Quotes of the Day:

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

[Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]”

- John F. Kennedy

“The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”

- Charles Bukowski

“A lie doesn’t become truth, Wong doesn’t become right and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.”

- Booker T. Washington

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 24 (Putin's War)

2. The Accelerating Threat of the Political Assassination

3. ​E​nding the Ideology of the Offense, Part II

4. The Next Variant of Russia’s Political Warfare Virus

5. Taiwan to boost defense spending to deter China’s military threat

6. U.S. Goes in for the Long-Haul With Latest Ukraine War Aid​'

7. Are small modular reactors the solution to growing energy and climate problems?

8. Impact of Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban

9. FDD | The Time Is Now to Reform the UN Human Rights Apparatus

10. How China Could Choke Taiwan

11. Russian attack kills 25 civilians on Ukraine's Independence Day, Kyiv says

12. Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine

13. Analysis | A phony, U.S.-friendly social media campaign prompts questions

14. Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

15. How China’s Propaganda Influences the West

16. What’s Behind China’s ‘Action Guidelines on Military Operations Other Than War’?

17. The World Putin Wants

18. Only Bipartisanship Can Defeat Authoritarian Aggression

19. How Ukraine Can Make Russia Pay: How About Some A-10 Warthogs and Old Fighters?

20. This Gen-Z Value Could Spell Trouble for Spec Ops Community

21. Taiwan raises defense budget 14.9% amid military reform debate

22. ‘We Need to Own the Heat The Way We Now Own Night,’ Pentagon Climate Chief Says

23. PRC Efforts to Manipulate Global Public Opinion on Xinjiang

24. Meet the Green Beret veteran who's clearing mines for farmers in Ukraine

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 24 (Putin's War)

Maps/grpahics: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-24

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 24

Aug 24, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 24

Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 24, 6:30 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 Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated on August 24 that Russian forces are slowing down the overall pace of their offensive operations in Ukraine while reaffirming that Russia’s objectives in the war have not changed. At a meeting with defense ministers from member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Shoigu stated that Russian troops will be slowing down the pace of offensive operations in Ukraine in a conscious effort to minimize civilian casualties.[1] Shoigu also reiterated that operations in Ukraine are going according to plan and that Russian forces will accomplish all their objectives, supporting ISW’s assessment that Russia’s maximalist strategic war aims in Ukraine have not changed.[2] The Russian MoD has previously issued similar statements to account for the pace of operations in Ukraine.[3]

Shoigu's statement may also represent an attempt by the Russian MoD to set information conditions to explain and excuse the negligible gains Russian forces have made in Ukraine in the last six weeks. Since Russian forces resumed offensive operations following a pause on July 16 Russian forces have gained about 450.84 km2 (roughly 174 square miles) of new territory, an area around the size of Andorra. Russian forces have lost roughly 45,000 km2 of territory since March 21 (the estimated date of Russian forces’ deepest advance into Ukraine), an area larger than Denmark. As ISW has previously assessed, Russian forces are unable to translate limited tactical gains into wider operational successes, and their offensive operations in eastern Ukraine are culminating. Shoigu’s statement is likely an attempt to explain away these failings.[4]

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces have lost an area larger than Denmark since the high-water mark of their invasion of Ukraine in mid-March and gained an area the size of Andorra (one percent of what they have lost) in the last 39 days.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reaffirmed that Russia has not changed its maximalist strategic war aims.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks southwest and southeast of Izyum, northeast and south of Bakhmut, and west and southwest of Donetsk City.
• Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack in northwestern Kherson Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian military assets and ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts.
• Russian occupation authorities continue to face partisan and internal challenges to the administration of occupation agendas.
• Russian proxy leadership is continuing efforts to oversee the legislative and administrative integration of occupied territories into Russian systems.

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 conducted limited ground attacks southwest and southeast of Izyum on August 24. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops unsuccessfully attempted to advance towards Nova Dmytrivka (25km southwest of Izyum) and conducted an unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force attempt near Bohorodychne (25km southeast of Izyum).[5] Russian forces also continued artillery strikes along the Izyum-Slovyansk line and near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border.[6]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks towards Siversk and continued air and artillery strikes on Siversk and surrounding settlements on August 24.[7]

Russian forces continued ground attacks northeast and south of Bakhmut on August 24. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that Russian troops continued fighting in the Soledar-Bakhmutske area, 10km northeast of Bakhmut.[8] Russian sources claimed that Wagner Group mercenaries control the eastern part of Patrice Lumumba Street, which runs westward from Pokrovske to Bakhmut.[9] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian troops conducted offensive operations near Kodema (13km southeast of Bakhmut).[10] Russian forces conducted air and artillery strikes on Bakhmut and surrounding settlements.[11]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks in order to advance from the western outskirts of Donetsk City on August 24. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian troops attempted offensive operations in the direction of Pisky, Nevelske, and Pobieda- which form a line along the western outskirts of Donetsk City.[12] Russian sources reported that Russian and Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) troops are continuing to push westward of positions near Pisky towards Nevelske, Pervomaiske, and Optyne and are conducting artillery strikes to support ground attacks towards Avdiivka.[13]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks southwest of Donetsk City on August 24. Russian troops reportedly attempted to advance towards Novomykhailivka (25km southwest of Donetsk City), Pavlivka (45km southwest of Donetsk City), and Velyka Novosilka (75km southwest of Donetsk City).[14] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Russian forces shelled Vuhledar, likely to continue efforts to cut ground lines of communication that run from Vuhledar to Marinka and the Donetsk City area.[15]

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 did not conduct any confirmed ground assaults near Kharkiv City but continued shelling frontline settlements including Slatyne, Ruski Tyshky, Verkhniy Saltiv, Pryshyb, Rubizhne, and Odnorobivka.[16] Local Kharkiv authorities reported that Russian forces struck Dokuchaievske—a suburb approximately 23 km from Kharkiv’s city center—with S-300s.[17] Russian forces continue to strike Ukraine’s industrial base in Kharkiv City. Russian forces conducted a missile strike against the Kharkiv Shevchenko Instrument-Making Plant in southern Kharkiv City on August 23.[18]

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

Russian forces conducted a limited ground assault in northwestern Kherson Oblast on August 24 but did not make confirmed territorial gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault in the direction of Mykolaivka south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative border.[19] Russian forces continued to launch airstrikes near the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River, northwest of Kherson City, and near the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative border.[20]

Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) and positions in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts. Advisor to the Kherson Oblast Administration Serhiy Khlan confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Kakhovka Bridge over the Dnipro River on August 24.[21] Geolocated footage also showed smoke around the Kakhovka Bridge.[22] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian aviation struck Russian equipment concentration points in Novovoznesenske, Arhanhenske, and Pravdyne, all situated along the Kherson Oblast administrative border.[23] Social media footage also reportedly showed a Ukrainian strike on a Russian ammunition depot in Tokmak, approximately 50km northeast of Melitopol.[24]

Russian forces continued to shell and launch missiles at Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv Oblasts on August 24. Russian forces launched unspecified missiles at Zaporizhia City twice, resulting in damage to residential infrastructure.[25] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces launched S-300 air-defense missiles at Bereznehuvate (approximately 20km northwest of a Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River).[26] Mykolaiv Oblast officials also reported shelling near the line of contact.[27] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast officials reported that Russian forces targeted the Dnipro City district with two Kh-22 missiles.[28] Russian forces continued to fire Grad MLRS systems and tube artillery at Nikopol Raion and targeted settlements in the Kryvyi Rih Raion with Uragan MLRS systems.[29]

Russian-appointed Zaporizhia Oblast Military-Civilian Administration Head Vladimir Rogov claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled Enerhodar’s beach and the industrial area on August 24 but did not provide visual evidence.[30] ISW cannot independently identify the claim or the party responsible for the reported shelling. Social media footage published on August 23 shows forest fires reportedly nearing Enerhodar’s southern industrial and residential sites in the city.[31]

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

Russian federal subjects (regions) continued to form new volunteer units to reinforce Russia’s war in Ukraine. Altai Krai announced the formation of five volunteer units: the “Kalashnikov” and “Altai” battalions, the “Skurlatova” and “Katun” companies, and the “Biya” platoon. Local outlets did not specify if Altai Krai will be offering one-time enlistment bonuses but noted advertised monthly salary ranging from 30,000 to 300,000 rubles (about $500 to $5,000).[32] The Republic of Tatarstan local outlet Biznes Online stated that Russian authorities’ classification of such volunteer formations as "battalions” exaggerates the actual number of recruits in each volunteer unit.[33] The outlet noted that Perm Krai’s ”Parma” Battalion has 90 people and is structurally more consistent with a motorized rifle company.[34] The outlet noted that Russia did not previously have territory-based volunteer units as was common in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) since 2014 and that Russian forces may be modeling these units after DNR and LNR proxy units, such as the ”Vostok” and ”Somali” battalions.

Battalion personnel complements range in size in any military based on the specialization of the battalion, but the Russian volunteer units’ advertised complements are low, and reported fill levels are even lower. Most “battalions” (and even some “regiments”) will more likely have the size of reinforced companies. It is also noteworthy that these ad hoc volunteer battalions are not described as battalion tactical groups (BTGs) and do not appear to be structured like BTGs. It is not clear how they are being employed on the battlefield unless they are being assembled with one another or with the remnants of already deployed BTGs. It is clear that a volunteer “battalion” has nothing like the notional combat power of a battalion tactical group that invaded Ukraine in February, even discounting the inexperience and ages of many volunteers and the very limited training they receive before deploying to combat. Biznes Online also indicated that recruitment into volunteer units decreased throughout the summer and that local Russian officials are intensifying advertising efforts in certain regions. The outlet claimed that the Republic of Tatarstan had only 10-15 interested recruits at the beginning of the recruitment campaign in early June, and such numbers reportedly tripled by the end of the campaign. The outlet’s report confirmed ISW’s assessment that federal subjects began increasing one-time enlistment bonuses to increase recruitment rates in August.[35] The outlet added that Russian federal subjects also began advertising military contracts in public transportation and other recruitment campaigns ”behind the scenes,” but noted that the Kremlin-sponsored sources have not shared such advertisements.

The Kremlin is likely attempting to shield Moscow City residents from the military recruitment campaign, which may lead to some social tensions. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied any reports of the formation of the Moscow-based “Sobyaninsky Polk” volunteer regiment on July 13, shortly after Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported that Moscow City military commissariats started recruiting labor migrants and residents of different Russian regions into the regiment.[36] Biznes Online noted that all media discourse regarding the “Sobyaninsky Polk” stopped following Peskov’s denial. The sudden change in reporting may suggest that Moscow City ceased recruitment for the “Sobyaninsky Polk” in an effort to avoid drawing Muscovite criticism of the recruitment campaign. The apparent lack of a Moscow City-based volunteer unit may also spark some criticism from other federal republics.

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-backed occupation administrators continued to face various challenges to their authority. A Ukrainian partisan improvised explosive device (IED) attack killed the Russian-appointed head of Mykhailivka, Zaporizhia Oblast on August 24, likely part of a wider campaign of Ukrainian partisans targeting specific Russian-backed administrators who are attempting to advance the integration of occupied regions into the Russian system.[37] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also reported that Russian forces in occupied Luhansk Oblast dispersed a rally held by the wives, mothers, and relatives of Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) forces who have been captured by Ukrainian forces.[38] Predatory mobilization processes in the LNR and reports that the Kremlin considers DNR and LNR fighters the lowest priority in prisoner exchanges are likely exacerbating social friction in the LNR and complicating the consistent administration of occupation regimes.[39]

Russian-backed proxy leaders continue to take measures to oversee the legislative and administrative integration of occupied territories into corresponding Russian systems. DNR Head Denis Pushilin met with Russian State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Volodin on August 24 to discuss the intensification of efforts to harmonize the legislative institutions of the DNR with Russian legislative processes.[40] The harmonization of the DNR’s legislative process with Russia’s will likely afford the Kremlin increased legal control and oversight of the internal legal and bureaucratic affairs of proxy republics. LNR Head Leonid Pasechnik met with a United Russia Party delegation to discuss United Russia’s provision of “comprehensive assistance” to Donbas, including educational support.[41] Pasechnik also further confirmed that Russian authorities are engaging in the deportation of children from occupied areas in Ukraine to Russia and stated that his administration plans to identify children “in need of psychological help” and transfer them to Kislovodsk for “rehabilitation.”[42] As ISW has previously reported, Russian authorities are likely using the guise of education camps and psychological rehabilitation in order to facilitate the transfer of children to Russia as part of a wider population replacement campaign.[43]

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.

[3] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/15150167

[25] https://www dot pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2022/08/24/7364549/; https://t.me/stranaua/59565

[32] https://www dot ap22 dot ru/paper/Zhiteley-Altayskogo-kraya-priglashayut-na-kontraktnuyu-sluzhbu-v-Rossiyskuyu-Armiyu.html; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB3z50HtDig

[33] https://www dot business-gazeta.ru/article/561117

[34] https://www dot business-gazeta.ru/article/561117

[36] https://ria dot ru/20220713/polk-1802170655.html; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[37] https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1562384503108259840?s=20&t=8C...; https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1562345890194628608?s=20&t=8C...https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/08/24/na-zaporizhzhi-likviduvaly-chergovogo-zradnyka/

[38] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/08/24/v-lugansku-okupanty-rozignaly-mityng-rodychiv-polonenyh-lnrivcziv/

understandingwar.org

2. The Accelerating Threat of the Political Assassination

Important analysis.

Conclusion:

Political assassinations have indeed changed the course of history — and most often not for the better. Now, COVID lockdowns, explosive new political phenomena which demonize political opponents as evil, and divisive elections cast in existential terms have left a charred political landscape in which those leaders still standing are particularly vulnerable. At a time when the system is again “blinking red,” we must ensure that we take this threat seriously and are doing everything possible to deter any future American assassin through a combination of prudently robust defenses and proactive law enforcement engagement with this dire potentiality.

The Accelerating Threat of the Political Assassination - War on the Rocks

BRUCE HOFFMAN AND JACOB WARE

warontherocks.com · by Bruce Hoffman · August 24, 2022

When Shinzo Abe was slain weeks ago by an assailant wielding a homemade firearm, it sent shockwaves rippling around Japan and beyond, prompting a bewildered public to ask how such a disaster could be possible and, more importantly, what would happen in the aftermath. The unthinkable murder of a popular former G7 leader will lead to both a reassessment of personal security details the world over, as well as a reconsideration of whether the costs of honorable public service are worth paying. Last month’s attempt on the life of New York congressman and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin suggests we may be entering a similarly dangerous period in the United States, where elected or appointed officials and political candidates face a heightened risk.

The pattern of terrorism in recent years has arguably been trending in that direction, especially in the United States. In June 2017, a far-left extremist attempted to shoot Republican members of Congress at a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. In 2018, during the last midterm election, a wave of mail bombs targeted senior Democratic Party officials and liberal public figures. Months later, a Coast Guardsman was arrested for plotting to assassinate a number of prominent Democratic politicians. In 2020, law enforcement disrupted a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan — with two of the defendants pleading guilty even though a jury later acquitted two other plotters. And on Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rioters bayed for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence.

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This year has seen a further escalation in cases. In June, a retired circuit court judge was murdered in Wisconsin, in what that state’s attorney general described as a politically motivated crime. That same month, an armed man was arrested outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home before he could carry out an assassination plan. “Remove some people from the supreme court,” the attacker had told an online contact, describing how he planned to protect Roe v. Wade from being overturned. “I could get at least one, which would change the votes for decades to come, and I am shooting for 3.” He had also Googled “assassin skills,” “assassin equipment,” and “assassinations.” Another man was arrested outside the home of Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal for threatening to kill her. Recent reporting by the Guardian found that “U.S. Capitol police reported 9,625 threats and directions of interest (meaning concerning actions or statements) against members of Congress last year, compared to 3,939 such instances in 2017.” Nor are elected officials the only targets, as the Iranian government’s plot to assassinate John Bolton, who served as one of Trump’s national security advisers, demonstrates.

In Britain, meanwhile, two members of parliament have tragically been killed in attacks since 2016: Jo Cox, killed by a far-right extremist days before the Brexit vote, and David Amess, stabbed to death by a jihadist in 2021. A recent counterterrorism investigation resulted in Treason Act charges of “discharging or aiming firearms, or throwing or using any offensive matter or weapon, with intent to injure or alarm her Majesty” against an assailant who scaled the walls of Windsor Castle on Christmas Day 2021. That same year Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was killed by mercenaries specifically hired to make room for a new leader. And in 2020, a Canadian man, angered by financial losses incurred as a result of government-imposed COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, armed himself as part of an abortive bid to seize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The 2018 execution by Saudi Arabian state agents of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and this month’s Iran-inspired attempt on the life of author Salman Rushdie, underscore the reemergence of political assassination as a means to silence government apologists and critics alike—also highlighting that it remains an attractive option for state sponsors. And this past weekend’s attempted car-bomb murder of prominent Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher and close Putin-confidant, Alexander Dugin, which killed his daughter Darya, demonstrated that this devastating tactic can also play a role far from the battlefield in time of war.

Assassins have long believed that their vicious acts would change the course of history. The murder of the heir to the Hapsburg throne in 1914 achieved that aim with destructive consequences: igniting the first global war ever and killing nearly 20 million. “[W]hile assassination has generally failed to direct political change into predetermined channels,” Harvard University historian Franklin Ford argued in his seminal work, Political Murder, “it has repeatedly demonstrated the capacity for affecting, often in the most dramatic fashion, situations which, in the absence of lethal violence, might conceivably have developed very differently.” The lives claimed by assassins in the twentieth century of political leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Jordan’s King Abdullah, John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert in 1968, Martin Luther King that same year, and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, among others, are testament to how different the course of history might have been had they been allowed to eventually die of natural causes.

As in those cases, today’s growing wave of assassination attempts has crossed ideologies. Certain adherents of the far left have been responsible for attempts on the Republican baseball practice and more recently Justice Kavanaugh. But the far-right is also active in this space and was responsible for the most recent successful high-level political assassination in the country: the killing of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, state senator of South Carolina, at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015. Jihadists often place prominent figures in their crosshairs, as demonstrated by a recently disrupted plot against George W. Bush. Even the more nascent male supremacist movement has its targets: A so-called “men’s rights activist” attacked the home of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas in July 2020, killing her son.

The emerging trend is due in no small part to the reemergence of so-called “accelerationism” as a distinct violent extremist strategy. For extremists seeking to sow chaos and speed up some cataclysmic societal collapse, high-profile politicians provide an attractive target, as symbols of the mainstream liberal political order. “We need to kill the HVT’s,” one poster wrote on Telegram in August 2019, using a military acronym for high-value target. “When a popular HVT is gunned down, it inspires hope and dreams.” The COVID pandemic then added fuel to the fire as public officials were blamed and then threatened for the lockdowns and enforced quarantines. Targets ranged from prominent health officials like cerebral National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, as well as many other lower-level state officials responsible for the imposition of these extraordinary public health measures. Fauci was forced into constant law enforcement protection because of threats against his life — which was only a prelude to the death threats and serial harassment that now routinely are directed against local and state election officials.

Political assassinations are uniquely suited to tear at the country’s social fabric. For starters, they force opposing politicians and voters into an apparently awkward dilemma between condemning hatred and violence and seeming to renege on their own political positions — a situation Democrats did not handle particularly well after the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life. As Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated in June in response to that attempted attack, “We can’t come together on this topic without acknowledging and condemning the appalling rise in violence that we have seen from a range of ideologies directed at public officials.” But they also risk dissuading good people, across the political spectrum, from running for public office and participating in a vibrant American democracy. Indeed, perhaps the most damning element of the January 6 commission hearings has been the broadcasting of the threats issued against everyday public servants, such as Georgia’s election workers. The Department of Justice recently announced it has opened around 110 federal criminal investigations into “contacts reported as hostile or harassing by the election community.” “A common refrain I hear from my members is that nobody is going to take this seriously until something bad happens, and we are all braced for the worst,” the National Association of State Election Directors executive director warned in recent written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Until recently, this was not a field you went into thinking it could cost you your life.”

Heightening the threat yet further is a growing tendency for assailants to use untraceable or even homemade weaponry as part of violent plots — as seen in the assassination of Abe, in which the assassin used a fully homemade shotgun to evade Japan’s stringent gun laws. The crude attack was reminiscent of failed drone attacks against political leaders in Venezuela and Iraq and may be indicative of an emerging era in which more widely accessible tools are weaponized in these strikes against individuals — again, regardless of the motivating ideology. Cruder technology lowers the barriers to entry for attackers, allowing even untrained or unprepared extremists — such as Zeldin’s assailant, who, despite being an Army veteran, used a personal protection device disguised as a cat-shaped keychain in his assault — to attempt serious plots. As Colin Clarke and Joseph Shelzi write, “The proliferation of emerging personal technologies like drones, 3-D-printed weapons, and other innovations will likely open the door for more attacks against high-profile figures in the future.”

We live in an age of heightened political tensions, when political decisions are often seen as existential crises, and where elections, therefore, carry perceived life-or-death stakes. With a midterm around the corner, a former president under investigation, and major upheavals occurring on hot-button issues such as abortion and gun control, extremists inclined to violence will be increasingly likely to lash out. The situation is only made more serious by the seeming consent a faction of the political right has offered to would-be assassins, including a Florida State House candidate who was recently expelled from Twitter for writing, “Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds on sight! Let freedom ring!” The conceit that fuels these would-be assassins’ fanaticism and feeds their egos poses a considerable and growing danger to civil servants and political figures across the political spectrum — at a time when mass shootings at schools, shopping malls, cinemas, and other public venues have already become an increasingly frequent occurrence. “The system was blinking red,” Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet famously told the 9/11 Commission describing the months before September 2001 — a sentiment which feels pertinent again now.

Deterring any such attacks is paramount. Enhanced personal protection details — both visible and covert — are a critical last line of defense, one boosted after the Zeldin assassination attempt by the House sergeant at arms’ announcement that House lawmakers will receive an extra $10,000 for home security. More serious thought needs to be devoted to an in-depth defense that includes harsher prison sentences and enhanced preventive detention — the release of Zeldin’s assailant without bail due to New York state’s well-intentioned but in this case fatuous bail reforms is a case in point, although the attacker was later arrested and held on federal charges. Identifying potential assassins and taking threats articulated on social media and elsewhere seriously is another. Laws preventing easy and widespread public access over the internet to home addresses and the enforcement of state and local ordinances limiting constitutionally-protected protests and demonstrations in residential areas are also needed if future tragedies are to be avoided at this especially febrile and emotional time. Finally, more and better training of law enforcement and aggressive prosecution of threats that attempt to hide behind First Amendment protections of free speech are urgently required.

Political assassinations have indeed changed the course of history — and most often not for the better. Now, COVID lockdowns, explosive new political phenomena which demonize political opponents as evil, and divisive elections cast in existential terms have left a charred political landscape in which those leaders still standing are particularly vulnerable. At a time when the system is again “blinking red,” we must ensure that we take this threat seriously and are doing everything possible to deter any future American assassin through a combination of prudently robust defenses and proactive law enforcement engagement with this dire potentiality.

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Bruce Hoffman is the senior fellow for counterterrorism & homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Georgetown University. Jacob Ware is a research associate for counterterrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Bruce Hoffman · August 24, 2022

3. ​E​nding the Ideology of the Offense, Part II

Dave Johnson is on a roll contributing the most substance to doctrine debates and our understanding of the future of war.

Excerpts:

The fighting in Donbas resembles more the battlefields in France during the World War I and the Eisenhower “advance on all fronts” strategy in the later stages of World War II than U.S. operations since Operation Desert Storm. The offensive will return when one side is exhausted.

Again, it is worth recalling that two of the pivotal battles at the end of the two world wars were caused by the failure of decisive offensive operations. The 1918 German spring offensives ruined a German army, even though it had just been reinforced by battle-hardened reinforcements from the East after Russia’s withdrawal from the war. The subsequent Allied offensive was against an out of position remnant of a defeated and demoralized German Army that had suffered nearly one million casualties in six months that were not replaceable. Similarly, the concluding offensives in Northwest Europe were against a Germany Army that had exhausted its combat capacity in a Hitler’s last gasp high stakes gamble in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. In both cases, the German decisive offensive operation resulted in a force too exhausted to defend against a counteroffensive.

It may, in fact, be best to attack last, rather than first.

This is the power of the defense if it is properly established with sufficient capacity and capabilities. It may be what Ukraine is trying to show the United States a way forward in deterring its adversaries. If it lets it.

​E​nding the Ideology of the Offense, Part II - War on the Rocks

DAVID JOHNSON

warontherocks.com · August 25, 2022

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an essay. The first was published last week.

What if the ages-old military maxim that “the best defense is a good offense” is false? What if the “best defense is a good defense”? This was Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s belief, a view he could not get Gen. Robert E. Lee, bent on a decisive offensive battle at Gettysburg, to embrace before he sacrificed Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s division at Cemetery Ridge.

In the first part of this essay, I argued that a constellation of post-Cold War factors resulted in a U.S. warfighting approach focused on offensive operations from the continental United States. Principal among these factors was the reality that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the Department of Defense no longer had a state threat to define the military problem of place, adversary, and an adversary’s capabilities to focus its concept and capability development efforts.

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This was not a problem in the immediate post-Cold War world, given that U.S. operations were either taken to compel weak adversaries to change their behavior, e.g., operations to stop Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, or to remove the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power. Importantly, none of these operations required capabilities not already in the U.S. arsenal. Consequently, the Cold War threat based approach to developing capabilities and concepts was no longer relevant. In its stead, the Department of Defense adopted capabilities-based planning as a way to continue developing future capabilities. Here, developing best in class capabilities became the imperative and concepts to defeat an adversary’s capabilities the imperative. This all made sense — at the time.

