WAR: The World War II Diary of Lieutenant General James Gavin (Casemate, $34.95) provides a lively self-portrait. His diary is especially notable for its skeptical assessments of his comrades and his Army. “Our artillery is wonderful and our air corps not bad,” he wrote in 1945. “But the regular infantry, terrible. Everyone wants to live to a ripe old age.”
Those poor foot soldiers likely would have disagreed. In a strong new volume, A MACHINE GUNNER’S WAR: From Normandy to Victory With the 1st Infantry Division in World War II (Casemate, $34.95), one of them, Ernest Andrews Jr., tells the tale of his own struggle to fight and survive as an unheralded infantryman.
Just one year after graduating from high school in Chattanooga, Tenn., Andrews was getting ready to land on Omaha Beach as part of the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944. His D-Day began with seeing two heavily laden soldiers trying to climb down from their ship but instead falling into the roiling seawater, with one of them never seen again.
To his surprise, the hardest fighting he experienced came not in Normandy but later, as his unit neared Germany. In one all-night firefight in a thunderstorm, a sudden bolt of lightning illuminated two German soldiers just six feet away preparing to kill him. He shot them both. When dawn came, he turned and saw hundreds of small craters in the cement wall behind him made by bullets the foe had fired at him.
Editors’ Picks
After one fight, Andrews noticed a newly taken enemy being escorted from the front lines. Andrews envied the man: “Watching him led back to the rear as a prisoner, I reflected how lucky he was to be out of the fighting.”
That German probably was one of the more fortunate of the 20 million soldiers taken prisoner during the war. The key fact about their imprisonment was how varied it was. As Bob Moore, an emeritus professor of history at England’s University of Sheffield, describes their experiences in his encyclopedic PRISONERS OF WAR: Europe, 1939-1956 (Oxford University, $45), the best place to be a P.O.W. was Canada, where German soldiers enjoyed beer halls, soccer fields and well-stocked libraries. A medical survey found that in one stockade, the average captive gained 5.4 kilograms over 10 months. By contrast, some Russian prisoners of the Germans and some German prisoners of the Russians were led by famine to engage in cannibalism.
Moore’s account is competent but dry, which is a plus when dealing with a subject as romanticized as World War II P.O.W. camps, especially in films like “The Great Escape” and “Stalag 17.” The numbers he recites are mind-boggling. Of the 5.7 million Red Army soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans during the war, 3.3 million died in captivity.
The Russians treated everyone badly but most strikingly their own returned prisoners. Those who surrendered without a fight, which sometimes was unavoidable, were deemed traitors. One Russian woman — there were over one million females in the Red Army — reported that after she was liberated from the Nazis, she and her comrades had been “treated worse by our own soldiers than we had by the Germans.”
So it turns out that, once again, there is indeed more to say about World War II. Unfortunately, much of it reinforces the hard lesson that there is no end to the ways in which human beings can abuse one another.
Thomas E. Ricks, the Book Review’s military history columnist, is the author of the forthcoming “Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968.”
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A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 21, 2022, Page 8 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: World War II Revisited. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
8. Beyond munitions: A gender analysis for Ukrainian security assistance
Conclusion:
The NATO Strategic Concept acknowledges the important relationship of national-level decision-making to the collective security of the Alliance and Euro-Atlantic region. Right now, allies are making individual decisions to defend Ukraine because it is in the interests of European security and the collective values that bond allies together. Allied military assistance to support Ukraine’s defense of its territorial integrity is remarkable; so, too, is the ability to rapidly mobilize deterrent forces in Europe. But the security and sovereignty of Ukraine is also contingent upon the human security of Ukrainians living within its borders. Beyond the policy documents and international mandates, allied militaries have an operational responsibility to mitigate the potential impacts of military assistance and operations on civilians. They already have access to information and capabilities that enable the integration of human security considerations into military decision-making. Now allied militaries need to take the next steps to put these considerations into action for the future of Ukraine and European security.
Beyond munitions: A gender analysis for Ukrainian security assistance
atlanticcouncil.org · by gdoyle · August 15, 2022
Defense Policy Europe & Eurasia NATO Resilience & Society Security & Defense Security Partnerships Ukraine Women
Issue Brief
August 15, 2022
Table of contents
Foreword
Introduction
Gender analysis: A tool for understanding the human security environment in Ukraine
The Kremlin’s gender playbook
Conflict-related sexual violence: A tactic of the war in Ukraine
The agency of Ukrainian women
Women’s civil society networks are saving Ukrainians
Recommendations
Tactical
Operational
Strategic
Conclusion
Foreword
From the hospitals of Mariupol to the streets of Bucha, the Russian war in Ukraine has extracted an unacceptably high cost, while banding NATO allies and partners together in an unprecedented tide of support. In bilateral and multilateral security assistance packages, the transatlantic community has sent Ukraine javelins, High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARs), and all manner of weapons to defend against the Russian invasion. Still, Russia’s war continues against the nation of Ukraine and its people.
So how should future military assistance account for the different impacts of the war on Ukrainian civilians? What strategies remain for NATO allies and partners to enhance their support beyond weapons and materiel? The answers lie in using gender analyses to zero in on the unique human security challenges facing Ukraine.
When we overlook the role of gender in conflict, we miss the opportunity to both lead with our values and make our military support more effective. Applying a gender analysis to our security assistance is a solution that allies and partners have already agreed to implement in forums from the United Nations to NATO. In fact, it’s a tool that many allies have already developed within their own militaries. Now is the time to employ it in support of Ukraine.
This starts with acknowledging the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda. The WPS Agenda, passed under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, recognizes the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls, and their critical role in reconstructing societies. Militaries can apply gender analyses to better understand and tailor assistance to the unique security environments in which they operate.
To help policymakers think through how a gender analysis can shape what security assistance should look like—and, in many cases, how allied militaries can implement solutions at scale, and consistent with political decisions that have already been made—we are proud to offer this issue brief. Our intention is to demonstrate to global decision makers that incorporating gender can and should be integrated in real-time conflicts to achieve real results.
Our support to Ukraine must not waver, but more can be done to mitigate the severe impact of Russia’s war on the Ukrainian people. Allies and partners already have the political mandate to integrate the WPS Agenda into their operations. They already have the tools, training, and technical expertise to implement it in the field. The next step is making this common practice. This issue brief spells out ten steps for how to do so in Ukraine.
Sahana Dharmapuri and Christopher Skaluba
Sahana Dharmapuri is the director of Our Secure Future: Women Make the Difference. Christopher Skaluba is the director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Introduction
The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept, which was adopted in June and supersedes a 2010 version, is known for several significant firsts, including a focus on China and an emphasis on climate change. Another important first concerns the need to integrate “human security and the Women, Peace and Security agenda” across all of NATO’s core tasks: deterrence and defense; crisis prevention and management; and cooperative security. The Strategic Concept—which provides a security diagnosis that is meant to influence policy—highlights gender equality as a reflection of NATO’s values. It also calls attention to the disproportionate impact of pervasive instability, including conflict-related sexual violence, on women, children, and minority groups. This inclusion reflects agreement among allies that gender equality and human security are core components of individual and collective security.
Allies are witnessing the linkage between gender and human security in real time through the Russian war in Ukraine. As the war enters its six month, nearly each week brings new reports of war crimes, genocide, and sexual violence perpetrated by Russian forces against Ukrainians. Since the February invasion, the Kremlin has intentionally targeted Ukrainian civilians in bread lines, apartment buildings, schools, churches, and hospitals, while employing disinformation campaigns to obfuscate the reality of Putin’s “special military operation” from the Russian public. By the end of May, Ukraine had identified more than six hundred Russian war crime suspects. While Ukraine is not a member of the Alliance, the outcome of the war in Ukraine—and human security of its citizens—is of vital importance to NATO, European security, and the rules-based international order emphasized throughout this Strategic Concept.
Some advocates have encouraged NATO to be more proactive in addressing gender and human security issues in Ukraine. NATO has policies and guidelines on the protection of civilians; women, peace, and security; children and armed conflict; and conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, and action plans or handbooks to support their implementation. These frameworks, however, only apply to NATO-led operations and no such operations currently exist in Ukraine. In a war where NATO is not directly involved, but can readily see the impact on Ukrainian civilians, what does implementing policies on women, peace, and security and human security look like? How should NATO allies understand and account for the human security challenges in their bilateral assistance to Ukraine? Beyond the NATO policy documents and the global United Nations Security Council mandates, the gendered nature of the conflict in Ukraine is a core component of examining the war, its impact on civilians, and planning-informed military action. Many allies have the information and capabilities to address such human-centered issues—they just need to incorporate them in their bilateral military assistance. This is more possible than it seems.
Gender analysis: A tool for understanding the human security environment in Ukraine
With the evolving conflict dynamic in Ukraine, humanitarian organizations such as UN Women and CARE International have published comprehensive analyses highlighting gender dynamics and human insecurity in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s aggressive military campaign. These analyses show, for example, that the majority of people fleeing Ukraine are women, girls, and boys, as Ukrainian men between the ages of eighteen and sixty have been conscripted to fight; the crisis is largely exacerbating preexisting gender and intersectional inequalities and discrimination; and incidents of gender-based violence, particularly domestic violence and conflict-related sexual violence, are reportedly increasing. The gender analyses come with recommendations for humanitarian actors, operating in Ukraine and neighboring countries, which have been vital in providing tailored services, shelter, and care for Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people.
The analytical products also are useful for militaries, which often excel at analyzing and distilling information to inform their operations and activities. Gender analysis provides militaries with a comprehensive range of information about the different ways the war in Ukraine is impacting civilians based on social norms and behaviors associated with their identity as a man, woman, or gender diverse person and other identity characteristics such as ethnicity, religion, or disability status. For example, a single Ukrainian man over the age of sixty with a physical disability has had different challenges and experiences, and will make different decisions about his needs during this conflict than a Roma woman in her twenties who is married with three children. While this may seem intuitive, these are important details for responding to the unique and different needs of the estimated 12.8 million displaced Ukrainians from both a humanitarian and military perspective.
A gender analysis centers people—not the nation state, weapons, or equipment—when understanding security needs and interventions for the purposes of providing support, which in this case is to Ukraine. As the war continues and allied militaries increasingly deploy forces to locations across Eastern Europe, information gleaned through gender analyses will contribute to military planning for contingencies. Such information can ensure that military assistance and planned operations do not further exacerbate the deteriorating human security conditions on the ground. The challenge for militaries is often articulating the change in their tasks, requirements, or capabilities to respond to such conditions.
The sections below seek to highlight some of the salient gender-based information for allied militaries to better understand the human security environment in Ukraine. This brief does not suggest that other information is not germane or should be ignored, but rather seeks to distill information relevant for shaping current and future allied military responses. This brief does not argue that gender analysis can or should be used to wage war more effectively from a purely military operational perspective. It takes the position that to be considered militarily effective, military action must meet its desired objectives while mitigating cost and negative impact on civilians and humanitarian actors operating in the same space.
…to be considered militarily effective, military action must meet its desired objectives while mitigating cost and negative impact on civilians and humanitarian actors operating in the same space.”
The Kremlin’s gender playbook
The Kremlin has intentionally targeted and exploited societal gender fault lines through hybrid warfare as a reliable tactic for destabilizing cohesion and unity among populations throughout Europe. Though its hybrid campaigns focus on many issues, gender issues are some of the most divisive and polarizing for local populations, making them ripe for targeted disinformation. In the Ukraine conflict, for example, the Kremlin accused a woman who gave birth in the immediate aftermath of the Mariupol maternity hospital bombing of being an actress paid by Ukraine to sow uncertainty about the reality of its operations. Separately, the Kremlin has continued to deny allegations that Russian forces committed acts of rape and sexual violence against Ukrainians, discrediting the claims as a hoax.
This is not a new tactic for Moscow. To maintain a level of control and influence in post-Soviet states, the Kremlin has historically weaponized gender. Disinformation campaigns attack LGBTQ+ and women activists, politicians, and other leaders to discredit them, humiliate them, or place them in a heightened risk of retaliatory violence. This weaponization is a notorious tactic of authoritarian and aspiring authoritarian regimes to degrade efforts toward democratization. In Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine, for example, rolling back LGBTQ+ and women’s rights has been a canary in the coal mine for the Kremlin’s influence in the face of democratic progress in those countries. Russian disinformation has succeeded—across Europe and in North America—in weaponizing sexist, racist, and homophobic belief sets within influential and excitable demographics to shift outcomes in elections and undercut democracy. Russia’s influence campaigns often proliferate the falsehood that expanding rights for women and LGBTQ+ individuals takes away rights from others. They link this expansion of rights for all to “Western influence” in a bid to undermine democratic movements, political candidates, and partnerships between post-Soviet states and the European Union and NATO. To the Kremlin, democratic progress within post-Soviet states is a threat to Russia’s traditional values and puts the future of Russia in danger.
In his speeches on Ukraine, Putin consistently references his goal of defending Russian “traditions” and “culture” as a justification for the Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Putin’s calculated messaging is intended to demonstrate linkages in defending a shared national Russian identity rooted in traditional gender roles, norms, and expectations among Russian and Ukrainian men and women. His messaging is intended to “other,” or establish an “us versus them” mentality, both at the national level toward NATO and the West and at the individual level toward those who challenge status quo norms and seek to expand sociocultural gender roles, rights, and responsibilities to evolve Ukrainian society. In this way, Putin proliferates his own connections between individual identity and collective security. So when Putin claims Russia is being “threatened” by NATO at its borders, he is not only speaking of the political-military Alliance—but also the democratic world order that NATO stands for and the expansion of rights and liberties for all.
Since the Russian invasion, the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare campaigns have flooded the information environment with justifications for its invasion, denials of mass atrocities, and other mischaracterizations of the truth to breed uncertainty about the war among Russians, Ukrainians, and global audiences. The narrative, themes, and mechanisms for spreading Russian disinformation account for and exploit gender fault lines among the local populace to weaken societal cohesion and resilience. As allied militaries monitor the information environment from their capitals and establish their forces in Eastern Europe, they cannot afford to overlook Russia’s weaponization of gender as part of its campaign of aggression in Ukraine.
Conflict-related sexual violence: A tactic of the war in Ukraine
International organizations and national and local nongovernmental organizations have warned of increases in conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) since the beginning of the invasion in February. NATO defines CRSV in its 2021 policy as “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict.” As the war in Ukraine evolves, these organizations continue to report on the increased risk of CRSV faced by women and girls since they are overrepresented in the refugee and internally displaced person populations. La Strada International, a European platform against human trafficking, has highlighted how established human trafficking avenues in Ukraine run by criminal organizations continue to put more Ukrainians at risk of human trafficking, including sexual slavery, the longer the war continues. The UN Refugee Agency reports that displaced LGBTQ+ people “frequently experience continued harm,” as they flee emergency situations in their home countries, in transit to new destinations, and upon arrival in places of asylum. This includes stigmatization, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, and exclusion from access to essential services, including gender-affirming healthcare. Transgender and gender diverse people fleeing Ukraine have reported challenges crossing the border into neighboring countries when their gender or physical presentation does not correspond with legal identity documents. Gender analyses have further highlighted the risk of forced marriage among the Roma population as a result of the conflict, reinforcing multiple forms of discrimination against Roma girls, and decreasing their ability to reach out for support of authorities, who may not want to interfere with what is perceived as a “cultural practice” of an ethnic group.
Separate but related are the reports that Russian forces inside Ukraine are intentionally using sexual violence as part of their military campaign to instill fear and impose physical and psychological harm and trauma on the Ukrainian population. Sexual violence, when used to wage war on a population, takes civilian bodies and centers them as the battleground where the warfighting tactics of torture and rape take place. This results in physical and psychological harm for survivors and witnesses of the violence, and has long-term impacts on the whole population. Sexual violence as a tactic of war is systematic and intentional; it is not a crime of opportunity in a chaotic environment. Recent surveys conducted in Ukraine indicate that 93 percent of Ukrainians have heard of rape or sexual assault by the Russian or pro-Russian forces, and 20 percent say that they personally know someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted by the Russian or pro-Russian troops since the invasion started on February 24, 2022. Most reporting indicates women are the primary targets of sexual violence; however, it is important to acknowledge that younger men and boys, specifically, may be particularly at risk. Given the more rigid and traditional gender roles prevalent in Ukraine, feelings of shame, embarrassment, or emasculation may prevent boys and younger men from reporting and seeking support. Sexual violence remains one of the most hidden crimes being committed against Ukrainians in this war.
Sexual violence as a tactic of war is systematic and intentional; it is not a crime of opportunity in a chaotic environment.”
CRSV is a dynamic of the war in Ukraine that allied militaries must plan for since they will ultimately encounter survivors of CRSV. Military forces and security sector actors, including local police forces, can leverage information from gender analyses to understand vulnerability and risk factors for different subgroups of refugees and internally displaced people as well as indications and warning of CRSV and exploitation. Understanding gender and other human factors—such as ethnicity, age, gender expression, and ability status—helps militaries make sense of civilian behavior and decision-making, which can be useful information for intelligence estimates and military plans. This can help frontline military actors distinguish friendly and adversarial actors and identify survivors, especially among high-risk groups such as women, children, LGBTQ+ populations, and ethnic minorities, to ensure they can safely access services from the humanitarian response effort. While it is not the remit of military forces to provide CRSV support services for survivors, allied militaries in bordering countries will ultimately come into contact with the civilian population seeking services and support as they flee Ukraine. Allied militaries should be prepared to engage civilians appropriately with consideration for risk factors and trauma that war imposes on people and, as part of their plans, identify the process for connecting survivors with humanitarian services.
The agency of Ukrainian women
The cautionary recommendation from many gender analyses is to not make gendered assumptions that Ukrainian women and girls are all victims in need of protection. If gender analyses are oversimplified when interpreted, military actors may conclude that women are inherently victims in need of protection and the de facto intervention is that (male) military actors are charged with protecting them—rather than seeing their contributions to the war effort and factoring this into their military assistance to Ukraine. Kateryna Cherepakha, president of the organization La Strada-Ukraine, cautions against viewing women as “mere victims” in this war. Summing up her view, a Norwegian opinion piece states: “Fortifying stereotypical assumptions of women as victims only can reinforce ideas about the need for a protective culture in which women’s agency and power are belittled.”
Since 2014, the Ukrainian military has reported a dramatic increase in women in the military—a rise directly attributed to the threat posed by Russia following the annexation of Crimea and the warfighting in the Donbas. Following the 2022 Russian invasion, an unknown number of women have joined the army or volunteered for civilian resistance efforts—as they did in World War I in the Austro-Hungarian army and in World War II in the Red Army. In the fight against Russian aggression, there are accounts of women in the Ukrainian forces defending their country as snipers, combat medics, artillery officers, and in other logistics and noncombat support roles. Women’s active contributions to the defense of Ukraine, amplified through the media, should shift the narrative surrounding women’s motivations and agency within this war. Acknowledging the different motivations of women for staying in Ukraine to fight further demonstrates women are not a homogenous group, and their motivations for fighting are not solely linked to their gender roles as family caregivers or relational to men as their wives, mothers, sisters, or aunts. Women’s agency—their ability to determine and act on their own individualized goals and motivations—is a core component of this war, whether they decide to stay in or leave Ukraine.
It may seem contradictory to discuss the risks faced by women and girls in this conflict and then highlight their agency—but it is not dichotomous. This is the complexity that gender analysis illuminates and the nuance it demands of interventions—humanitarian or military—in conflict-ridden situations. Eliminating wholesale assumptions of women’s victimization and examining their motivations is a critical piece of gender dynamics in conflict. It also helps outside actors detect the different challenges facing civilian Ukrainian men. The traditionally rigid roles ascribed to Ukrainian men and women have already morphed over the course of this war and will continue to change. For allied militaries, this means embedded planning assumptions about friendly forces and the civilian population cannot remain static, and instead need to adapt to account for gender-based changes as plans for future operations are adjusted based on new intelligence.
Women’s civil society networks are saving Ukrainians
In every locality around the world, there are local networks of women—often undetected by Western media, leaders, and other outside actors—operating across their communities and making lifesaving impacts. Women’s civil society networks often have the ground truth of conflict dynamics, and access that allows them to acutely understand and provide tailored services to address the human security challenges manifesting as a result of war. For example, at the border between Ukraine and neighboring countries such as Poland and Moldova, women’s rights organizations and civil society organizations have been critical to providing localized, culturally specific and sensitive support to at-risk groups seeking refuge. These organizations have been operating at max capacity during the lead-up and throughout the 2022 Russian attack on Ukraine. They have also provided useful insights and recommendations for shaping international humanitarian and military assistance based on their knowledge of the conflict.
While humanitarian assistance efforts employ a variety of models and mechanisms for engaging local civil society, it can be understandably more challenging for military actors to ensure these insights and recommendations are considered as part of military assistance and planned operations. International and national organizations like CARE International, the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund, and the Ukrainian Women’s Fund are often helpful starting points for military actors to understand the local civil society landscape given their local networks. Some of these larger organizations also have security sector liaisons specifically dedicated to improving coordination with military and other security actors. International and national level organizations are helpful conduits for distinguishing between local organizations that are amenable to working with the military and those who do not want any real or perceived affiliation. This is an optimal way for military forces to take stock of the civil society landscape without overtaxing the local network with information requirements.
Importantly, women’s civil society organizations in Ukraine are facing their own unique challenges as a result of the war: supply chain delays, insufficient resources and capacity to meet demand, and limited access to coordination mechanisms and decision-making processes led by international actors, among others. As nonhumanitarian actors with a different mission, allied militaries may never fully map these interconnected, localized networks, yet may be operating in and around them in the same environment. It is paramount that allied militaries take steps to understand how the local network operates so that military action does not negatively impact their efforts. The key takeaway for military operators is not to replace or upend the system built and implemented by these networks, but to ensure it is sustained, continues operating, and remains informed about planned military action through appropriate intermediaries.
Recommendations
Military assistance for Ukraine has involved radar and anti-armor systems, ammunition, vehicles, and aircraft to support Ukraine’s defense of its sovereign territory. In the weeks following the Russian invasion, NATO allies bolstered allied force posture by deploying air defense, armor, and infantry forces, among other capabilities, along NATO’s eastern flank. Interestingly, no reporting describes how this support is necessary for countering the gendered impacts of Russia’s hybrid warfare, addressing instances of CRSV, understanding women as warfighters in Ukraine, or sustaining the critical role of localized civil society networks. Yet these are some of the many human security dynamics that will shape the outcomes in Ukraine and, importantly, contextualize the battlespace Ukraine’s military is currently operating in and allied militaries are observing from their deterrence posture. The recommendations below seek to help allied militaries accommodate gendered human security challenges within the context of the support they are providing for the defense of Ukraine; they are not all encompassing and should be reevaluated as the conflict evolves and new information becomes available. Notably, the tactical recommendations should not be considered the primary course of action: they represent a minimum viable capability to enable action and prevent inaction.
Tactical
1. Incorporate human security guidance into commanders’ intent.
Military leadership can direct forces to accomplish the mission in a gender-responsive way that protects or mitigates harm to civilians. The implied tasks for accomplishing the mission can account for the gender and human security dynamics highlighted in this brief and others as they emerge over time. Guidance can be as simple as acknowledging up front that mission success is dependent on civilian as well as military outcomes, and providing gender and human security-related tasks such as including techniques for civilian harm mitigation as part of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) during training missions, and ensuring that gender- and age-disaggregated information about the civilian population is part of reporting requirements to headquarters for use in future capability planning. Deployed tactical forces do not have the ability to change the military mission; but they do have the ability to change how they accomplish the mission objectives. Adaptation can be cost free, and it often starts with a leadership decision.
2. Develop and provide specialized training for deployed forces.
Military forces can request specialized training to be conducted at their deployed locations. Some militaries have incorporated gender and human security concepts into predeployment training; others have not. All militaries have a long list of predeployment training and readiness checks that inhibit their ability to take on specialized training before deployment. In this case, training forces in theater may be the only option, when possible. Requested training could include short sessions for operational forces on TTPs for the protection of civilians or accommodating gender and human security aspects in military operations. Specialized training can be tailored to the capability military forces are performing (e.g., infantry, artillery, air defense, medical, etc.) to optimize the understanding of what military forces do and the impact on the civilian environment and vice versa. Furthermore, many allied militaries have gender advisors and protection of civilians specialists who have developed and can adapt training modules to respond to such training requests. These specialists, however, often need a demand signal and a specific request from ground forces if such training was not identified as a requirement in advance. To be clear, a short one-off training while on deployment is a mitigation strategy, not a solution. But it is an available option and should be provided to forces deploying to the eastern flank.
3. Balance threat and civilian intelligence assessments.
Military intelligence can expand its focus to better understand the civilian context and the threat or enemy. The enemy gets a vote, as the military saying goes; civilians should too. Intelligence can sometimes focus so intently on understanding threats from the enemy, and understandably so, that this can limit resources dedicated to understanding the civilian context or the potential impacts of planned military action on the civilian population. For the purposes of joint targeting—or the way militaries prioritize and select facilities, individuals, and other entities for applying a kinetic or nonkinetic military capability—allied militaries should ensure they evaluate the presence of civilians in and around areas of high value targets. This means deconstructing differences in civilian men’s and women’s patterns of movement and use of facilities, roads, or equipment. It means factoring into targeting equations civilian movement and use of subways, schools, and industrial plants —areas where civilians have taken shelter—which may be impacted as a result of military action, and identifying options to retain military effectiveness, civilian safety, and freedom of movement.
Allies already have access to military doctrine that explains how intelligence can incorporate gendered civilian considerations into tactical and operational assessments. The NATO Allied Joint Doctrine for Joint Targeting includes guidance to commanders and staff to include a gender analysis as part of joint target development in recognition that gender has an impact across the human, physical, and informational environments. Militaries also have robust, formalized processes by which they gather data to inform their operations (i.e., intelligence preparation of the battlefield). Militaries can include requirements to gather specific information on the civilian population for the explicit purpose of mitigating civilian harm and accounting for the gender and human security dynamics present in the operational battlespace. To understand the civilian population is to understand gender. It is impossible to gain clarity about civilians without understanding the gender norms and dictates that influence their behavior and decision-making. Militaries can choose to adapt their intelligence requirements to gather this type of specific information.
Operational
4. Provide gender-specific healthcare and equipment.
Military assistance and supplies for Ukraine should include gender-specific healthcare and equipment. Medical facilities are often safe, private spaces for survivors of gender-based violence to disclose their experience to healthcare providers. Allied military medical support should be prepared to identify and interact with survivors of CRSV, including LGBTQ+ and gender diverse individuals, and know how to connect them with sexual and reproductive healthcare and psychosocial support services. The UN Population Fund estimated there were around 265,000 pregnant women in Ukraine at the start of the 2022 crisis, and approximately 80,000 were expected to deliver over the next three months. Such information enables allied military medical support in neighboring countries to coordinate with the humanitarian response effort and (where requested) anticipate providing maternity care including attending births, pre- and post-natal support, and basic infant needs such as bassinets and baby formula.
Most allied military security assistance to Ukraine is for equipment, weapons, radar systems, helicopters, and tactical vehicles. To accommodate women in the Ukrainian forces and civilian resistance who remain in Ukraine, allied militaries should, at a minimum, include feminine hygiene products in first aid kits and provide gender-specific personal protective equipment, including helmets, boots, and body armor that better fit and protect women’s bodies, as part of equipment packages. Often personal protective equipment such as tactical bulletproof vests do not fit women properly because they were initially designed for the average male body. This puts women at an increased risk for injury since the equipment does not protect the same areas that it would on a man. NATO members are aware of such gender considerations, which are included in NATO annual defense planning capability surveys, and a similarly gender-sensitive approach should be applied to military assistance to Ukraine.
5. Counter gender disinformation.
As part of continuously evaluating the information environment, allied militaries—specifically their military intelligence, psychological operations, civil-military analysis, and military public affairs entities—should ensure they are identifying and examining gender-based messaging being weaponized to support the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign about its actions, plans, and foreign policy position. Key themes for the Kremlin’s disinformation narratives often include discrediting women’s contributions or experiences in the conflict, demonizing or targeting LGBTQ populations, and using feminized language associated with Ukrainian military action or narratives that associate Russian success with traditional and rigid gender norms. It has historically been difficult to block or refute Russian propaganda, but allied militaries can counter its effects on the population by examining how gender roles and stereotypes are being exploited to influence support for Russian military operations in Ukraine. This will be helpful for identifying at-risk populations for Russian disinformation and designing alternative narratives to counter the Kremlin’s propaganda. Helpfully, the UK government provides ten steps in this “how to” guide to counter gendered disinformation, which includes key questions allied militaries can incorporate in their understanding of the information environment.
6. Deploy civil-military cooperation capabilities.
Allied forces should ensure they incorporate civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) elements into the forces being deployed. These elements help overcome the communication gap between military and civilian authorities, organizations, and agencies and would be a necessary capability given the presence of military forces, humanitarian actors, and affected populations of Ukrainians in the same locality. Allies have access to the NATO Allied Command Operations Protection of Civilians Handbook to inform CIMIC planning. The handbook emphasizes understanding the human environment, identifying risk factors for vulnerable groups, and clarifying the rules of engagement for military forces that include relevant TTPs, and reporting standard operating procedures for civilian protection and harm mitigation. The CIMIC capability was built for situations like the one unfolding in Ukraine. Rather than reacting to the situation that ultimately unfolds, information gleaned through gender analyses indicates a CIMIC capability will be as necessary as infantry, armor, and air defense for deployed forces.
7. Diversify force composition for deployed CIMIC teams.
If CIMIC teams ultimately deploy, allied militaries should intentionally plan to deploy women in uniform to support civil-military engagement. A critical enabler for CIMIC is the ability to deploy mixed teams of men and women in uniform. Based on peacekeeping operations globally, and NATO operations in Afghanistan, allied militaries know that having trained women military operators engage with civilian populations results in outcomes more advantageous to both the military and humanitarian objectives because of the ability to overcome gender-based constraints for interacting with different people. Though Russian aggression in Ukraine is a different conflict scenario, this lesson is still relevant and applicable, particularly because of the information learned through gender analyses of Ukraine. Simply put, women sometimes feel more comfortable speaking to other women and sometimes men also feel more comfortable speaking to women. By having diverse groups of people comprise deployed CIMIC teams, allied militaries have flexibility to adapt in real time to overcome sociocultural and gender-based constraints to interaction with civilians. This is a warfighting advantage. Since militaries are mostly comprised of men, they must think proactively about deploying women CIMIC operators.
Importantly, it is difficult to surge women in uniform with the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities to engage civilian populations. Engagement is a capability that must be built; an operator’s gender refines and adds nuance to the capability, but in and of itself, one’s gender does not guarantee effective outcomes without sufficient training and skills. Therefore, identifying gender diversity as a requirement up front in force generation and planning fosters success for women on CIMIC teams by ensuring proper training and preparation; it enables planners to account for this capability in future military planning; and it prevents women assigned to other capabilities from being pulled away from their unit for something they have not been trained or deployed to do. This is not an argument for increasing women in the military for the sake of numbers; this is an argument for proactive capability planning with intentional consideration of gender for civilian engagement.
Strategic
8. Bolster NATO’s internal gender and human security capacity.
NATO headquarters has internal teams and senior advisers dedicated to interpreting gender and human security information for use in planning action for the Alliance. Though NATO is not actively leading a military operation, the Alliance is coordinating support and enabling consultation among allies. At the political level, the NATO secretary general special representative (SGSR) for women, peace, and security and the Human Security Unit are actively tracking and managing gender and human security challenges arising from the war in Ukraine. On the military side, the International Military Staff Office of the Gender Advisor (IMS GENAD) provides complementary advice and expertise to the NATO Military Committee. Where allies are limited in their bilateral military assistance to Ukraine, they should consider bolstering the efforts of the SGSR, Human Security Unit, and IMS GENAD through staffing and dedicated resources. This would provide the staff support to embed gender and human security considerations within strategic and operational documents guiding NATO’s support for Ukraine. Over the next year, national level staffing support and additional resourcing to the internal gender and human security teams at NATO would cost allies a fraction of one attack helicopter valued between $849,000 and $1.1 million.