What has changed is the return of China and Russia to the world stage. As the ongoing war in Ukraine and the Chinese response to U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, these two actors are willing to use military force to attain their objectives. The current U.S. approach to military problems needs to return to addressing these two specific adversaries and to understand what concepts and capabilities are needed to deter their aggression.

Elbridge Colby has written convincingly about the need to establish a strategy of denial to deter China. I endorse his approach and believe it relevant to Europe as well. Furthermore, events in Ukraine are demonstrating an important new reality that will make deterrence by denial realizable and credible: The ascendance of the defense as the stronger form of war.

I will now turn briefly to several observations from Ukraine that are relevant to the context in which such deterrence operations would occur. I will also describe how they go against what is emerging conventional wisdom in some cases.

Generalizable Observations from Ukraine

The specific nature of the military problem posed by China and Russia does not mean that there are not things to be learned from the Ukraine war, beyond a close examination of Russia. There are many that bear attention, but some are profound in their implications.

First, achieving surprise — one of the enduring principles of war — has proven difficult for both combatants. It was clear to U.S. intelligence agencies before the war that Russia was going to attack, and there were accurate assessments of Moscow’s operational scheme and force dispositions. Ukrainian has benefitted from ubiquitous intelligence from small drones at the tactical level to space-based imagery from U.S. and commercial sources. Kyiv has a better understanding of Russian dispositions and likely intentions than did Allied commanders with Ultra during World War II. This reality should create an urgent demand for new concepts and capabilities for deception. It could also require the disabling or blinding of these systems, both terrestrial and in space — actions our adversaries can already take. In the interim, joint concepts ought to account for this reality which, again, puts a premium on pre-conflict positioning.

Second, despite predictions to the contrary, modern large-scale combat operations may not necessarily be short. Even though this war, as of the publication of this essay, has gone on for six months, it is short by the historical realities of past major large-scale conflict between relatively equally matched adversaries. Thus, expectations by many that wars will be short and decisive may be wrong, unless they escalate into the nuclear realm. This, as others have emphasized in War on the Rocks, has enormous implications across the joint force including magazine depths, casualty care and replacement, the industrial base, and on and on.

The protraction of the war is important to understand from a number of perspectives. To begin with, it appears that the Russian army is too small to double-down on its failed offensive against Kyiv, much less to conquer the entirety of Ukraine in the face of determined resistance. My sense is that the Russian leaderhsip realized this and reoriented to an objective in the Donbas that they can achieve with available resources and their favorable correlation of forces with the Ukrainian military in the region. Subsequently, although significantly outgunned and outnumbered at the points of Russian attack, Ukrainian resistance has persisted and exacted a heavy toll on the Russian forces. Why this is possible is an important question.

Third, the discarding of mass as a principle of war is, in my view, misplaced. Stephen Biddle’s view that the increased lethality of modern weapons demands the dispersal of forces for them to survive. This premise has been widely accepted since World War II and is found in many emerging U.S. warfighting concepts. Small, dispersed units, in these constructs, converge to take advantage of opportunities, thus achieving objectives and avoiding the vulnerabilities supposedly inherent in mass.

If lethality was the only challenge, Biddle might be correct. However, with the earlier noted addition of ubiquitous sensing systems that challenge achieving surprise moving to converge on a transparent battlefield may also make formations visible and subject to attack. The U.S. military itself demonstrated this when it used a range of surveillance systems during Operation Iraqi Freedom that detected even small enemy formations at night and in blinding sandstorms, enabling their destruction.

Mass seems to be fundamental to Russian operations, and perhaps to those of Ukraine as well. As the war grinds on in the East, both armies are toe-to-toe in a war of attrition. Small, dispersed units face the danger of being overrun. They also lose combat effectiveness with even modest casualties. If you can be found, you can be attacked and killed. Thus, mass is needed to maintain the offensive, but it also enables the defender to acquire and engage you more readily. The difficulty of achieving surprise lies mainly with the force on the offense. It also forces the attacker to try to sustain sufficient mass to continue operations in the face of a defender who is able to take measures to protect his massed formations. Hence, the digging in and going to ground in urban areas by Ukraine. The requirement to maintain mass has shown the demand, as I wrote recently, to have in place measures for force preservation, reconstitution of units, and casualty replacement as both sides fight to endure and out last the other. This has been true since at least the Napoleonic Wars as Carl von Clausewitz wrote in his effort to describe the character of a modern battle: “a slow process of mutual attrition that will reveal which side can first exhaust its opponent.”

Many attribute Ukrainian success to date to higher will to fight and morale, engendered by an existential fight and enabled by robust external materiel support. These are surely critical factors. Indeed, some are calling for Ukraine to counterattack and regain their lost territory, including the earlier lost parts of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Afterall, the offense is the decisive form or war and only by attacking can Ukraine win the war.

Nevertheless, something else is also happening. Given the realities of the battlefield in Ukraine, the defender has an enormous advantage. To transition to the offense, unless Russian forces are thoroughly exhausted, Ukraine will suffer as Russian has thus far.

This is because what I believe we are witnessing is a pivotal moment in military history: the re-ascendance of the defense as the decisive form or war. Noting a similar occurrence in his day, but for different reasons, Clausewitz recognized this shift as well: “All this should suffice to justify our proposition that defense is a stronger form of war than attack.”

The Department of Defense should endeavor to understand the importance of technologies on the battlefield objectively, lest it learn the hard way as has been the unfortunate practice in the past. Despite the murderous affects repeating weapons, rapid-firing artillery, and other technologies showed in the U.S. Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War and their ability to radically buttress the defensive, World War I was conducted by generals imbued with the spirit of the offense. Hundreds of thousands perished believing that élan could conquer machineguns. Eventually, innovations were made along the lines Biddle notes, most famously with German infiltration tactics to restore the offense.

Much is made of the German innovation, given that it returned the offensive to its “rightful” place as the decisive form of war. The World War II German blitzkrieg mechanized infiltration tactics and enabled the rapid operational exploitation of the Great War tactical innovation. This is still lauded as the epitome of military excellence.

What is less examined is the fact that the death knell of the German military in both world wars came when they exhausted themselves in offensives against defensive lines that held during the 1918 Spring Offensives and during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. Thus, the defense won these key battles, and the counter-offensives were in effect exploiting offensive failures against exhausted German remnants. What would be an obviously ahistorical, but interesting examination, would be to game and analyze what would have happened if the other side had attacked first. Would the German defensive posture have defeated these offensives and then crushed their exhausted adversaries? The chilling affect the failure of Operation Market Garden had on Eisenhower shows his belated appreciation that a risky offensive was not the proper course to victory in Europe during World War II.

The two abortive German offensives were initially close-run battles, principally because the Germans were able to attain surprise. An example that is perhaps more germane to today is the 1943 German offensive at Kursk. Briefly, Russian intelligence, coupled with excellent military deception operations (maskirovka), brought the Germans into a deadly defensive trap. As David Glantz and Jonathan House write, “for the first time the Germans lost the advantage of surprise.”

Thus, firepower combined with intelligence, enabled the Russian defense to prevail in what many believe was the turning point in World War II. It was the final large-scale German offensive in the East. Henceforth, the Wehrmacht fought a two-year-long delaying action to forestall the inevitable Gotterdammerung in the Battle for Berlin in the spring of 1945.

The technologies the United States has developed for intelligence and fires make those available to Russian forces at Kursk pale in comparison. The U.S. joint force should recognize this reality of the ascendance of the defense enabled by the technologies the Department of Defense has developed and design its concepts and war plans accordingly.

What Is the Purpose of U.S. Military Power?

Before moving to a discussion of how an ascendant defensive reality could be operationalized by the United States against China and Russia, I want to turn for a moment to a very basic question: What is the purpose of U.S. military power?

In its very basic sense, it remains what Clausewitz famously said:

war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means. … The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.

Thus, the purpose of military action should be in support of the overarching political object. In the case of the United States, the policy objective, as described in President Joe Biden’s 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, is clear:

Promote a favorable distribution of power to deter and prevent adversaries from directly threatening the United States and our allies, inhibiting access to the global commons, or dominating key regions.

The key words that should provide guidance to military concept developers are “deter” and “prevent.” Current warfighting concepts focused on expeditionary offensive operations are not supportive of this strategy, because they explicitly assume that deterrence failed to prevent a war and the mission is not deterrence, but compellence of an adversary to undo their actions.

These approaches, while not without risk against conventional peer capabilities, are at best problematic against nuclear-armed adversaries. This is because many U.S. concepts have their origins in ideas to defeat adversaries without nuclear weapons or assume that we can deny the enemy their use. This is most evident in U.S. Air Force declarations of airpower as a strategic instrument:

Airpower creates effects at the strategic level of warfare. Airpower, through global reach and global power, can hold an enemy’s strategic COGs [centers of gravity] and critical vulnerabilities at risk immediately and continuously through kinetic or non-kinetic means.

The current Air Force doctrine describes these centers of gravity and the importance of their attack:

SA [strategic attack] can deny an enemy’s strategic options in a variety of ways. Deterring or denying use of CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear] may require the threat of nuclear response or conventional attacks on production and delivery systems, whether threatened or actual. Conducted in accordance with the law of war, SA against enemy leadership and their connectivity to instruments of national power may also be effective.

Forestalling these strategic calamities that threaten leadership survival, national command and control, and the neutralization of their nuclear deterrent would offer a clear rationale for our enemies to escalate, either in the theater of operations or against the U.S. homeland, perhaps with nuclear weapons. Indeed, a 2020 decree by Putin makes it clear that Russia “retains the right to use nuclear weapons … in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”

Instead of immediately “going downtown in Baghdad,” where this approach was attempted (without success in attacking leadership), America could easily find itself “on the road to Armageddon.”

It is not surprising that United States finds itself where it is today. Quite simply, given decisions since the end of the Cold War, no other conceptual approach aside from expeditionary offensive operations was feasible — or necessary. The decades-long absence of a peer threat, positioning realities, multiple irregular warfare demands over the past 20 years on the U.S. military, and the preference for offensive operations all conspired to put the joint force where it is currently. Indeed, given the current realities of Allied forces in the Europe and the Pacific expeditionary operations might have to be preemptive—with all the consequences that would incur—to prevent a fait accompli. Not a good place in which to find ourselves.

Ukraine should be a wakeup call to rethink what the United States needs to do to prepare for conflict with actors who are obviously willing to use aggression to attain their ends. To do this, the Department of Defense has to embrace the policy demand that it has concepts, capabilities, and postures that enable it to credibly deter and prevent aggression. In my view, this can only be accomplished with a recognition of the ascendance of the defense. Furthermore, concepts for effective defensive operations, aside from rigorously focusing on the specific theaters, adversaries, and adversary capabilities, must be developed with the ever-present reality of nuclear weapons in mind.

What to Do Instead of Attack, Attack, Attack?

If the goal of U.S. policy is to deter and prevent, then military concepts should be designed for that purpose. I have suggested that such an approach would demand a strategy of deterrence through denial, as has my RAND colleague David Ochmanek, and supporting concepts and capabilities. The fundamentals of this strategy, as described by Mike Mazarr, are straightforward:

Deterrence by denial strategies seek to deter an action by making it infeasible or unlikely to succeed, thus denying a potential aggressor confidence in attaining its objectives — deploying sufficient local military forces to defeat an invasion, for example.

These fundamentals may be straight forward but Clausewitz’s warning about the inherent friction in war is a useful caution: “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.”

What we are seeing in Ukraine is a different threat from the anti-access and area denial strategies presumed to be the principal Chinese and Russian challenges for which the U.S. military is preparing. The shoe is on the other foot. U.S. forces will likely find themselves, as have Ukrainian forces, fighting to defend against Russian and Chinese offensive acts of aggression, perhaps in Taiwan or the Baltics. Again, our strategy should be to convince our adversaries that we can deny them their objectives.

In the Pacific, is the best approach enabling our allies and partners in their defense and bolstering them with a greater U.S military presence, particularly on the land? If so, none of the emerging service and joint warfighting concepts emphasize defensive operations, nor are capabilities being developed to create a U.S. anti-access and area-denial capabilities.

What is needed is a new warfighting concept that recognizes the risks of escalation if deterrence through denial fails. This would require a defense that can defeat an enemy’s ability to execute offensive fire and maneuver. Essentially, it has to take away their ability to continue the tactical and operational offense. Long-range fires in this case would be limited to targets directly engaged in operations and not strategic, e.g., leadership, national command and control, or nuclear systems. The objective of the defense would be to halt the enemy offensive with as little loss of territory as possible and to assume the offensive to compel their withdrawal from their ill-gotten gains. And go no further.

T.X. Hammes recently wrote that the results of rise of the shift to the dominance of the tactical defense with the relatively inexpensive tactical systems, e.g., drones and loitering munitions. I agree with him but would extend this dominance to the operational level. Ubiquitous surveillance throughout the depth and breadth of the battlefield, coupled with deep strike systems, will give the United States the ability to defend at depths never before possible, thus increasing the ability to deter by denial.

This conceptual approach is not unlike the outcome of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Saddam was denied aggression against Saudi Arabia during the defensive phase of Desert Shield and compelled to withdraw from Kuwait in the offensive phase in Operation Desert Storm. This is not a concept that calls for defending one’s foxhole to the end. Offensive action is a crucial component of an effective defense and is at the fore in the counteroffensive to compel the adversary to comply with your demands. Again to Clausewitz, who explained: “So the defensive form of war is not a simple shield, but a shield made up of well-directed blows.”

An added benefit of an effective defense is that the adversary suffers significant attrition, which will likely make him consider more carefully future aggression. After Operation Desert Storm Saddam Hussein was deterred until Operation Iraqi Freedom. Thus, punishment reinforces future deterrence both from the perspective of reduced capabilities and a reluctance to suffer future punishment.

U.S. joint and coalition forces in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were also executing what Active Defense and AirLand Battle were originally designed to accomplish: the defense of NATO against the Warsaw Pact. The objective, as it was in Desert Storm with Iraq, was halting Soviet aggression if deterrence failed and restoring territorial integrity. Although it is impossible to prove a negative, apparently the capacities and capabilities of NATO, bolstered by their own nuclear deterrent, were sufficient to deter a Soviet attack. Such an approach is what is also required for deterring and, if necessary, fighting nuclear-armed China and Russia.

What is clearly the desired end state in the defense is that it be formidable enough in the calculus of the adversary that they are deterred from aggression. Consequently, sufficient means ought to be in place to convince an adversary that the game is not worth the candle.

As events are showing in Ukraine, even with the inherent advantages of the defender, deterring a committed aggressor requires significant capacities and capabilities on the ground. Compelling the enemy to stop their aggression and withdraw is even more difficult, given their ongoing investment in prestige, blood, and treasure. Indeed, the world is witnessing the costs one of the principal U.S. adversaries — Russia — is willing to endure to accomplish its objectives. Thus, this war should give the Department of Defense at least a basic understanding of what is required to deter or defeat Russian aggression against NATO.

The Risks of Failing to Learn

My fear is that if the Department of Defense does not at least consider that the Ukraine war should create a crisis over U.S. doctrines and concepts, and the capabilities that are being developed to enable them, then it is setting itself up for an August 1914-like Battle of the Somme catastrophe. During the Great War, ideas about the ascendance of the offense — like the French l’offensive à outrance — died in the face of new technologies like the machinegun and rapid firing artillery. That the staying power of the ideology was protracted can be seen in the slaughter of the April 16 to May 9, 1917, French offensive commanded by Gen. Robert Nivelle. The Nivelle Offensive resulted in little gain and cost 135,000 French casualties in less than a month as generals still clung to the belief that the offensive was dominant.

The hold of a modern day ideology of the offensive is clear in the statement in Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations that:

Although defense may be the stronger form, offense is normally decisive in combat. To achieve military objectives quickly and efficiently, JFCs normally seek the earliest opportunity to conduct decisive offensive operations. … Defensive operations enable JFCs to conduct or prepare for decisive offensive operations.

The fighting in Donbas resembles more the battlefields in France during the World War I and the Eisenhower “advance on all fronts” strategy in the later stages of World War II than U.S. operations since Operation Desert Storm. The offensive will return when one side is exhausted.

Again, it is worth recalling that two of the pivotal battles at the end of the two world wars were caused by the failure of decisive offensive operations. The 1918 German spring offensives ruined a German army, even though it had just been reinforced by battle-hardened reinforcements from the East after Russia’s withdrawal from the war. The subsequent Allied offensive was against an out of position remnant of a defeated and demoralized German Army that had suffered nearly one million casualties in six months that were not replaceable. Similarly, the concluding offensives in Northwest Europe were against a Germany Army that had exhausted its combat capacity in a Hitler’s last gasp high stakes gamble in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. In both cases, the German decisive offensive operation resulted in a force too exhausted to defend against a counteroffensive.

It may, in fact, be best to attack last, rather than first.

This is the power of the defense if it is properly established with sufficient capacity and capabilities. It may be what Ukraine is trying to show the United States a way forward in deterring its adversaries. If it lets it.

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David Johnson is a retired Army colonel. He is a principal researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He is the author of Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945, Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza, and Learning Large Lessons: The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post-Cold War Era. From 2012-2014 he founded and directed the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group for General Raymond T. Odierno.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Leigh Kaplan · August 25, 2022

4. The Next Variant of Russia’s Political Warfare Virus

Beware political warfare. (With no apologies to Trotsky - you may not be interested in political warfare but political warfare is being rpacticed by our adversaries around the world.)

George F. Kennan defined political warfare as “the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace.” While stopping short of the direct kinetic confrontation between two countries’ armed forces, “political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command… to achieve its national objectives.” A country embracing Political Warfare conducts “both overt and covert” operations in the absence of declared war or overt force-on-force hostilities. Efforts “range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures…, and ‘white’ propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.” See George Kennan, "Policy Planning Memorandum." May 4, 1948.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm \

Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations. Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989)

 https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233501.pdf

Chinese Three Warfares and Unrestricted Warfare

Psychological Warfare seeks to disrupt an opponent’s decision-making capacity; create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments, deceive and diminish the will to fight among opponents.

Legal Warfare (“lawfare”) can involve enacting domestic law as the basis for making claims in international law and employing “bogus” maps to justify China’s actions.

Media Warfare (or public opinion warfare) is the key to gaining dominance over the venue for implementing psychological and and legal warfare.

3 Principles of Iranian UW

1. Leave a light footprint

Iran’s preference for a light footprint, especially covert operations, has been confirmed on numerous occasions since 1979;… “The Quds Force is not a front-line unit, but functions as a special operations group whose presence and leadership improves indigenous forces on the battlefield.” This preference, shaped by its experiences in the 1980s, coalesced into a more consistent approach in the aftermath of the killing of 13 Iranian diplomats in its Mazari Sharif consulate by the Afghan Taliban in 1998.

2. Partner with indigenous forces and use unconventional warfare

Iran has historically emphasized partnering with indigenous forces in carrying out its military interventions. While reliable publicly available information remains scant, these partnerships appear to follow a basic pattern epitomized by Hezbollah, though there can be important variations from case to case.

3. Create broad non-sectarian coalitions

In its military interventions, Iran has tried to legitimize its actions and weaken its opponents by creating broad non-sectarian coalitions, meaning that it often seeks to avoid overt sectarianism both in its discourse and actions, where feasible.

http://warontherocks.com/2014/06/military-intervention-iranian-style/

north Korea:

Political Warfare

Subversion, coercion, extortion – set conditions for use of force

“Blackmail diplomacy” – the use of tension, threats, and provocations to gain political and economic concessions

Example: Kim Yo-jong threats in June – ROK anti-leaflet law in December

Negotiate to set conditions - not to denuclearize

Set Conditions for unification (domination to complete the revolution)

Split ROK/US alliance

Reduce/weaken defense of the South

Exploit regional powers (e.g, China and Russia)

Economics by Juche ideology – the paradox of “reform”

Illicit activities to generate funds for regime

Deny human rights to ensure regime survival

Continue to exploit COVID threat to suppress dissent and crack down on 400+ markets and foreign currency use

”COVID Paradox” – deathly afraid of COVID outbreak – COVID opportunity for draconian PRCM to exert greater control over the population to prevent resistance

- Priority to military and nuclear programs:

For deterrence or domination?

Russian New Generation Warfare and the Future of War 

Thus, the Russian view of modern warfare is based on the idea that the main battlespace is the mind and, as a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare, in order to achieve superiority in troops and weapons control, morally and psychologically depressing the enemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population. The main objective is to reduce the necessity for deploying hard military power to the minimum necessary, making the opponent’s military and civil population support the attacker to the detriment of their own government and country. It is interesting to note the notion of permanent war, since it denotes a permanent enemy. In the current geopolitical structure, the clear enemy is Western civilization, its values, culture, political system, and ideology.

http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZPC/Publikacijas/PP%2002-2014.ashx

Conclusion:

Only by addressing these systemic weaknesses and responding to the symptoms manifested by Russia’s campaign of political warfare will the West achieve the necessary long-term resilience to the next variant of the virus. Given the environmental considerations that are likely to emerge after Ukraine, the increased attractiveness of political warfare in an era of fewer conventional outlets, and Russia’s past conduct, it stands to reason that a new variant of political warfare will emerge. The West must undertake a coherent and robust slate of actions now to prevent future infection from occurring.

The Next Variant of Russia’s Political Warfare Virus - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by Joshua C. Huminski · August 24, 2022

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked a belated immune response to Moscow’s political warfare campaign to subvert democracy and exploit systemic weaknesses in Europe and the United States. To be sure, there were attempts to halt or roll back the Kremlin’s efforts before the invasion, particularly after Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and the 2014 annexation of Crimea. It was, however, only after the invasion that countries moved purposefully to close off the broader avenues that had, hitherto, largely remained open.

This response is incomplete and will almost certainly encounter a new variant of the political warfare virus—one that contains the DNA of previous iterations adapted to the post-Ukraine environment. In turn, governments in the West should seek not only to treat the symptoms of the virus but to strengthen their bodies politic comprehensively by developing antibodies to respond to signs of infection and by creating an inhospitable host for this new variant.

The Institutionalization of Russian Political Warfare

Defining Russia’s political warfare campaign is challenging. Hybrid, gray zone, or liminal warfare are all attempts to define Russia’s unconventional activities that sit outside the West’s binary concept of war and peace. George Kennan defined “political warfare” as “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives [emphasis added]. Such operations are both overt and covert.” Yet even Kennan’s definition allows for a broad interpretation.

Russia’s security and intelligence services exist in a power structure that incentivizes competition and independence of action to a degree not seen in other states. Mark Galeotti writes that Moscow’s political warfare is less of a concerted campaign operating according to a master plan, though certainly guided by national strategies, than a series of ad hoc initiatives in pursuit of what the services define as the Kremlin’s interests. This is unlikely to change. Russia’s leadership encourages a highly risk-tolerant approach to operations. Even when unsuccessful or exposed, operations contribute to the perception of Russia as a strong actor. Success is just that, but a failure is, counterintuitively, also a signal—if one operation was uncovered, how many more might have evaded detection? The aim was, in the main, pursuing national interests, and weakening adversary unity by introducing doubt and political paralysis to prevent responses to Russia’s pursuit of those interests.

The Immune System’s Response

Prior to the invasion, Russia’s efforts arguably achieved some success. NATO was largely divided and “brain-dead.” Russia’s oligarchs bought properties and football clubs, and benefited from the access that came with financial profligacy. Russia’s operations across Europe—poisoning former spies in the United Kingdom, assassinating opposition figures in Germany, and bombing munitions depots in the Czech Republic—resulted in fewer lasting consequences than their actions perhaps warranted. Moscow’s state-run propaganda outlets reached audiences across the West through traditional and social media. The Kremlin cultivated relationships with far-right parties and encouraged separatist movements in Catalonia and Scotland (with uneven success). Here, Russia views politics as an international competition, one without borders, and one in which everyone interferes in everyone else’s activities.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine undid much of the success that Russia’s political warfare campaign had achieved in the years prior to February 2022. It is debated why Putin undertook this course of action, which appeared to deviate from existing strategy; it seems to have been a closely held decision, so much so that those outside his immediate circle were unaware of it until the order to invade was issued. Putin’s strategic calculus may never be fully known, but what is clear is that immediately thereafter, many of the avenues through which Moscow operated were closed. The reach of its misinformation and disinformation outlets was sharply curtailed. The United Kingdom and Canada banned RT, and YouTube blocked RT, Sputnik, and other Kremlin-backed media outlets.

Any connection (at least in Western Europe) to Russian politicians and parties has become untenable. In the most recent French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron attacked Marine Le Pen for accepting a loan from First Czech-Russian Bank. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party came under fire (and not for the first time) for its acceptance of campaign funding allegedly funneled from Kremlin-connected individuals.

The United States and its allies sanctioned Russia’s oligarchs in hopes of increasing pressure on the siloviki—Russia’s security and intelligence elite. This is not the first time that these figures were targeted by the West—many were sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its annexation of Crimea. But the current sanctions have been applied more widely, and on top of these and structural economic sanctions the West also imposed severe embargoes on Russia’s economy.

Russian intelligence officers were expelled from across Europe, with Poland alone kicking out forty-five officers in March of this year. These expulsions dealt a sharp blow to Russia’s intelligence collection efforts as well as its active measures campaigns. This policy of expelling suspected intelligence and security officers has a long history in bilateral relations, and will likely be used again in the future.

Political Warfare in a Post-Ukraine World

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s political warfare campaign will encounter a markedly different operating environment: an increased awareness by Western states of the threat and an even more toxic political brand will complicate Moscow’s efforts.

That said, the core DNA of Russia’s contemporary political warfare campaign remains largely unchanged from Soviet tactics and objectives in the Cold War and is unlikely to radically change after Ukraine. It is nonetheless constantly evolving: Moscow adapts (and will adapt) its toolset to new environments and new avenues. The online efforts of the Internet Research Agency echo campaigns like Operation Denver, which in the 1980s and 1990s spread the conspiracy theory that AIDS was a disease created by the United States. Russia’s co-optation of unwitting journalists is only a minor deviation from its use of friendly or semi-witting press outlets. Here, there is a dynamic process by which Russia learns from the West’s innovations and adapts its core objectives to the new tools or environmental conditions.