Many allies have spent the last two decades building up their cadres of military gender advisors, which are dedicated military positions responsible for translating gender analyses into military action. Now is the time to leverage this expertise. NATO gender advisors at the headquarters and Allied Command Operations are already actively working to integrate and account for gender and human security information within NATO’s defense plans, the high readiness elements of the NATO Response Force, and the eight multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Those allied militaries deploying national forces to the eastern flank should also identify options for deploying a trained and qualified gender advisor to provide real time gender and human security inputs to military plans, intelligence, and targeting as the war evolves.
9. Advocate for women’s participation in peace negotiations.
Political consultation regarding Ukraine and Russia should emphasize the necessity of women serving as mediators and negotiators during peace talks. As the Western allies speculate on the conditions that would bring Ukraine and Russia to a cease-fire and peace negotiation, they should also advocate for the intentional inclusion of women as part of the peace process. Despite more than three decades of research analyzing the longevity of outcomes associated with women’s participation in both formal and informal peace processes, few allies have drawn on the findings as part of their political commentary and consultation about the future of Ukraine. Where many are focused on restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and rightfully so, research demonstrates that the inclusion of women as negotiators and participants during peace talks ensures that human security, transitional justice, and democratic developments are amplified as part and parcel of restoring state security.
In the few negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in 2022, women have been noticeably absent. Some argue it is often difficult to find qualified women to participate in the process, but women’s civil society networks in Ukraine were particularly active in shaping Ukraine-Russia discussions following the 2014 annexation of Crimea and should be included again. Others argue that there is a dearth of trained women mediators and peace builders to facilitate the discussions. Helpfully, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has instituted a promising model for creating a network of women with such skills. Moreover, among the allies offering assistance to Ukraine are nations with feminist foreign policies and national directives on gender equity and equality; advocating for women’s inclusion throughout the peace negotiations is one action they can take to shape positive outcomes for the future of Ukraine.
10. Elevate the protection of civilians in bilateral defense talks with Ukraine.
Allies have the option of elevating the impact of military operations on civilians during bilateral defense and military talks with Ukraine. This would place the protection of civilians in the context of ongoing military operations, open the door for Ukraine to highlight challenges in protecting civilians, and perhaps help shape future military assistance from allies. By elevating civilian harm and protection needs within defense coordination channels, allies can communicate what capabilities and training they can provide to assist the Ukrainian military with its engagement and protection of civilians. This puts options on the table that Ukraine can request. If allies are able to train Ukrainian soldiers on new weapon systems, patrol tactics, and first aid in the midst of war, they should also be possible to provide training on methods for protecting civilians, including specific tactics and rules of engagement. Military assistance can be thought of more comprehensively than weapon systems and ammunition.
Conclusion
The NATO Strategic Concept acknowledges the important relationship of national-level decision-making to the collective security of the Alliance and Euro-Atlantic region. Right now, allies are making individual decisions to defend Ukraine because it is in the interests of European security and the collective values that bond allies together. Allied military assistance to support Ukraine’s defense of its territorial integrity is remarkable; so, too, is the ability to rapidly mobilize deterrent forces in Europe. But the security and sovereignty of Ukraine is also contingent upon the human security of Ukrainians living within its borders. Beyond the policy documents and international mandates, allied militaries have an operational responsibility to mitigate the potential impacts of military assistance and operations on civilians. They already have access to information and capabilities that enable the integration of human security considerations into military decision-making. Now allied militaries need to take the next steps to put these considerations into action for the future of Ukraine and European security.
***
Acknowledgements
This issue brief is written and published in accordance with the Atlantic Council Policy on Intellectual Independence. The author is solely responsible for its analysis and recommendations. The Atlantic Council and its donors do not determine, nor do they necessarily endorse or advocate for, any of this issue brief’s conclusions.
This issue brief was produced under the auspices of a project conducted in partnership with Our Secure Future focused on gender and security.
Cori Fleser is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a senior specialist with Forge Group, LLC. The views expressed are her own.
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Image: Ukrainian servicemen take part in a rehearsal for the Independence Day military parade, in the center of Kiev, Ukraine, August 20, 2015. The parade will take place this Monday. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
atlanticcouncil.org · by gdoyle · August 15, 2022
9. Lawrence Freedman: ‘Autocracies tend to make catastrophic decisions. That’s the case with Putin’
If authoritarian leaders base their legitimacy on the myth of infallibility it is no wonder they cannot admit their mistakes.
Sir Lawrence Freedman has given us a new book for the "to read pile." Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine by Lawrence Freedman is published by Allen Lane on 8 September. I just pre-ordered my copy from Amazon.
Excerpts:
And since Russia’s first plan to topple Ukraine with a coup de main against Kyiv collapsed within the first few weeks amid fierce Ukrainian resistance and Russian logistical incompetence, Moscow has struggled to find a credible plan B.
“They tried for plan B – the famous convoy that gathered outside Kyiv – but they couldn’t find one. It was logistically beyond them. The lines were too exposed. So they reverted back to concentrating on the Donbas.
“Even then it took until May to focus on what they could do – artillery barrages on a narrow front, a tactic for which Ukraine had no easy response, except to take heavy casualties until western weapons systems began arriving.”
Even now, six months into the war, Freedman struggles to understand the logic of the Kremlin, not least its tactic of creating a wintertime energy crisis in Europe to undermine support for Kyiv.
Lawrence Freedman: ‘Autocracies tend to make catastrophic decisions. That’s the case with Putin’
The military strategy expert and author of a new book on conflict says the flawed thinking behind Russia’s invasion stems from the inability of those at the top to take responsibility for mistakes
The Guardian · August 21, 2022
Russia’s war against Ukraine has been hampered by failings experienced by autocratic states during conflict, according to a far-reaching new study of command in war by one of the UK’s most prominent academics in the field.
Command, a wide-ranging analysis of post-second world war conflicts by the leading strategic studies expert Lawrence Freedman, examines a series of well-known conflicts, from the Cuban missile crisis to the French defeat at the hands of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, through to the Falklands war and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, up to the present war in Ukraine.
“The big theme,” said Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, “is that autocracies are very bad at this. A lot of most catastrophic decisions come from autocratic decision-making. That is certainly the case with Vladimir Putin but also Saddam Hussein and even [the Argentine military dictator Leopoldo] Galtieri during the Falklands war.”
But he adds: “It’s not that democracies always make better decisions.”
As Freedman’s book sets out to show, in key interactions between military and political leaders – which even in the best circumstances can be characterised by tensions and personal conflicts – it is the lack of open and often critical feedback that leads to bad decision-making.
“Autocracies don’t have the feedback mechanism, and dig themselves in by believing that the advantage of autocracy is bold and decisive decision-making.
“While in certain circumstances you can tolerate quite a lot of bad decision-making and come out all right, because you have superior numbers, where it is very tight, one poor decision or bit of bad luck can put you out completely.”
And while Russian military operations for more than a century have often relied on using overwhelming numbers (often with little consideration for losses), in Ukraine, Russia appears to have been constrained by domestic political considerations from introducing a general mobilisation, which has limited the scale of forces it can deploy.
Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, has written a new study about command in military conflicts. Photograph: Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images
One issue that has intrigued Freedman, as well as other analysts, is why Putin – whose use of force had been limited in scope before Ukraine – embarked on such a dangerous and badly prepared-for gamble in Ukraine.
“Military force had been quite good for Putin up until now. He used it effectively in Chechnya, Crimea, Georgia and Syria. He used it in quite a limited fashion in Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014 where those doing his dirty work wanted him to take an even more aggressive approach.
“But his approach to the current Ukraine conflict has clearly been deluded. You have to assume he didn’t realise the gamble he was taking. He genuinely thought Ukraine would crumble quite quickly, and it’s hard to know why.“Even those [foreign] analysts who thought Ukraine’s military might not do well didn’t believe that the Ukrainian people would succumb. But he did.
He did see it as a special military operation [ the term the Kremlin has consistently used rather than “war”] that would last a few days. And once that plan had failed, they were on the back foot.”
A key failure, in Freedman’s view, was that while Russian intelligence had widely infiltrated Ukraine – as even Kyiv has acknowledged – the key figures around Putin either did not understand Ukraine or acted as an echo chamber for him.
“Experts on Ukraine in Russia don’t seem to have been consulted. It looks like Putin was talking to his mates in the FSB [the federal security service] and GRU [military intelligence ] who shared his prejudices. And the ranting speech he gave on 21 February [three days before Russia invaded] is still as good a guide as anything to believe what he thinks. It is clear from that that he finds it very hard to take Ukraine andits president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, seriously. I think he thought Zelenskiy would make a deal. He didn’t.”
At the heart of the problem, Freedman believes, is the rigidly hierarchical nature of the Kremlin’s decision-making and how those at the very top are immune to responsibility for mistakes.
“There are no incentives to tell the truth on the ground to the higher command. The senior military – people such as defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov – are all part of the inner circle. They’ve sacked lots of generals now they know that there’s a problem. But it’s not them that’s the problem. It’s always someone else.”
And since Russia’s first plan to topple Ukraine with a coup de main against Kyiv collapsed within the first few weeks amid fierce Ukrainian resistance and Russian logistical incompetence, Moscow has struggled to find a credible plan B.
“They tried for plan B – the famous convoy that gathered outside Kyiv – but they couldn’t find one. It was logistically beyond them. The lines were too exposed. So they reverted back to concentrating on the Donbas.
“Even then it took until May to focus on what they could do – artillery barrages on a narrow front, a tactic for which Ukraine had no easy response, except to take heavy casualties until western weapons systems began arriving.”
Even now, six months into the war, Freedman struggles to understand the logic of the Kremlin, not least its tactic of creating a wintertime energy crisis in Europe to undermine support for Kyiv.
There are no incentives to tell the truth on the ground to the higher command. They are all part of the inner circle
Lawrence Freedman
“I think the only ‘theory of victory’ the Kremlin has at the present is that the west turns on Ukraine because of the energy crisis. But the surprise there is that Moscow has not asked for a ceasefire now. That would put Zelenskiy on the spot because he couldn’t agree to one.
“Instead, Putin is still acting as though he expects more from this war than he has already got. Why I think there are some signs of desperation on the Russian side is that some are beginning to recognise that an energy crunch is not going to lead to a betrayal of Ukraine. In the long term, that signals the risk of deep damage to Russia’s economy.”
While Freedman is cautious about predicting that Russian forces could face a second big setback – not least in the south of Ukraine, where Kyiv has been effectively pressing on Kherson – he sees the same lack of institutional imagination defining the future trajectory of the war.
“Is there going to be something big like Russian forces getting encircled and trapped [around Kherson]? Unless the system gets a shock like the one experienced in late February and early March [when Russia abandoned its effort to take Kyiv], I think Russia will doggedly carry on, if for no other reason than that it can’t think of anything better to do. The Kremlin is paralysed.”
Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine by Lawrence Freedman is published by Allen Lane on 8 September
The Guardian · August 21, 2022
10. If the Marine Corps Isn’t Broken—and It Isn’t—Why Fix It?
If the Marine Corps Isn’t Broken—and It Isn’t—Why Fix It?
OVERREACTION
The current commandant is a little worried about what conflict with China could look like, but his solutions, say retired generals and Corps members, are also problematic.
James A. Warren
Updated Aug. 21, 2022 3:52AM ET / Published Aug. 20, 2022 11:33PM ET
The Daily Beast · August 21, 2022
Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty
No doubt about it: Since the mid ’60s and Vietnam, we’ve witnessed a precipitous decline in the American people’s faith in their government institutions. The “credibility gap” between what the government does and what it claimed it does first surfaced when LBJ presided over the Vietnam War. It came roaring back into our politics when George W. Bush invaded Iraq on false pretenses. Then came Donald Trump, who said, and continues to say, whatever pleases him, regardless of its veracity. Long before Trump oozed on to the national political scene, Congress had all but ceased to function as a legislative body.
Not all government institutions have lost their luster. Think of the military services. Overwhelmingly, Americans respect their servicemembers. For many years, polls have been confirming that the United States Marines are the most admired and respected service, not only for what the Corps has accomplished on battlefields far and wide, which is considerable, but for the values of self-sacrifice, loyalty, and tenacity the Corps puts forward as the heart of its worldview. The Marine Corps’ reputation for getting it done, and done well, reached its apotheosis in the Pacific War, where it fought a long series of increasingly destructive island battles against the Japanese. The Marines have fought with great bravery and distinction in a great many places since then.
The smallest military service also has an impressive record of innovation, of reconfiguring itself to meet changing threats. The Marines invented close air support in Nicaragua in the 1930s, and pioneered the use of the helicopter in combat in Korea. Before World War II, the Corps literally wrote the book on fighting in brushfire conflicts—the justly lauded Small Wars Manual.
The fighting spirit of the Corps is embodied in the image of six Marine enlisted men raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Fifteen years ago, I co-wrote a book on that hideous battle with a retired Marine officer, Fred Haynes, who had planned the assault on that mountain. I have been to Iwo, been to the top of that hill, and seen the image thousands of times, but I still get goosebumps when I see that photo.
The senior leadership of the Marine Corps is today pressing to radically reform “America’s force in readiness,” turning it from the only military organization on earth that has its own land, sea, and air forces, and the capability to fight anywhere, into a lighter, faster force, tailor-made to take on China in a naval campaign in the Indo-Pacific. The reforms put forward in Commandant David Berger’s Force Design 2030 are meant to permit the Corps to operate within range of China’s increasingly sophisticated suite of precision, hypersonic weapons systems—systems designed to keep the U.S. military out of the region entirely.
A growing body of critics is challenging Berger’s reforms, none more vigorously than a group of prominent retired Marines, including every living previous commandant, along with other acclaimed four-stars, such as Jim Mattis and Anthony Zinni.
Indeed, a battle over the future direction of the Marines has begun…
What is driving the proposed reforms?
The rising power of the People’s Republic of China’s armed forces, particularly its navy, coupled with Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive strategy of regional hegemony. The primary objective of this strategy, say most China watchers and international relations scholars, is to pinch the United States out of its current—and increasingly tenuous—position of military and political dominance in the Indo-Pacific. “Of greatest concern is the substantial investment Beijing has made in ‘anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities,’” writes Michelle Flournoy, a former high-ranking Pentagon official in the Obama administration, in the leading journal of international relations, Foreign Affairs. “Ranging from persistent precision strikes on U.S. logistics, forces, and bases to electronic, kinetic, and cyber attacks on digital connections and systems inside U.S. battle management networks, these capabilities are designed to prevent the United States from projecting military power into East Asia in order to defend its interests or allies. As a result, in the event that conflict starts, the United States can no longer expect to quickly achieve air, space, or maritime superiority; the U.S. military would need to fight to gain advantage, and then to keep it, in the face of continuous efforts to disrupt and degrade its battle management networks.”
Berger’s reforms propose that the Corps jettison all of its tanks (!) and most of its tube (conventional) artillery; and eliminate three infantry battalions—the heart of Marine combat power—from 27 to 24 in all. The plan calls for the Marines to dispense with a large number of helicopters and most of their land-based aircraft. With these forces in mothballs, there will be room and money for the Corps to develop a suite of new vehicular-mounted and infantry-borne precision weapons, as well as a new fleet of highly mobile, unmanned “loitering weapons,” especially attack drones, as well as hypersonic missile systems. Small units of Marines would operate in spartan bases on the myriad islands throughout this theater of operations.
A significant element of the reform package calls for the Marines to improve their capability to “see” the enemy, all the while retaining a low signature to diminish the chances of Chinese forces attacking them.
The critics find Berger’s vision problematic, to say the least. Jim Webb, the former U.S. senator from Virginia and highly decorated Marine Vietnam veteran, made the controversy public this past April with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, in which he charged that the reforms were “insufficiently tested” and “intrinsically flawed.” The Corps’ identity and usefulness, says Webb, among others, rests in its service as the nation’s 911 force, ready to go anywhere it is needed, and “fight anyone on any level short of nuclear war.”