What is likely to change, however, is the urgency of political warfare within Russia’s toolset. In the near term, a weakened conventional force structure, a depressed economy severed from global markets, and a diplomatically isolated—from the West, at least—Kremlin will close overt avenues and necessitate greater reliance on political warfare to achieve Moscow’s policy aims in the West.

What comes next? Moscow is effective at exploiting the West’s systemic weaknesses to advance its political warfare aims. For example, the West should expect Russia to leverage the effects of food shortages, rising energy prices, and the resulting economic shocks to discredit the West’s response in Ukraine. The West should also anticipate that Russia will weaponize rising inflation against Western populations (echoing some of the West’s own talking points explaining away domestic policy decisions). Russia is, for instance, likely to seed the social media ecosystem with suggestions that the woes of Iowa are the result of Ukraine. Such narratives are already finding a home within more extreme parts of America’s political spectrum. Here, Moscow will amplify and magnify these voices, contributing to their increasing presence in the mainstream. It is important to note, again, that Russia rarely creates whole new narratives; it merely gloms onto existing trends.

The West should expect Russia to weaponize refugees, both in terms of the physical flows of people and the narratives around those flows, to sow discord among host populations. As the war continues and the reconstruction of Ukraine is delayed, the economic pressure that refugees create on host countries may well strain the populations’ willingness to sustain their care and support. It is also increasingly clear that Russia is using food as a weapon to increase instability in hopes of raising pressure on the West in other regions of the globe. Russia will seek to disrupt NATO unity and, in particular, target the internal political cohesion of Finland and Sweden, as it has historically done. Russia will almost certainly target the United States’ forthcoming midterm elections in 2022. It stands to reason that Moscow is likely to also target the presidential election in 2024, particularly if America’s support to Kyiv continues until then.

Moscow will also seek to undermine the West’s sanctions and embargoes. This will likely take two forms: first, by eroding the unity of the West by playing up the domestic effects of the sanctions, and second, by identifying alternative ways of acquiring the necessary equipment, materials, technology, and resources.

Immunizing the West to Political Warfare

The West’s response to previous variants of Russia’s political warfare efforts focused overwhelmingly on Moscow’s tactics. It is easier to address the manifestations of Russia’s behavior rather than the systemic vulnerabilities upon which the Kremlin seizes. Yet tactically targeting the vectors used by the virus merely masks the symptoms—a strategic or holistic response is needed. Without belaboring the metaphor any further, Western governments must strengthen their bodies politic if they are to address the vulnerabilities Moscow exploits.

Mounting a robust campaign to counter disinformation and misinformation is insufficient alone, although measures taken thus far are to be welcomed. Long-term societal resilience and disinformation defense programs, as seen in Finland and Sweden, represent an encouraging start. In the United States, in particular, a national rejuvenation effort must focus on addressing the schisms and issues that Moscow exploits. Alarmingly, given the current political environment, top-down efforts to reinvigorate American democracy and its foundations are unlikely to take place in the near future—indeed, the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation board barely survived three weeks. This will create new opportunities for Russia to exploit.

In the absence of those efforts, public encouragement of private fact-checking efforts and private investment in reliable journalism to debunk false and misleading propaganda will help erode the effectiveness of Russia’s efforts (and those of other countries, too). The creative use of strategic intelligence as seen in advance of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and public disclosures of known disinformation (as in the French presidential election) will also undermine the efficacy of propagandists. With the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO, a societal or political resilience center of excellence would be a longer-term means to centralize key lessons and promulgate best practices.

The lifeblood of any political warfare campaign is finance. As Catherine Belton has argued in her book Putin’s People, the Kremlin appears to have used the West’s financial networks to launder both personal kleptocratic gains and operational funding. While there is, in many cases, no definitive link of impropriety, the appearance thereof undermines the political integrity of many states, parties, and offices. Indeed, one need look no further than the British Conservative Party’s alleged receipt of funds from multiple Kremlin-linked officials to see the potential for political fallout.

Targeting Russia’s oligarchs and kleptocrats by seizing their assets and yachts may appear to be an effective way to constrain the ability of the country’s elite to act in hopes of increasing pressure on the Kremlin, but it is insufficient alone. In addition to the structural sanctions, which are likely to have a longer-term effect on Russia’s economy, the systemic vulnerabilities within the financial system that the Russian elite exploited must also be addressed. In London, systemic efforts like strengthening the National Crime Agency, executing unexplained wealth orders, and improving Companies House—the United Kingdom’s registration vehicle—would help address this weakness and stymie Russian and other illicit financial inflows. The White House’s decision to make the fight against corruption a core national security interest is a good signal and a step in the right direction. A concerted effort domestically within liberal democracies would further enhance this critical pillar of action. This is by no means an easy thing to achieve, particularly as the urgency and immediacy of the war in Ukraine ebb from the West’s attention.

Expelling Russian intelligence officers is another effective way to constrain the Russian intelligence services’ ability to act, provided there is no more value in allowing them to operate in place and under surveillance. Sustained counterintelligence activities must be intensified, coordinated across allies, and consistently funded. These activities are resource- and time-intensive, and in an era of strained resources, can prove challenging. For example, hamstrung by domestic surveillance and security laws, counterintelligence has remained a consistently low priority in many European countries. These allies, in turn, often rely on the United States and the United Kingdom to supplement or augment their own investigations and activities. This must change.

Naming and shaming politicians and parties that accept money from Russians of ill repute or maintain relationships with Russia’s parties, such as United Russia, are additional ways to highlight Moscow’s pernicious influence. Yet, closing off those avenues by tightening domestic regulations in countries like the United Kingdom, mandating foreign agent registries, and other measures to prevent the inflows in the first place would dramatically constrain the ability of Moscow to buy access and create the appearance of impropriety or the impropriety itself. Unfortunately, in London, a measure to create such a registration requirement was unexpectedly left out of a national security bill in May.

Only by addressing these systemic weaknesses and responding to the symptoms manifested by Russia’s campaign of political warfare will the West achieve the necessary long-term resilience to the next variant of the virus. Given the environmental considerations that are likely to emerge after Ukraine, the increased attractiveness of political warfare in an era of fewer conventional outlets, and Russia’s past conduct, it stands to reason that a new variant of political warfare will emerge. The West must undertake a coherent and robust slate of actions now to prevent future infection from occurring.

Joshua C. Huminski is the director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. There he cochairs the center’s program on strategic competition, with a specific focus on Russia and the Euro-Atlantic. He is also a book reviewer for the Diplomatic Courier and a fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute. He can be found on Twitter at @joshuachuminski.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons

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mwi.usma.edu · by Joshua C. Huminski · August 24, 2022

5. Taiwan to boost defense spending to deter China’s military threat

Taiwan to boost defense spending to deter China’s military threat

By Christian Shepherd and Alicia Chen 

August 25, 2022 at 4:10 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Christian Shepherd · August 25, 2022

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan announced Thursday a record jump in defense spending for next year as the self-governing democracy eyes new fighter jets and anti-ship missiles to deter a Chinese military invasion.

The Executive Yuan, Taiwan’s cabinet, proposed a record 13.9 percent increase in defense spending. When including a special fund for military hardware purchases, the total will be about $19.4 billion, or 2.4 percent of projected gross domestic product. The announcement did not include details of specific expected purchases.

The rise from about 2.2 percent of GDP last year comes after China, which claims the islands of 23 million as part of its sovereign territory, escalated military exercises in retribution for visits to Taipei by U.S. lawmakers. Beijing responded with live-fire drills and fury to a 19-hour stopover by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this month, including shooting missiles into the waters around Taiwan’s main island for the first time since the 1990s.

Because Taiwan is in a period of needing to strengthen and upgrade its military hardware, there is likely to be a few years of double-digit growth in military spending before leveling off, said Wang Kun-Yih, president of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society. Taiwan’s current strategy to defend against Chinese threats means the main things it needs are new fighter jets, more missiles and larger warships — all of which are expensive. As such, the jump in defense spending is “directly related to China’s incessant military threats,” he said.

Faced with Chinese saber-rattling, some have called for Taiwan to raise defense spending further. During a July visit, former U.S. defense secretary Mark T. Esper suggested that Taipei match U.S. defense expenditure as a proportion of GDP at above 3 percent.

He also called on Taiwan’s military to purchase lightweight Javelin antitank and Stinger anti-air missile systems. This would allow for a defensive strategy of asymmetric warfare, with the emphasis on imposing steep costs on the Chinese military during a potential attack.

Taiwan has traditionally focused more on large-ticket conventional weaponry designed to repel an initial Chinese invasion. However, some analysts fear China’s rapid military buildup is making this strategy increasingly untenable. Beijing set its defense budget for the year at $211.6 billion in March.

Taiwan’s proposed defense budget will be formally adopted, with possible though usually minor alterations, after a vote by parliament in January. Recent Chinese drills make it much easier for the administration of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to pass the significant increase in spending, according to Yujen Kuo, president of the Institute for National Policy Research, a think tank.

Not only have Chinese drills increased operational costs for the Taiwanese military, they have spurred efforts to further asymmetric warfare strategies, the cornerstone of which is 1,000 Taiwanese-made, extended-range anti-ship missiles, including the Hsiung Feng III, he said.

Kuo added that it will be harder to maintain similarly high increases in spending starting next year as Taiwan enters campaign season ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “Military budget has no attraction to voters. It’s going to be difficult to keep increasing at this rate,” he said.

After four days of large-scale drills around Taiwan immediately after Pelosi’s visit, the Chinese air force has continued a high frequency of incursions deep into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and often sends fighter jets briefly across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which had for years been an unofficial maritime boundary.

On Wednesday, Taiwan verified images circulating on Chinese social media showing Taiwanese soldiers in camouflage looking up at a Chinese military drone this month and then throwing rocks as it apparently flew close over Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island just over 17 miles from the Chinese coast.

Pei Lin Wu and Vic Chiang contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Christian Shepherd · August 25, 2022

6. U.S. Goes in for the Long-Haul With Latest Ukraine War Aid​'

Excerpts:

“It would seem that we are indeed resigning ourselves to a multi-year war, rather than hoping that any ‘fall offensive’ by Ukraine could so reshape the battlefield as to create conditions that make serious negotiations possible,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

The latest round of security aid, which falls under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, is the 20th package of weapons and equipment, amounting in $13.7 billion, that the U.S. has committed to Ukraine since the war began.

U.S. Goes in for the Long-Haul With Latest Ukraine War Aid​'

BY W.J. HENNIGAN 

 AUGUST 24, 2022 5:55 PM EDT​

TIME · by W.J. Hennigan

The $3 billion military aid package that President Joe Biden announced for Ukraine Wednesday shows his administration expects the war with Russia to last for many months or years, and signals Washington is in the fight for the duration.

The latest aid package is the largest to date and includes weaponry that won’t appear on the battlefield for a year or more. The promise of ongoing shipments of sophisticated, American-made weaponry well into the future, in contrast to previous tranches designed to help with ongoing battles or imminent counter-offensives, signals to Western allies, Ukraine and Russia that the U.S. intends to stick with the war, regardless of daily gains or losses.

“The United States of America is committed to supporting the people of Ukraine as they continue the fight to defend their sovereignty,” Biden said in a statement, announcing the aid package. “This will allow Ukraine to acquire air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long-term.”

The package, which came on the 31st anniversary of Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union, will include 245,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, surface-to-air missile systems and laser-guided rocket systems. While previous weapons were drawn from existing U.S. stockpiles to expedite delivery, many of these items have yet to be manufactured, and it could take as long as two years to reach the battlefield, administration officials say.

The new aid also includes funding for U.S. troops to continue providing weapons training to the Ukrainian military elsewhere in Europe for several years. The administration has repeatedly insisted that U.S. troops will not fight in Ukraine, but Biden has sent thousands of forces into surrounding countries, principally in Poland, to deliver on-the-ground guidance to Ukraine and reassurance to allies.

Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters at the Pentagon that Russian President Vladimir Putin is wrong to believe that Russia can win the long-game, outlasting the Ukrainians in their will to fight and the international community’s will to continue its support. “We’re not just providing assistance to Ukraine right now. It’s going to be a steady stream of assistance that will stretch out over many months and years,” Kahl said. “It’s precisely challenging Putin’s miscalculation, we believe, that he can just grind it out and wait it out. So it is supposed to impact his calculus.”

The administration hopes that Ukraine can translate the continued supply of advanced arms into lasting tactical success. The Ukrainian military faces an escalating fight in the east against a much larger, more technologically advanced enemy, yet the war-torn nation has thus far been successful in slowing the Russian advance. This is due, in part, to a growing arsenal of Western supplied long-range artillery.

Ukraine now has 16 U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), a wheel-mounted launcher that fires six precision-guided rockets that boost the 20-mile artillery range of Kyiv’s forces more than two-fold. The systems have enabled the Ukrainians to pummel Russian logistics hubs, command and control nodes and other positions from beyond the reach of much of Moscow’s artillery.

With Russian forces bogged down on the eastern front, the conflict has settled into a war of attrition. Thousands of Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or injured over the past half-year in vicious fighting that has left more than 5,500 civilians dead and created 6.6 million refugees, according to U.N. estimates. Air strikes continue daily. The U.S. State Department urged U.S. citizens to leave Ukraine in a new advisory Monday, saying that “Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.”

Following its last invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the Russian military maintained a continuing presence in two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, known as the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been ruled by puppet governments installed, armed, funded and operated by the Russian security services. The Russian military expanded into surrounding territory since Putin’s military order on Feb. 24 to assault Ukraine by air, land and sea, capturing and occupying territory in Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.

The Kremlin intends to hold “sham” referendums in order to create “republics” in those recently occupied territories, beginning as early as this week, according to John Kirby, White House national security spokesman. “We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia,” he said Wednesday. “Since they obviously are having trouble achieving geographic gains inside Ukraine, they’re trying to gain that through false political means by conducting the sham referenda to give the appearance of legitimacy of their occupation.”

Putin, for his part, has said he wants the war to end but has not provided details of a prospective deal, or good faith evidence he is actually willing to agree to one. He’s accused the U.S. and the West of providing weapons to Kyiv that will push them into fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

Bolstered by recent battlefield successes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed his forces will not only repel Russia’s recent offensives but retake Russian-occupied territory, such as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014. “What for us is the end of the war? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory,” he said Wednesday in an Independence Day speech. “We will not sit down at the negotiating table out of fear, with a gun pointed at our heads. For us, the most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft and tanks, but shackles.”

The White House, which has been forced to adapt its strategy at nearly every turn in the conflict, says it ultimately hopes diplomacy will lead the way to ending the war. But the lack of progress in negotiations or on the battlefield has prompted the U.S. to draw up more aggressive strategies to deter Putin.

“It would seem that we are indeed resigning ourselves to a multi-year war, rather than hoping that any ‘fall offensive’ by Ukraine could so reshape the battlefield as to create conditions that make serious negotiations possible,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

The latest round of security aid, which falls under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, is the 20th package of weapons and equipment, amounting in $13.7 billion, that the U.S. has committed to Ukraine since the war began.

Write to W.J. Hennigan at william.hennigan@time.com.

TIME · by W.J. Hennigan

7. Are small modular reactors the solution to growing energy and climate problems?

​Very interesting report and concepts. The 56 page report can be downloaded here: https://pacforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/V2-FINAL_II_SMRStudy.pdf​

Are small modular reactors the solution to growing energy and climate problems?

By David Santoro and Carl Baker

David Santoro (david@pacforum.org) and Carl Baker (carl@pacforum.org) are respectively President/CEO and Senior Advisor at the Pacific Forum. Follow David Santoro on Twitter @DavidSantoro1.

The increasingly dominant view in the energy expert community is that nuclear power has a role to play in achieving the 17 “sustainable development goals” identified by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 (and intended to be reached by 2030). There has thus been rising interest in nuclear power development in several parts of the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific, where growth is the strongest.

This renewed interest comes not long after the failed “nuclear renaissance” of the 2000s. That renaissance never materialized primarily because the devastating accidents at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 led many countries to reconsider their nuclear power ambitions. Now, however, national energy and climate objectives are again driving these same countries to put the nuclear option back on the table. This interest has only grown in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the subsequent efforts to choke off Russian natural gas and oil exports, and the resulting increase in global prices for fossil fuels.

Many believe that “small modular reactors” (SMRs) and their companion “floating nuclear power plants” (FNPPs) hold considerable promise and that they may be “the next big thing” in the nuclear power market, even though they are not new concepts—they date back to the 1950s. To explore this further and, in particular, the implications for the Indo-Pacific, the Pacific Forum recently commissioned three papers: one by Victor Nian that unpacks SMR/FNPP technologies and discusses their applicability in the region; one by Jor-Shan Choi that examines the nuclear safety, security, and safeguards considerations associated with SMRs/FNPPs; and one by Miles Pomper, Ferenc Dalnoki Veress, Dan Zhukov, and Sanjana Gogna that addresses the potential geopolitical implications of SMR/FNPP deployments.

Seven key insights can be teased out from the papers, which are published in a just-released volume on “Small Modular Reactors: The Next Phase for Nuclear Power in the Indo-Pacific.” These insights include the following:

1. SMR/FNPPs have appealing features 

SMRs and FNPPs are popular because they are small, mobile, flexible, have user-centric characteristics, and are empowered by the advanced (and safer) Generation IV technologies. What’s more, the advantage of SMRs and FNPPs is that they have the potential to offer cost-competitive and clean energy without the shortcomings associated with traditional large-scale nuclear power plants. SMRs and FNPPs can be easily integrated into national energy planning, especially for newcomer countries with small grid sizes or off-grid/remote communities or for countries that are dependent heavily on energy imports.

2. SMR/FNPP technology is not yet ready, and its prospects are unclear 

Most SMR and FNPP designs are still in the research phase or under development. Few are deployed. In the Indo-Pacific, the land- or marine-based reactor types of interest are water-cooled, high-temperature gas, molten salt, or aqueous-fueled. Two reactors are currently deployed in the region: the KLT40S, a pressurized water reactor FNPP developed by OKBM (Russia) and commissioned in Pevek in the Russian far east that is designed to generate 70 megawatts of energy; and the HTR-PM, a high-temperature gas reactor developed by the China Nuclear Engineering Corporation and Institute of Nuclear New Energy Technology that is designed to generate 210 megawatts of energy.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), SMR and FNPP technologies are unlikely to contribute significantly to the expansion of nuclear power in the next decade. If adoption of such technologies matches the current level of interest, reactor development and deployment will take time to materialize.

3. There is a pathway to the successful utilization of SMRs/FNPPs 

There are several factors associated with the successful utilization of SMRs and FNPPs. Advancing them as early as possible in the industrial supply chain is important for proper integration into energy production. Developing industry standards, to ensure compatibility and interoperability with other systems, and adopting and scaling up SMR/FNPP technologies adequately to enjoy the economies of the multiples are also essential. Finally, ensuring “green passage” for transportable SMRs/FNPPs is a key factor in facilitating safe and efficient mobilization of these technologies for nearshore, offshore, and maritime applications.

4. Safety, security, and safeguards considerations are a challenge for SMRs/FNPPs 

One problem with SMR/FNPP technologies is that they are not devoid of safety, security, and safeguards challenges. SMRs and FNPPs, notably “first-of-a-kind” reactors, have unique features, specific systems, and novel operating conditions, introducing challenges to the established regulatory bodies, potentially leading to safety concerns. The special features of SMRs and FNPPs, notably their transportability, more flexible siting options to include remote or urban locations, and new fuel designs also present new nuclear security challenges, some possibly more serious than those of large reactors. Moreover, because they use different types of fuel that require new technologies in manufacturing and handling of nuclear materials, some SMRs and FNPPs present unique challenges to IAEA safeguards.

The best way to address these safety, security, and safeguards challenges is to adopt a holistic approach. Such a “3S” approach helps better understand the challenges (and opportunities) associated with SMR and FNPP deployments.

5. SMR/FNPP deployment will happen in a competitive security environment 

Nuclear power development has always been intimately linked to geopolitics. There is no reason to think that it will be different this time around, especially given that the security environment is becoming increasingly competitive.

Because Russia has been relentless in its intended nuclear energy (traditional and SMR/FNPP) exports, notably in the Indo-Pacific, and because China looms large over the horizon as a major nuclear exporter in the context of its Belt-and-Road Initiative, there are fears in Washington that the United States might lag behind (because it has a limited nuclear export industry) and lose potential markets or surrender influence in the region to either Moscow or Beijing, or both. Significantly, a few other regional countries are entering the nuclear export business as well.

6. It isn’t clear (yet) if SMRs/FNPPs will have far-reaching geopolitical implications 

Caution is in order, however. The current renewed interest in nuclear power may, as its predecessors, dissipate. Even if it materializes, it will be a very slow process. The United States, then, should keep an eye on key developments and dynamics but not rush into anything.

If Washington wants to help US manufacturers of SMRs and FNPPs gain new markets in the Indo-Pacific, the priority should be Indonesia given Jakarta’s urgent (and massive) need for new power sources. Doing so in the Philippines, Thailand, or Vietnam would only be judicious if these three countries confirm their intentions to pursue nuclear power. Either way, selling (or failing to sell) US manufactured of SMR and FNPP technologies is unlikely to change radically the recipients’ approach to Washington as a trade or security partner.

7. The United States should ask itself if it benefits from expanding or limiting the nuclear export market

It is an open question whether the United States should focus on competing aggressively to expand the traditional and emerging SMR and FNPP export market (and shape it to its advantage) or if, instead, it should focus on limiting such expansion. Conducting a thorough study on the benefits, costs, and risks of each option would be useful and timely.

This list of key insights is not comprehensive. There is much left to unpack to understand fully the renewed interest in nuclear power and the seemingly high enthusiasm for SMRs and FNPPs, plus the implications for the Indo-Pacific specifically. Our volume’s papers provide preliminary analyses to help jumpstart this research.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

8. Impact of Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban

Excerpts:

Afghanistan, once a fledgling free state, is now once again a totalitarian Islamic Emirate. Afghans who sided with Americans are being hunted and murdered. Dire poverty is spreading throughout the land. Women are again being brutalized.

Around the world, American haters of all stripes are encouraged and emboldened. That — as my FDD colleagues Gen. H.R. McMaster and Bradley Bowman wrote in The Wall Street Journal a year ago last week — is “what happens when leaders in Washington delude themselves regarding persistent threats, the nature of America’s enemies and the ability to end wars by simply going home.”

Impact of Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban

Abandoning Afghanistan

washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

OPINION:

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the lives of many Americans, mine among them. Enlisting in the military wasn’t an option, but I was given the chance to set up a research institution on terrorism and other threats to free peoples. Twenty years ago, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies was established.

Prior to 9/11, influential voices in the foreign policy community argued that terrorism was not a serious national security threat, merely the weapon of the weak, a way for those without fighter jets and tanks to call attention to their “legitimate grievances.”

After 9/11, I thought that debate would end. I also thought it had become obvious that “grievances, legitimate or not, provide no license for the murder of other people’s children” — a moral insight conveyed to me by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, an eminent foreign policy scholar and the first woman to serve as America’s ambassador to the U.N.

My optimism turned out to be unjustified. To this day, there are those — U.N. officials emphatically included — who condone terrorism for causes they favor, euphemizing it as “resistance.”

And I certainly never expected that the United States, having removed the Taliban from power in the autumn of 2001, would usher that al Qaeda-aligned terrorist organization back into power.

Perhaps President Biden didn’t understand that his withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan would bring that result. “The likelihood of the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is very unlikely,” he said as the American retreat was facilitating the Taliban’s advance.

“There’s going to be no circumstances where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States in Afghanistan,” he insisted not long before that happened.

“The mission hasn’t failed — yet,” he told reporters as throngs of desperate Afghans crowded into and around Kabul International Airport, some clinging to departing aircraft and three falling to their deaths.

On Aug. 26, a terrorist near the airport perimeter detonated explosives, killing more than 170 people, including 13 U.S. service members. By Aug. 30, the bug-out was complete.

Last week, a report from Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee led by Rep. Michael McCaul revealed that at least 800 Americans were left behind. Thousands of American-trained Afghan military personnel, including elite commandos, fled to Iran, where we must assume they spilled their guts — figuratively if not literally — to the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence.

The White House furiously countered that the report “advocates for endless war,” and “ignores the impacts of the flawed deal that former President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban” in 2020.

That deal was indeed an example of diplomatic malpractice. But can you think of another of his predecessor’s policies that Mr. Biden felt compelled to implement?

David Ignatius, a longtime columnist for the Washington Post, wrote last week that while Mr. Biden’s retreat was “horribly executed,” the decision to exit was correct.

Reasonable people can disagree on that and, speaking as a reasonable person, I do. The U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan effectively ended in 2015. The military mission since then was to train and assist, and provide essential intelligence, operations planning and air support.

It would have required only a very small contingent of U.S. and NATO troops to continue to empower Afghan security forces, frustrate the Taliban’s ambitions, and maintain pressure on al Qaeda and the more than 20 other terrorist groups in the region.

And did we learn nothing from Iraq where, in 2011, then-President Barack Obama ordered a complete withdrawal, refusing to leave in place even a residual force as his top advisers urged?

The vacuum he left was filled by the Islamic State, which went on to conquer about 40% of Iraq and a third of Syria. Iran’s neo-imperialist rulers also walked through Iraq’s now-unlocked door.

More broadly, strategically competent presidents, Democratic and Republican alike, did not bring home all U.S. troops after the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. To this day, American forces remain in Europe and Japan, where they accomplish essential missions. The usefulness of the U.S. military presence in South Korea also is obvious to anyone not of the isolationist persuasion.

That said, America’s allies ought to be shouldering more of the burden for the collective defense. American leaders should insist.

The abandonment of Afghanistan has cast serious and lasting doubt on America’s credibility, reliability and will to prevail.