Not long after Webb published his piece, three prominent retired four-star generals—Chuck Krulak, Jack Sheehan, and Anthony Zinni—weighed in with their own essay in the Washington Post, objecting strenuously in principle to the ideas of reconfiguring the Marines to face off against any particular adversary. More often than not in American history, the next mission for the military hasn’t been the one the services, or the White House, expected. A nation with global responsibilities has to be ready to deploy forces in the least expected of places. “Threats to global security are both varied and broad, and they are not confined to China… North Korea, Iran, and non-state actors around the world have the potential to move tension and disagreement to conflict with little or no warning,” write the generals.
“The retired Marine critics aren’t going away, and being Marines, they aren’t about to surrender.”
The critics are also skeptical of the way Force Design 2030 envisions using the Marines in a conflict with China. “Claims that these units could remain hidden from the enemy—all while moving, resupplying and communicating with headquarters—discount the technology we know China already has. As soon as hostilities commence, it stands to reason the enemy will retaliate against engaged units with overwhelming force. And its systems would be more numerous and lethal, with a longer range, than the weapons available to the small Marine outposts.”
Frank Hoffman, long time student of the Marine Corps and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University, told Politico recently that Berger’s reforms have already been blessed by Congress and the Pentagon brass, “so putting a stop them now is unlikely.”
Hmm.
I wouldn’t bet on that. The critics are people who wield considerable political clout in Washington, and even more clout at Headquarters Marine Corps. General Berger’s term as commandant will be up in 2023, but the retired Marine critics aren’t going away, and being Marines, they aren’t about to surrender, at least any time soon. Besides, their criticisms are rooted in common sense. You don’t change the identity and purpose of a fighting organization that is as good at what it does as the Marine Corps without very careful and painstaking deliberation. And that doesn’t appear to have happened.
As a long time observer of the Corps myself, I think Berger’s reforms amount to an excessive response to the rise of Chinese naval power, and that they will likely be viewed as such by historians and military analysts in twenty or thirty years, when the dust settles.
At the very least, the critics are surely right that Force Design 2030 needs further debate and study. Stay tuned.
The Daily Beast · August 21, 2022
11. American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic
A Critic at Large
August 22, 2022 Issue
American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic
The partisan redistricting tactics of cracking and packing aren’t merely flaws in the system—they are the system.
By Louis Menand
American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic
The New Yorker · by Louis Menand · August 15, 2022
To look on the bright side for a moment, one effect of the Republican assault on elections—which takes the form, naturally, of the very thing Republicans accuse Democrats of doing: rigging the system—might be to open our eyes to how undemocratic our democracy is. Strictly speaking, American government has never been a government “by the people.”
This is so despite the fact that more Americans are voting than ever before. In 2020, sixty-seven per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot for President. That was the highest turnout since 1900, a year when few, if any, women, people under twenty-one, Asian immigrants (who could not become citizens), Native Americans (who were treated as foreigners), or Black Americans living in the South (who were openly disenfranchised) could vote. Eighteen per cent of the total population voted in that election. In 2020, forty-eight per cent voted.
Some members of the loser’s party have concluded that a sixty-seven-per-cent turnout was too high. They apparently calculate that, if fewer people had voted, Donald Trump might have carried their states. Last year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislatures in nineteen states passed thirty-four laws imposing voting restrictions. (Trump and his allies had filed more than sixty lawsuits challenging the election results and lost all but one of them.)
In Florida, it is now illegal to offer water to someone standing in line to vote. Georgia is allowing counties to eliminate voting on Sundays. In 2020, Texas limited the number of ballot-drop-off locations to one per county, insuring that Loving County, the home of fifty-seven people, has the same number of drop-off locations as Harris County, which includes Houston and has 4.7 million people.
Virtually all of these “reforms” will likely make it harder for some people to vote, and thus will depress turnout—which is the not so subtle intention. This is a problem, but it is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that, as the law stands, even when the system is working the way it’s designed to work and everyone who is eligible to vote does vote, the government we get does not reflect the popular will. Michael Kinsley’s law of scandal applies. The scandal isn’t what’s illegal. The scandal is what’s legal.
It was not unreasonable for the Framers to be wary of direct democracy. You can’t govern a nation by plebiscite, and true representative democracy, in which everyone who might be affected by government policy has an equal say in choosing the people who make that policy, had never been tried. So they wrote a rule book, the Constitution, that places limits on what the government can do, regardless of what the majority wants. (They also countenanced slavery and the disenfranchisement of women, excluding from the electorate groups whose life chances certainly might be affected by government policy.) And they made it extremely difficult to tinker with those rules. In two hundred and thirty-three years, they have been changed by amendment only nine times. The last time was fifty-one years ago.
You might think that the further we get from 1789 the easier it would be to adjust the constitutional rule book, but the opposite appears to be true. We live in a country undergoing a severe case of ancestor worship (a symptom of insecurity and fear of the future), which is exacerbated by an absurdly unworkable and manipulable doctrine called originalism. Something that Alexander Hamilton wrote in a newspaper column—the Federalist Papers are basically a collection of op-eds—is treated like a passage in the Talmud. If we could unpack it correctly, it would show us the way.
The Bill of Rights, without which the Constitution would probably not have been ratified, is essentially a deck of counter-majoritarian trump cards, a list, directed at the federal government, of thou-shalt-nots. Americans argue about how far those commandments reach. Is nude dancing covered under the First Amendment’s guarantee of the freedom of expression? (It is.) Does the Second Amendment prohibit a ban on assault weapons? (Right now, it’s anyone’s guess.) But no one proposes doing away with the first ten amendments. They underwrite a deeply rooted feature of American life, the “I have a right” syndrome. They may also make many policies that a majority of Americans say they favor, such as a ban on assault weapons, virtually impossible to enact because of an ambiguous sentence written in an era in which pretty much the only assault weapon widely available was a musket.
Some checks on direct democracy in the United States are structural. They are built into the system of government the Framers devised. One, obviously, is the Electoral College, which in two of the past six elections has chosen a President who did not win the popular vote. Even in 2020, when Joe Biden got seven million more votes than his opponent, he carried three states that he needed in order to win the Electoral College—Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania—by a total of about a hundred thousand votes. Flip those states and we would have elected a man who lost the popular vote by 6.9 million. Is that what James Madison had in mind?
Another check on democracy is the Senate, an almost comically malapportioned body that gives Wyoming’s five hundred and eighty thousand residents the same voting power as California’s thirty-nine million. The District of Columbia, which has ninety thousand more residents than Wyoming and twenty-five thousand more than Vermont, has no senators. Until the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified, in 1913, senators were mostly not popularly elected. They were appointed by state legislatures. Republicans won a majority of votes statewide in Illinois in the 1858 midterms, but Abraham Lincoln did not become senator, because the state legislature was controlled by Democrats, and they reappointed Stephen A. Douglas.
Even though the Senate is split fifty-fifty, Democratic senators represent forty-two million more people than Republican senators do. As Eric Holder, the former Attorney General, points out in his book on the state of voting rights, “Our Unfinished March” (One World), the Senate is lopsided. Half the population today is represented by eighteen senators, the other half by eighty-two. The Senate also packs a parliamentary death ray, the filibuster, which would allow forty-one senators representing ten per cent of the public to block legislation supported by senators representing the other ninety per cent.
Many recent voting regulations, such as voter-I.D. laws, may require people to pay to obtain a credential needed to vote, like a driver’s license, and so Holder considers them a kind of poll tax—which is outlawed by the Twenty-fourth Amendment. (Lower courts so far have been hesitant to accept this argument.)
But the House of Representatives—that’s the people’s house, right? Not necessarily. In the 2012 Presidential election, Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by five million votes, and Democrats running for the House got around a million more votes than Republicans, but the Republicans ended up with a thirty-three-seat advantage. Under current law, congressional districts within a state should be approximately equal in population. So how did the Republicans get fewer votes but more seats? It’s the same thing that let Stephen A. Douglas retain his Senate seat in 1858: partisan gerrymandering.
This is the subject of Nick Seabrook’s timely new book, “One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America” (Pantheon), an excellent, if gloomy, guide to the abuse (or maybe just the use) of an apparently mundane feature of our system of elections: districting.
We tend to think of a “gerrymander” as a grotesquely shaped legislative district, such as the salamander-like Massachusetts district that was drawn to help give one party, the Democratic-Republicans, a majority in the Massachusetts Senate in the election of 1812. The governor of the state, Elbridge Gerry, did not draw the district, but he lent his name to the practice when he signed off on it. (Seabrook tells us that Gerry’s name is pronounced with a hard “G,” but it’s apparently O.K. to pronounce gerrymander “jerry.”)
Gerry’s gerrymander was by no means the first, however. There was partisan gerrymandering even in the colonies. In fact, “the only traditional districting principle that has been ubiquitous in America since before the founding,” Seabrook writes, “is the gerrymander itself.” That’s the way the system was set up.
Partisan gerrymandering has produced many loopy districts through the years, but today, on a map, gerrymandered districts often look quite respectable. No funny stuff going on here! That’s because computer software can now carve out districts on a street-by-street and block-by-block level. A favorite trick is moving a district line so that a sitting member of Congress or a state legislator is suddenly residing in another district. It’s all supposed to be done sub rosa, but, Seabrook says, “those in the business of gerrymandering have a tendency to want to brag about their exploits.”
You might think that you can’t gerrymander a Senate seat, but the United States Senate itself is a product of gerrymandering. One factor that determined whether a new state would be admitted to the Union was which political party was likely to benefit. We have two Dakotas in part because Republicans were in power in Washington, and they figured that splitting the Dakota territory in two would yield twice as many new Republican senators.
For there’s nothing natural about states. Portions of what is now Wyoming were, at various times, portions of the territories of Oregon, Idaho, Dakota, Nebraska, and Utah. Before 1848, much of Wyoming was Mexican. Before that, it was Spanish. We don’t have Wyoming because people living within the territory felt a special affinity, a belief that they shared a “Wyoming way of life,” and somebody said, “These folks should have their own state.” To the extent that Wyoming residents feel stately solidarity, it’s because the federal government created Wyoming (and two more Republican senators), not the other way around.
In the case of the House, reapportionment takes place every ten years, after the census is reported. When this happens, most states redistrict not only for Congress but for their own legislative offices as well. This means, usually, that the party in power in state government that year draws district lines that will be in place for the next decade. Republicans, when they are running the show, try to make it harder for Democrats on every level to win, and vice versa. And why not? It’s human nature.
Even the census, on which apportionment is based, is subject to partisan manipulation. Was it at all surprising to learn recently that the Trump Administration tried to interfere with the 2020 census in order to reduce the population in Democratic districts? Trump officials must have calculated that they had little to lose. If they failed (which they largely did, after the Supreme Court suggested that the Administration was lying about its intentions and officials at the Census Bureau pushed back), no harm, no foul. If they succeeded and someone called them out on it, what was anybody going to do about it? Administer a new census?
The name of the game in partisan redistricting is vote dilution. In a two-party race, a candidate needs only fifty per cent plus one to win. Every extra vote cast for that candidate is a wasted vote, as is every vote for the loser. You can’t literally prevent your opponents from voting. Even the current Supreme Court, which has hardly been a champion of voting rights since John Roberts became Chief Justice, would put a stop to that. So wasting as many of the other party’s votes as possible is the next best thing. And, in most states, it’s perfectly legal. The terms of art are “cracking” and “packing.”
You crack a district when you break up a solid voting bloc for one party and distribute those voters across several adjacent districts, where they are likely to be in the minority. Once it’s cracked, the formerly solid district becomes competitive. This is sometimes called “dispersal gerrymandering.”
When you pack, on the other hand, you put as many voters of the other party as possible into the same district. This arrangement means that their candidate will usually get a seat, but it weakens that party’s power in other districts. From a civil-rights point of view, districts in which members of minority groups are in the majority might seem like a good thing, but Republicans tend to favor majority-minority districts because they reduce the chances that Democratic candidates will win elsewhere in a state.
Partisan redistricting is why Republicans won five of Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats in 2020 even though Biden took the state. Biden carried the Fourth Congressional District, which includes Milwaukee, by fifty-four percentage points. Was that district packed? Not necessarily. The tendency of Democrats to concentrate in densely populated urban areas naturally tends to dilute their votes statewide. But partisan redistricting helps explain why Republicans won sixty-one of ninety-nine seats in Wisconsin’s State Assembly and ten of the sixteen contested seats in the State Senate. Wisconsin is justifiably considered a major success story by Republican redistricting strategists.
Partisan gerrymandering is also why, for most of the past half century, the State Senate in New York was Republican and the State Assembly was Democratic—a formula for gridlock, backroom dealing, and the inequitable distribution of resources. Seabrook explains that New York’s districting was solidified under a handshake agreement that gave each party control of the process for one legislative chamber. The parties therefore created as many safe districts for their candidates as possible. Seabrook calls New York a “criminal oligarchy” and notes that, between 2005 and 2015, at least thirty state officials were involved in corruption cases.
Eight years ago, by constitutional amendment, New York established a bipartisan independent redistricting commission and made partisan gerrymandering illegal. This cycle, the commission deadlocked, and the Democrats, who have a supermajority in both houses of the legislature, tried to build a loophole in the law and drew their own maps. The State Senate and congressional maps were promptly thrown out as illegal partisan gerrymandering by the New York State Court of Appeals, and a lower court presented new maps, which govern the 2022 elections. The result is that New York Democrats now find themselves competing with one another for the same seats. The new district lines may force one candidate to move in with his mother, in order to maintain residency. Chaos? Just business as usual in New York State government.
Understanding the gerrymander helps us understand what Jacob Grumbach, in “Laboratories Against Democracy” (Princeton), describes as a country “under entrenched minority rule.” Grumbach is a quantitative political scientist, and his data suggest that, although some state governments have moved to the extremes, public opinion in those states has remained fairly stable. What explains the political shift, he thinks, is that all politics has become national.
“The state level is increasingly dominated by national groups who exploit the low-information environments of amateurish and resource-constrained legislatures, declining local news media, and identity-focused voters,” Grumbach maintains. These national groups aim to freeze out the opposition, and redistricting is a powerful tool for that. “Antidemocratic interests need only to take control of a state government for a short period of time,” Grumbach points out, “to implement changes that make it harder for their opponents to participate in politics at all levels.”
Partisan redistricting often favors rural areas. Obviously, the Senate and the Electoral College do this, too. One thumb on that scale is what is called prison gerrymandering. There are more than a million incarcerated convicts in the land of the free. Except in Maine, Vermont, and D.C., none can vote. But in many states, for purposes of congressional apportionment, they are counted as residents of the district in which they are imprisoned.
Seabrook says that seventy per cent of prisons built since 1970 are in rural areas, and that a disproportionate number of the people confined in them come from cities. Counting those prisoners in apportionment enhances the electoral power of rural voters. It’s a little like what happened after Emancipation. A Southern state could now count formerly enslaved residents as full persons, rather than as three-fifths of a person, and was reapportioned accordingly. Then it disenfranchised them.
Changing the Senate would require a constitutional amendment, and there is little chance of that. There is a movement under way to get states to pass laws requiring their Presidential electors to vote for whoever wins the national popular vote, which is a way of reforming the Electoral College system without changing the Constitution. This, too, is a long shot. Elected officials have no incentive to change a system that keeps electing them.
Suppose, however, that we went over the heads of elected officials and appealed to our lifetime-tenured Supreme Court Justices, who, wielding the power of judicial review (not mentioned in the Constitution), can nullify laws with the stroke of a pen and suffer no consequences? The Justices are not even required to recuse themselves from cases in which they might have personal involvement. No other democracy in the world has a judicial system like that, and for a good reason: it’s not very democratic.
But, precisely because they have no stake in the electoral status quo, the Justices might decide that gerrymandered vote dilution triggers, among other constitutional provisions, the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seems pretty clear that your right to vote isn’t very “equal” if someone else’s vote is worth more.
In 2016, the North Carolina Democratic Party, the watchdog group Common Cause, and fourteen North Carolina voters sued the state legislators who had led a partisan redistricting effort designed to create ten congressional seats for Republicans and three for Democrats. The case, Rucho v. Common Cause, was joined with a similar case from Maryland. In that one, it was Republicans who sued, contesting a redistricting plan that reduced the number of G.O.P. congressional seats from two or three to one. The North Carolina plaintiffs won in district court.
In 2019, however, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision (Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive), vacated the lower court’s decision and ordered that the suits be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The Court’s opinion was written by Roberts, who has been a critic of expanded voting rights since his time as a special assistant to the Attorney General in the first Reagan Administration. Roberts did not deny that the partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina and Maryland was extreme; he simply ruled that federal courts have no business interfering.
Roberts invoked what is known as the political-question doctrine, arguing that the degree of partisanship in redistricting is a political, not a judicial, matter. It admits of no judicial solution. “Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” Roberts conceded. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is ‘incompatible with democratic principles’ . . . does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.” The matter was deemed “nonjusticiable.”
It might seem shocking that the Court could take cognizance of an undemocratic practice and then decline to do anything about it. But Rucho should not have been a surprise. In 1986, the Court said that gerrymandering could violate the Constitution, but it has never struck down a partisan gerrymander. The Warren Court’s famous one-person-one-vote cases, highly contentious in their day, culminated in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), which held that legislative districts for all state offices, including State Senate seats, “must be apportioned on a population basis.”
These cases made malapportionment illegal, but not gerrymandering. In fact, Seabrook thinks, the one-person-one-vote rule is responsible for what he calls “the Frankenstein’s monster of the modern gerrymander.” As long as district populations are equal, you can crack and pack all you like; you just need the right software, and the Supreme Court will look the other way.
There is one major exception, however. Federal courts will strike down a gerrymander intended to dilute the votes of racial minorities. You can redistrict by political party, in other words, but not by race. That is plainly barred by the Fifteenth Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In Cooper v. Harris, from 2017, the Roberts Court invalidated a North Carolina districting plan on the ground that it grouped voters to weaken the minority vote.
Shouldn’t this approach extend to state voting regulations as well? Houston has a large nonwhite population (but will likely have only one drop box); Southern Blacks have a tradition of voting after church services on Sundays (but may no longer be able to do so); and nonwhites are more likely than whites to have to stand in long lines in order to vote (and thus be grateful for some water). Are these new regulations really race-neutral?
In 2021, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Court upheld a new Arizona law making it a crime for anyone other than a postal worker, election official, caregiver, or family or household member to collect and deliver an early ballot—targeting a practice common in minority communities. The Democratic National Committee sued, claiming that the law had a disparate impact on, among other groups, Native American Arizonans, many of whom live on reservations that are distant from a polling place. The Court held that the restriction was legal. “Mere inconvenience,” it said, “cannot be enough” to demonstrate that a group’s voting rights have been violated.
Is the motive for redistricting partisan, or is it racial? In a nation in which race is often a determinant of party identity, this will be a tricky needle to thread. Still, the Court isn’t wrong to point out that there is a political solution to the movement to restrict voting rights. Under the Constitution, although the states prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections,” Congress “may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations,” and thereby make voting easier. What do you think the chances are of that happening?
The New Yorker · by Louis Menand · August 15, 2022
12. Naval Special Warfare Command Holds Change of Command Ceremony
Naval Special Warfare Command Holds Change of Command Ceremony
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19 August 2022
From Petty Officer 2nd Class Destiny Cheek
SAN DIEGO - Rear Adm. Keith B. Davids relieved Rear Adm. H.W. Howard III as commander, Naval Special Warfare Command during a change of command ceremony at Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, Aug. 19.
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Gen. Richard D. Clarke, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, was the presiding officer and guest speaker of the ceremony. In his remarks, Clarke praised Howard’s leadership and mission focus for Naval Special Warfare to be ready for greater complexity and risk – and deliver the substantive and transformational changes for relevance to the Joint Force and Navy Fleets, survivability, and lethality in defense of the Nation.
“Wyman, you’ve led during a historic two years and you’ve set this command on an amazing trajectory,” said Clarke. “Over the past year alone, I’ve visited SEAL teams operating in the Arctic with European partners, and I just recently returned from seeing SEALs in the Indo-Pacific. Over the past two years, Naval Special Warfare Command has continued to experiment in the maritime domain, whether that’s with autonomous capabilities, undersea dominance, or many other aspects. You have transformed the elite capabilities within this command by taking them to a new level.”
“As the Naval Special Warfare community returns to prioritize the maritime special operations missions that extend Joint Force reach into denied areas, Howard has unequivocally accelerated the strategic trajectory of our premier maritime special operations force to help our Nation compete and win against any adversary,” Clarke said. “Through his leadership, creativity, and dedication to solving the Nation’s hardest problems, Naval Special Warfare is ready to hold our adversaries and their critical military capabilities at risk. He has done this through an aggressive commitment to modernize the way and means the force assesses, selects, trains, and deploys the best Naval Commandos ever.”
Howard assumed command of Naval Special Warfare Command in September 2020. He focused on strengthening the force and Naval Special Warfare families, commissioning several new component commands, and implementing a culture and sustainable architecture for concept development, experimentation and continuous assessment and development.
“When I had the privilege to assume command of this incredible team, we challenged ourselves with a deliberate, comprehensive, and urgent transformation to meet new threats and create the irregular warfare options that strengthen national leverage and amplify the Nation’s integrated deterrence options,” said Howard. “In the imperative to innovate for military advantage and edge at this geo-strategic inflection point, I’m extremely proud of our team an enrolled and committed team whose professionalism, capability, integrity, trust, candor and common purpose makes real the new and distinctive missions that only we can do—under, on, and above the sea.”
The ceremony marks the end of a two-year command tour for Howard, who graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Assessment, Selection and Training with Class 172. He commanded at all operational and component levels of Special Operations, including service as commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Development Group from 2011-2013 and Special Operation Command Central from 2018-2020. He has multiple tours in command of Joint Task Forces and was among the first to deploy to Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
“I am humbled to have served with our Nation’s finest warriors, some of whom made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our great Nation,” said Howard. “To our Gold Star families, for their sacrifice, a sacrifice too few understand or comprehend, it is your resilience and sacrifice that leads us and underpins our foundation of honor, courage, and commitment. We will continue to honor you and our Fallen Teammates with our deeds and our actions.”
Although he was not able to attend in-person, Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, recently thanked Howard for his service and commended him for creating a culture and mindset amongst the Naval Special Warfare community that continuously self-assesses, corrects, and innovates.
“Naval Special Warfare continues to improve its lethality and warfighting readiness every day,” said Gilday. “Howard has been a vanguard for pushing his teammates to be more self-assessing and more self-correcting and while doing so has accelerated our Navy’s competitive edge and maintained our Naval Special Warfare community’s elite reputation as the world’s premier maritime special operations professionals.”
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve with the professionals in our armed forces and alongside our allies and partners,” said Howard. “This incredible community of warriors, leaders, and families is a timeless and authentic team; a team that is never intoxicated by success, never hides from failure, is never defeated in loss. Naval Special Warfare is a team always on mission, always resilient, always accountable, with humility and stewardship, for every outcome in defense of our Nation and in service of all Americans. The Deed is All – Not the Glory.”
Davids, a native of Miami, and 1990 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, most recently served as commander, Special Operations Command South, Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida.
Davids expressed his gratitude to the Naval Special Warfare Command staff for a first-class turnover week and change of command ceremony, thanked his family for their unwavering love and support, and praised Howard for his warfighting vision and leaving him a strong and professional Force.
“Wyman has aggressively transformed Naval Special Warfare for the step changes in capability and resourcing to stay ahead of our adversaries,” Davids said at the ceremony. “The global threats we face will continue to call on the full extent of our commitment, our creativity, and our adaptability. We will build on the course that Admiral Howard has set for this community.”
Over 10,000 strong, Naval Special Warfare includes approximately 3,000 Sea, Air, Land operators; 700 Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen; 4,600 combat support and combat service support personnel, 700 reservists and 1,200 civilian teammates.
Naval Special Warfare is committed to its Sailors and the deliberate development of their tactical excellence, ethics, and leadership as the Nation’s premiere maritime special operations force fully aligned in support of the National Defense Strategy. Naval Special Warfare is the Navy’s special operation force and the maritime component of U.S. Special Operations Command, and its mission is to provide maritime special operations forces to conduct full-spectrum operations, unilaterally or with partners, to support national objectives.
13. How female jihadis became the new face of terror in Southeast Asia
How female jihadis became the new face of terror in Southeast Asia
Women were not recruited for suicide bombing missions in the region until 2016. But their role is growing. CNA’s Undercover Asia speaks to one of the men behind the idea and gains rare access to two women inmates.
Neo Chai Chin
20 Aug 2022 06:00AM
(Updated: 20 Aug 2022 09:21AM)
channelnewsasia.com
JAKARTA: As the daughter of farmers, she grew up without knowing about shopping centres or karaoke.
After attending an Islamic boarding school for her junior high education, Listyowati wanted to have her own savings and decided to venture overseas for work.
In Hong Kong, when she got a mobile phone with a touch-screen for the first time, she did not even know how to create a Facebook profile.
After a friend set one up for her, she started “searching for women who wore a hijab or a burqa, and men with Islamic attributes” to add as friends on the social media platform.
She soon learnt about a country called Syria and was shocked by the war there. “Seeing their struggles drove me crazy,” said the 33-year-old. “It made me shed tears.”
Her quest to learn more about the conflict led her to an Islamic State (IS) social media group that shared updates and propaganda. She channelled money to extremists who had pledged their support for the IS.
She also came to possess a semi-automatic rifle through an Indonesian IS convert named Arif. Listyowati, who worked in Singapore before Hong Kong, claims that she wanted to use the weapon in Syria.
“If we die there, it means we’re martyrs. We won’t feel hurt. It’s as if we’re bitten by a mosquito,” she told the programme Undercover Asia.
But she was arrested and is now serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence in Jakarta for funding the IS and buying weapons.
Listyowati is one of the faces of a new form of terrorism that has emerged in the region in recent years: Female jihadis who are willing to die for their cause.
WATCH: Female jihadists — Asia’s new force in terror (47:54)
Women were not recruited for suicide bombing missions in Southeast Asia until 2016, noted The Soufan Centre, an independent non-profit offering research and analysis on global security challenges.
In its Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Southeast Asia: Emerging Trends and Dynamics report last year, the organisation noted that more women than ever have been arrested for terrorist activity in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore since 2015.
Women have taken part in eight of the 11 suicide attacks committed between May 2018 and May last year.
They include three women and their families who attacked three churches and a police station in Surabaya in May 2018, and a woman in North Sumatra who blew herself up along with her two-and-a-half-year-old child after a stand-off with police in 2019.
The trend is likely to continue, and “counterterrorism efforts must account for the multiplicity of roles women play amongst violent extremists”, the report stated.
In the past, the role of women was confined to supporting men, who were the ones on the battlefield, noted counterterrorism expert Jolene Jerard.
Dr Jolene Jerard has co-authored a few books on terrorism.
In 2009, the wife of then Al-Qaeda commander Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a statement alluding to such a role, and it was similar to the ideology of Southeast Asian extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
But more recently, “we’ve seen that blurring of lines, where women see themselves as equal contenders in terms of having opportunities to recruit others, but at the same time wanting to take up arms”, said Jerard, the executive director of public safety and management consultancy Centinel.
SOME WOMEN ‘MORE RADICAL’ THAN MEN
The men who came up with the idea of recruiting women — following the Jalan Thamrin attack in Jakarta in January 2016 — were the late Indonesian IS leader Bahrun Naim and former terrorist Munir Kartono, according to the latter.
The attack, claimed by the IS, killed eight people, including all four of the attackers, and injured some 20 others.
The 2016 terrorist attack at Jalan MH Thamrin.
“Our fellow men were being arrested after the Thamrin tragedy. We decided to put women in the front line,” said Munir, who was then in charge of recruitment and finding sponsors for the IS.
He also hacked into PayPal accounts to raise funds. But he said he has since renounced terrorist ideologies and is writing a book about how terrorist cells operate.
“Generally, women tend to connect easily with one another,” he said. This helped with fund-raising and also efforts to “find someone to be a martyr”.
The use of women made strategic sense — they were less likely to arouse suspicion, and law enforcement officers seemed “more respectful to women, especially to the ones who wore a hijab or covered their body”, he added.
Munir Kartono was involved in fund-raising for the Islamic State from 2012 to 2015.
But what struck him was how some women were “more radical” than the men “once they were indoctrinated”.
In a twist, his then-wife turned out to be one of them. He said she volunteered to be a “martyr” when he and his IS colleagues chose to target the Presidential Palace after the Thamrin attack.
But she backed out days before her mission, he said. The explosives that had been prepared were diverted to an attack on a police station in Solo, Central Java, in July 2016.
He and Bahrun Naim then recruited another woman, Dian Yulia Novi, to carry out the Presidential Palace attack, but it was foiled in time.
She was arrested in December 2016 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in 2017 — the first woman to be convicted in Indonesia for plotting such an attack.
Munir’s ex-wife, who disowned him when he renounced his IS ideology, was never arrested. He believes she is with an IS cell, but her whereabouts are unknown.
Access to women like Listyowati is thus valuable for researchers like Erin Gayatri, who believes in understanding their path towards violent extremism.
Erin Gayatri is a counterterrorism expert.
The women Erin interviews have not necessarily been deradicalised, and during visits to prison, she may be accompanied by undercover agents from the Special Detachment anti-terrorism unit.
“People think of female terrorists as scary, and as a result, they don’t want to listen to them,” she said. But she feels that if she approaches them in an open-minded way, “they aren’t as frightening as we think”.
Even with the ones who seem tough or stubborn, we can still find humanity in them."
Through her, Undercover Asia was able to hear first-hand from Listyowati and another inmate, Marifah, who is in Bandung Prison, as they talked about their lives and the actions that landed them behind bars.
Listyowati said she was inspired by a young man no older than 20 who wanted to become an IS suicide bomber.
After watching a video of Erin’s session with her, Jerard observed a lack of “deradicalisation patterns or a sense of regret”. Listyowati also gave her daughter, who was born in prison, a name meaning “strong and graceful mujahida (warrior) for Allah’s religion”.
Listyowati with her daughter. She is one of seven female prisoners noted by Erin to have recently given birth in jail.
Marifah, meanwhile, was arrested for being part of the online group that planned a 2019 attack on Indonesia’s then-chief security minister, Wiranto.
She knows Syahrial Alamsyah (also known as Abu Rara), one half of the IS-inspired married duo who stabbed Wiranto in western Java’s Banten province. But she maintains that she was not involved in the attack.
This contrasts with the authorities’ stance that there is proof of her prior knowledge of the attack and that she funded the attackers.
For much of her session with Erin, she downplayed her role in terrorist activities, saying she would help friends who share stories about being sick or not having money.
“My purpose is just to help them. Not just Abu Rara — I’ve also done that for other people,” she said.
The online group that Marifah was a member of also provided funds and training for would-be attackers.
The 45-year-old did divulge some of her background, however: She ran away from her first husband because he hit her. “(He) was aggressive, so I wanted to … take my anger out on something else,” she said.
“I became rebellious. Since I was scared to act on it in real life, I released (my anger) on social media, madly. Maybe that’s one of the reasons.”
SUPPORT FOR EX-TERRORISTS, BUT ‘KEEP IN MIND THE VICTIMS’
People who have worked with female extremists note the multiple factors that can push women towards terrorism, as well as draw them away. There is “no one singular profile” of a terrorist, whether male or female, said Jerard.
This highlights the need for law enforcers to respond with nuanced policies.
Ruby Kholifah, the country director for Indonesia at the humanitarian and interfaith group, Asian Muslim Action Network, thinks law enforcement agencies should bring more women into their ranks.
Women make up less than 6 per cent of Indonesia’s National Police, far from its target of 30 per cent.
In the Philippines, it was almost 18 per cent last year up to the rank of general, with no policewomen at the highest levels. Malaysia’s figure is similar to the Philippines’, but it appointed a woman police commissioner last year.
Said Ruby:
The counterterrorism approach which is very male-orientated will prevent policymakers from understanding and analysing the shifts and developments among female terror cells.”