Perhaps not just coincidentally, Mr. Putin is now waging an all-out war of aggression against Ukraine.

Mr. Xi, having stripped the people of Hong Kong of the rights his government had guaranteed them by treaty, is eyeing Taiwan more hungrily than ever.

Iran’s rulers openly threaten to assassinate Americans on American soil, and a fatwa issued by the regime’s first “supreme leader” led to an attack on British author Salman Rushdie while he was speaking on an American stage earlier this month. Yet Mr. Biden continues to offer those rulers hundreds of billions of dollars in exchange for a vague promise that they will delay their nuclear weapons program.

Afghanistan, once a fledgling free state, is now once again a totalitarian Islamic Emirate. Afghans who sided with Americans are being hunted and murdered. Dire poverty is spreading throughout the land. Women are again being brutalized.

Around the world, American haters of all stripes are encouraged and emboldened. That — as my FDD colleagues Gen. H.R. McMaster and Bradley Bowman wrote in The Wall Street Journal a year ago last week — is “what happens when leaders in Washington delude themselves regarding persistent threats, the nature of America’s enemies and the ability to end wars by simply going home.”

• Clifford D. May is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for The Washington Times.

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washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

9. FDD | The Time Is Now to Reform the UN Human Rights Apparatus

Excerpts:

Opportunities for Change

To start to reform the UN human rights apparatus, members of Congress should work with the Biden administration to accomplish three goals:

1. Persuade the UN secretary-general to nominate by August 31 a high commissioner for human rights who will halt the UN human rights apparatus’ whitewashing of human rights abuses by China and other powerful authoritarian regimes and its bashing of Israel.
2. Lead an initiative at the next UNHRC regular session, which begins on September 12, to dissolve the Israel-Palestine COI, whose mandate and commissioners are biased.
3. Repeal the position of “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” whose mandate is one-sided. Failing repeal of this position, the UNHRC should replace its current incumbent.

Making these changes will be an uphill battle, but there is precedent for the United States leading a campaign to reverse antisemitism at the United Nations: In 1991, the General Assembly voted to repeal a 1975 resolution declaring Zionism to be racism, which is essentially what the COI was last year designed to conclude. Eradicating such antisemitism is essential if the UN human rights apparatus is ever to become a true force for good.

FDD | The Time Is Now to Reform the UN Human Rights Apparatus​

Orde Kittrie

Senior Fellow

Bruce Rashkow

Former U.S. State Department Assistant Legal Adviser for United Nations​

fdd.org · by Orde Kittrie Senior Fellow · August 24, 2022

Two key decision points — one later this month, another in September — will determine whether the UN human rights apparatus starts implementing its founding principles or remains a vehicle for the world’s most abusive governments to distract attention from their own violations by focusing UN resources on condemning Israel.

First, by the end of August, Secretary-General António Guterres will have to nominate a new high commissioner for human rights, the top UN human rights official. The outgoing high commissioner, Michele Bachelet, has been unwilling to speak candidly about China’s grave abuses and has been incapable of pressuring Beijing to change.

Second, when the next regular session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) convenes on September 12, it will have an opportunity to dissolve its Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The COI’s mandate and commissioners are egregiously biased. The UNHRC will also have an opportunity to rescind the appointment of Francesca Albanese, the biased special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.

The world’s most repressive dictatorships have dominated the UNHRC since its founding in 2006. Whereas the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump rejected participation in the council, the Biden administration rejoined it in January, announcing a commitment to reform the body and asserting that “positive change is within reach.”

Members of Congress and human rights supporters everywhere should encourage and help the Biden administration to seize the two pivotal opportunities ahead to reform the UN human rights apparatus.

Bachelet’s Term Dominated by Double Standards

As the top UN human rights official, the high commissioner supervises a staff of over 1,600, executes a $350 million annual budget, and runs some two dozen offices around the world. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also serves as the secretariat for the UNHRC, responsible both for providing recommendations to the council and for helping implement its decisions. The OHCHR also serves as a secretariat for, or otherwise supports, some 58 special rapporteurs and other “independent human rights experts” with thematic or country mandates, as well as a dozen active commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions, and similar investigations established by the UNHRC.

The 1994 General Assembly resolution that created the position of high commissioner specified that its duties must be performed in a manner that is “impartial, objective, non-selective and effective.” Bachelet’s performance has fallen far short of these criteria.

Whitewashing China’s Abuses

Bachelet’s announcement that she would not seek a second term as high commissioner came after she faced severe criticism for her deference to Beijing during a May 2022 visit to Xinjiang, including accusations by Uyghur activists that she parroted Chinese talking points. Bachelet has also apparently delayed for months the publication of a report by her staff on China’s abuses of the Uyghurs.

In addition, numerous whistleblower organizations, including Transparency International, have sharply criticized Bachelet for mishandling the case of Emma Reilly, a staff member fired in November 2021 for alleging that Bachelet and her predecessors wrongfully handed the names of Uyghur dissidents to Beijing. The Chinese government reportedly arrested and tortured the named individuals, one of whom died as a result. The whistleblower organizations have made credible assertions that Bachelet’s office unjustifiably overturned a UN ethics panel finding in favor of Reilly and then wrongly fired her.

The UNHRC has also shown it is unwilling to confront China’s abuses. Since the council’s founding in 2006, it has never created a commission to investigate — or even passed a single resolution criticizing — China. This is despite China’s egregious and worsening overall human rights record; Freedom House currently assigns China the second-worst political rights score of any country in the world. That record includes a drastic curtailing of human rights in Hong Kong, and actions in Xinjiang that the Biden administration has termed “genocide,” including imprisonment of more than a million Uyghurs.

Bashing Israel

The UNHRC has, since its founding in 2006, issued 99 resolutions condemning Israel. The number of resolutions condemning Israel, a robust democracy rated “Free” by the respected Freedom House, is roughly the same as the total number of resolutions condemning all other countries. Currently, the United Nations has seven formal bodies (listed below) investigating Israel. In addition to the aforementioned COI, the United Nations has:

• a Division for Palestinian Rights,
• a Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,
• a United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine,
• a “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,”
• a Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories,
• and a United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The United Nations’ disproportionate focus on Israel serves to distract attention from the systemic abuses committed by some of the UNHRC’s own members, which currently include the following countries rated “Not Free” by Freedom House: Cameroon, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Libya, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela.

The double standard is literally contrary to the UN General Assembly resolution that created the UNHRC, which stressed the importance of eliminating the “double standards and politicization” that had plagued its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights. It is also clearly at odds with the General Assembly resolution that created the post of high commissioner for human rights, which emphasizes “the need for the promotion and protection of all human rights to be guided by the principles of impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity.” Secretary-General Guterres should select as the next high commissioner someone dedicated to immediately refocusing the UN human rights apparatus on these founding principles.

U.S. Leverage for Reform

New leaders have shown they can quickly reorient international organizations. For example, Karim Khan has sensibly rebalanced the International Criminal Court’s priorities since he became its prosecutor in June 2021. Likewise, as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi has been demonstrably more rigorous than his predecessor in addressing Iran’s nuclear program. Thus, it is imperative for Washington to make its concerns clear to the secretary-general before he chooses Bachelet’s successor.

To that end, the Biden administration should leverage its role as the top funder of UN human rights work. The United States contributes 22 percent of the OHCHR’s regular budget, far more than any other UN member. The U.S. contribution accounts for approximately $29 million of the office’s $134 million regular budget for 2022. By contrast, China contributes 15.25 percent of the regular budget. Furthermore, the United States voluntarily contributed another $26.7 million to the high commissioner’s office in 2021, accounting for about 12 percent of the $227.5 million total in voluntary contributions, while China’s voluntary contributions last year totaled only $800,000. Washington should insist that Secretary-General Guterres nominate a high commissioner who will be a responsible steward of U.S. taxpayer funds, ensuring they do not facilitate the whitewashing of dictatorships or the bashing of Israel.

Time to Close the COI

The COI’s Biased Commissioners Violate UN Rules

Miloon Kothari, one of three members of the UNHRC’s COI on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, denounced the “Jewish lobby” during an interview in late July. Kothari claimed such a lobby controls “social media” and has “thrown” around “a lot of money” to discredit him and his fellow commissioners. Kothari also questioned Israel’s right to be a member of the United Nations.

The United States, the European Union, and over a dozen other countries condemned Kothari’s remarks. Michele Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to the UNHRC, and Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, both called Kothari’s comments “antisemitic” as well as “outrageous, inappropriate, and corrosive.” Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations condemned Kothari’s “blatantly biased, anti-semitic comments” and said they are “a disgrace to institutions supposedly dedicated to the rule of law.” A senior EU official said he was “outraged” by Kothari’s “antisemitic and hateful statement.”

Kothari’s comments meet the definition of antisemitism adopted by the 35 member countries of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which specifically listed the following as forms of antisemitism: allegations about “Jews controlling the media;” “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavor;” and “applying double standards” to Israel.

Both Kothari and Navi Pillay, the commission’s chairperson, have responded to criticism from member states by doubling down. Kothari has claimed that the United States has no right to disagree with the commission, since once the UNHRC “adopts a mechanism you have to respect it and cannot then say you can’t agree with it now.” In other words, he rejects any form of accountability for himself or his fellow commissioners. In a July 28 letter to the UNHRC president, Pillay blamed Kothari’s remarks on Israel’s purported “lack of cooperation” with the COI.

Kothari’s comments were unfortunately not surprising. He, Pillay, and their fellow commissioner, Chris Sidoti, all have well-documented histories of prejudicial statements regarding Israel.

Some of these statements preceded their being named to the commission. For example, in 2020, Pillay publicly urged governments to “Sanction Apartheid Israel!” In June 2021, Pillay publicly called on President Joe Biden to declare Israel guilty of many of the charges she is now meant to investigate.

Kothari’s antisemitic comments are not the only prejudicial remarks made after the commissioners assumed their positions. In June, during an official UNHRC proceeding, Sidoti accused Jews of throwing around accusations of antisemitism “like rice at a wedding,” thereby “defil[ing] the memory of the 6 million victims of the [Holocaust].” Pillay defended Sidoti’s comments in the same letter in which she blamed Kothari’s comments on Israel.

The appointment of these three openly biased commissioners violated UNHRC rules, which mandate that such officials “should, in all cases, have a proven record of independence and impartiality.” The rules stress that it is “important to ensure that the background of candidates” for such commissions of inquiry, including their “prior public statements or political or other affiliations do not affect their independence or impartiality, or create perceptions of bias.”

UNHRC rules also provide that in the performance of its tasks, “[t]he commission/mission should avoid any perceptions that it could be siding with one party over another.” Thus, the comments last month by Kothari and Sidoti amount to further violations.

The comments of the commissioners also contravene the guidance of the UN Ethics Office, which says:

United Nations personnel, in the performance of their official duties, shall always act with impartiality, objectivity and professionalism. They shall ensure that expression of personal views and convictions does not compromise or appear to compromise the performance of their official duties or the interests of the United Nations. They shall not act in a way that unjustifiably could lead to actual or perceived preferential treatment for or against particular individuals, groups or interests.

This guidance echoes the rules the United Nations has adopted for its personnel. If its personnel violate these fundamental standards, they are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal from their positions.

In light of their public record of bias against Israel prior to being selected, neither Kothari nor Pillay nor Sidoti should have been appointed to the COI. The appropriate remedy for that error is to terminate their appointments. The appropriateness of this remedy is reinforced and independently justified by the egregiously biased comments Kothari and Sidoti made while serving as commissioners.

At a minimum, the blatant bias of the commissioners, both prior to their appointment and in their subsequent performance in the COI, is in violation of UNHRC and UN rules requiring impartiality and merits an audit either by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, which was created at the initiative of the United States to ensure the proper and efficient running of the United Nations, or by the UN Board of Auditors.

The COI’s Mandate Is Fundamentally Biased and Wasteful

In addition to its ill-chosen commissioners, the COI has a fundamentally flawed mandate. Approved by a narrow vote of the UNHRC, that mandate is egregiously biased and unfair as well as unprecedentedly broad in scope from a chronological, geographic, and subject-matter perspective. Unlike prior commissions that examined specific Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the West Bank and Gaza, this COI, created in May 2021, is to exist in perpetuity; is mandated to search for violations in pre-1967 Israel as well as in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem; and is clearly designed to reach the false conclusion that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid.

To their credit, both the Biden administration and Congress have rejected the apartheid slander and opposed the COI’s existence and mandate. At the United Nations in December, the United States voted for an Israeli motion to defund the COI entirely. Ultimately, the United States and its allies succeeded in cutting the COI’s budget by 25 percent, reducing it to about $4.1 million. U.S. Ambassador Patrick Kennedy said Washington “will continue to oppose this COI and look for opportunities” to “revisit its mandate” and “persuade more Member States that it is inherently biased and an obstacle to the cause of peace.” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price later added, “[W]e firmly oppose the [COI’s] open-ended and vaguely defined [mandate] … which represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.”

In March, a bipartisan letter from 68 U.S. senators, led by Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH), denounced the COI as “wasteful” and “likely to further fuel antisemitism worldwide.” The letter urged the Biden administration to prioritize “leading a multinational effort” to “end” the COI. “By unfairly singling out Israel,” the senators noted, “the UNHRC undermines its credibility to investigate human rights violations around the world.”

On June 29, the House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment specifying that no U.S. contributions to the United Nations may be used to fund the COI. Senate legislation that would have a similar effect awaits review by the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Numerous countries share the U.S. government’s concerns about the COI. In June, prior to Kothari’s antisemitic comments, a cross-regional group of 22 countries, including the United States, jointly expressed apprehension that the COI “will further contribute to the polarization of a situation about which so many of us are concerned.” The countries, which included Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, denounced the COI as exemplifying “the long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel” by the UNHRC, and said this disproportionate focus on Israel “must stop.”

The COI, which was created by a May 2021 UNHRC resolution that narrowly passed after being submitted by Pakistan and “the State of Palestine,” could be dissolved by a new resolution submitted by the United States and its allies during the UNHRC session that begins on September 12. The savings would be especially welcome with the UN budget stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Time to End or Replace the Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories

Another UN entity that merits dissolution is the “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” whose mandate is explicitly limited to “investigat[ing] Israel’s violations,” ignoring violations committed — against either Israelis or Palestinians — by Palestinian groups.

The current special rapporteur, whose six-year term began in May, is Francesca Albanese, who has dedicated her career to anti-Israel advocacy. Prior to her appointment, Albanese had organized and hosted an event accusing Israel of apartheid, repeatedly made that accusation herself, and praised a Palestinian hijacker of civilian airliners. After becoming the special rapporteur, Albanese dismissed as “preposterous” the view — expressed by the United States and over a dozen other countries — that Kothari’s controversial remarks were antisemitic.

As rapporteur, Albanese has also labeled Israel “an apartheid regime” and urged the European Union to terminate its trade agreement with Israel. She has described the Palestinians as a “colonized” people and said their situation “requires” them to engage in violence. She also branded Israel’s August 5–7 defensive actions against the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as “Illegal” and “Immoral.”

Albanese’s accusations against Israel appear to be disconnected from the facts. She has attributed to Israel some Palestinian civilian deaths that neither the Associated Press (AP) nor the Israeli military nor even Palestinian groups attribute to Israel. For example, on August 8, the AP noted that “live TV footage” showed PIJ rockets “falling short in densely packed residential neighborhoods,” and sent its reporters to visit the sites and analyze the death toll. Based on assessments by the AP and statements by the Israeli military, it appears at least seven of the 17 Palestinian children who died, and at least 14 of the 29 Palestinian civilians, were killed by those PIJ rockets.

Yet on August 12, Albanese proceeded to blame all of those deaths on Israeli fire, claiming the Israeli military “clearly targets people indiscriminately, as the 46 people who lost their lives, 15 of whom are children, testify.” On August 16, four days later, the AP reported that “Palestinian rights groups,” in apparent disagreement with Albanese, were still not attributing to Israel the deaths of 13 of the Palestinian civilians killed during the August 5–7 conflict.

The prior special rapporteur, Michael Lynk, expressed similar views. His term, during which he questioned Israel’s right to UN membership, culminated with a March 2022 report that set forth a spurious definition of apartheid and asserted that Israel perpetrates that crime. The governments of the United States, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all rejected this false accusation.

The UNHRC’s predecessor body, the UN Commission on Human Rights, created the Palestine special rapporteur position in 1993. The UNHRC replaced the commission in 2006 after the latter was discredited for its vastly disproportionate criticism of Israel and for its domination by countries with poor human rights records.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general at the time, warned the UNHRC during its first year of operation to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “in an impartial way, and not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there are equally grave or even graver violations.” The UNHRC has failed to heed Annan’s warning but could begin to reverse that legacy by repealing the Palestine special rapporteur position or replacing Albanese.

Opportunities for Change

To start to reform the UN human rights apparatus, members of Congress should work with the Biden administration to accomplish three goals:

1. Persuade the UN secretary-general to nominate by August 31 a high commissioner for human rights who will halt the UN human rights apparatus’ whitewashing of human rights abuses by China and other powerful authoritarian regimes and its bashing of Israel.
2. Lead an initiative at the next UNHRC regular session, which begins on September 12, to dissolve the Israel-Palestine COI, whose mandate and commissioners are biased.
3. Repeal the position of “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” whose mandate is one-sided. Failing repeal of this position, the UNHRC should replace its current incumbent.

Making these changes will be an uphill battle, but there is precedent for the United States leading a campaign to reverse antisemitism at the United Nations: In 1991, the General Assembly voted to repeal a 1975 resolution declaring Zionism to be racism, which is essentially what the COI was last year designed to conclude. Eradicating such antisemitism is essential if the UN human rights apparatus is ever to become a true force for good.

Orde Kittrie, a law professor at Arizona State University and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, previously served as a U.S. State Department attorney. Bruce Rashkow previously served as the U.S. State Department’s assistant legal adviser for United Nations affairs and as director of the UN Office of Legal Affairs’ General Legal Division, which is principally responsible for addressing issues related to development and enforcement of the UN rules related to the standards of conduct of UN personnel.

fdd.org · by Orde Kittrie Senior Fellow · August 24, 2022

10. How China Could Choke Taiwan

Please go to the link to view the entire article and maps/graphics.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/25/world/asia/china-taiwan-conflict-blockade.html

​Excerpts:

China has in recent years made more and more military flights into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, a space bigger than the island’s sovereign airspace, as a controlled way of demonstrating Beijing’s anger with Taiwan. Now, by intruding daily into the zone, China’s forces are also potentially attempting to wear down Taiwanese air force planes and pilots. Among the flights recorded by Taiwan this month, many have been fighter jets, but surveillance planes, helicopters and other craft have also been identified.

China’s leaders have long said that they want to absorb Taiwan peacefully. Even so, as Beijing grows more anxious about Taiwan and about deterring the United States from supporting the island, its displays of force may intensify. Even if no side wants a war, there is a growing risk of a superpower confrontation that could ultimately lay waste to Taiwan.

“The Chinese have a political problem in that every time they feel compelled to make a really big political statement like this, they have to do more than they did before,” said Lonnie Henley, a former U.S. intelligence officer specializing in China’s military who now lectures at George Washington University. “I worry that at some point they’re going to run out of headroom for doing ever-louder saber rattling.”​

How China Could Choke Taiwan

nytimes.com · August 25, 2022

China is honing its ability to blockade Taiwan, giving Beijing the option of cutting off the self-ruled island in its campaign to take control of it.

For decades, Beijing has had its sights on Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own. It has built up the People’s Liberation Army with the goal of ultimately taking Taiwan, if efforts to unify peacefully fail. It has modernized its forces, developing the world’s largest navy that now challenges American supremacy in the seas around Taiwan.

While China likely still lacks the ability to quickly invade and seize Taiwan, it could try to impose a blockade to force the island into concessions or as a precursor to wider military action. In this scenario, China would attempt to subdue Taiwan by choking it and its 23 million people in a ring of ships and aircraft, cutting it off physically, economically and even digitally.

China tried to use its military exercises this month to signal confidence in the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to encircle Taiwan. The military fired ballistic missiles into the waters off Taiwan, 80 miles off China’s coast, sending at least four high over the island itself, according to Japan, and conducted exercises in zones closer to the island than ever before.

In “The Science of Strategy,” a key textbook for People’s Liberation Army officers, Taiwan is not mentioned, but the target is clear. The textbook describes a “strategic blockade” as a way to “destroy the enemy’s external economic and military connections, degrade its operational capacity and war-fighting potential, and leave it isolated and unaided.”

During this month’s exercises, China avoided more provocative moves that could have triggered a more forceful response from Taiwan. But it still sought to convey real menace, putting Taiwan on notice about the risks of not meeting Beijing’s demands.

“I think they have shown their intentions, encircling Taiwan and countering foreign intervention,” said Ou Si-fu, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is affiliated with Taiwan’s defense ministry. “Their assumption was ‘Taiwan can be isolated, and so next I can fight you’.”

Real Blockade Would Seek to Repel U.S. Forces

After Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied Beijing’s warnings and visited Taiwan on Aug. 2, China retaliated by deploying warplanes, ships and missiles for 72 hours of drills. It declared six exercise areas around Taiwan, including off the island’s eastern coast, in an effort to project its power farther from the Chinese mainland.

The exercises were not a full-scale rehearsal. In a real blockade, the 11 missiles that China fired into seas around Taiwan would have served little military purpose because they were designed to strike land targets, not ships. China did not roll out its most advanced weaponry. It flew planes near Taiwan, not over it. Although three of the sea zones China had designated for exercises intruded on territorial waters claimed by Taiwan, in practice Chinese missiles and ships avoided those waters.

“This is political warfare,” said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore who formerly worked in the Pentagon. “The political aspect of what they do is sometimes more important than the actual training that they’re undertaking.”

An actual blockade would involve hundreds more ships and aircraft, as well as submarines, trying to seal off Taiwan’s ports and airports and repel possible intervention by warships and planes sent by the United States and its allies.

In a blockade, China would also need to control the skies. China has an array of naval and air bases on its east coast opposite Taiwan, and many more up and down its coast. The Chinese military could also try to shoot down enemy planes with surface-to-air missiles, or even strike at U.S. bases in Guam and Japan.

China’s military strategists see a blockade as a strategy that gives them flexibility to tighten or loosen a noose around Taiwan, depending on Beijing’s objectives.

China could impose a limited blockade by stopping and screening ships, without attacking Taiwan’s ports. Given Taiwan’s dependence on imports of fuel and food, even a temporary blockade could shock the island politically and economically, giving China a forceful way to press its demands.

“This makes it possible to start and stop once Taiwan ‘learns its lesson,’” said Phillip C. Saunders of the National Defense University, who is a co-editor of a new collection of essays assessing Chinese military choices for Taiwan.

But the People’s Liberation Army trains for a blockade that “would be violent and would generate a lot of international costs,” Mr. Saunders said. In that scenario, China could use a blockade to support an attempt at a full invasion. That step could unleash a potentially protracted and devastating conflict, as well as a major international backlash against China that would bring it economic damage and political isolation.

The uncertainties of the outcome from any war at sea and in the air would be immense for all involved.

China Sees Information as a Key Battleground

In a real conflict to seize Taiwan, China would also seek to control the information landscape. It could use propaganda, disinformation, cyberwarfare and other tools in the hope of drumming up support at home and sowing fear and discord in Taiwan and across the world.

During the recent exercises, the People’s Liberation Army put out a torrent of videos, pictures and reports that blurred the line between propaganda and misinformation. The campaign included footage of jet fighters taking off, missiles fired, warships on patrol and a hospital train ferrying troops, all intended to show a force ready for combat. But it also appeared to exaggerate Chinese capabilities by depicting its forces as bigger and closer to Taiwan than they were in reality.

Chinese military planners regard cyberwarfare as important in any conflict, and experts say that in a real conflict China would use cyberattacks to try to knock out Taiwan’s communications and even paralyze some of its weapons. “Whoever controls information and controls the internet will have the whole world,” the Chinese military’s main textbook on strategy says, citing the late American futurist, Alvin Toffler.

During Ms. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the island experienced sporadic, unsophisticated cyberattacks of unclear origin, creating more nuisance than disruption. At least four Taiwanese government websites endured brief cyberattacks. Hackers took over electronic displays at several 7-Eleven stores and at the Xinzuoying train station in Kaohsiung to display messages condemning Ms. Pelosi.

In an actual conflict, China could also try to sever or disable undersea cables that carry about 90 percent of the data that connects Taiwan to the world, some military experts on the island said. The cables’ “main weak point is where they emerge from the bottom of the sea,” said Mr. Ou, the Taiwanese researcher.

Cutting Taiwan’s undersea cables would also spark chaos affecting other interconnected countries in the region, such as Japan and South Korea.

China Is Creating a New Normal

Even after completing this month’s large-scale drills, the People’s Liberation Army has continued to intensify its presence in the Taiwan Strait. Chinese military forces have increased their flights over the so-called median line, an informal boundary between the two sides that they had rarely crossed in the past.

These flights signal a new normal for Chinese military activity closer to Taiwan, underscoring Beijing’s position that it does not accept the island’s claims of sovereign boundaries. Increasingly frequent and close-up exercises also raise the risk that Taiwan could become desensitized and be caught by a surprise attack. It would take minutes for a jet screaming across that line to be over the island if it stayed its course, instead of turning back as the aircraft do now.

“Maybe in the future this kind of action will be like the frog being cooked in boiling water,” said Shu Hsiao-huang, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. “This kind of harassment may become the norm.”

In the first three weeks of this month, China dispatched more than 600 military aircraft to buzz the airspace near the island, an unprecedented jump in these flights.

“As the United States and external forces, including Taiwan independence forces, make constant provocations, exercises will become more intense and more frequent, broader in time and scope,” said Song Zhongping, a military commentator in Beijing who is a former Chinese military officer.