Ifran Idris, the director of deradicalisation at Indonesia’s National Counter-Terrorism Agency, acknowledged that women officers are “very effective, especially when investigating other women”.
“Women’s involvement in the terror attacks in this country is very strong,” he said. “If left unchecked, women can be more radical than men.”
For Jerard, what is more important is having counterterrorism officers, whether male or female, who can “craft nuanced policies” to mitigate current and future threats.
The women also need community support, including online.
Malaysian academic Ahmad El-Muhammady believes in monitoring social media platforms and following those who demonstrate signs of radicalism. “After we’re convinced that we have the right candidate for intervention, the next step would be to engage with them,” he said.
“There’s no confrontation. I don’t refute whatever they say … I’ll leave a posting or a comment: ‘Why do you say this?’ Because the whole point is to understand.”
Dr Ahmad El-Muhammady is one of Malaysia’s top counterterrorism experts.
Ahmad does this outside his many professional appointments. Among other things, he is an assistant professor at the International Islamic University Malaysia and has testified in the Malaysian courts as an expert witness in terrorism cases.
He recalled a woman who was actively following what was going on in Syria. He monitored her for two to three months and managed to meet her. According to him, she was close to flying to Istanbul to join the IS.
But after their conversations, she ended up attending a deradicalisation programme and even told the authorities the identities of people who were in an IS cell.
In southern Philippines, where the militant Abu Sayyaf Group is present, Wahida A Abdulla believes poverty and hardship increases the risk of radicalisation. She runs a non-governmental organisation, Gagandilan Mindanao Women, Inc, which offers job-related training to women terrorists.
It aims to enable them to earn an income and be productive members of society. One of the women it has helped is Mhae, who learnt after marrying that her husband was an Abu Sayyaf commander.
Mhae had never told her story publicly before.
“I eventually accepted his life and my new life as the enemies of the military and the enemies of the government,” she said. They lived in the mountains and in a “secret place” when in town.
She started supporting the rebels by smuggling medicine, food and, sometimes, ammunition through checkpoints. Guards were “more lenient” with women, she said.
After her husband died, Mhae was nabbed by law enforcers and later joined Gagandilan Women’s training programme. She said: “The reintegration programme made me realise that even as a single parent and widow of an (Abu Sayyaf) leader, I can still be of use.”
Abdulla believes that criminalising the women will prolong their alienation and allow extremist ideology and terrorism to continue. “We educate,” she said. “That’s the best way to counter the recruitment (of women terrorists).”
Mhae (left) and Gagandilan Mindanao Women, Inc’s Wahida A Abdulla.
Survivors of terrorist attacks may find such programmes hard to stomach, however, especially if they themselves have lacked support or adequate compensation.
“How can these bad people get support, yet we victims, who were injured, get nothing?” was survivor Nanda Olivia Daniel’s initial reaction.
The survivors are the real victims, felt Nanda, who sustained a permanent hand injury in the 2004 Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta, which killed nine people and injured around 180 others.
She was a university student then and received her compensation well over a decade later.
Nanda Olivia Daniel was alighting from a bus when the bomb exploded.
She has set up a small business selling handicrafts and snacks. Over the years, she has, in some circumstances, come to support reintegration and now visits prisons to share her survivor story.
“When the government supports these ex-terrorists, we also ask that they keep in mind the victims, who equally require attention, support and guidance,” she said.
Watch this episode of Undercover Asia here.
channelnewsasia.com
14. Australians Shocked at Bali Attacker’s Sentence Cut
Australians Shocked at Bali Attacker’s Sentence Cut
August 20, 2022 10:05 AM
voanews.com
Sydney —
Australia has reacted with shock and dismay after confirmation that the bombmaker for the Bali terror attack in 2002 has again had his prison sentence reduced. Two hundred and two people, including 88 Australians, died in the attack in October 2002, along with victims from Indonesia, Britain, the United States and other countries.
Umar Patek, a member of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, was jailed for 20 years in 2012.
He was convicted of making the bombs that tore through two nightclubs a decade earlier on the Indonesian island of Bali. Two hundred and two people were killed, including 88 Australians. Last week, he was granted the latest of several small cuts to his sentence as part of remissions given to inmates to mark Indonesia's August 17 Independence Day holiday. He is now eligible for parole this month because he has served two-thirds of his prison sentence.
Tourists visit the Bali Bombing Memorial in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia,, Aug. 19, 2022. A reduction in the prison sentence of the bombmaker in the Bali terror attack that killed 202 people could free him within days if he's granted parole.
Patek was one of Asia’s most wanted men and was on the run for almost a decade before he was arrested in Pakistan. Officials insist he has been deradicalized.
Indonesia’s Justice Ministry must give final approval for his release.
In Australia, there is anger and dismay that one of the key architects of the Bali attack could soon walk free.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“This will be of concern for the families involved," said Albanese. "We continue to make diplomatic representations in Australia’s interests and will continue to do that across a range of issues relating to security and relating to sentences.”
Bali bombing mastermind Hambali, also known as Encep Nurjaman, is being held at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and has been awaiting trial since 2006. Three other key conspirators were executed in November 2008. Others were killed by Indonesian police before facing trial.
The Bali bombings deeply affected Australia. The Indonesian island was a popular tropical vacation destination. The attack shattered Australia’s sense of isolated security. While the bombings were not carried out on Australian soil, they felt too close to home.
The victims came from more than 20 countries, including Brazil, Germany, Japan and New Zealand.
voanews.com
15. U.S. Naval Special Warfare Establishes Assessment Command
U.S. Naval Special Warfare Establishes Assessment Command - Seapower
seapowermagazine.org · by Seapower Staff · August 19, 2022
Rear Adm. Hugh Howard III, commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, addresses the crowd at the establishment ceremony for Naval Special Warfare Assessment Command (NSWAC). NSWAC conducts outreach, assessment, selection, and development of future and current Naval Special Warfare operators. U.S. NAVY / Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Benjamin K. Kittleson
SAN DIEGO — U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command established Naval Special Warfare Assessment Command (NSWAC) under the Naval Special Warfare Center during an Aug. 18 ceremony onboard Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Alex Perlman in an Aug. 19 release.
NSWAC substantively transforms the Navy’s commando force in its ability to compete for talent capable of solving the hardest problems from the maritime domain. It proactively engages diversity in all forms and enrolls future candidates who possess the Force’s standards and ethos. This new command accelerates the ways the Force continuously assesses and selects for the character, cognitive and leadership attributes necessary for the highest complexity and risk maritime operations mission to expand national leverage and deterrence options- and win if deterrence fails.
During the ceremony, Cmdr. Aaron Brown, a Navy Special Warfare Officer, assumed command. Rear Adm. H.W. Howard, III, commander, U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command, was the presiding officer of the establishment ceremony.
“Across the spectrum of warfare, the United States and its allies face new challenges and threats. The complexity of the strategic and operating environments demand we evolve quickly and creatively,” said Howard. “We’re aggressively seeking an edge in human capital and technology to expand the margins between mission success and failure. The Assessment Command is at the forefront of our urgent initiatives to deliver the step changes in capability and professionalism across the Force. Modernizing approaches to recruitment, assessment, selection and training underpin our transformations to be ready for the uncertainties ahead.”
Attendees for the event included commander, Special Operations Command, Gen. Richard Clarke; Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Bill Lescher; Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman; Deputy Commander, Navy Education and Training Command, Rear Adm. Scott Ruston; Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, Rear Adm. Alexis Walker; and the incoming commander of U. S. Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Keith Davids.
According to Howard, Naval Special Warfare initiated this effort in the Fall of 2020 to build the sustainable architecture for diversified outreach, more rigorous pre-assessments for character, cognitive and leadership attributes across the Assessment and Selection pathway and implement the innovative initiatives that strengthen continuous assessment across the continuum of a Naval Special Warfare.
Howard also noted how the Assessment Command conducts outreach and enrollment opportunities across the United States to proactively engage under-represented demographics and geographic areas in the Force.
“The Assessment Command will identify, engage and enroll the next generation of candidates we need to solve the hardest problems from – on – and under the sea,” said Howard. In partnership with CNRC, the Assessment Command will lead candidate assessment programs that deepen our Force’s diversity and capabilities.”
According to Capt. Brian Dreschler, commanding officer, NSWCEN, over the past year as the team deliberately iterated to build this new command, the team conducted 60 outreach events partnered with local Navy Talent and Acquisition Groups (NTAGs). More than half of the outreach events were specifically focused on increasing Force diversity and inclusivity, with under-represented demographics.
“The Assessment Command is a mission imperative for the Force’s relevance, survivability and lethality to contribute in irregular ways to Integrated Deterrence options,” said Capt. Brian Dreschler, the commanding officer of NSWCEN. “Not only are we adapting the way we assess and select our potential candidates, but we are also evolving the assessment and selection of our leadership, officer and enlisted, at all levels of command. The Assessment Command is also charged with learning from the Joint Force, allies and partners, and from private sector innovations to reinforce our culture of continuous assessment – the candid assessments for feedback, self-improvement and optimal leadership and team formation decisions.”
One of NSWAC’s assessment programs is Naval Special Warfare Leader Assessment Program (NLAP). Enhancing NSW’s culture of continuous assessment, NLAP evaluates and selects NSW operators at every level. During NLAP, operators participate in purpose-filled events to select for officer and enlisted career milestones. Through feedback from peers, leaders, and subordinates, NLAP assesses an operator’s leadership, character, physical and mental attributes. According to Brown, this program ensures NSW places the right leaders in the right assignments, while offering critical professional development to guide the force into the future.
“I’m humbled to assume command of this mission imperative,” said Brown. “With this high-performing team of professionals, we will strengthen the precision of candidate identification, assessment, selection, enrollment, training and development.”
NSWAC is headquartered at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in Coronado, California with a detachment in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Alongside Basic Training Command and Advanced Training Command, NSWAC will be a subordinate command to NSWCEN.
“With the establishment of the Assessment Command, Howard said, we are in position to compete for talent and more rigorously assess, select, train and retain men and women who embody the courage, integrity, humility, creativity, team-ability, creativity and grit that expand competitive edge to remain the Nation’s preeminent maritime special operations force.”
NSWCEN provides initial assessment and selection and subsequent advanced training to the Sailors who make up the Navy’s SEAL and Special Boat operational formations. The Naval Special Warfare mission is to provide maritime special operations forces to conduct full-spectrum operations, unilaterally or with partners, to support national objectives. For more information on the NSW assessment, selection and training pathways, visit https://www.sealswcc.com/.
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seapowermagazine.org · by Seapower Staff · August 19, 2022
16. An experiment showed that the military must change its cybersecurity approach
Common sense. Logical. But also hard. Why is it so hard to convince people to do this?
Failing to do this must mean that decision makers must want to be ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. Their risk awareness is about their personal embarrassment and exposure of their failings rather than discerning the risk to networks and thus our national security.
An experiment showed that the military must change its cybersecurity approach
americanmilitarynews.com · by Patrick Tucker - Defense One · August 21, 2022
Two years ago, a pair of Navy information leaders decided to attack their own networks—and not just once or twice a year during scheduled exercises, but far more frequently, and unannounced. Now they’re trying to get the rest of the Navy—and the Pentagon—to follow suit.
Their experiment showed that frequent, automated red-teaming reveals which vulnerabilities are the most dangerous, the easiest for an attacker to exploit with the highest impact—information they wouldn’t have otherwise, said Aaron Weis, the Navy’s chief information officer, or CIO, and Scott Bischoff, the command information officer at the Naval Postgraduate School.
And it’s far more effective than the way the Defense Department currently handles cybersecurity: with checklists of steps taken, patches implemented, and so on.
“It’s a very compliance-driven mentality, like an audit… and it’s wrong,” Weis told Defense One. “Cybersecurity is not a compliance problem.”
Treating cybersecurity like a checklist does answer one question: whether the officer, team, or company charged with “cybersecurity” has done their job to some agreed-upon level of performance—basically, whether they’ve fulfilled the terms of a contract or the parameters of an assignment. It’s an approach that works well for a bureaucracy, but it’s not the best way to actually secure your networks, Weis said.
“We’ve got…15 to 20 years of track record using a compliance mentality that says it doesn’t work, right? Because we continue to be exercised by our adversaries in cyberspace,” he said.
Weis says the Pentagon needs to measure its networks’ suitability for combat the same way it does for soldiers, sailors, tanks, and ships: through the concept of military readiness.
Such an approach would mean prioritizing the biggest problems first, with second-tier or complicated ones set on slower paths to fixing.
“There’s ‘ready to fight tonight.’ But if you are a carrier strike group and you’re deploying in three months, are you on a path to being ready? You manage your readiness on a day-to-day basis and it’s a function of a whole bunch of things,” he said. “Do we have the right people? Are they trained? Are they qualified, or deficient? Do we have the equipment?”
But Weis had to show that getting to a state of “readiness” in cyberspace is a matter of constant testing and drilling, not filling out compliance forms.
He needed a safe space where he could understand readiness without exposing huge problems to adversaries or taking essential naval networks offline. He went to the Naval Postgraduate School, or NPS, in Monterey, California.
NPS’ Bischoff says the school lends itself to experimentation because it’s on the California research and education network, not a Navy network.
“I have a lot of authorities here that other naval units wouldn’t have. It provides the Navy a small chunk of terrain here to do things,” like test new cybersecurity concepts, he said. “We have a somewhat unique terrain here to maybe take a little bit of risk on and try some things. That’s important for a STEM school, you know. We’re very research-intensive, so it’s right up our alley.”
So NPS forged a cooperative R&D agreement with Rebellion, a defense-focused software startup founded by Chris Lynch, the former head of the Defense Department’s Digital Service.
Rebellion brought in a tool called Nova that does automated red-teaming on networks. But it doesn’t just hammer away at the vulnerabilities it finds like it’s running through a checklist.
“It can identify the system, understand its patch level, catalog its vulnerabilities according to what’s generally available, and then try to run an automated exploit against it, based on what it knows,” said Weis.
The process revealed a lot more information than just a list of vulnerabilities to be patched. They learned which vulnerabilities were the most important, the easiest to attack, which ones let the attacker gain wider network access, things they would have learned only if a real attacker was hitting the system and strategizing its next move. That means that different vulnerabilities had a priority that a checklist completely missed.
Said Weis: “Right now, because of our compliance approach, we focus on patching every vulnerability, right?…In no particular order, by the way. We just line them up and knock them down. And what that approach…disregards is the question: Can that vulnerability actually be exploited?”
Some vulnerabilities that seemed large were very difficult to exploit, and some that seemed small were a lot more dire than their position on the checklist would indicate. Running similar experiments on actual DOD networks would probably reveal a similar result: that the Department is not managing its cyber vulnerabilities with a real-world understanding of how an attacker would actually approach the network.
Bischoff said similar red-team experiments involving humans are great, but they happen once or twice a year. “It’s a snapshot, right. I don’t want a snapshot. I want a movie throughout the year.”
Weis said he’s building off of that experiment.
“We’re in the process of…nominating a set of [Navy] programs that are volunteering to go first and to start to use this different approach,” he said. “We’ve been having leadership-level discussions here since kind of before the holidays last year. It started with a one-on-one with the [Chief Naval Officer] and it’s kind of moved up from there.”
Said Lynch: “Aaron [Weis] is trying to completely change what they’re doing,” not only in the Navy, but potentially across the military.
That is going to be important if the Defense Department is going to move toward the highly-networked joint all-domain command and control, or JADC2, vision at the heart of its plans for the next decade. The more networks, computers, drones, satellites, etc.. are all linked together, the more unmanageable a checklist approach becomes. The only solution will be to assume your enormous networked war machine is under attack at its weakest points—because it is.
___
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Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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americanmilitarynews.com · by Patrick Tucker - Defense One · August 21, 2022
17. Russia-Ukraine: five lessons from the 19th-century Crimean war
Some interesting parallels can already be seen.
Russia-Ukraine: five lessons from the 19th-century Crimean war
The Guardian · by Ted Widmer · August 21, 2022
The war in Ukraine will reach a grim anniversary on 24 August, when we will be six months into a conflict whose terminus we still cannot see.
Ukraine aiming to create chaos within Russian forces, Zelenskiy adviser says
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Can history offer any clues? Vladimir Putin likes to talk about the second world war, Russia’s best war, but the closest parallel is probably the Crimean war, which dragged on for two and a half years, from 1853 to 1856, before the exhausted belligerents worked out a peace agreement.
An underachieving Russian military failed to achieve any of its goals. But the British and French, who forged an alliance with the Turks, encountered frustrations of their own as they groped toward a victory that felt pyrrhic at times. Surprisingly, one of the war’s great legacies was felt in the US, where an unexpected chain of events, tied to Russia’s defeat, helped to end slavery.
Can any lessons be drawn from the Crimean war today?
Wars end differently than they begin
Carl von Clausewitz wrote: “In war more than anywhere else things do not turn out as we expect.” Few expected war in 1853. When it came, most predictions turned out to be inaccurate, including a belief that the Russian army was invincible, especially when fighting close to the Motherland.
The Crimean war began for the smallest of reasons, when Russian and French monks quarreled over who held the right to a key to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. As it turned out, that key would unlock Pandora’s box, leading Russia’s tsar, Nicholas I, to invade the Ottoman empire with hopes of gaining Constantinople, now Istanbul.
The Ottomans were joined by France and Britain, which sent ships and troops to the Black Sea. A war of attrition ensued, including naval battles as far away as the Baltic and the Pacific.
Only a miracle can extricate him from the difficulties heaped on him and Russia by his pride, shallowness and imbecility
Karl Marx on Nicholas I
Poorly trained soldiers fight poorly
Before the Crimean war, Russia’s huge army was feared throughout Europe. But its weakness soon became evident. With demoralized troops, many young conscripts or landless serfs, Russia lost most engagements and ended the conflict with its military reputation in tatters. Its weapons were vastly inferior to those of the British and French, who had steam-powered frigates and rifles that fired accurately over long distances.
Despite these advantages, victory came at a high price and there were strains within the alliance. Serious tactical blunders stopped the French and British winning more decisively and each side suffered about 250,000 casualties, most of whom died from disease. That led to a third lesson …
Roger Fenton’s mobile dark room. Photograph: Roger Fenton/Library of Congress
It is difficult to wage an unpopular war
The invention of the camera and the telegraph allowed a new breed of witness to cover the Crimean war in detail. There were still treacly accounts of derring-do – an insipid memento of the conflict was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, which turned a colossal act of stupidity – the rash order of a general to attack an impregnable position – into a puddle of Victorian piety.
But the spread of photography and rapid dispatches from the front muted this old-fashioned kind of writing, much as cellphones have blunted Putin’s efforts to brand his invasion a success, and focused attention on possible war crimes. Working out of a wine wagon converted into a mobile dark room, a British photographer, Roger Fenton, was able to capture the visual story of the war with images of stunning clarity. Journalists filed stories from the front, so readers in London and Paris could experience the war from their armchairs. That helped build support when the war was going well but it also raised the pressure when it was not.
Even American readers were following the war, thanks to the remarkable reporting of a London-based German reporter, Karl Marx, who filed 113 articles for the New York Tribune. Marx was a harsh critic of Russia’s military adventure, pointing out its strategic vagueness, its ineptitude and its utter waste of human life. Denouncing the tsar as an “imperial blunderer”, he poured out vitriol that might make Putin wince today: “Only a miracle can extricate him from the difficulties now heaped on him and Russia by his pride, shallowness, and imbecility.”
Abraham Lincoln, in an image taken in 1863. Photograph: Alexander Gardner/Reuters
A vague peace will lead to new problems
The Treaty of Paris ended hostilities in 1856 but left unaddressed many other concerns, including the porousness of south-eastern Europe’s boundaries – the “Eastern Question” would plague leaders until the first world war in 1914. After a relatively long peace following the Napoleonic era, the Crimean war unleashed a new volatility in great power politics. Europe would see a series of small, nasty wars before the immense carnage of the 20th century.
Wars have distant consequences
Nicholas I died in 1855. His son, Alexander II, accepted defeat but then did a remarkable thing. Looking at the causes of the disaster, he recognized that Russia’s performance was related to its rigid class structure and heavy reliance on serfs. Accordingly, he abolished serfdom with a proclamation of emancipation on 3 March 1861.
By coincidence, that was the day before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president of the United States. Lincoln understood the power of the precedent and issued an Emancipation Proclamation of his own, on the first day of 1863.
In other words, a war that had nothing at all to do with freedom when it started helped make possible one of the greatest manumissions in history, on a different continent, a decade later.
The American purchase of Alaska was another legacy. After Crimea, the young tsar knew he could not defend this distant frontier and decided to sell it to a nation with a more realistic hope of populating it someday.
In that, and in so many other ways, we continue to live in a world shaped by a small, mostly forgotten war in south-eastern Europe.
-
Ted Widmer is a distinguished lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York and the author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington, published in the US by Simon and Schuster
The Guardian · by Ted Widmer · August 21, 2022
18. $775 Million in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
$775 Million in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
defense.gov
Release
Immediate Release
Aug. 19, 2022
Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $775 million to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs. This authorization is the Biden Administration’s nineteenth drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021.
Capabilities in this package include:
- Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
- 16 105mm Howitzers and 36,000 105mm artillery rounds;
- 15 Scan Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems;
- 40 MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles with mine rollers;
- Additional High-speed Anti-radiation missiles;
- 50 Armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV);
- 1,500 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
- 1,000 Javelin anti-armor systems;
- 2,000 anti-armor rounds;
- Mine clearing equipment and systems;
- Demolition munitions;
- Tactical secure communications systems;
- Night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders.
In total, the United States has committed approximately $10.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $12.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine.
As President Biden has made clear, we will support Ukraine as they defend their democracy for as long as it takes. The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities to meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements.
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19. Additional Defensive Weapons to be Shipped to Ukraine, Official Says
Additional Defensive Weapons to be Shipped to Ukraine, Official Says
defense.gov · by David Vergun
News Aug. 19, 2022 | BY , DOD News
A major presidential drawdown authority security assistance package is about to be unveiled, said a senior Defense Department official who briefed the Pentagon media today.
This PDA is valued at up to $775 million, the official said, noting that a $1 billion security assistance package was also just released on Aug. 8.
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The official summarized what's in this current PDA:
Additional ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS.
16 105 mm howitzers, along with 36,000 rounds for the artillery. The United Kingdom has supplied 105 mm howitzers to Ukraine in the past.
15 ScanEagle unmanned aerial systems for reconnaissance.
Mine clearing systems, including 40 MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles with mine rollers that will allow Ukraine to neutralize areas heavily mined by Russia in the south and east.
Additional high-speed, anti-radiation missiles, known as HARM missiles, for integration into Ukrainian aircraft to seek and destroy Russian radars.
1,500 tube-launched, optically tracked, wire guided anti-tank missiles, known as TOWs.
1,000 Javelin anti-armor systems.
2,000 anti-armor rounds to be used in existing anti-armor systems, many of which have already been provided by allies and partners such as the Carl Gustaf weapon developed by Sweden.
Other security assistance includes 50 Humvees, tactical secure communication systems, demolition munitions, night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics and laser rangefinders.
"Right now, I would say that you are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield," the official said, adding that Ukrainian forces are employing Javelins and HIMARS in very effective ways.
Raptor Refuel
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft assigned to the 90th Fighter Squadron, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, departs after receiving fuel from a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft over Poland, Aug. 10, 2022.
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Since 2014, more than $12.6 billion has been provided to Ukraine in security assistance.
"This isn't the end. We will continue to consult with the Ukrainians to make sure that we are providing them what they need, when they need it," the official said.
Spotlight: Support for Ukraine Spotlight: Support for Ukraine: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Support-for-Ukraine/
Related Transcript: Senior Defense Official Holds a Background Briefing
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defense.gov · by David Vergun
20. By the numbers: Keeping track of the single largest arms transfer in US history
By the numbers: Keeping track of the single largest arms transfer in US history - Responsible Statecraft
responsiblestatecraft.org · by Connor Echols · August 18, 2022
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States has sent over $8 billion worth of military aid to support Kyiv’s war effort. This massive arms transfer has included a wide range of weapons, from anti-armor missiles to helicopters and beyond.
With the constant flow of news about the war, it can be hard to keep track of all these weapons packages, so we at Responsible Statecraft decided to put together a timeline of every arms shipment that has been announced since the war began. And whenever a new transfer is announced, we’ll update this page to reflect it.
Before jumping into the timeline, it is important to note a couple of things. First, this list only contains publicly announced information. The Pentagon has admitted to sending at least one type of missile that was never mentioned in their press releases, so there’s reason to believe that this list is not exhaustive.
Second, there are two different sources for these lethal aid packages. One, which has made up the vast majority of transfers to date, is known as a “presidential drawdown.” This means that the White House and Pentagon agree to send weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles, after which DoD can use the funds to replenish their stocks by purchasing new arms from defense contractors. Biden has used this authority an unprecedented 18 times in order to send weapons to Ukraine, with most of the funding coming from money that Congress has set aside to arm Kyiv.
The other source of weapons is the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI. This is a special fund within the Pentagon’s budget that is used to purchase new weapons from contractors rather than drawing from existing stockpiles. Transfers from these funds do not require additional approval from Congress.
Without further ado, here is a timeline of every major weapons shipment or funding package announced since February 24:
August 8
The Pentagon announced that it will send $1 billion worth of security assistance to Ukraine via presidential drawdown, including:
— HIMARS ammunition (This is an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. These mobile missile launchers can fire a wide range of munitions, including rocket artillery and short-range ballistic missiles.)
— Artillery ammunition
— Javelin missiles and other anti-armor weapons
August 1
The Pentagon announced an additional $550 million of security aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— HIMARS ammunition
— Artillery ammunition
July 22
The Pentagon announced that it will send $270 million of military aid to Ukraine, with $175 million authorized via presidential drawdown and the other $95 million coming via USAI funds. This included:
— Four additional HIMARS
— HIMARS ammunition
— Four Command Post vehicles (These can be used as a tactical operations center or an armored ambulance)
— Tank gun ammunition
— Phoenix Ghost drones (These are a type of “loitering munition,” or a weapon that can wait in the air for extended periods of time before attacking a target. This was created by the United States for use in Ukraine.)
July 8
The Pentagon announced an addition $400 million of military assistance via presidential drawdown, including:
— Four additional HIMARS
— HIMARS ammunition
— Artillery ammunition
July 1
The Pentagon announced that it will send $820 million of security aid, with $50 million authorized via presidential drawdown and the remaining $770 million coming via USAI funds. This included:
— HIMARS ammunition
— Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) (This system launches missiles to defend against various types of aircraft, including drones.)
— Artillery ammunition
June 15
The Pentagon announced an additional $1 billion in lethal aid, with $350 million authorized via presidential drawdown and $650 million coming from USAI funds. This included:
— Howitzers (This is a popular long-range artillery weapon.)
— Artillery ammunition
— HIMARS ammunition
— Two Harpoon coastal defense systems (These launch missiles that fly just above the surface of the water to attack planes and ships.)
June 1
The Pentagon announced an additional $700 million in military assistance via presidential drawdown, including:
— HIMARS ammunition
— Javelin missiles and other anti-armor weapons
— Artillery ammunition
— Four Mi-17 helicopters (These can be used for transport or combat.)
May 19
The Pentagon announced $100 million in lethal aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— Howitzers
On the same day, Congress passed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, roughly half of which was earmarked for military assistance.
May 6
The Pentagon announced $150 million in military aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— Artillery ammunition
April 21
DoD announced $800 million in further aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— Howitzers
— Artillery ammunition
— Phoenix Ghost drones
April 13
The Pentagon announced that it will send an additional $800 million in military assistance via presidential drawdown, including:
— Howitzers
— Artillery ammunition
— Switchblade drones (This is another form of loitering munition.)
— Javelin missiles and other anti-armor weapons
— Armored personnel carriers
— 11 Mi-17 helicopters
— Various types of explosives
April 1
DoD announced that it will send $300 million in lethal aid using USAI funds, including:
— Laser-guided rocket systems
— Switchblade drones
— Puma surveillance drones
— Anti-drone systems
— Armored vehicles
March 16
The Pentagon announced that it will send $800 million worth of military aid via presidential drawdown. The exact contents of this package are unclear, but it likely included Mi-17 helicopters, Javelin missiles, and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
March 12
The White House announced that it will send $200 million in lethal aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— Javelin missiles
— Stinger missiles
March 10
Congress approved $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine, roughly half of which was earmarked for military assistance.
February 25
The White House announced that it will send $350 million in military aid via presidential drawdown, including:
— Anti-armor weapons
— Small arms
responsiblestatecraft.org · by Connor Echols · August 18, 2022
21. 8 Afghanistan vets look back in anger — and pride — over America’s longest war
Excerpts:
“The US was in a 20-year war and it needed to end.
“In ancient Greece, they had 20-year wars.
“There were no winners.”
8 Afghanistan vets look back in anger — and pride — over America’s longest war
New York Post · by Heather Robinson · August 20, 2022
Over two decades, 775,000 soldiers and Marines were deployed to Afghanistan before the Biden administration’s abrupt and chaotic withdrawal one year ago. Now, many who served look back at their time with mixed emotions.
Some remember that the war began as a response to 9/11, and feel proud that the US decimated al Qaeda, who launched that brutal attack with help from the Taliban in Afghanistan. Others lament the folly of a nation-building project that ultimately failed.
Some lost friends and limbs. All of them risked their lives. Here, eight members of the military — from different ranks, branches and backgrounds — told The Post about their personal experiences serving in America’s longest war.
US Army Capt. Florent Ahmed Groberg, 39, Medal of Honor Recipient, Microsoft executive.
Army Capt. Florent Groberg receives the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama in November 2015.
AFP via Getty Images
Tours of duty in Afghanistan: November-June 2009; February 2010-August 2012
Florent Groberg had to think fast.
While protecting 28 Afghan and American leaders in Asadabad, he saw two motorcycles speeding toward him. At the same moment, a dark-robed male figure caught his eye.
Groberg sensed danger. The motorcycles stopped. They were a decoy; the man was a threat. But Groberg, a trained Army Ranger, did not shoot because he did not see a weapon.
Groberg (left) on watch with a fellow soldier in Afghanistan, where he saved lives by hurling away a suicide bomber just before the terrorist’s vest exploded.
Instead, he rushed toward the man and grabbed him, feeling a suicide bomber’s vest underneath his robe.
“My instinct told me to get him away from everyone as quickly as possible.”
With all his strength, Groberg hurled the terrorist as far away as he could.
The man landed, detonating his suicide vest and killing four — far fewer than if he had reached the leaders — and badly injuring Groberg, who would undergo multiple surgeries before he could walk again.
For his courage that day, President Barack Obama awarded Groberg the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award for valor in combat.
Born to an Algerian Muslim mother in France and adopted by an American stepfather, Groberg is the only immigrant to receive this honor in America’s post-9/11 wars.
Fury over the murder of his favorite uncle, Abdou, a peaceful Algerian Muslim preacher, by radical Islamists, and the attacks of Sept. 11, sparked his desire to serve. Seven months prior, he had become an American citizen.
Born in Algeria, Groberg yearned to serve America because it “welcomed me,” he said.
“This country welcomed me and gave me the honor and responsibility to call myself an American,” said Groberg. “I felt I better go earn it.”
But the handling of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan dismayed him.
“I didn’t expect us to stay there forever,” he said. “But the way it happened was disheartening. It was frustrating to see all that work unravel.”
“This country welcomed me and gave me the honor and responsibility to call myself an American. I felt I better go earn it.”
Florent Groberg on his decision to serve the US in Afghanistan
Still, he is optimistic about the future.
“I do believe we influenced the next generation of Afghan leaders,” he said. “We opened schools for girls, they became educated, and I’m confident that what we did will help shape the course of life in that country in coming decades.”
Today Groberg works for Microsoft supporting creation of technologies to help the Defense Department, intelligence communities, and law enforcement.
Daniel Patrick O’Shea, Ret. Navy Seal, counterinsurgency advisor, 55; business management, Tampa, Fla.