China has in recent years made more and more military flights into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, a space bigger than the island’s sovereign airspace, as a controlled way of demonstrating Beijing’s anger with Taiwan. Now, by intruding daily into the zone, China’s forces are also potentially attempting to wear down Taiwanese air force planes and pilots. Among the flights recorded by Taiwan this month, many have been fighter jets, but surveillance planes, helicopters and other craft have also been identified.

China’s leaders have long said that they want to absorb Taiwan peacefully. Even so, as Beijing grows more anxious about Taiwan and about deterring the United States from supporting the island, its displays of force may intensify. Even if no side wants a war, there is a growing risk of a superpower confrontation that could ultimately lay waste to Taiwan.

“The Chinese have a political problem in that every time they feel compelled to make a really big political statement like this, they have to do more than they did before,” said Lonnie Henley, a former U.S. intelligence officer specializing in China’s military who now lectures at George Washington University. “I worry that at some point they’re going to run out of headroom for doing ever-louder saber rattling.”

Maps showing the August military exercise areas were drawn based on maps published by Chinese state media on Aug. 2.

Marine traffic density maps are based on vessel positions reported between January 2015 and February 2021 processed by the International Monetary Fund’s World Seaborne Trade monitoring system.

Sources: Drew Thompson, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; Lonnie Henley, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University; Thomas Shugart, Center for a New American Security; Brendan Taylor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University; Ou Si-fu and Shu Hsiao-huang, Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research; Brian Hart, China Power Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Phillip C. Saunders, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, National Defense University; Joint Operations Headquarters Work; TeleGeography Global Bandwidth research; WorldPop, University of Southampton; IMF’s World Seaborne Trade Monitoring System; Japanese Ministry of Defense; Taiwan Ministry of National Defense; China Power Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies; “Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War with Taiwan,” National Defense University Press

Additional research by Claire Fu and Joy Dong.

nytimes.com · August 25, 2022

11. Russian attack kills 25 civilians on Ukraine's Independence Day, Kyiv says

Another tragic attack that continues to confirm the brutality of Putin and Putin's War.

Russian attack kills 25 civilians on Ukraine's Independence Day, Kyiv says

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

• Summary
• Two strikes on small eastern town of Chaplyne, official says
• 25 killed at railway station, passenger train set ablaze
• Rockets hit area north of Kyiv, no casualties reported
• Aug. 24 holiday marked 1991 independence from Soviet rule

KYIV, Aug 25 (Reuters) - A Russian attack killed 25 civilians when missiles struck a railway station and a residential area in eastern Ukraine, officials in the capital Kyiv said, as the nation marked its Independence Day under heavy shelling.

The death toll rose from an initially reported 22 after three more bodies were retrieved from the rubble in the town of Chaplyne as rescue operations there ended, Ukrainian presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Thursday.

The Vyshgorod region, directly north of Kyiv, also came under rocket attack, but there were no casualties reported, regional official Olexiy Kuleba said on the Telegram channel.

The missile strikes and artillery shelling of frontline towns, such as Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Nikopol and Dnipro, followed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's warnings of the risk of "repugnant Russian provocations" ahead of Wednesday's 31st anniversary of independence from Moscow-dominated Soviet rule.

Aug. 24 also marked six months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, starting Europe's most devastating conflict since World War Two.

As rescue operations wrapped up in Chaplyne, residents of this small town, located some 145 km (90 miles) west of Russian-occupied Donetsk, grieved for their loved ones amid the rubble of their wrecked homes.

Local resident Sergiy lost his 11-year-old son in the strike. "We looked for him there in the ruins, and he was lying here. Nobody knew that he was here. Nobody knew," he said as he crouched next to his covered body.

The Russian defence ministry had no immediate comment on the attack. Speaking in Uzbekistan, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu repeated Moscow's line it had deliberately slowed what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine to avoid civilian casualties. read more

Russia denies targeting civilians. It has also said that rail infrastructure is a legitimate target since it serves to supply Ukraine with Western weapons.

Commenting on the attack, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter: "Russia’s missile strike on a train station full of civilians in Ukraine fits a pattern of atrocities. We will continue, together with partners from around the world, to stand with Ukraine and seek accountability for Russian officials."

Wednesday's public holiday celebrations were cancelled but many Ukrainians marked the occasion by wearing embroidered shirts typical of the national dress.

Ukraine declared independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union in August 1991, and its population voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum that December.

Air raid sirens blared at least seven times in Kyiv during the day, though there were no attacks. Ukrainian authorities said air raid alerts were sounded 189 times across the country on Wednesday, more than at any other time during the six-month conflict.

1/12

People stand next to a residential house destroyed by a Russian military strike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Chaplyne, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine August 24, 2022. REUTERS/Dmytro Smolienko

Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena, joined religious leaders for a service in Kyiv's 11th-century St. Sophia cathedral and laid flowers at a memorial to fallen soldiers.

The 44-year-old leader said Ukraine would recapture Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

FAR FROM FRONT LINES

Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian drone in the Vinnytsia region while Russian missiles landed in the Khmelnytskyi area, regional authorities said, both west of Kyiv and hundreds of kilometres from front lines. No damage or casualties were reported.

Citing local sources, Suspilne TV public broadcaster reported early on Thursday on explosions near the Antonivsky bridge across the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region, a major supply line for Russian troops in the area.

Ukraine's southern military command also reported missile strikes on the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro river crossing, another important Russian supply line in the Kherson area.

Reuters could not verify the battlefield accounts.

At a U.N. Security Council session on Wednesday, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia repeated Moscow's rationale for its actions, saying its aim was "to denazify and demilitarise" Ukraine to remove "obvious" security threats to Russia.

Moscow's stance has been dismissed by Ukraine and the West as a baseless pretext for an imperialist war of conquest.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced nearly $3 billion for weapons and equipment for Ukraine in Washington's, bringing his administration's total commitment in military aid to more than $13.5 billion.

Russia has made few advances in recent months after its troops were repelled from Kyiv in the early weeks of the war.

Ukraine's top military intelligence official, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Wednesday Russia's offensive was slowing because of low morale and physical fatigue in its ranks, and Moscow's "exhausted" resource base. read more

Russian forces have seized areas of the south, including those on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts and large tracts of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk that make up the eastern Donbas region.

The war has killed thousands of civilians, forced more than a third of Ukraine's 41 million people from their homes, left cities in ruins and shaken the global economy, creating shortages of essential foodgrains and pushing up energy prices.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Cynthia Osterman and Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

12. Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine

It is much easier for Facebook and Twitter to go after US efforts than it is to counter Russia, China, Iran, and north Korea.

I would also argue that we do not need to conduct large scale covert influence campaigns. We need to conduct large scale overt influence campaigns that are transparent. Our covert influence campaigns should be for precise targeting only and used very judiciously. . We can achieve much greater positive effects through overt and transparent activities versus covert.

Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine

The Washington Post · by Naomi Nix · August 24, 2022

Facebook and Twitter disrupted a web of accounts that were covertly seeking to influence users in the Middle East and Asia with pro-western perspectives about international politics, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report from social media analytics firm Graphika and Stanford University.

The covert influence operation used accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media giants to promote narratives supporting the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing countries, including Russia, China, and Iran, according to the report.

Covert influence campaigns run out of Russia and Iran have repeatedly have been targeted by social media platforms over the years. This crackdown is the rare instance in which a U.S-sponsored campaign targeting foreign audiences was found to violate the companies’ rules.

The accounts are being taken down at a time when social media giants have been trying to crack down on disinformation campaigns about the war in Ukraine. But much of that work has been focused on fighting efforts by Russian authorities to promote propaganda about the war, including false claims about Ukrainian military aggression in the region or blaming Western nations’ complicity in the war.

Margarita Franklin, a spokeswoman for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, confirmed in a statement that the company a recently removed a network of accounts that originated in the United States for violating the platforms’ rules against coordinated inauthentic behavior. Franklin said it’s the first time the company has removed a foreign-focused influence network promoting the United States’ position.

Twitter declined to comment.

Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement the Defense Department would “look into and assess any information that Facebook provides.”

The accounts shared news articles from U.S. government-funded media outlets, such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and linked to websites sponsored by the U.S. military to criticize the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The campaigns promoted the narrative that Russia was responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities just so it could pursue its "imperial ambitions,” the report said.

The campaign often mimicked the strategies deployed by other countries such as Russia when seeking to influence the public perception of world events. For instance, the campaign created fake personas with digitally-created photos, posed as independent media outlets and attempted to start hashtag campaigns, the report said.

The social media analytics firm Graphika and Stanford Internet Observatory Stanford University, which produced the report, noted the covert campaigns didn’t always garner much engagement or traction online.

“Importantly, the data also shows the limitations of using inauthentic tactics to generate engagement and build influence online," the researchers noted. "The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets.”

In the wake of the war, social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned or throttled Russian state media accounts, restricted advertising and bolstered their fact-checking operations during the war. Traffic to Russian government-backed media channels on social media spiked in the early days of the invasion and then plummeted as the companies cracked down, according to a March Washington Post analysis.

Since then, Ukrainian officials have flagged thousands of tweets, YouTube videos and other social media posts as Russian propaganda or anti-Ukrainian hate speech but many of the companies have failed to keep up, according to a recent report.

Ellen Nakashima contributed.

The Washington Post · by Naomi Nix · August 24, 2022

13. Analysis | A phony, U.S.-friendly social media campaign prompts questions

This is why it is easier to get permission to put a Hellfire missile on the forehead of a terrorist than it is to get permission to put an idea between a target audience's ears. We would rather conduct a kinetic kill instead of influencing the behavior of a target audience. 

We are more afraid of information and influence than kinetic operations.

Analysis | A phony, U.S.-friendly social media campaign prompts questions

The Washington Post · by Tim Starks · August 25, 2022

Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! After this morning, we'll be away for a bit to close the month. See you next on Sept. 6.

Below: The Twitter whistleblower will testify before a Senate committee next week, and a DHS advisory council shares its recommendations for countering disinformation. First:

Fake accounts pushed a pro-Western narrative, researchers find

Facebook and Twitter took down a network of fake accounts that promoted pro-Western messages in the Middle East and Asia, according to a splashy joint report Wednesday from Stanford University and the network analysis firm Graphika.

A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it was the first time it “has removed a foreign-focused influence network promoting the United States’ position,” as my colleague Naomi Nix reported (with an assist from Ellen Nakashima).

The report doesn’t claim the U.S. government sponsored the campaign, despite drawing potential links. Nor do Facebook or Twitter. Nonetheless, the findings raise fascinating questions about the limits of the U.S. government to conduct cyber-related activities overseas, and the willingness of U.S. organizations to call it out.

Examining the report

The network of fake accounts touted messages that supported the United States while opposing those of others, like China, Russia and Iran, according to the report. (Major social media companies are usually taking down fake news campaigns from, well … China, Russia and Iran.)

Wednesday’s study said the batch of pro-U.S. accounts even did things that everyone does on social media, like post cat pictures, in a bid to appear like authentic users.

The report made an impression on the internet. Here’s Rolling Stone reporter Adam Rawnsley:

This is a BFD. We're used to seeing covert pro-Iran/Russia/China/Saudi/UAE/Nicaragua/Philippines/etc social media influence campaigns get ID'ed and booted by the big platforms like Facebook/Twitter. First time we're seeing a pro-US campaign ID'ed & booted https://t.co/7Kwx7k7Rfh

— Adam Rawnsley (@arawnsley) August 24, 2022

But it’s important not to overstate the reach of the removed network of fake accounts. Here’s journalist Kim Zetter:

Covert influence ops pushing pro-US, pro-West messaging are apparently not as successful as Russia/China ops. “The covert accounts had low engagement…The vast majority of posts and tweets reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets. Avg was <1.” https://t.co/oIW1z9ntgf

— Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) August 24, 2022

There’s a fuzzy line connecting the campaign to a prior, more overt U.S. campaign by U.S. Central Command, which is part of the Defense Department. The Stanford Internet Observatory’s Renee DiResta explained:

There is also a distinct Twitter data subset linked to a prior overt ~2008-14 CENTCOM operation, a network of sites known as the Trans Regional Web Initiative. Report notes our assessment that the covert network & TRWI network appear to be separate efforts; we focused on covert.

— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) August 24, 2022

What the U.S. can do

To emphasize, no one has said the U.S. government was behind the network. But it’s a reminder of past incidents raising the issue of whether feds can hype the U.S. message using fake accounts.

For instance, the issue drew attention all the way back in 2011:

• “The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda,” the Guardian reported at the time about a Central Command contract.

The Defense Department recently spelled out guidelines for using official social media accounts.

As for the story Wednesday about the fake accounts:

• “Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement the Defense Department would ‘look into and assess any information that Facebook provides.’”

The researcher side of things

Another interesting component of the report is who published it: a U.S. company and a U.S. university.

Usually, reports on U.S.-based internet or cyberspace activities come from overseas. Most recently, a Chinese cybersecurity firm alleged in February that a decade-old exploit was the work of a hacking group associated with the U.S. National Security Agency.

Russia-headquartered cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reportedly exposed a U.S.-led counterterrorism cyberespionage operation in 2018, although the company didn’t attribute the operation to the United States. It only said an “advanced persistent threat” group was behind it — a term often used in the cybersecurity field to describe hackers associated with a nation-state. Kaspersky also outed the Equation Group, suspected of NSA ties.

Some U.S. cybersecurity companies have expressed reservations about the idea of burning U.S. cyber operations. Many of them collaborate with the U.S. government in examining threats.

A 2020 study pointed to further instances of intermingling where government agencies share information on hackers with cyber companies:

• “In these cases, the government shares classified information with particular tech companies with the intent that the companies use the information to make attributions that the government wants them to make, but does not want to make itself (at least at that time). The companies effectively ‘launder’ the information for the government, presumably because the public sees the companies as more neutral and objective than the Executive.”

The U.S. angle doesn’t seem to have presented any issues with Wednesday’s report, or prevented a response.

“There was absolutely no hesitation in publishing the report,” John Perrino, a policy analyst for the Stanford Internet Observatory, told me. “The Stanford Internet Observatory has not reached out to U.S. government officials about the Unheard Voice report to inquire about responsibility.”

Said Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby: “We continue to disclose information operations identified on Twitter, given their severe impact on public discourse around the world — regardless of their presumptive country of origin.”

The keys

Twitter whistleblower will testify before Senate committee next month

Former Twitter security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko will appear at a Sept. 13 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing pursuant to a subpoena, Cat Zakrzewski reports. The hearing was announced just a day after The Post reported that Zatko had filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that Twitter has had “extreme, egregious deficiencies” in defending against hackers.

• Beyond the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), said they’d “take further steps as needed to get to the bottom of these alarming allegations.”

Regulators in Europe have also taken notice of Zatko’s complaint.

• Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the lead E.U. supervisor of Twitter’s compliance with European data protection rules, “became aware of the issues when we read the media stories [yesterday] and have engaged with Twitter on the matter,” deputy commissioner Graham Doyle told TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas.
• France’s data-privacy agency, CNIL, says it’s “studying” the complaint that Zatko sent to U.S. regulators, Politico Europe’s Peter O’Brien reports. “If the accusations are correct, the CNIL could take action leading to legal proceedings or a sanction, if it's clear there were breaches,” the regulator added.
• Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett told employees that the company reached out to “various agencies” around the world before The Post and CNN published stories on Tuesday about Zatko’s whistleblower complaint, Reuters reported. Twitter officials including chief executive Parag Agrawal and Edgett continued to push back on Zatko’s allegations, with Agrawal saying that they were “foundationally, technically and historically inaccurate,” the outlet reported.

Zatko’s complaint also made an appearance at a court hearing in Delaware. Lawyers representing Tesla chief executive Elon Musk used the high-ranking former Twitter executive’s allegations to argue for more data to support their case at a discovery hearing, Faiz Siddiqui and Elizabeth Dwoskin report.

DHS advisory council advances report on disinformation work

The Homeland Security Advisory Committee, a group of outside advisers appointed by DHS leaders, unanimously approved a subcommittee report on the department’s disinformation work, sending it to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s desk. The report calls for DHS to standardize its work to counter misinformation and disinformation, effectively communicate about its work to combat inaccurate information and “bolster the role” of its intelligence and analysis wing, which gets reports about disinformation from the U.S. intelligence community and other organizations, according to the report.

The report comes three months after DHS paused its Disinformation Governance Board amid Republican criticism. The Homeland Security Advisory Council last month urged Mayorkas to scrap the board, saying it wasn’t necessary. Mayorkas on Wednesday officially scrapped the board and rescinded its charter. He said in a statement that DHS welcomed the board's recommendations.

“With the HSAC recommendations as a guide, the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work,” Mayorkas said in the statement.

Cyber insecurity

Ethereum ‘bug bounties’ jump to $1 million before software upgrade (Bloomberg)

Industry report

YouTube is testing its theory on curbing misinformation in Europe (Protocol)

Global cyberspace

Over 80,000 unpatched Hikvision cameras exposed to takeover (SecurityWeek)

Securing the ballot

Paxton legal opinion giving public immediate access to ballots jeopardizes election security and invites lawsuits, experts say (Votebeat)

On the move

• Tom Kellermann has joined Contrast Security as its senior vice president of cyber strategy. Kellermann previously was head of cybersecurity strategy at VMWare and chief cybersecurity officer at Carbon Black Inc.

Secure log off

In today’s first @washingtonpost TikTok, the White House is extending the student loan pause and canceling up to $10,000 in student debt https://t.co/CMk6DgVdfn pic.twitter.com/qkT1bx0iKW

— Washington Post TikTok Guy  (@davejorgenson) August 24, 2022

Thanks for reading.

The Washington Post · by Tim Starks · August 25, 2022

​14. Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Reuters · by Reuters

Aug 25 (Reuters) - A Russian missile attack killed 22 civilians and set a passenger train on fire in eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said, with missile strikes north of the capital as Ukraine marked its Independence Day under heavy shelling. read more

FIGHTING

* Russia's defence ministry says its forces hit a military train at Chaplyne railway station. read more

* On Ukraine's Independence Day on Wednesday, Russia's military targeted frontline cities and towns including Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Nikopol and Dnipro, but avoided Kyiv, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.

* Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian drone in the Vinnytsia region while Russian missiles landed in the Khmelnytskyi area, regional authorities said, both west of Kyiv and hundreds of kilometres from front lines. No damage or casualties were reported. Reuters could not verify the accounts.

* Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the slowing pace of Moscow's military campaign was deliberate and aimed at reducing civilian casualties. read more Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russian forces of war crimes and targeting civilians, charges Moscow rejects.

* Ukraine's top military intelligence official said Russia's offensive was slowing because of morale and physical fatigue in their ranks and Moscow's "exhausted" resource base. read more

DIPLOMACY, ECONOMY

* The U.N. nuclear watchdog is "very, very close" to being able to go to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe's largest, its chief Rafael Grossi told France 24 TV.

* UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt armed attacks on Ukraine and said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, now controlled by Russian forces, must be demilitarized.

* Ukraine's economy should stabilise over the coming year and expand by as much as 15.5% in 2023, depending on military developments in the war against Russia, the country's economy minister told Reuters in an interview.

* U.S. President Biden marked Ukraine's independence day with a new package of about $3 billion in military aid. read more

Compiled by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

15. How China’s Propaganda Influences the West

China (and Russia, Iran ,and north Korea) get a pass from Facebook and Twitter.

How China’s Propaganda Influences the West

Millions around the world now rely on Beijing’s mouthpieces as their primary sources for news.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-chinas-propaganda-influences-the-west-state-media-cable-censorship-wechat-social-media-hong-kong-election-russia-ukraine-newspaper-11661108182

By Seth D. Kaplan

Aug. 21, 2022 3:53 pm ET

The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine has had a busy year. Two weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin declared that their countries’ friendship has “no limits.” Chinese state media has since been working overtime to parrot the Kremlin’s lies about the conflict. Less well known—and especially troubling—is how successful they have been in spreading their disinformation in the U.S.

Thanks to a decades​ ​long effort by the Chinese Communist Party, millions of Chinese-speaking American citizens rely on Beijing’s mouthpieces as their primary sources of news. SinoVision, a Chinese-language TV broadcaster, and Qiaobao, one of the largest Chinese-language newspapers in the U.S., are subsidiaries of the Asian Culture and Media Group, an arm of the Chinese government. Staff at both places cut their teeth at the state-owned China News Service and are often dispatched to the U.S. for propaganda purposes. Once there, most of their stories on China, Sino-American relations, Taiwan, Hong Kong and related subjects are reproduced from state-owned media such as Xinhua and the People’s Daily.

Other media outlets—such as Sing Tao Newspaper Group and the Duowei news website—are controlled by business​ ​people with close ties to the party and its United Front influence organization. The World Journal, once the premier Chinese-language newspaper in the U.S., has taken a more pro-Beijing bent as a result of financial incentives and pressure. Cable television, a leading source of information for Chinese-American households, is no more objective, as China Central Television and Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing Phoenix TV dominate the offerings.

Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong has solidified its grip on information. The territory once had a lively media environment that was consumed overseas—especially by Cantonese speakers—but independent voices such as Apple Daily have been closed or compromised. Newsrooms have been raided and journalists arrested or forced out of work.

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Deep party ties mean that Chinese-language outlets parrot Kremlin talking points on the war in Ukraine. Qiaobao’s headlines often repeat Xinhua’s words verbatim, such as labeling the war the “Russia-Ukraine situation.” Earlier in the war, the outlet trumpeted the Kremlin’s unfounded theory that the U.S. funded biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine.

These lies have no doubt spread in part thanks to WeChat, the China-based messaging and social-media app that hosts 19 million daily users in the U.S. The app’s popularity and functionality—users can shop, read news and launch phone calls—make it invaluable in the party’s efforts to influence American politics. The U.S. Commerce Department raised national-security concerns when it sought to ban WeChat from U.S. app stores in 2020, but a federal judge blocked the action. The Biden administration then revoked the ban and ordered a security review, but it appears to be focused more on safeguarding Americans’ personal data than on limiting Beijing’s propaganda and censorship.

The party has successfully enlisted WeChat for such purposes elsewhere. In Australia, Beijing has limited users’ access to news that’s unfavorable to the party—notably, Australia’s recent actions to stem Chinese influence over the Solomon Islands. In Canada, frequent Beijing critic Kenny Chiu was targeted with disinformation on WeChat during his re-election campaign in 2021 after he proposed a public registry to track foreign influence. Many of the attacks originated with HuayiNet, a company with close ties to the Chinese government that provides daily news briefings aimed at the Chinese diaspora. In the weeks leading up to the election, these included articles claiming that Mr. Chiu’s proposal would lead to widespread suppression and monitoring of the Chinese community. In an election that showed little change in national voting tendencies, Mr. Chiu lost his re-election bid after a swing of more than 15 points from his prior election.

Though a few outlets, such as the Epoch Times, Hope Radio and New Tang Dynasty TV, remain out of the party’s control, their reach is nothing like that of larger sources. Other small, independent channels, such as HongKonger Station, operate with limited resources. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times run Chinese-language websites, but paywalls limit access to their content. The party seeks to influence these outlets indirectly, too. On several occasions Beijing has detained family members of reporters at outlets critical of the party.

Washington must work to ensure Chinese-speaking Americans have access to a free media during the upcoming midterm elections and beyond. The U.S. government should require entities to disclose their ownership structures and financial relationship with any Chinese or United Front organization—and insist that those under party influence either be sold off or shut down. The U.S. should also subsidize independent alternatives and syndicated content from outlets such as Radio Free Asia, China Digital Times and BBC Chinese.

The Department of Homeland Security must expose the risks of social-media apps such as WeChat being deployed for malign influence. The department should draft and enforce regulations that require them to follow American standards and norms of free expression and privacy. If they don’t comply, the government should ban them from the American market. While the Biden administration has established a set of rules to ensure information and communications products such as WeChat don’t pose security risks, it’s unclear whether any investigation to evaluate them has been launched.

The Chinese Communist Party is influencing the information consumed by millions of Chinese-speaking Americans. If Beijing’s propaganda campaign remains unchecked, all Americans will suffer.

Dr. Kaplan is a professorial lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He lived in China for seven years​.  video: WSJ Opinion: Hits and Misses of the Week

Journal Editorial Report: The week's best and worst from Kim Strassel, Allysia Finley and Dan Henninger. Images: Getty Images/AP/Reuters Composite: Mark Kelly

Appeared in the August 22, 2022, print edition as 'How China’s Propaganda Influences the West'.

16. What’s Behind China’s ‘Action Guidelines on Military Operations Other Than War’?

Can you say "moooo--- twaaa?" 

Interesting analysis - for domestic purposes, external employment or to tighten the party's grip on the military? (or all of the above)

What’s Behind China’s ‘Action Guidelines on Military Operations Other Than War’?

The focus of the new guidelines is likely domestic: laying down rules for deploying the military to conduct disaster relief and pandemic management operations.

thediplomat.com · by Ying Yu Lin · August 24, 2022

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On June 13, China announced in a press release that its paramount leader Xi Jinping, in his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), had signed an order for the implementation on an experimental basis of the “Action Guidelines on Military Operations Other Than War,” which took effect from June 15. While the full text of the mandate has yet to be publicly released, China’s state-run media have summed it up as comprising 59 articles in six chapters, setting up norms specifically for main subjects such as fundamental principles, organization and command, various forms of operations, logistics support for operations, and political work so as to provide the legal basis for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to undertake military operations other than war (MOOTW).

The promulgation of the trial action guidelines on MOOTW (hereafter referred to as Action Guidelines) aroused considerable speculation from the outside world. It is assumed that the Action Guidelines are comparable to the Anti-Secession Law passed in 2003, giving the PLA legal justification for intervening in affairs in the Taiwan Strait or conducting military operations against Taiwan. Are the new Action Guidelines China’s equivalent to Russia’s ongoing “special military operation” in Ukraine? These are the issues that grabbed the attention of the whole world.