Former Navy SEAL Daniel Patrick O’Shea with an Afghani elder during his 2011-2012 tour of duty.
Tours of duty in Afghanistan: November 2007-January 2008; December-April 2010; September 2011-September 2012
On August 16, 2021, desperate Afghans were clinging to the sides of US aircraft departing Kabul. Four thousand instant messages and texts begging for help streamed over Dan O’Shea’s phone.
A valued Afghan operative, “Abdul,” who had assisted US forces in fighting a major terror network, was now being hunted by the Taliban. O’Shea focused on him first.
Ten years before, O’Shea had been received as a “graybeard” — a man of honor — at “goat grabs,” or traditional meals of goat meat and fruit, in the homes of Afghan leaders who believed in the dream of democracy.
“Because I was 45 and a ‘graybeard,’ they’d sit me in a position of honor. If you make it to your 60s in Afghanistan you are a true elder.”
Now “Graybeard” was back in the US but still springing into action.
Dubbed “Graybeard,” the 55-year-old Navy vet joined a volunteer force that helped extract Americans and Afghan allies during the withdrawal, including three generations of one family.
Working with Task Force Pineapple, a volunteer group of US veterans trying to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies, he came up with a plan.
The gates leading out of Kabul were closing. Colleagues there helped O’Shea direct Abdul out, but because he was unwilling to leave without his family, each attempt failed. Although Abdul possessed a US passport, his family members did not.
O’Shea knew one way out was through sewage channels, but Abdul’s family included a set of three-month-old twins, so that was out.
Considering dwindling options, O’Shea texted Abdul, “You have to make some tough choices about who you can bring.”
O’Shea’s voice trembles as he recalls receiving this text: “‘Dan, my father raised me to be the man I am. I’m not leaving him, my mother, my sisters or their children. Would you?’”
“I wrote that I wouldn’t either.”
“Abdul answered, ‘If we die, we die as a family.’”
Reading that, O’Shea redoubled his efforts to do the impossible. Tech-savvy and tenacious, he managed to create and send a document that convinced Afghan soldiers fearful of the Taliban to allow Abdul’s entire family to board a bus to the airport.
After they made it out, Abdul texted O’Shea:
“Thank you, Dan. You saved three generations of my family.”
One year later, O’Shea is still angry about our “abandonment” of the Afghan people.
“We buried brothers and sisters over there and now we have to ask, ‘For what?’”
Former Navy SEAL Daniel Patrick O’Shea on the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan
“There are hundreds of US vets trying to get Afghan partners out who are being hunted by the Taliban, and we are being stonewalled by the US State Department. Afghan soldiers and partners, Afghan women and girls, who believed in the dream we gave them for 20 years — America threw them under the bus.
“We buried brothers and sisters over there and now we have to ask, ‘For what?’”
O’Shea is currently a partner in Equitus Corp., an analytics and data company based in Clearwater, Fla., providing technology to the Department of Defense.
US Army Combat Pilot Amber Smith, 39; author, Texas
Pilot Amber “Annihilator 24” Smith in the cockpit of her Kiowa Warrior helicopter, where she rained fire on Taliban fighters.
Tours of duty in Afghanistan: January 2008-July 2008; July 2008-December 2008
Amber Smith could see the enemy poking their heads out of a cave in Asadabad. From the cockpit of her Kiowa Warrior helicopter — a small single engine craft that enabled her to get within hundreds of feet of the Taliban — she took aim at the mouth of it.
She fired one rocket, which exploded against the rocks. Then another.
“I wanted to be judged on merit and skill and nothing else,” said Smith, who wrote a book about her more than 100 combat missions, “Danger Close.”
AP
As she began to turn, a huge explosion shattered the quiet. Her second rocket had been a perfect shot, penetrating deep into the cave and destroying scores of Taliban fighters.
Smith, whose call sign was “Annihilator 24,” was frequently called in when ground forces were under attack.
Being a woman in combat did not faze her. “I wanted to be judged on merit and skill and nothing else, and ultimately, I think I was.”
Smith (left) with her older sister Kelly, who is an Air Force pilot, at Bagram Air Base in 2008.
Given her efforts and those of fellow service members, she was saddened by last year’s pullout.
“We devoted years and risked our lives for the mission. It was very difficult for us to watch.”
Today a wife and mother of two, Smith — who flew more than 100 combat missions in her military career — is the author of “Danger Close: My Epic Journey as a Combat Helicopter Pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
US Army Capt. Pete Hegseth, 42; Television host, author
Army Capt. Pete Hegseth felt the call to serve after visiting a still-smoldering Ground Zero in 2001, declaring, “Now is the time to go kill terrorists.”
Tour of duty in Afghanistan: 2010-2011
As an undergraduate at Princeton, Pete Hegseth was angered by students protesting any response to the attacks of Sept. 11.
“We had thousands of Americans dead from a cowardly terror attack, and these elitist, sheltered students were protesting as if the real victims here were misunderstood Islamists,” he said.
Days later, he visited the World Trade Center site and witnessed the smoldering destruction.
“I felt, ‘Now is the time to go kill terrorists,’” he remembered. The tragic scene only reinforced his earlier decision to join ROTC.
In Afghanistan, Hegseth’s task was to train Afghan and NATO soldiers to counter the efforts of the Taliban and al Qaeda to win over the local population.
But, for various reasons, he believes it was an unrealistic goal.
He thinks that introducing “Western-style social justice” including women’s rights was counterproductive.
“Anyone who thought there was a Taliban 2.0 is a fool. There is no Taliban that supports women’s rights.”
Army Capt. Pete Hegseth on the failed mission in Afghanistan
“It would be great if full female empowerment was part of their culture, but it’s not, so by pushing it, you create more propaganda for the Taliban.”
While he believes the war “should have ended 10 years ago,” he took issue with what he sees as a lack of planning and toughness in the way President Biden ended it. And he is disgusted to see the Taliban celebrating in Kabul’s streets a year after the US withdrawal.
Hegseth (left) trained Afghan and NATO soldiers to help oust the Taliban, a group of “drug runners and thugs” who don’t respect women’s rights, he said.
Coscia, Alexandra
“Anyone who thought there was a Taliban 2.0 is a fool. There is no Taliban that supports women’s rights. They are drug runners and thugs. They will shut down every Western idea we had and conform to the strictest code of Islam. Evidenced by the fact Ayman al-Zawahiri [an architect of the 9/11 attacks] was killed in Kabul, the Taliban is still working with al Qaeda.”
Hegseth is now co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Fox News Channel and author of “Battle for the American Mind.”
Staff Sgt. Johnny Joey Jones, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician, USMC, 36; Fox News contributor and Fox Nation host, Newman, Georgia
Staff Sgt. Johnny Joey Jones with new knees and legs at Fox News.
Tour of duty in Afghanistan: March 15-August 6, 2010
On Aug. 6, 2010, Johnny Joey Jones, 24, stepped on an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that ripped his legs off from his knees. It also took the life of Kristopher “Daniel” Greer, a corporal who had been assisting Jones as a combat engineer.
“In every step of Daniel’s life, he served,” said Jones of the husband, father, and firefighter who died that day at age 25.
Jones’ childhood in Georgia was “very poor and happy.” He became a Marine because he wanted to be a “better version” of himself — and serve his country after Sept. 11.
Jones (right) successfully disabled 78 explosive devises before being blasted by one that severely injured him and killed combat engineer Kristopher “Daniel” Greer.
He volunteered for Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) school, which includes a rigorous academic program of mechanics, chemistry and physics.
“The Marine Corps wants people for EOD whose thirst for knowledge and willingness to sacrifice are a cut above,” said Jones, adding that many of the best and brightest were lost.
“This 20-year war just destroyed our numbers.”
He is proud of having disabled 78 IEDs before he was gravely injured by one. “I had the chance to use my knowledge and put my life on the line so fewer lives and limbs were lost to our service members and the Afghan people.”
Looking back, he believes American policymakers were blind to the folly of nation-building in Afghanistan.
“Optimism can become hubris if you’re not looking with clear eyes.”
Ret. US Army Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser, former commander of the 101st Airborne Division, business executive, Washington D.C.
Former Army Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser served 14 months in Afghanistan, commanding the vaunted 101st Airborne Division and helping train Afghan soldiers to fight the Taliban.
AFP via Getty Images
Tour of duty in Afghanistan: April 2008 – June 2009
Gen. Schloesser served as commander of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in Eastern Afghanistan, making daily decisions about sending soldiers into battle. Under his command, 184 were lost.
“I have never forgotten them, and never will,” he said.
He stressed the value of US intervention in Afghanistan as part of the War on Terror.
Schloesser, who briefed President George W. Bush on the war’s progress, believes the US should have started to pull out of Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden was killed.
“The American people can look back on the last two decades and see they have not been attacked as we were on September 11th,” he said.
America’s failure to empower Afghans to vanquish the Taliban may have reflected cultural differences, he added.
“We tried to make them soldiers in a Western way, and I don’t think we were successful,” he said. “But if you asked them to fight for their tribe … they did well.”
Schloesser, who briefed Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on the war’s progress, acknowledged asking Obama for more troops and resources in 2008 (“He took it to heart and responded”).
But he cited what he sees as a lack of “strategic leadership” after the US killed Osama bin Laden.
“I think we should’ve started a strategic withdrawal of major forces then.”
Schloesser is pictured with Commander Shoshana Chatfield at her command in Farah, Afghanistan, near the Iranian border in 2008.
He believes the US pullout last summer was “too hasty” and that we should have maintained “a lower number of troops” in the country to support the Afghan Army.
“We have troops in Romania, Poland, South Korea, Kuwait, Germany, Japan” among others, he said. “We do that because we are protecting America. I think we could have done that in Afghanistan.”
“We should be proud we gave hope to these people. Many who were educated will continue to have an influence.”
Former Army Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser on America’s impact in Afghanistan
Ultimately, he thinks America’s efforts on behalf of Afghan human rights and education had an impact.
“We should be proud we gave hope to these people,” he said. “Many who were educated will continue to have an influence.”
Today Schloesser works as executive vice president of Bell Textron, an aerospace manufacturer, in Washington DC.
US Army Information Technology Specialist Jessica Villarreal, 35, McAllen, Texas, therapist and advocate
Army tech specialist Jessica Villarreal counseled veterans of the Afghanistan War, helping them deal with traumatic combat experiences.
Tour of duty in Afghanistan: March 2006-December 2006
Last year, when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, Jessica Villarreal spent countless hours on the phone counseling fellow Afghanistan War veterans late into the night.
“The withdrawal was a slap in the face,” she said. “It made us question a lot of things, such as ‘Why did so many people have to die?’”
Villarreal installed cable wires and internet connections in Afghanistan and is now pursuing a doctorate in behavioral health.
As both a veteran and licensed social worker specializing in trauma, Villarreal was concerned that many fellow vets were suicidal, and volunteered her time selflessly. Many were questioning what their service had meant. She turned to Vietnam vets she knew for advice on how to help them.
Even as she assists others, she is also struggling in her personal life. Her husband Jose, also an Afghanistan vet, came back to the US with lungs destroyed by exposure to burn pits and the blast of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
“I was also exposed to burn pits. I came back with asthma, but my greater concern is for him. He needs a lung transplant, although we are told it won’t save his life, but might make him more comfortable,” Villarreal said.
Villarreal, who drew on Vietnam vets to help her assist soldiers in Afghanistan, said the US withdrawal led some to wonder: “Why did so many people have to die?”
“So many young women and men sacrificed our health; you can’t just get it back.”
During her deployment as a communications specialist, Villarreal was assigned to run cable wires in tight spots because she was petite. She installed internet connections and firewalls in aviators’ radios.
Today she is pursuing a PhD in behavioral health and serving as grassroots engagement director for Concerned Veterans for America (CV4A.org), a veterans’ rights non-profit.
Sgt. Major O’Neal Johnson Jr., USMC, 59; volunteer, Baltimore, Md.
Marine Corp. Sgt. Major O’Neal Johnson Jr., here being congratulated by General David Petraeus, spent a year in Afghanistan instructing its National Army.
Tour of duty in Afghanistan: September 2010-August 2011
The murder of 13 US service members by the ISIS-K terror group during the US pullout one year ago was a “moral injury” to Sergeant Major O’Neal Johnson Jr., who spent a year in Afghanistan instructing the Afghan National Army.
This past year, he has been tirelessly trying to address the suffering of his fellow Afghanistan War vets.
“The Silent Veteran” — an organization he founded to assist his fellow vets, including those who are homeless and struggling with mental health issues — is holding its first event this month connecting vets with resources for housing and healthcare.
“A lot of vets won’t reach out for help, so I said, ‘What can I do to help that silent vet?’ I try to connect them to resources.”
“A lot of vets won’t reach out for help,” said Johnson, who counsels other former soldiers through an organization he started.
One tool he cites is the Veterans Crisis Line — part of a recent federal effort to improve mental health support for veterans.
“I encourage them to dial 988 and press 1,” he said. “It’s like dialing 911 if you are having suicidal ideations or you’re in a bad way.”
In addition to his concern for vets, Johnson feels for Afghans left behind under Taliban rule. It “baffles” him that the US failed to utilize its many air bases — like Bagram, Kandahar, and Shindand — to vet Afghan allies, facilitating more transfers at the war’s end.
“You can’t just have one base with everyone rushing to get to Kabul … maybe there was a good reason but I’d like to know why they didn’t use all those air bases.”
Though Johnson laments the poor execution of the withdrawal, he ultimately supported it.
“The US was in a 20-year war and it needed to end.
“In ancient Greece, they had 20-year wars.
“There were no winners.”
New York Post · by Heather Robinson · August 20, 2022
22. Exclusive: Hunt For Red October Remake In Development
Can it be any better or even equal to the original?
Exclusive: Hunt For Red October Remake In Development
giantfreakinrobot.com · by James Brizuela · August 17, 2022
By James Brizuela | Published 4 days ago
Some might say that remaking classic films should never happen. However, there are those rare times where the remakes and reboots seem to shine much better than the original film that was made. We would argue that Dredd is vastly better than Judge Dredd. Also, there is the hope that a sequel or reimagining that covers the same type of ground as the original film and comes out being spectacular. Both Top Gun: Maverick and Prey are those types of spectacular films. Well, through our trusted and proven sources, we can report that The Hunt for Red October is being remade. This new remake is being produced by Paramount.
The original film boasted a cast that might be hard to beat. Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Sam Neill, Larry Ferguson, and James Earl Jones are just some of the legendary names that were attached to The Hunt for Red October. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy and introduced the world to Jack Ryan, a spy operative who is now being portrayed by John Krasinski. We are not sure if that means we are going to see the new Jack Ryan in the remake film, but that would be fantastic. Krasinski is set to leave the role behind after the fourth season, with a spinoff happening that is based on Ding Chavez. Chavez is portrayed by Michael Pena.
The Hunt for Red October still holds an impressive 88% “certified fresh” critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an equally impressive 88% audience approval rating. As previously stated, it will be hard for a remake to match how good the first film is. However, with the current success of prequels, sequels, and remakes in recent years, that might be why Paramount has jumped at the chance to remake this 1990 classic spy thriller.
The Hunt for Red October covers the cold war in the 1980s. Sean Connery takes on the role of Soviet captain Marko Ramius, who is planning to defect to the United States. He takes control of a new submarine called the Red October, which has new capabilities in being undetectable by modern sonar. This submarine is meant to be a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States. We are not sure if the remake is going to follow the same period but we could see it being a bit more modernized. That was sort of the case with Top Gun: Maverick, and it could be done to add a fresh spin on The Hunt for Red October.
The Hunt for Red October has not yet been officially announced, and we are likely not going to hear about the cast being added until that announcement is confirmed. However, we are excited at the possibility of bringing a new spin on a classic espionage thriller. Hopefully, John Krasinski can be tapped to at least appear in the movie as Jack Ryan, or it could be that a new Jack Ryan will be showcased in this remake as part of a grander plan to create a bigger Tom Clancy-based movie universe. Either way, even though the original film is fantastic, we are excited to see what Paramount does with this new venture.
giantfreakinrobot.com · by James Brizuela · August 17, 2022
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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