As there is no full text available for a closer look, the many critical analysis papers on the subject that have been presented so far more or less base their discussion on prior corresponding experiences and actual instances that seem to fit the category of MOOTW.

Possible Motives for the Formation of the Action Guidelines

To begin with, MOOTW is not a term unique to China. It originated from a concept that emerged amid the efforts of the U.S. military to adapt to its changing role and mission following the Cold War, which led to a rethinking of the functions of armed forces in general. Ideas such as low-intensity conflict, long-standing small war, and even the war on terror were brought forward in the process in an attempt to concretize the concept of MOOTW, which kept evolving without taking a final shape.

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An army, if sufficiently trained, can operate normally even if cut off from the civil communication network, even with the additional loss of water and electrical power supply. It is capable of traversing rough terrain and overcoming geographical barriers; its transportation and delivery capability, developed for wartime operations, serves to make it readily available for search and rescue missions during peacetime. Against this backdrop, the concept of MOOTW gradually took shape.

What should be noted is that mechanisms for deploying of armed forces for MOOTW varies from country to country, depending on each nation’s political system. In the case of the United States, the governor of a state has the authority to deploy the state’s National Guard. It is part of the autonomous power of the state granted by the federal government. Whether other countries can have a reserve force comparable to the U.S. National Guard either in structure or in training remains in doubt.

That is especially the case with the People’s Republic of China, where all armed forces do not belong to the country but to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under the principle of the party leading the army, provincial and lower-level local governments definitely do not have power and authority comparable to those of a U.S. state government. They surely have to gain approval from the central government-level CMC, specifically its chairman, before they can deploy local troops to undertake MOOTW missions. Will such an arrangement result in delays in the deployment of troops during an emergency? It is a question inviting further exploration.

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This has become more of a problem since 2018, after the armed police force was put under the sole command of the CMC, rather than also being subordinate to the State Council. In other words, the prior mechanism for deploying troops for search and rescue missions in natural disasters is now defunct. Therefore, China needs to specify the timing and associated administrative procedures for deployment of armed forces in MOOTW, particularly to clarify the roles of the central and local governments in this process.

Lessons Learned From COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic that broke out at the beginning of 2020 has had a great impact on Chinese economy and society. Shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic, local public health systems sustained so great a pressure and workload that they were near collapse. The pandemic wreaked havoc again in 2022 as Shanghai was hit hard by record high infections, with Beijing also on high alert. In the end, the PLA was obliged to play a part in helping Shanghai return to normal.

China’s experience with the pandemic so far indicates that the timing of PLA assistance is pivotal to the success of the central and local governments in containing outbreaks. Yet, as noted above, deployed PLA troops to an outbreak area is beyond the means and power of local governments or even the State Council.

However, communication between local governments and the CMC over deployment of troops for post-disaster search and rescue missions or a fight against infectious diseases is a cumbersome process. Will the current arrangement cause delays that miss the best timing window? China’s recent experiences prove it is more necessary than ever to bring deployment of the PLA under a legal framework.

As a matter of fact, deploying armed forces for MOOTW missions does not require combat equipment to be fielded at the same time. For example, tank ammunition and rifle cartridges are indispensable on the battlefield, but they are likely unnecessary in MOOTW undertakings. MOOTW need adequate provision of manpower, specialized medical teams, medical materials, and field communications systems. Rather than tanks, military transport vehicles or equipment of the engineering corps are called for. They are not the types of combat equipment that people normally think of.

In managing its armed forces, China’s top leadership is most wary of a scenario where troops are assembled for deployment without receiving orders from direct superiors authorizing them to do so – worse still if they are armed with live ammunition and in possession of combat equipment.

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Each country has its own complicated and strict procedures to follow in deploying troops. But such precautionary measures also lead to situations where no prompt response can be made to emergencies. To deal with such situations, the PLA had previously brought up the principle of “emergency response and handling of emergencies” to establish rules for such actions and norms for interaction or joint action. It had also probed deeper into the interaction between the military and local governments.

As early as 2009, China had already announced a similar directive, entitled “A Construction Plan for the Development of Military Operations Other Than War Capabilities for the Armed Force.” It was meant to deal with six main tasks, including counterterrorism, disaster relief, international peace-keeping, preservation of rights, international aid, and maintenance of security and vigilance. With the establishment of specific rules, it legalized procedures for the armed forces, specifically certain designated units, to participate in the afore-mentioned tasks.

However, in the wake of the most recent round of military reform initiated in 2016, quite a few military units and agencies had been disbanded or merged into other units and agencies. Many of the rules and norms that the PLA had established for the purpose had to be redefined. The restructuring of the CMC in particular made it imperative to determine whether existing rules and regulations as well as models of interaction between the military and local governments were still applicable.

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All these reasons might have led China to come up with the Action Guidelines in 2022.

A Review of MOOTW Missions Abroad

The PLA has conducted similar operations for many years, encompassing mainly post-disaster search and rescue missions and handling of domestic emergency situations, which, as defined by China, refer to mass incidents where armed forces are called in to maintain social order. With the increase of China’s overseas interests in recent years, there have been more cases of the PLA conducting disaster relief missions abroad, including anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, and evacuation of citizens from crisis-hit nations (with speed as the measure of success in such cases). All these missions fall into the category of MOOTW. China’s evacuation operations include one in Libya in 2011 and one in Yemen in 2015. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, China, in the face of the daunting task of evacuating large numbers of citizens from Ukraine, failed to dispatch sufficient transport aircraft to get the job done.

The evacuation mission in Libya was relatively easy because there were not many Chinese citizens to be moved to safety. And the mission in Yemen went as planned because the country is surrounded by the ocean, making it possible to evacuate citizens by sea. However, in the evacuation of Chinese nationals from Ukraine, the PLA was blamed for failing to get the job done as soon as possible.

The main reason for the botched mission might have a lot to do with the top leadership’s readiness to approve overseas military actions and problems with the interaction between the military and local governments in deploying troops. Considering the necessity to maintain command and control over the military, will the dispatch of large numbers of long-range transport aircraft at once tip the balance of power in the PLA, which acts on the principle of theater commands being responsible for operations and the services devoted to arms build-up? Will other structural problems emerge in the process of directing troops to accomplish future MOOTW missions? All these problems might have been encountered by the PLA in the evacuation of citizens from Ukraine.

The release of the Action Guidelines a few months later is not a coincidence. The guidelines promulgated in June serve to provide a more definite explanation and a legal definition regarding the PLA’s overseas actions in a bid to take the initiative in this regard.

Implications for Taiwan?

From the discussion above, we can postulate that China’s Action Guidelines carry motives similar to those of the “Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War” previously issued by the U.S. military. These guidelines do not have much to do with military operations as generally understood. Their significance lies in their provision of a legal basis for the deployment of armed forces, which is especially necessary nowadays, because situations falling into the category of “emergency response and handling of emergencies” are spiraling. Xi may well still prefer the PLA over other public sector entities in his choice of means for the handling emergencies.

The implementation of the Action Guidelines at this juncture, though on an experimental basis, is understandably aimed at providing the central government with a more legalized framework on the one hand, and subjecting armed forces to better control by the top leadership on the other. As compared with other nations, China’s deployment of the PLA for the purposes mentioned above is orientated more toward the “maintenance of stability” as emphasized by Beijing. In other words, should mass incidents or events potentially detrimental to the authority of the central government occur, the central government may issue orders for armed forces to move to designated places immediately. Besides setting up rules for deployment of post-reform armed forces of all kinds, encompassing the PLA, the armed police force, and the militia, the Action Guidelines also formally defines the inter-relationship between the military and local governments.

The Action Guidelines comes at a time when the CMC presumably wishes to strengthen its grip on the armed forces. More often than not, this is a most possible scenario under current circumstances.

Ying Yu Lin

Ying Yu Lin is an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at the Tamkang University in New Taipei City, Taiwan. He is a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University.

thediplomat.com · by Ying Yu Lin · August 24, 2022

17. The World Putin Wants

Excerpts:

As he looks toward a quarter century in power, Putin seeks to build his version of a Russian empire. He is “gathering in the lands” as did his personal icons—the great Russian tsars—and overturning the legacy of Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the post–Cold War settlement. In this way, Putin wants Russia to be the one exception to the inexorable rise and fall of imperial states. In the twentieth century, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Britain and France reluctantly gave up their empires after World War II. But Putin is insistent on bringing tsarist Russia back. Regardless of whether he prevails in Ukraine, Putin’s mission is already having a clear and ironic impact, both on Europe and on Russia’s 22 years of economic advancement. In reasserting Russia’s imperial position by seeking to reconquer Ukraine, Putin is reversing one of the greatest achievements of his professed greatest hero. During his reign, Peter the Great opened a window to the West by traveling to Europe, inviting Europeans to come to Russia and help develop its economy, and adopting and adapting European artisans’ skills. Vladimir Putin’s invasions and territorial expansions have slammed that window shut. 

They have sent Europeans and their companies back home and pushed a generation of talented Russians fleeing into exile. Peter took Russia into the future. Putin is pushing it back to the past.

The World Putin Wants

How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future

By Fiona Hill and Angela Stent

September/October 2022

Foreign Affairs · by There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-first Century · August 25, 2022

Vladimir Putin is determined to shape the future to look like his version of the past. Russia’s president invaded Ukraine not because he felt threatened by NATO expansion or by Western “provocations.” He ordered his “special military operation” because he believes that it is Russia’s divine right to rule Ukraine, to wipe out the country’s national identity, and to integrate its people into a Greater Russia.

He laid out this mission in a 5,000-word treatise, published in July 2021, entitled, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In it, Putin insisted that Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians are all descendants of the Rus, an ancient people who settled the lands between the Black and Baltic Seas. He asserted that they are bound together by a common territory and language and the Orthodox Christian faith. In his version of history, Ukraine has never been sovereign, except for a few historical interludes when it tried—and failed—to become an independent state. Putin wrote that “Russia was robbed” of core territory when the Bolsheviks created the Soviet Union in 1922 and established a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In his telling, since the Soviet collapse, the West has used Ukraine as a platform to threaten Russia, and it has supported the rise of “neo-Nazis” there. Putin’s essay, which every soldier sent to Ukraine is supposed to carry, ends by asserting that Ukraine can only be sovereign in partnership with Russia. “We are one people,” Putin declares.

This treatise, and similar public statements, make clear that Putin wants a world where Russia presides over a new Slavic union composed of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and perhaps the northern part of Kazakhstan (which is heavily Slavic)—and where all the other post-Soviet states recognize Russia’s suzerainty. He also wants the West and the global South to accept Russia’s predominant regional role in Eurasia. This is more than a sphere of influence; it is a sphere of control, with a mixture of outright territorial reintegration of some places and dominance in the security, political, and economic spheres of others.

Putin is serious about achieving these goals by military and nonmilitary means. He has been at war in Ukraine since early 2014, when Russian forces, wearing green combat uniforms stripped of their insignia, took control of Crimea in a stealth operation. This attack was swiftly followed by covert operations to stir up civil disorder in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions close to the Russian border. Russia succeeded in fomenting revolt in the Donbas region and sparking an armed conflict that resulted in 14,000 deaths over the next eight years. All these regions have been targeted for assault and conquest since February 2022. Similarly, in Belarus, Putin took advantage of internal crises and large-scale protests in 2020 and 2021 to constrain its leader’s room for maneuver. Belarus, which has a so-called union arrangement with Russia, was then used as the staging ground for the “special military operation” against Ukraine.

The Russian president has made it clear that his country is a revisionist power. In a March 2014 speech marking Crimea’s annexation, Putin put the West on notice that Russia was on the offensive in staking out its regional claims. To make this task easier, Putin later took steps that he believed would sanction-proof the Russian economy by reducing its exposure to the United States and Europe, including pushing for the domestic production of critical goods. He stepped up repression, conducting targeted assassinations and imprisoning opponents. He carried out disinformation operations and engaged in efforts to bribe and blackmail politicians abroad. Putin has constantly adapted his tactics to mitigate Western responses—to the point that on the eve of his invasion, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, he bragged to some European interlocutors that he had “bought the West.” There was nothing, he thought, that the United States or Europe could do to constrain him.

So far, the West’s reaction to the invasion has generally been united and robust. Russia’s aggressive attack on Ukraine was a wake-up call for the United States and its allies. But the West must understand that it is dealing with a leader who is trying to change the historical narrative of the last hundred years—not just of the period since the end of the Cold War. Vladimir Putin wants to make Ukraine, Europe, and indeed the whole world conform to his own version of history. Understanding his objectives is central to crafting the right response.

WHO CONTROLS THE PAST?

In Vladimir Putin’s mind, history matters—that is, history as he sees it. Putin’s conception of the past may be very different from what is generally accepted, but his narratives are a potent political weapon, and they underpin his legitimacy. Well before the full invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin had been making intellectual forays into obscure periods of the past and manipulating key events to set up the domestic and international justification for his war. In 2010, at the annual meeting of the Kremlin-sponsored Valdai International Discussion Club, Putin’s press spokesman told the audience that the Russian president reads books on Russian history “all the time.” He makes frequent pronouncements about Russian history, including about his own place in it. Putin has put Kyiv at the center of his drive to “correct” what he says is a historical injustice: the separation of Ukraine from Russia during the 1922 formation of the Soviet Union.

The president’s obsession with Russia’s imperial past runs deep. In his Kremlin chambers, Putin has strategically placed statues of the Russian monarchs Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, who conquered what are today Ukrainian territories in wars with the Swedish and Ottoman empires. He has also usurped Ukraine’s history and appropriated some of its most prominent figures. In November 2016, for example, right outside the Kremlin gates, Putin erected a statue of Vladimir the Great, the tenth-century grand prince of the principality of Kyiv. In Putin’s version of history, Grand Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity on behalf of all of ancient Rus in 988, making him the holy saint of Orthodox Christianity and a Russian, not a Ukrainian, Figure. The conversion means that there is no Ukrainian nation separate from Russia. The grand prince belongs to Moscow, not to Kyiv.

Since the war, Putin has doubled down on his historical arguments. He deputized his former culture minister and close Kremlin aide, Vladimir Medinsky, to lead the Russian delegation in early talks with Ukraine. According to a well-informed Russian academic, Medinsky was one of the ghostwriters of a series of essays by Putin on Ukraine and its supposed fusion with Russia. As quickly became clear, Medinsky’s brief was to press Russia’s historical claims to Ukraine and defend Putin’s distorted narratives, not just to negotiate a diplomatic solution.

Putin’s assertions, of course, are historical miasmas, infused with a brew of temporal and factual contradictions. They ignore, for example, the fact that in 988, the idea of a united Russian state and empire was centuries off in the future. Indeed, the Erst reference to Moscow as a place of any importance was not recorded until 1147.

BLAMING THE BOLSHEVIKS

On the eve of the invasion, Putin gave a speech accusing Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin of destroying the Russian empire by launching a revolution during World War I and then “separating, severing what is historically Russian land.” As Putin put it, “Bolshevik, Communist Russia” created “a country that had never existed before”—Ukraine—by wedging Russian territories such as the Donbas region, a center of heavy industry, into a new Ukrainian socialist republic. In fact, Lenin and the Bolsheviks essentially recreated the Russian empire and just called it something else. They established separate Soviet Socialist Republics for Ukraine and other regions to contrast themselves with the imperial tsars, who reigned over a united, Russified state and oppressed ethnic minorities. But for Putin, the Bolsheviks’ decision was illegitimate, robbing Russia of its patrimony and stirring “zealous nationalists” in Ukraine, who then developed dangerous ideas of independence. Putin claims he is reversing these century-old “strategic mistakes.”

Narratives about NATO have also played a special role in Putin’s version of history. Putin argues that NATO is a tool of U.S. imperialism and a means for the United States to continue its supposed Cold War occupation and domination of Europe. He claims that NATO compelled eastern European member countries to join the organization and accuses it of unilaterally expanding into Russia’s sphere of influence. In reality, those countries, still fearful after decades of Soviet domination, clamored to become members.

But according to Putin, these purported actions by the United States and NATO have forced Russia to defend itself against military encroachment; Moscow had “no other choice,” he claims, but to invade Ukraine to forestall it from joining NATO, even though the organization was not going to admit the country. On July 7, 2022, Putin told Russian parliamentary leaders that the war in Ukraine was unleashed by “the collective West,” which was trying to contain Russia and “impose its new world order on the rest of the world.”

The more that Russia tries to erase the Ukrainian national identity, the stronger it becomes.

But Putin also plays up Russia’s imperial role. At a June 9, 2022, Moscow conference, Putin told young Russian entrepreneurs that Ukraine is a “colony,” not a sovereign country. He likened himself to Peter the Great, who waged “the Great Northern War” for 21 years against Sweden—“returning and reinforcing” control over land that was part of Russia. This explanation also echoes what Putin told U.S. President George Bush at the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest: “Ukraine is not a real country.”

The United States was, of course, once a colony of Great Britain. So were Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and numerous other states that have been independent and sovereign for decades. That does not make them British or give the United Kingdom a contemporary claim to exert control over their destinies, even though many of these countries have English as their Erst or second language. Yet Putin insists that Ukraine’s Russian speakers are all Moscow’s subjects and that, globally, all Russian speakers are part of the “Russian world,” with special ties to the motherland.

In Ukraine, however, his push has backfired. Since February 24, 2022, Putin’s insistence that Ukrainians who speak Russian are Russians has, on the contrary, helped to forge a new national identity in Ukraine centered on the Ukrainian language. The more that Putin tries to erase the Ukrainian national identity with bombs and artillery shells, the stronger it becomes.

CONJURING NAZIS

Ukraine and Ukrainians have a complicated history. Empires have come and gone, and borders have changed for centuries, so the people living on modern Ukrainian territory have fluid, compound identities. But Ukraine has been an independent state since 1991, and Putin is genuinely aggrieved that Ukrainians insist on their own statehood and civic identity.

Take Putin’s frequent references to World War II. Since 2011, Putin has enshrined the “Great Fatherland War” as the seminal event for modern Russia. He has strictly enforced official narratives about the conflict. He has also portrayed his current operation as its successor; in Putin’s telling, the invasion of Ukraine is designed to liberate the country from Nazis. But for Putin, Ukrainians are Nazis not because they follow the precepts of Adolf Hitler or espouse national socialism. They are Nazis because they are “zealous nationalists”—akin to the controversial World War II–era Ukrainian partisan Stepan Bandera, who fought with the Germans against Soviet forces. They are Nazis because they refuse to admit they are Russians.

Putin’s conjuring of Ukrainian Nazis has gained more traction domestically than anywhere else. Yet internationally, Putin’s assertions about NATO and proxy wars with the United States and the collective West have won a variety of adherents, from prominent academics to Pope Francis, who said in June 2022 that the Ukraine war was “perhaps somehow provoked.” Western politicians and analysts continue to debate whether NATO is at fault for the war. These arguments persist even though Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea came in response to Ukraine’s efforts to associate with the European Union, not with NATO. And the debate has gone on, even though when Finland and Sweden applied to join the alliance in June 2022, despite months of threats from Russia, Putin told reporters that Kremlin officials “don’t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine.” Putin’s problem, then, was not NATO in particular. It was that Ukraine wanted to associate with any entity or country other than Russia. Whether Ukraine wanted to join the European Union or NATO or have bilateral relations with the United States—any of these efforts would have been an affront to Russia’s history and dignity.

To Putin, Ukrainians are Nazis because they refuse to admit they are Russians.

But Putin knows it will be difficult to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine based on his version of history and to reconcile fundamentally different stories of the past. Most modern European states emerged from the ruins of empires and the disintegration of larger multiethnic states. The war in Ukraine could lead to more Russian interference to stoke simmering conflicts in weak states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and other Balkan countries, where history and territorial claims are also disputed.

Yet no matter the potential cost, Putin wants his past to prevail in Europe’s political present. And to make sure that happens, the Russian military is in the field, in full force, fighting the regular Ukrainian army. Unlike the situation in Donbas from 2014 to 2022, when Russia falsely denied that it was involved, this war is a direct conflict between the two states. As Putin also told his Russian parliamentarians on July 7, he is determined to fight to the last Ukrainian, even though he purportedly sees Ukrainians as “brothers.”

AT ANY COST

Putin abhors that the United States and European countries are supporting Ukraine militarily. In response, he has launched an economic and information war against the West, clearly signaling that this is not only a military conflict and a battle over who gets to “own history.” Russia has weaponized energy, grain, and other commodities. It has spread disinformation, including by accusing Ukraine of committing the very atrocities that Russia has carried out on the battlefield and by blaming Western sanctions for exacerbating famines in Africa when it is Russia that has blocked Ukrainian grain shipments to the continent from the Black Sea. And in many parts of the world, Russia is winning the information war. So far, the West has not been able to be completely effective in the informational space.

Nevertheless, Western support for Ukraine has been significant. This support has two major elements: weapons and sanctions, including the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the United States, which have significantly increased Ukraine’s ability to strike back at Russian targets. Other NATO members have also supplied weapons and humanitarian assistance. But Ukraine’s constant need to replenish its arms has already begun to deplete the arsenals of donating countries.

Western energy, financial, and export control sanctions have been extensive, and they are affecting the Russian economy. But sanctions cannot alter Putin’s view of history or his determination to subjugate Ukraine, so they have not changed his calculus or his war aims. Indeed, close observers say that Putin has rarely consulted his economic advisers during this war, apart from Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the central bank, who has astutely managed the value of the ruble. This is a stark break from the past, when Putin has always appeared extremely interested in the Russian economy and eager to discuss statistics and growth rates in great detail. Any concerns about the long-term economic impact of the war have receded from his view.

Police officers walking past a monument to Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg, Russia, February 2019

Anton Vagano / Reuters

And to date, Russia’s economy has weathered the sanctions, although growth rates are forecast to plunge this year. The real pinch from Western export controls will be felt in 2023, when Russia will lack the semiconductors and spare parts for its manufacturing sector, and its industrial plants will be forced to close. The country’s oil industry will especially struggle as it loses out on technology and software from the international oil industry.

Europe and the United States have imposed wide-ranging energy sanctions on Russia, with the European Union committed to phasing out oil imports from Russia by the end of 2022. But limiting gas imports is much more challenging, as a number of countries, including Germany, have few alternatives to replace Russian gas in the short term, and Putin has weaponized energy by severely reducing gas supplies to Europe. For 50 years, the Soviet Union and Russia cast themselves as reliable suppliers of natural gas to Western Europe in a relationship of mutual dependence: Europe needed gas, and Moscow needed gas revenues. But that calculation is gone. Putin believes that Russia can forgo these revenues because countries still buying Russian oil and gas are paying higher prices for it—higher prices that he helped provoke by cutting back on Russia’s exports to Europe. And even if Russia does eventually lose energy revenues, Putin appears willing to pay that price. What he ultimately cares about is undermining European support for Ukraine.

Russia’s economic and energy warfare extends to the weaponization of nuclear power. Russia took over the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine at the beginning of the war, after recklessly sending Russian soldiers into the highly radioactive “red zone” and forcing the Ukrainian staff at the plant to work under dangerous conditions. Then, it abandoned the plant after having exposed the soldiers to toxic radiation. Russia subsequently shelled and took over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, and turned it into a military base. By attacking the power plant and transforming it into a military garrison, Russia has created a safety crisis for the thousands of workers there. Putin’s broad-based campaign does not stop at nuclear energy.

Putin’s goal is not negotiation but Ukrainian capitulation.

Russia has also weaponized food supplies, blockading Ukraine and preventing it from exporting its abundant grain and fertilizer stocks. In July 2022, Turkey and the United Nations brokered an agreement to allow Ukraine and Russia to export grain and fertilizer, but the implementation of this deal faced multiple obstacles, given the war raging in the Black Sea area. Indeed, immediately after the official signing of the agreement, Russia shelled some of the infrastructure at Ukraine’s critical Odessa port.

Putin has fallen back on another historic Russian military tactic—bogging down opposing forces and waiting for winter. Much as his predecessors arranged for Napoleon’s armies to be trapped in the snows near Moscow and for Nazi soldiers to freeze to death outside Stalingrad, Putin plans to have French and German citizens shivering in their homes. In his speech at the June 2022 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin predicted that, as Europeans face a cold winter and suffer the economic consequences of the sanctions their governments have imposed on Russia and on Russian gas exports, populist parties will rise, and new elites will come to power. The June 2022 parliamentary elections in France, when Marine Le Pen’s extreme-right party increased its seats elevenfold—largely because of voters’ unhappiness with their economic situation—reinforced Putin’s convictions. The collapse of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government in July 2022 and the possible return of a populist, pro-Russian prime minister in the fall were also considered results of popular economic discontent. The Kremlin aims to fracture Western unity against Russia under the pressure of energy shortages, high prices, and economic hardship.

In the meantime, Putin is confident that he can prevail. On the surface, popular support for the war inside Russia seems reasonably robust. Polling by the independent Levada Center shows that Putin’s approval rating went up after the invasion began. Nonetheless, there is good reason for skepticism about the depth of active support for him. Hundreds of thousands of people who oppose the war have left the country. Many of them, in doing so, have explicitly said that they want to be part of Russia’s future but not Vladimir Putin’s version of the past. Russians who have stayed and publicly criticized the war have been harassed or imprisoned. Others are indifferent, or they passively support the war. Indeed, life for most people in Moscow and other big Russian cities goes on as normal. So far, the conscripts who have been sent to fight and die are not the children of Russia’s elites or urban middle class. They are from poor, rural areas, and many of them are not ethnically Russian. Rumors after five months of combat that the Moscow-linked Wagner mercenary group was recruiting prisoners to fight suggested that Russia faced an acute manpower shortage. But the troops are urged on by propaganda that dehumanizes the Ukrainians and makes the fighting seem more palatable.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Despite calls by some for a negotiated settlement that would involve Ukrainian territorial concessions, Putin seems uninterested in a compromise that would leave Ukraine as a sovereign, independent state—whatever its borders. According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries. But as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a July interview with his country’s state media, this compromise is no longer an option. Even giving Russia all of the Donbas is not enough. “Now the geography is different,” Lavrov asserted, in describing Russia’s short-term military aims. “It’s also Kherson and the Zaporizhzhya regions and a number of other territories.” The goal is not negotiation, but Ukrainian capitulation.

At any point, negotiations with Russia—if not handled carefully and with continued strong Western support for Ukraine’s defense and security—would merely facilitate an operational pause for Moscow. After a time, Russia would continue to try to undermine the Ukrainian government. Moscow would likely Erst attempt to take Odessa and other Black Sea ports with the goal of leaving Ukraine an economically inviable, landlocked country. If he succeeds in that, Putin would launch a renewed assault on Kyiv as well, with the aim of unseating the present government and installing a pro-Moscow puppet government. Putin’s war in Ukraine, then, will likely grind on for a long time. The main challenge for the West will be maintaining resolve and unity, as well as expanding international support for Ukraine and preventing sanctions evasion.

This will not be easy. The longer the war lasts, the greater the impact domestic politics will have on its course. Russia, Ukraine, and the United States will all have presidential elections in 2024. Russia’s and Ukraine’s are usually slated for March. Russia’s outcome is foreordained: either Putin will return to power, or he will be followed by a successor, likely from the security services, who supports the war and is hostile to the West. Zelensky remains popular in Ukraine as a wartime president, but he will be less likely to win an election if he makes territorial concessions. And if Donald Trump or a Republican with views like his becomes president of the United States in 2025, U.S. support for Ukraine will erode.

Domestic politics will also play a role outside these three countries—and, in fact, outside the West altogether. The United States and its allies may want to isolate Russia, but a large number of states in the global South, led by China, regard the Russia-Ukraine war as a localized European conflict that does not affect them. China has even backed Russia rhetorically, refused to impose sanctions, and supported it in the United Nations. (One should not underestimate the durability and significance of Russia’s alignment with China.) Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar summarized the attitude of many developing states when he said that Russia is a “very important partner in a number of areas.” For much of the global South, concerns focus on fuel, food, fertilizer, and also arms. These countries are apparently not concerned that Russia has violated the UN Charter and international law by unleashing an unprovoked attack on a neighbor’s territory.

A fire from a gas processing plant hit by shelling in Andriivka, Ukraine, June 2022

Leah Millis / Reuters

There’s a reason these states have not joined the United States and Europe in isolating Moscow. Since 2014, Putin has assiduously courted “the rest”—the developing world—even as Russia’s ties with the West have frayed. In 2015, for example, Russia sent its military to the Middle East to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war. Since then, Russia has cultivated ties with leaders on all sides of that region’s disputes, becoming one of the only major powers able to talk to all parties. Russia has strong ties with Iran, but also with Iran’s enemies: particularly Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states. In Africa, Russian paramilitary groups provide support to a number of leaders. And in Latin America, Russian influence has increased as more left-wing governments have come to power. There and elsewhere, Russia is still seen as a champion of the oppressed against the stereotype of U.S. imperialism. Many people in the global South view Russia as the heir to the Soviet Union, which supported their post-colonial national liberation movements, not a modern variant of imperial Russia.

Not only does much of the world refuse to criticize or sanction Russia; major countries simply do not accept the West’s view of what caused the war or just how grave the conflict is. They instead criticize the United States and argue that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is no different from what the United States did in Iraq or Vietnam. They, like Moscow, justify Russia’s invasion as a response to the threat from NATO. This is thanks in part to the Kremlin’s propaganda, which has amplified Putin’s narratives about NATO and proxy wars and the nefarious actions of the West.

International institutions have not been much more helpful than developing countries. The United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe proved incapable of preventing or stopping this war. They seem increasingly the victims of Putin’s distorted view of the past as well as poorly structured to meet the challenges of the present.

DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

Putin’s manipulations of history suggest that his claims go beyond Ukraine, into Europe and Eurasia. The Baltic states might be on his colonial agenda, as well as Poland, part of which was ruled by Russia from 1772 to 1918. Much of present-day Moldova was part of the Russian empire, and Russian officials have suggested that this state could be next in their sights. Finland was also part of the Russian empire between 1809 and 1918. Putin may not be able to conquer these countries, but his extravagant remarks about taking back Russia’s colonies are designed to intimidate his neighbors and throw them off balance. In Putin’s ideal world, he will gain leverage and control over their politics by threatening them until they let Russia dictate their foreign and domestic policies.

In Putin’s vision, the global South would, at a minimum, remain neutral in Russia’s standoff with the West. Developing nations would actively support Moscow. With the BRICS organization—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—set to expand to include Argentina, Iran, and possibly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, Russia may acquire even more partners, ones that together represent a significant percentage of global GDP and a large percentage of the world’s population. Russia would then emerge as a leader of the developing world, as was the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

All this underlines why it is imperative that the West (Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the United States, and Europe) redouble its efforts to remain united in supporting Ukraine and countering Russia. In the near term, that means working together to push back against Russian disinformation about the war and false historical narratives, as well as the Kremlin’s other efforts to intimidate Europe—including through deliberate nuclear saber-rattling and energy cutoffs. In the medium to long term, the United States, its allies, and its partners should discuss how to restructure the international and European security architecture to prevent Russia from attacking other neighbors that it deems within its sphere. But for now, NATO is the only institution that can guarantee Europe’s security. Indeed, Finland’s and Sweden’s decision to join was in part motivated by that realization.

As he looks toward a quarter century in power, Putin seeks to build his version of a Russian empire. He is “gathering in the lands” as did his personal icons—the great Russian tsars—and overturning the legacy of Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the post–Cold War settlement. In this way, Putin wants Russia to be the one exception to the inexorable rise and fall of imperial states. In the twentieth century, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Britain and France reluctantly gave up their empires after World War II. But Putin is insistent on bringing tsarist Russia back. Regardless of whether he prevails in Ukraine, Putin’s mission is already having a clear and ironic impact, both on Europe and on Russia’s 22 years of economic advancement. In reasserting Russia’s imperial position by seeking to reconquer Ukraine, Putin is reversing one of the greatest achievements of his professed greatest hero. During his reign, Peter the Great opened a window to the West by traveling to Europe, inviting Europeans to come to Russia and help develop its economy, and adopting and adapting European artisans’ skills. Vladimir Putin’s invasions and territorial expansions have slammed that window shut. 

They have sent Europeans and their companies back home and pushed a generation of talented Russians fleeing into exile. Peter took Russia into the future. Putin is pushing it back to the past.

Foreign Affairs · by There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-first Century · August 25, 2022

18. Only Bipartisanship Can Defeat Authoritarian Aggression

I fear the hatred of "the other" over the love for our country with all its faults on the extreme left and extreme right will prevent the needed bipartisanship.

Only Bipartisanship Can Defeat Authoritarian Aggression

For Success Abroad, Americans Need Consensus at Home

By Dan Sullivan and Daniel Twining

August 25, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Dan Sullivan and Daniel Twining · August 25, 2022

U.S. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump don’t agree on much, but their administrations together have executed the most important pivot in U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 terrorist attacks: centering grand strategy around systematic great-power competition with China and Russia. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has genuine rivals for international leadership with the ability to potentially defeat U.S. forces in military conflict. Yet approaching this geopolitical earthquake purely as a competition doesn’t tell the full story and makes it hard for presidents to garner popular support for difficult policy choices in what is a generational struggle. After all, what is the United States competing for and why?

A more accurate description of this new international dynamic is one of authoritarian aggression, as evident in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in China’s escalating threats to absorb Taiwan by force. For nearly a century, American presidents have seen Asia and Europe as theaters that, if under hostile control, would put U.S. national security at extreme risk. Generations of Americans fought and died so that East Asia and Europe would not fall under the imperial control of U.S. adversaries. Both these theaters are at risk today. Should predatory dictatorships be allowed to swallow democratic neighbors with impunity, freedom would be imperiled everywhere—including in the United States.

The challenge does not stem simply from the military capabilities of the United States’ rivals. It stems from the ideologies of these hostile regimes and their desire to contest U.S. power and create a new world order governed by authoritarian spheres of influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin pursue revisionist policies of aggression both to bolster domestic autocratic control and to dismantle the foreign network of democratic alliances led by the United States. Their ambition is to push the United States out of their regions, neutralize or subjugate their neighbors, erode the alliance system that secures the U.S. homeland, and make the world safe for autocracy.

Biden is right to call the contest between democracy and autocracy the defining geopolitical challenge of this era. He will enjoy support from the U.S. Congress in reinforcing what Dean Acheson, who served as U.S. secretary of state under President Harry Truman, defined as “situations of strength” around the world, underpinned by the United States’ vital military alliances and its forces. But the free world is shrinking, not growing, on Biden’s watch. If the United States is to engage in a generational struggle to protect the free world from predatory great-power adversaries, it must deploy all elements of its power to deter aggression and bolster U.S. and allied resilience.

Although the United States is politically polarized at home, it has a unique opportunity to forge a new strategic consensus to guide its affairs abroad. Republicans and Democrats have come together to support Ukraine in defeating Russian aggression, and the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to enlarge NATO by welcoming Sweden and Finland. Bipartisan majorities also agree on the foundational challenge China poses to U.S. economic and national security. For the first time in more than half a century, the United States has both the need and the ability to build a bipartisan foreign policy consensus around the imperative of countering authoritarian aggression. But the goal shouldn’t be just to compete—it should be to win.

THE SINO-RUSSIAN VISION

China and Russia pose unique threats to vital U.S. interests. Both are driven by an inflated sense of historical grievance, and both have weaponized hostile ideologies against the United States and its democratic allies. Each is led by a dictator who is isolated from society and protected by a massive security apparatus that treats citizens as potential enemies rather than as members of a public that they should serve.

Yet the ambition of these dictators goes beyond grabbing territory and pushing the United States out of their regions. Xi and Putin seek to inaugurate a new international order. They would replace the rules-based system that Washington has led since the end of World War II—which has produced more peace, prosperity, and freedom than any system in history—with one centered on raw power, spheres of influence, and a new definition of “sovereignty” that gives autocrats, not citizens, the ultimate authority to define legitimate political order.

The new era of authoritarian aggression is fundamentally tied to the nature of the Putin and Xi regimes. Its animating force is authoritarian insecurity—revisionism abroad linked to autocracy at home. Xi and Putin’s biggest weakness is that they fear their own people. Putin wants to destroy Ukraine’s democracy to ensure that Russians don’t do what Ukrainians have already done: peacefully overthrow a corrupt dictator and build an open society. Xi’s view of Taiwan is analogous to Putin’s view of Ukraine. Taiwan is a thriving Chinese democracy with free media, a vibrant civil society, and competitive elections: living proof that the autocracy of the Chinese Communist Party need not be China’s natural state.

Xi and Putin seek to inaugurate a new international order.

To prevail in this new era of authoritarian aggression, the United States must build a bipartisan strategic consensus of the kind that guided its strategy in the 1940s and 1950s. In that period, Democratic and Republican statesmen marginalized the isolationists in both wings of their parties and forged a durable bipartisan coalition around the need to contain the Soviet Union. Without similar cross-party cooperation on foreign policy today, the United States will be hobbled in its competition with highly motivated authoritarian adversaries.

The United States must begin to build this new strategic consensus in Ukraine, ensuring that Russia’s occupation fails and that Putin is deterred from further adventurism. Yet in the long term, China presents the greater challenge and must be at the center of any bipartisan foreign-policy approach. Deterring Chinese aggression in Asia starts with Taiwan. A Chinese military takeover of the island would upend the world order, altering the course of the twenty-first century in the way that World War I transformed the twentieth. It would advance Beijing’s campaign to export authoritarianism abroad, separate Washington from its democratic allies, and banish the United States from the Western Pacific. Preventing such a disastrous outcome must be a top U.S. priority in the era of authoritarian aggression.

SOURCES OF STRENGTH

More broadly, managing the challenges posed by China and Russia requires emphasizing five core pillars of U.S. strength and strategy: reinvigorating innovation, rebuilding military strength, leveraging energy and natural resource endowments, deepening alliances, and promoting democratic values to counter authoritarian influence around the world.

Investing in American innovation is essential. China aims to dominate the twenty-first-century digital economy, including critical domains such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and big data. These technologies are essential to Xi’s project of constructing an all-powerful surveillance state that deters dissent or snuffs it out before it can challenge his rule. Chinese primacy in these areas would put the freedoms of Americans at risk. If Western nations’ digital operating systems run on Chinese hardware and software, everything from the integrity of U.S. military command-and-control to the security of U.S. critical infrastructure will be imperiled.

The United States still has a significant technological advantage over China, but it must do more to spur innovation, including by prioritizing education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; investing in basic research; and supporting federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation. In the same way that competition with the Soviet Union led to U.S. breakthroughs in space, science, and technology during the Cold War, competition with China—more of a full-spectrum superpower than the Soviet Union ever was—should spur a new era of American innovation today.

American military weakness has historically encouraged authoritarian provocations.

The United States must also bolster its armed forces. Between 2010 and 2016, the Department of Defense budget was slashed by 25 percent. Not surprisingly, the combat readiness of U.S. forces plummeted. During the same period, China undertook a massive effort to modernize its forces and militarized the South China Sea. This was no coincidence: American military weakness has historically encouraged authoritarian provocations globally—from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, both of which came on the heels of deep cuts to the U.S. defense budget and the latter of which followed U.S. President Barack Obama’s failure to enforce his redline on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Unfortunately, Biden seems not to have learned that lesson. In his first two budgets, he proposed to cut funding for the Department of Defense (accounting for inflation) while significantly increasing funding for all other agencies. These decisions, coupled with the abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban, signaled to authoritarian rivals that aggression would go unchallenged and may have encouraged Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite that wake-up call, Biden’s current budget proposal for the coming year would cut funding for the navy and air force—central instruments of power projection—and create a new Civilian Climate Corps larger than the Marine Corps.

In defiance of the administration’s proposed cuts, last year’s National Defense Authorization Act included provisions to harden the defense industrial base against threats from China and accelerate the development of technologies vital for strategic competition. Effective deterrence of authoritarian powers will also require more forward-deployed U.S. troops in eastern Europe, an expansion of U.S. military support for Taiwan, the strengthening of U.S. bases in the Indo-Pacific, and considerable investments in naval, air, and cyber assets essential to prevailing against techno-authoritarian adversaries.

In addition to solidifying its military, the United States must take advantage of its critical mineral and energy assets. The United States is the largest producer of oil and natural gas and a global leader in renewables. It has the world’s highest environmental standards for energy production, allowing it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost 15 percent since 2005—more than any other industrialized nation. Energy independence enhances U.S. global environmental leadership and secures U.S. national interests, for instance, by allowing the United States to help its European allies reduce their dependence on Russian energy.

Yet the Biden administration has undercut this advantage by blocking the development of energy infrastructure, shutting down core elements of U.S. energy production, and strong-arming U.S. financial institutions not to invest in American energy projects. As a result, U.S. energy imports from Russia doubled during the first year of Biden’s presidency. It is indefensible that an energy-independent United States would slash its energy production and increase its reliance on energy from authoritarian countries. The United States must instead ramp up production so it can help allies such as Germany and Japan replace their Russian energy imports with cleaner, more reliable American supplies.

U.S. energy imports from Russia doubled during the first year of Biden’s presidency.

Biden’s climate plan is similarly shortsighted, relying on China to source critical minerals and renewable energy technologies while downplaying Beijing’s systemic human rights abuses and abysmal environmental record. Instead of a Green New Deal that kneecaps American competitiveness, the United States should simultaneously pursue energy, employment, and climate goals with a plan that is grounded in American abundance—not forced scarcity.

But such recalibrations, whether economic, military, or technological, should not be done alone. The United States must reorient its approach to China and Russia in partnership with its allies, whose cooperation will be essential to deter authoritarian aggression. The United States is allied with countries that together make up nearly 70 percent of global GDP, most of them strong democracies that trade more with each other collectively than with China. By contrast, Russia’s closest ally is Belarus and China’s is North Korea.

To its credit, the Trump administration worked to strengthen the Quad partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and the Biden administration has done the same. To further enhance quadrilateral cooperation, one of us (Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska) introduced legislation that provides support to expand energy trading relationships with these democracies. The U.S. Congress has also been strongly supportive of the new partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUKUS.

Unity in the West is vital for the maintenance of high global standards in transparency, accountability, anticorruption, peaceful resolution of conflict, and adherence to international law. NATO could not be more important for ensuring the security of Europe, and it remains central to U.S. security interests. The United States must work more closely with European and other allies to manage the national security risks associated with incorporating Chinese technology into national telecommunications and cyber networks.

Finally, the United States must lean into its democratic values as it seeks to counter authoritarian influence. Democratic values give the free world a critical advantage in what will likely be another decades-long confrontation with Russia and China, just as they did in the Cold War. In his address to the British Parliament in 1982, President Ronald Reagan argued that the United States would win the Cold War not through hard power alone but through the power of its ideals. As he reminded his audience, “Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means of legitimizing its leaders.” Ultimately, it was the brittleness of authoritarianism and the appeal of freedom that brought down the Soviet Union.

Supporting pro-democracy citizens and movements in China, Russia, and other autocracies—and in countries with developing or vulnerable democratic institutions—is critical to building a safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous world. Of course, not all of the United States’ security partners are democracies. During the Cold War, Washington led a “free-world” coalition that included illiberal states. In places such as South Korea and Taiwan, alliances with the United States helped produce the conditions for transformative political change. The United States can partner with countries such as Vietnam that do not have democratic governments but share its strong interest in a free and open Indo-Pacific. Many such countries don’t want to be part of any new Chinese or Russian empire; the United States can work with them to sustain a balance of power that prevents authoritarian aggression even if it takes time for their internal politics to change.

UP TO THE CHALLENGE

The new era of Chinese and Russian authoritarian aggression will likely last for decades. The United States must face it with confidence and strategic resolve. Not only does the United States have singular military, economic, technological, and energy strengths, but thanks to its long struggle with the Soviet Union, it knows what works: maintaining peace through strength, promoting free markets and free people, and having confidence in the Cold War strategist George Kennan’s insight that one-man, one-party rule “bears within it the seeds of its own decay.”

Prevailing in this geopolitical and ideological contest will require a new level of strength, ingenuity, and commitment to universal democratic values. Yet there is every reason to believe that the country is up to the challenge. The United States has tremendous strengths underpinned by the vitality of an open society. But its greatest strength is the American people themselves—in all their ingenuity, dynamism, diversity, and patriotism. In a struggle with Russia and China, whose regimes fear their own people, that is an extraordinary advantage.

• DAN SULLIVAN is a Republican Senator from Alaska, a Marine Colonel (reserve), and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.
• DANIEL TWINING is President of the International Republican Institute.

Foreign Affairs · by Dan Sullivan and Daniel Twining · August 25, 2022

19. How Ukraine Can Make Russia Pay: How About Some A-10 Warthogs and Old Fighters?

How Ukraine Can Make Russia Pay: How About Some A-10 Warthogs and Old Fighters?

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Farley · August 24, 2022

What hope is there for the war in the air in Ukraine? More than by land or by sea, Western support for Ukraine in the air could give Kyiv a decisive advantage – certainly in that domain, and possibly in the war as a whole. With the addition of new aircraft, new weapons, and newly trained pilots, the Ukrainian air force could improve its position relative to the Russians, who are struggling to replace aircraft losses.

Of course, the air domain is not necessarily decisive in modern warfare, and such support would only mitigate Russia’s artillery advantage. Moreover, creating a modern, capable air force is a demanding task even during peacetime. Nevertheless, the West faces some clear choices about how to support Ukraine’s effort in the air war.

Go Small: Further Development of Existing Capabilities

The West may continue the limited policies it has established thus far. These include the transfer of weapons and the facilitation of maintenance on Ukraine’s existing fighter fleet. Support could even extend to the transfer of additional aircraft from former Warsaw Pact countries, along with support for integrating those planes into the force. This would enable Ukraine to continue is aerial “guerrilla war,” attacking only where it has a significant advantage, and using its other capabilities to attack Russian airfields.

Policies along this line would make it difficult for Russia to use its superior number of aircraft and cruise missiles to build any advantage of its own. It could also limit the damage Russian aerospace forces can inflict on Ukrainian civilian areas, because such Western support makes airstrikes and even cruise-missile attacks a dicey proposition.

However, assistance at this level does not offer the Ukrainians any decisive advantage over the battlefield. It simply allows Ukraine to maintain the status quo indefinitely. While continuing in this way would help manage Western worries about escalation, it will eventually prove frustrating, both for the Ukrainians and for their most enthusiastic Western supporters.

Qualitative Improvement: Major Air-to-Air Support

Alternatively, the West could begin to transfer significant numbers of the kinds of jets that can fight for air superiority. To some degree, any old fighter will do: The F-15, F-16, F/A-18, Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, and Saab Gripen are all reasonable options for repopulating Ukraine’s air force. These fighters have differences both subtle and important, but properly equipped, any of them would give Ukraine a chance to establish air superiority over the battlefield. Maintaining that superiority would mean that Ukraine could insulate its airspace from attack by the Russians, offering civilians a greater degree of protection. Pilots would need to be trained on the new airframes, but the war has gone on long enough to make that possible. Developing Ukraine’s counter-air capabilities would change the war and create a long-term security management problem for Russia. But it still might not be enough to help Ukraine win the war.

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft sits parked on flight line at MacDill Air Force Base, Sept. 8, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Lauren Cobin).

Escalatory Risks: Major Air-to-Ground Capabilities

Finally, the U.S. and its allies could make a major investment in Ukraine’s air force, trying to turn the air domain into a decisive edge in the battle against Russia. This could include seemingly outlandish plans such as the transfer of A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft to Kyiv. It would also require a concerted effort to build up Ukraine’s air-defense suppression capability, which started the war at nearly zero but has certainly enjoyed a boost from the transfer of anti-radiation missiles that can target Russian radars.

Aircraft like the A-10, supported by fast jet fighters, would do serious damage to Russian ground forces. Along with drones and stand-off missiles, attack aircraft could make a severe dent. This in turn could give Ukraine the chance to begin ground offensives that might turn the tide of the conflict. Still, this would represent a significant Western investment, and it would carry risks of escalation.

A Continuing Question

Barring a major change in the course of the war, Ukraine will continue to exist in the future, and it will have a degree of control over its own defense policy. Whether part of NATO or not, this country will sit at the front line between Russia and Europe. Unless the Russians manage to achieve military successes that allow them to dictate terms to Kyiv, Ukraine will have an air force – and it will need to find modern aircraft somewhere. It seems awfully unlikely that a future Ukraine will be satisfied with the aging post-Soviet warplanes that constitute its forces. The question of which Western fighter Ukraine adopts will need to be answered sooner or later.

MiG-29 fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

A 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Farley · August 24, 2022

20. This Gen-Z Value Could Spell Trouble for Spec Ops Community

But this does not mean that leaders do not value this trait. Was this a box to be ticked off on a survey or is this trait one that Gen Zers discuss without prompt. I think it is a better indicator in the amount of overlap.

Excerpts:

“Transparent values-driven leadership” is a trait younger generations are “really big on,” Schroden said. And it wasn’t mentioned once by today’s SOF leaders

...

CNA found a lot of overlap. Eleven traits span all three: character, creativity, flexibility, determination, competence, relationship builder, trustworthiness, problem-solver, approachability, empowerment, risk-taker.

This Gen-Z Value Could Spell Trouble for Spec Ops Community

CNA looked at the leadership traits valued by today’s youth, special operators, and strategists of tomorrow.

defenseone.com · by Elizabeth Howe

What Gen Z and millennials want doesn’t exactly line up with what today’s military leaders offer—and a new report suggests there might be particular implications for the Pentagon’s special operations forces.

A study conducted by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) compared the leadership traits valued by three groups: today’s special operators, Gen Z and millennials, and the strategic thinkers envisioning tomorrow’s battlefield.

CNA found a lot of overlap. Eleven traits span all three: character, creativity, flexibility, determination, competence, relationship builder, trustworthiness, problem-solver, approachability, empowerment, risk-taker.

“Generally speaking, it's a good news story that SOF leadership is in a pretty good place with respect to the leadership traits that they at least say are important to them,” said Jonathan Schroden, director of CNA’s Countering Threats and Challenges Program and its Special Operations Program. “But there were a couple of things that emerged that we thought were interesting and that the other recommendations flow from.”

“Transparent values-driven leadership” is a trait younger generations are “really big on,” Schroden said. And it wasn’t mentioned once by today’s SOF leaders.

“You're going to have people coming into the force who will apparently really value transparency and values-based leadership,” Schroden said. “And SOF have struggled with that in the recent past.”

While transparent values may be an attainable goal for certain career fields—even within the military—it presents a unique obstacle for the special operations community.

Gen Z likes to know “why they’re being asked to do something,” Schroden said, “as opposed to just being ordered to do it and saluting and doing it because they were ordered to do it.” Younger people on the force might want answers that SOF commanders are not willing or not able—for classification reasons—to provide, the report found.

“That’s going to have the potential to negatively impact the motivation of those younger members of the force,” Schroden said. “The leader is going to have to think differently about how they use information to motivate.”

Key aspects of SOF culture are also going to be left behind by future generations. For example, a sense of initiative, action-oriented thinking, and a warrior mentality are all traits valued by current SOF leaders but were not identified as important to future generations or the future battlefield.

“It’s not like SOF are broken in this regard,” Schroden said. “The traits that SOF talk about today are pretty close to what we identified as being necessary for younger people and future generations. But they’re not codified and there are some important missing pieces like transparency and values-based leadership that’ll be really important for them to focus on going forward.”

defenseone.com · by Elizabeth Howe

21. Taiwan raises defense budget 14.9% amid military reform debate

Taiwan raises defense budget 14.9% amid military reform debate

Record allocation comes as pressure grows to confront hard questions about security

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Taiwan-tensions/Taiwan-raises-defense-budget-14.9-amid-military-reform-debate?utm_source=pocket_mylist

THOMPSON CHAU, Contributing writer, LAULY LI and CHENG TING-FANG, Nikkei staff writers

August 25, 2022 13:00 JST

TAIPEI -- Taiwan's government proposed a record defense budget for 2023 on Thursday, as its military remains keen to develop conventional weapons despite growing domestic and U.S. calls to focus on asymmetrical warfare.

The proposed budget of NT$523.4 billion ($17.3 billion) is a 14.9% increase from this year's total allocation. The figure includes NT$108.3 for new advanced combat jets and programs for elevating sea and air combat capability. The total budget would reach NT$586.3 billion if another special fund is included.

The budget now goes for approval to the Legislative Yuan, which begins a new session next month.

Taiwan is grappling with increasing Chinese aggression, with concerns growing over the island's ability to defend itself after Beijing conducted its biggest-ever military drills surrounding its neighbor earlier this month. The People's Liberation Army sent aircraft, drones, missiles and warships around Taiwan and its outlying islands after a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In January, Taiwanese lawmakers passed an extra spending bill of around $8.6 billion for a five-year special defense budget on top of the annual defense budget. This year, Chinese defense spending has risen by 7.1% to 1.45 trillion yuan ($211 billion), faster than the 6.8% increase in 2021.

Taiwan has never been ruled by communist China, but Beijing claims the island as its own and has refused to rule out an invasion, which would cause a great loss of life and bring economic devastation to the world.

Pressure is growing on Tsai's administration to reform defense, including strengthening reservist forces, doubling down on asymmetrical weapons and creating civilian units. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, during a visit to Taipei in July, called on Taiwan to extend its existing four-month mandatory military training for conscripts to at least one year and to include women.

Currently, only Taiwanese men over 18 have mandatory training. Taiwanese women can choose to join the armed forces. The latest figures show that of the more than 180,000 military personnel in Taiwan, only 15% are female.

Soldiers take part in Taiwan's Han Kuang military exercise on July 28. The drill simulated a China's People's Liberation Army invasion of the island. © Getty Images

Successive U.S. administrations have pushed Taiwan to modernize its military to become a "porcupine" that is difficult for Beijing to attack and occupy, urging Taipei to purchase weapons that are cheaper and more mobile and survivable. This push is supported by some heavyweights in Taiwan, including Lee Hsi-min, former chief of general staff of Taiwan's armed forces.

In an interview with Nikkei Asia, Lee said Taiwan should prioritize weapons that are cost-effective and more survivable. "Conventional weapons such as tanks, submarines and aircraft have high opportunity costs. If you spend your money on these big weapons, you don't have resources for smaller ones."

"Taiwan should acquire a lot of small, mobile and inexpensive weapons, which could outlast initial assaults by Beijing, especially by Chinese long-range missiles or fighter jets. So Chinese forces have to attempt to get nearer to Taiwan, which makes them more vulnerable," Lee said.

Various obstacles stand in the way of reforms, and military personnel dominate the Defense Ministry.

"There are no civilians in Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, and civilian-military relations are strained, so the government doesn't have sufficient influence over the military's decision-making," said Bonnie Glaser, a China and Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund. "The president is loath to challenge the military and can't effectively do so because there is a lack of civilian defense experts who can provide good analysis and recommendations."

Taiwan's armed forces assess the threats and the countermeasures differently. "The military has not wanted to invest in the reserves, for example. It wants to prioritize preventing the PLA from landing on the beach and doesn't want to invest resources on the possible fight against China if an invasion succeeds," Glaser noted.

The U.S. policy establishment and some Taiwanese experts have supported the idea of creating a territorial defense force.

Citing Ukraine's success in staving off Russian invaders, Lee said a standing, all-volunteer Taiwanese territorial defense force would raise the cost and uncertainty for a Chinese invasion, and strengthen deterrence by demonstrating national resolve.

But others disagree. Wong Ming-Shien of the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies cited insufficient funding, the lack of training grounds and weaponry, and the impact on the professional armed forces if they were tasked with training civilians.

"Existing technical constraints should not be the reason to not invest in a force structure that would help prevent war," said Enoch Wu of the ruling DPP, a former staffer at Taiwan's national security council and former special forces soldier.

"Given Taiwan already spends over a quarter of our national budget on defense, the government should consider divesting from legacy platforms and reallocating resources to a ministry that is able to carry out this mission," Wu said.

Ivan Kanapathy, a senior associate with think tank CSIS and formerly a China director on the National Security Council, said China's recent firing of PHL 16 rockets from Pingtan island, one of China's closest points to Taiwan, into the Strait offers valuable lessons for Taipei.

"The PLA Ground Force has been investing heavily in its own asymmetric capabilities to soften Taiwan's resistance -- using a large amount of fires at a relatively low cost. Taiwan frankly needs to take lessons on this approach of using cost-effective capabilities," he said.

​

​22. ‘We Need to Own the Heat The Way We Now Own Night,’ Pentagon Climate Chief Says

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‘We Need to Own the Heat The Way We Now Own Night,’ Pentagon Climate Chief Says

Tactical cooling vests and other adaptations will be needed as dangerous temperatures arrive on training ranges and in combat zones.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

When future U.S. troops deploy to environments several degrees hotter than today’s hottest places, they’ll need special gear to help them train and operate, the Pentagon’s climate-adaptation chief said Friday. And if the U.S. military can figure out how to operate in extreme heat, it could give them an advantage similar to the advent of night vision.

“If you go back 30, 40 years, we were concerned that we couldn't operate at night, and there was a significant investment in night vision. Now the United States military can operate day and night, all our assets,” said Richard Kidd, the deputy assistant defense secretary for environment and energy resilience. “We have a tremendous advantage in the fact that we're able to do that. Looking forward to a hotter world, we need to be able to operate in all temperatures. We need to be able to own the heat the same way that we now own night.”

Kidd, who spoke to Defense One in an interview that will air on Aug. 25 as part of the Defense One Climate Summit, has been warning that extreme heat is already beginning to affect military readiness.

For one thing, National Guardsmen in California are spending more and more time fighting wildfires. But Kidd also said it’s becoming harder to operate in many of the military’s most important training locales.

“Fort Benning [in Georgia] right now is a basic training post for the Army.” he said. “It is also the installation that currently suffers the highest number of heat casualties in the department, due to the training that goes along there and a combination of heat, humidity, and weather. So if you look to the future, we can predict that those ‘Category 5 days are going to triple by 2070.”

A Category 5 day, according to the U.S. Army Public Health Center, is one in which the wet bulb globe temperature index passes 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

“If you have 36 degrees Celsius—98 degrees Fahrenheit—and 100% humidity, the human body can no longer effectively cool itself. All right, and it will start to shut down,” KIdd said. “So if we look towards the future, we're going to be asking our soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen to operate in…more extreme temperatures, hotter and more humid…And the fact that we do that poses a significant risk to their welfare. So we've already started talking about things like tactical cooling.”

That’s leading the Pentagon to ask questions like: “Do we need cooling vests? Do we need shelters and…places of cooling respite, whether it's on the battlefield, or on the deck of an aircraft carrier?”

The Defense Department doesn’t have the luxury of staying indoors in the air conditioning, he said. “One of the things about the Climate Adaptation Plan that the department published [last September] is, we want to be able to operate under all future conditions.”

The Defense Department can’t (and won’t) sacrifice military advantage to address climate change, Kidd said. But the Pentagon is investing heavily in tech to improve fuel efficiency across its operations, like kits to turn trucks into hybrid trucks, which Kidd projects could reduce fuel demand for the wheeled fleet by as much as 20 percent. They’re also investing in ambitious strategies that are just now emerging as realistic, like small, deployable nuclear reactors and solar power from space beamed to Earth.

Working with the Energy Department and other agencies, Pentagon leaders are investing in areas that might influence the commercial market, like small, local energy grids, or microgrids, which could be used at forward bases.

“We're about 30% of the microgrid market. So microgrids and large-scale battery storage…that's what excites me,” Kidd said. “We've got this dedicated [$700 million and growing] program to build out microgrids across our installations. We're going to chart the course for the country, build resilient installations that can withstand adversity, and be there to help the community and the nation when needed.”

That makes sense not only from an efficiency point of view but a tactical one as well. Getting fuel to forward operating bases was a major problem in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where soldiers often had to retrieve fuel drums under the threat of enemy fire. In a war against a smarter, better-armed adversary, fuel lines represent a major vulnerability.

“My counterpart of the Joint Staff, the J4, is propagating a joint operating concept around the fact that we are now in a contested logistical environment,” Kidd said. “If we look forward to a fight against a potential near-peer adversary, a lot of our fueling assets, like fueling ships at sea or tankers in the air, are now at risk in a way they've never been in the past. So we have to think comprehensively, not just about the soldier at the tactical edge, but about aircraft in flight and ships at sea. Across the board, we need to add redundancy and more sort of fuel handling capacity.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

23. PRC Efforts to Manipulate Global Public Opinion on Xinjiang

Good run down form the Global Engagement Center at State.

I would hope we could see such analysis on a routine basis and analyze all the influence threats we face. These reports could be very valuable to researchers and those concerned with adversary influence campaigns.

This contributes to the strategy of understand, recognize, expose, and attack - Recognize the adversaries' information and influence strategy, understand. it, expose it, and attack it with superior information and a superior political warfare strategy.

PRC Efforts to Manipulate Global Public Opinion on Xinjiang - United States Department of State

state.gov · by Global Engagement Center

This report is also available in Arabic, Chinese, and French.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) actively attempts to manipulate and dominate global discourse on Xinjiang and to discredit independent sources reporting ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity conducted against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. PRC-directed and -affiliated actors lead a coordinated effort to amplify Beijing’s preferred narratives on Xinjiang, to drown out and marginalize narratives that are critical of the PRC’s repression of Uyghurs, and to harass those critical of the PRC.

MESSAGING TACTICS

PRC messaging tactics seek to drown out critical narratives by both flooding the international information environment to limit access to content that contradicts Beijing’s official line, and by creating an artificial appearance of support for PRC policies. Messengers use sophisticated A.I. -generated images to create the appearance of authenticity of fake user profiles. The PRC works to silence dissent by engaging in digital transnational repression, trolling, and cyberbullying.

Flooding To Drown Out Critical Narratives

The PRC floods conversations to drown out messages it perceives as unfavorable to its interests on search engines and social media feeds, and to amplify Beijing’s preferred narratives on its treatment of Uyghurs. Pro-PRC stakeholders flood information ecosystems with counternarratives, conspiracy theories, and unrelated news items to suppress narratives detailing PRC authorities’ atrocities in Xinjiang. Government social media accounts, PRC-affiliated media, private accounts, and bot clusters, likely all directed by PRC authorities, assist in this effort.

Astroturfing To Create a False Appearance of Support

To manipulate narratives on Xinjiang, pro-PRC actors engage in “astroturfing ,” or coordinated campaigns of inauthentic posts to create the illusion of widespread grassroots support for a policy, individual, or viewpoint, when no such widespread support exists. Similar to flooding, the PRC uses astroturfing to inundate the information space with “positive stories ” about Xinjiang and the Uyghur population, including manufactured depictions of Uyghurs living “simple happy lives,” as well as posts emphasizing the purported economic gains that the PRC’s policies have brought to Xinjiang. In mid-2021, more than 300 pro-PRC inauthentic accounts posted thousands of videos of Uyghurs seeming to deny abuse in the region and claiming they were “very free.” These videos claimed to show widespread disagreement throughout Xinjiang with claims in international media that Uyghurs were oppressed. However, according to the New York Times and ProPublica , propaganda officials in Xinjiang created most of these videos, which first appeared on PRC-based platforms and then spread to YouTube and Twitter, in order to manipulate public opinion.

A.I. Generated Images Used To Create the Appearance of Authenticity

Since at least January 2021 , pro-PRC networks have used advanced artificial intelligence-generated content, such as StyleGAN machine-learning generated images, to fabricate realistic-looking profile pictures for their inauthentic accounts. Unlike stolen images of real people, these tools create composite images that cannot be traced using a reverse image search, making it harder to determine whether the account is inauthentic. Some of these accounts repeatedly denied the PRC’s atrocities in Xinjiang, falsely asserting that the body of overwhelming and objective independent evidence of the atrocities is simply a fabrication of the United States and its allies.

Transnational Repression, Trolling, and Cyberbullying To Silence Dissent

PRC-sponsored transnational repression targets those who speak out against the PRC, particularly in Chinese diaspora communities , with on- and offline harassment to prevent them from sharing their stories or to intimidate them into self-censorship. Trolling campaigns are designed to silence those who speak out against the PRC, to poison the information environment with bad-faith arguments, and to silence opposing viewpoints. Trolling campaigns frequently evolve into threats of death, rape, or assault; malicious cyber-attacks; and cyberbullying or harassment through doxxing – publishing an individual’s personal information online without their permission, including their full name, home address, or job. In March 2021, the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) publicly questioned several individuals’ claims of maltreatment.

Narrative Focus

PRC Xinjiang narratives focus on denying criticism and amplifying “positive stories” in an attempt to counter accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity. The most aggressive PRC messengers often go on the offensive, creating false equivalencies with the actions of other countries to distract from international criticism of PRC behavior.

Rebutting/Denying Criticism from Independent Media Sources

PRC messengers both post and amplify content that denies claims made by independent media outlets and internationally renowned think tanks. In response to third-party accusations that the PRC subjects Uyghurs to forced labor , a wave of PRC diplomatic accounts , PRC- and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-affiliated media organizations , and suspected bot networks posted stories about the mechanized cotton harvesting process in Xinjiang, suggesting that the Xinjiang cotton industry has no need for forced labor. This messaging avoided responding to reports regarding the PRC authorities’ transfer of an estimated 100,000 Uyghurs out of Xinjiang in “coercive labor placements ” to work in factories elsewhere in the PRC.

Amplifying “Positive Stories” To Counter/”Disprove” Accusations of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

PRC actors use hashtags such as #AmazingXinjiang and #Xinjiang to amplify positive stories about Xinjiang and counter independent reporting of allegations of crimes against humanity and genocide by PRC authorities. Stories of a multicultural society living in harmony stand in contrast to the reality of the PRC’s extensive surveillance of Uyghurs, including PRC officials living in Uyghur homes for at least six weeks a year. This messaging aims to divert attention from reports regarding the PRC’s “demographic engineering ” campaign to systematically increase the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang and to “dilute ” Uyghur population concentrations in the region.

“Whataboutism” and False Equivalencies Used To Distract/Deflect Criticism

PRC actors, including voluble diplomats in the MFA’s Information Department use “whataboutism” and false equivalencies to distract from the PRC’s policies in Xinjiang and to portray accusers as hypocritical . Their arguments do not advance the case that the PRC is innocent; rather, they make the point that other countries are equally guilty of abuses. Despite these efforts to distract from the situation in Xinjiang, independent media outlets, academics, and human rights activists have published multiple eyewitness accounts and verifiable data that the PRC has imprisoned an estimated one million people and that credible evidence exists of torture , forced sterilization , and other abuses.

PRC MESSENGERS

The PRC’s most aggressive messengers are a subset of PRC diplomatic officials known for their confrontational messaging. Additionally, PRC- and CCP-affiliated media spread Xinjiang-related disinformation on a global scale in at least a dozen languages. To reach and resonate with global audiences, the PRC turns to private media companies and multilingual social media influencers. Trolls take the lead on attacking, stirring controversies, insulting, and harassing netizens to poison the information environment and distract from narratives critical of the PRC.

Subset of PRC Diplomats Lead with Assertive Messaging

Most of the PRC’s diplomatic social media messaging is positive and tends to focus on highlighting good relations with other countries and seeks to burnish the PRC’s image. A minority of MFA officials – dubbed “wolf warriors ” by some commentators – use social media platforms to defend the PRC’s national interests, often in confrontational ways . These individuals are most likely to try to deny, “disprove,” and deflect narratives that run counter to PRC official messaging. For example, to distract from the atrocities in Xinjiang, PRC messengers spread a false narrative claiming that the CIA was trying to foment unrest in Xinjiang in order to bring down the PRC. This aggressive style allows the PRC to experiment with different types of messaging to see what plays well at home and abroad. For example, some MFA officials’ accounts repeatedly spread disinformation and conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the virus that causes COVID-19 and about Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war against Ukraine.

PRC- and CCP-Affiliated Media Spread Xinjiang-Related Disinformation Globally

PRC- and CCP-affiliated media outlets like China Global Television Network, China Daily, China Radio International, and Xinhua produce content in at least 12 languages and devote significant resources to advertising on social media. In February 2021, facing growing international scrutiny over the PRC’s genocide in Xinjiang, Xinhua released a “fact sheet ” containing numerous false claims, such as stating that the internment camps holding Uyghurs in Xinjiang are “vocational education and training centers”’ that have “fully guaranteed the trainees’ personal freedom and dignity.” However, detainees’ testimonies published by Amnesty International allege that the PRC subjected them to regular interrogation, torture, and other mistreatment. The PRC partners with foreign media to republish both PRC-produced and PRC-backed content to local audiences, giving Beijing’s chosen narratives a level of authority and credibility they would not be able to achieve on their own. For example, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation ran a story by an anonymous author in November 2019 on the PRC’s “poverty alleviation ” policy in Xinjiang, causing observers to question its validity and whether it was PRC propaganda.

PRC Increasingly Turns to Private Media Companies To Craft Foreign-Facing Information Manipulation Campaigns

The PRC outsources and privatizes some of its foreign language information operations to take advantage of private sector innovation. The PRC government engages with at least 90 PRC-based firms to design foreign-facing information manipulation campaigns to portray the PRC positively. For example, a publishing organization operated by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Bureau of Radio, Film and Television and affiliated with the CCP’s United Front Work Department paid a marketing company to create videos depicting Uyghurs supporting the PRC government, which a network of inauthentic accounts then amplified on Twitter and YouTube.

Inauthentic Networks Used To Amplify PRC Narratives

Inauthentic networks of bots as well as real accounts that tweet and retweet PRC-approved narratives flood the information space and support astroturfing campaigns. One network of accounts posts information denying atrocities in Xinjiang or accusing “the West” of hypocrisy and another, larger network of accounts amplifies it through retweets and reposting. Stanford University’s Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center assesses that the PRC’s English-language inauthentic networks have not been successful at gaining traction among foreign audiences.

Influencers Used To Better Reach Young International Audiences

PRC authorities believe social media influencers can help to push PRC messaging to shape local information environments due to their relatability and authenticity. CCP planners seek to adapt how they reach younger media consumers globally and are designing foreign propaganda to be more “youthful” and viral while strictly adhering to political “red lines .” In June 2021, Shen Haixiong, the head of state-run China Media Group – which falls under the direction of the CCP’s Propaganda Department – promoted the use of “multilingual internet celebrity studios ” to enhance the PRC’s image in key regions. Analytics firm Miburo Solutions identified more than 200 third-country influencers affiliated with PRC state media creating social media content in at least 38 languages, including English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Russian with an average reach of 309,000 followers. Miburo found that the PRC uses influencers to advance its narratives regarding Xinjiang by obscuring state media employees’ affiliations and by orchestrating pro-PRC Western influencers’ tours of Xinjiang.

Trolls Used To Defend PRC Positions and Attack, Insult, and Harass Critics

Internet trolls mainly working under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, or the Communist Youth League directly attack critics online. According to the French Military School Strategic Research Institute , PRC trolls’ tactics include defending the PRC, attacking and trying to discredit critics, feeding controversies, insulting, and harassing. The PRC’s Cyberspace Affairs Commission and Central Propaganda Department directly employ an estimated two million people nationwide in this capacity and another 20 million working as part-time “network civilization volunteers .” These forces target the PRC’s domestic audience and Chinese-speaking diaspora communities. In response to the Hong Kong protests in 2019, the PRC started to invest more in influencing users of U.S.-based platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as international platforms, such as VKontakte and Telegram. In 2021, cybersecurity firm FireEye’s Mandiant Threat Intelligence arm and Google’s Threat Analysis Group identified elements of an ongoing PRC-backed information operation that targeted a range of issues, including Xinjiang, in various languages across 30 social media platforms and 40 websites.

state.gov · by Global Engagement Center

​24. Meet the Green Beret veteran who's clearing mines for farmers in Ukraine

The US is always cirticaized for failing to fully implement the landmine ban (e.g., Korea) but there is not other country (as well as individuals within a country) who contribute more to trying to eradicate landmines 9and other unexploded ordnance) that are emplaced by revisionist and rogue powers and terrorist organizations. 

Meet the Green Beret veteran who's clearing mines for farmers in Ukraine

“I figured I can make quite a bit of difference doing what I'm doing without pulling a trigger, helping out the farmers and the civilians and all of that.”

BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED AUG 24, 2022 9:33 AM

taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton · August 24, 2022

“And boom, found it. Well, no boom.”

Ryan Hendrickson sounds pretty relaxed given the situation. It’s mid August and in one of the videos he posts on Instagram, he’s patrolling a Ukrainian field with his mine detector, looking for a Russian landmine. He’s found it, the round, flat explosive that could hurt fighters and civilians alike. He pulls out his tools and safely disarms and removes the mine from the field. Then it’s time to repeat the process — on to the next one.

It’s a steady process, Hendrickson told Task & Purpose on Aug. 22, after a day in the fields clearing mines to make them safe for farmers. At the time, he and his team of two locals had been at work for about seven full days, and had removed a total of 344 mines, he said. Some of the days, the local guys were pulled away, so it was just Hendrickson in the fields, with his trusty mine detector, looking for a tone.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ryan Hendrickson (@tipofthespearrmh)

Hendrickson knows his way around landmines. He was a Special Forces Engineer, and did eight tours in Afghanistan with the Green Berets. Before the Army, he had done enlistments with the U.S. Navy and Air Force. On his first tour in Afghanistan, an IED exploded, heavily damaging his leg. He continued to work in clearing landmines as part of Special Forces. In 2016 a mine removal mission turned into a firefight; for his actions working to recover wounded comrades, he was awarded a Silver Star.

He left the service, but that experience around mines is part of why he’s in Ukraine. When Russia invaded the country six months ago, he was one of the many American veterans who decided to head toward the conflict. Instead of fighting, he went with a humanitarian group that was trying to bring food, water and medical supplies to people soon after the war broke out. At first it was to deliver supplies, but the group also began working to evacuate civilians from battle zones. Wherever the group went, they kept hearing about the dangers of mines in nearby fields and roads.

“Everywhere I went the landmine situation was crazy,” Hendrickson said.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ryan Hendrickson (@tipofthespearrmh)

Landmines are a major risk across eastern Europe. In Ukraine, they’ve been a hazard in the country’s east since 2014 when fighting with Russian-backed separatists began. The United Nations noted that a large portion of deaths prior to the February 2022 invasion were from mines set up during the eight years of fighting. Since the invasion proper by Russia started six months ago, Russian forces have been mining fields and roads as they fell back from a failed push to the capital of Kyiv. According to the Halo Trust, a nonprofit organization working on de-mining efforts in multiple countries including Ukraine, when the front lines shift, they often leave behind heavily mined areas around villages.

“I figured maybe the next trip over I’d help out with the demining process and use some of the experience I have from Afghanistan over here,” Hendrickson said.

He’s been working in central Ukraine, near Dnipro and Irpin. The process is simple, despite the risk. He and his partners start out in a new field, looking for the mines. Sometimes a farmer tells them where to find them, other times they start sweeping until they get a positive tone. Once they find and disarm the first, it becomes a bit easier.

“They usually run them in patterns, for the best effects, whether linear or horizontal patterns. Once you find that one, then it’s game on,” he said. “You follow the lines until you run out, then you move on to the next one.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ryan Hendrickson (@tipofthespearrmh)

Many American veterans went to Ukraine over the last six months. Many went to fight, others like Hendrickson went to work in other capacities. One consensus is that it’s not the same war that some might have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s an artillery war, with both sides deploying heavy barrages. For Hendrickson, he’s not near the front on this trip, although shells and missiles still hit the area. It’s his second trip over, and although his Ukrainian “sucks” by his own admission, he’s got a flow down for his work. And he’s had good encounters with the farmers he’s worked around.

“Once they figured out I’m American or something like that, it’s very welcoming and warm,” he said. “They’ll try and feed you even though they don’t have anything themselves. It’s a very giving culture. The reception’s been awesome, the people are amazing.”

He’s planning to make this trip a short one, and hopes to wrap it up by the end of the month, but he intends to come back soon. By his own admission he doesn’t want to press his luck for too long. He’s hoping to set up a 501(c)(3) to expand the demining work. He’s also more prepared for the next trip. He’s set up the groundwork for quick travel to the fields, so instead of maybe 11 days of travel and organizing, he can get to work in just four.

He’s also met some of the other veterans who have decided to take up arms alongside Ukrainian fighters. The majority, he said, as long as they’re humble, they say the war isn’t what they expected, since it’s an artillery-driven fight. He said some have asked why he isn’t fighting. For Hendrickson’s part, he says those days are pretty much over.

“I’m not the end-all-be-all in combat, but I’ve been in my fair share,” Hendrickson said. “I figured I can make quite a bit of difference doing what I’m doing without pulling a trigger, helping out the farmers and the civilians and all of that. People who come over here to fight, my hat’s off to them, be safe. My life revolves more around helping and trying to make a difference that way.”

The latest on Task & Purpose

• Millions of troops cry out in horror as Dodge announces end of the Charger and Challenger
• An Air Force captain with top secret security clearance vanished. He resurfaced 35 years later
• Charges reinstated against Navy Corpsman in case of Green Beret contractor killed in Iraq
• The Army wants you to skip ‘entry-level’ civilian jobs and be an officer instead
• The Air Force published an entire photo album of mustachioed troops and it’s glorious

Want to write for Task & Purpose? Click here. Or check out the latest stories on our homepage.

taskandpurpose.com · by Nicholas Slayton · August 24, 2022

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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