Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

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1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 9, 2023

2. FBI Director Wray issues warning about number of Russian spies in the US

3. Analyzing Effective Strategies: ASEAN Countries Confronting the CCP in the Face of Rising Geopolitical Tensions

4. Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor

5. Biden opens Vietnam visit by saying the two countries are 'critical partners' at a 'critical time'

6. FACT SHEET: President Biden and Prime Minister Modi Host Leaders on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment

7. FACT SHEET: World Leaders Launch a Landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor

8. Xi’s Tight Control Hampers Stronger Response to China’s Slowdown

9. The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release

10. 30 fighting days left for Ukraine’s offensive - US Army chief

11. China may never become the world's biggest economy and has thrown out its old playbook, Mohamed El-Erian says

12. US, Canada sail warships through the Taiwan Strait in a challenge to China

13. China blindsided by historic challenge to Belt and Road project at G20

14. Diamonds, girlfriends, illicit lobbying: The fall of a former ambassador

15. Vietnam Chases Secret Russian Arms Deal, Even as It Deepens U.S. Ties

16. Vietnam Is a Partner, Not an Ally Against China

17. Irregular Warfare, Who has Ownership and Expertise within the U.S. Government?

18. CIA seeks to recruit Russian officials with video about truth

19. 'I have a lot of regrets': Exclusive interview with top general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal

20. Three Navy SEAL commanders face charges in Hell Week death

21. OPINION: North Korean Support Will Only Extend Putin’s War Against Ukraine

22. The era of Chinese growth is over. Like Germany in 1914, war could follow

23. Twenty-two years after 9/11: 3 lessons we need to teach about courage, unity and resilience

24. ‘Traitors Have Been Liquidated’ – How Ukraine’s Partisans Have Been Sabotaging Russia’s Sham Elections

25. Uncertainty at the top blurs Marine Corps’ work on 2025 budget

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 9, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-9-2023

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces made confirmed advances in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and made claimed advances south of Bakhmut on September 9.
Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitskyi reemphasized Ukraine’s right to target critical Russian strategic and military objects in rear areas.
Russia’s war in Ukraine is increasingly constraining Russian local and regional politics, with even the minimal pre-war competition suppressed and regional governments increasingly focused on their ability to generate resources for the war.
The Kremlin continues to refuse to rejoin the Black Sea Grain Initiative in an attempt to extract maximum concessions from the West and may believe that apparent support or acceptance for its demands from some international actors offers it more leverage in renegotiating the deal.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia and advanced in some areas on September 9.
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to manufacture a guise of legitimacy and legality around ongoing local elections in occupied regions of Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

Sep 9, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 9, 2023

Grace Mappes, Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Christina Harward, and Mason Clark

September 9, 2023, 3:55pm 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.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:00pm ET on September 9. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the September 10 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces made confirmed advances in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and made claimed advances south of Bakhmut on September 9. Geolocated footage published on September 9 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced northwest of Novomayorske (18km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border, where Russian sources claim fighting has intensified in recent days.[1] Additional geolocated footage published on September 9 shows that Ukrainian forces also advanced northeast and east of Novoprokopivka (13km south of Orikhiv) and west of Verbove (20km southeast of Orikhiv) in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[2] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified successes south of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv).[3] A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces forced Russian forces to withdraw from Andriivka (9km southwest of Bakhmut), and another prominent milblogger claimed that Andriivka is now a contested “gray zone.”[4] Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces also achieved unspecified success south of Klishchiivka.[5]

Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitskyi reemphasized Ukraine’s right to target critical Russian strategic and military objects in rear areas. Skibitskyi stated on September 8 that Ukraine identifies and strikes the most critical Russian objects in Russian rear areas using drones, missiles, and agents on Russian territory.[6] Skibitskyi emphasized that Ukrainian forces target military facilities and objects of the military-industrial complex that help with missile production and logistics support. Skibitskyi stated that Ukraine purposefully targets these objects to degrade Russian offensive potential and achieve a “domino effect” where destroying one object forces other dependent enterprises to stop production.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is increasingly constraining Russian local and regional politics, with even the minimal pre-war competition suppressed and regional governments increasingly focused on their ability to generate resources for the war. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s Tatar-Bashkir service Idel Realii posted an interview on September 8 with Russian political scientist Dmitry Loboyko regarding “the peculiarities of election campaigns during the war.”[7] Loboyko stated that this election season is one of the most “uncompetitive” in Russian history and that it particularly lacks opposition alternatives, especially as people are increasingly voting with the mindset that the war in Ukraine may last a year, five years, or even ten years.[8] Loboyko also noted that Russian federal subjects (regions) are competing for resources on the basis of how many military personnel each region was able to mobilize for the war, with the insinuation that the federal government allocates more resources to regions that mobilized more personnel, thereby increasing inter-regional competition.[9] Loboyko’s insights suggest that the war in Ukraine, and its continued drain on Russian regions, has contributed to a more muted political atmosphere within Russia. ISW has previously observed that Russian officials, particularly those affiliated with the leading United Russia party, appear concerned with the impacts the war will have on the electorate during local and regional elections, and the muted political atmosphere outlined by Loboyko aligns with these observations.[10] Various Russian insider sources additionally reported on September 9 that Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly backed Nizhny Novgorod Governor Gleb Nitkin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, and Smolensk Governor Vasily Anokhin in the regional elections.[11] The insider sources suggested that the Kremlin is invested in publicly backing the infrastructure and connectivity projects that these regional leaders espouse.[12] As the war continues, Russian officials will likely continue to have to balance the suppression of domestic political opposition with the need to posture the government as being actively involved in ameliorating domestic matters.

The Kremlin continues to refuse to rejoin the Black Sea Grain Initiative in an attempt to extract maximum concessions from the West and may believe that apparent support or acceptance for its demands from some international actors offers it more leverage in renegotiating the deal. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated on September 9 that Russia will not resume its participation in the grain deal until all its demands are met.[13] Peskov specifically highlighted the Kremlin’s demand for the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) banking system and suggested that the reconnection of one of the bank’s subsidiaries is insufficient.[14] UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offering extensive concessions for Russia’s return to the deal, which included SWIFT reconnection for a Russian Agricultural Bank subsidiary in Luxembourg.[15] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan similarly supported offering Russia extensive concessions during the G20 summit in New Delhi, where he reportedly called on G20 leaders to resume insurance for Russian grain and fertilizer cargos and to reconnect Russian banks to SWIFT.[16] The Kremlin may believe that Erdogan’s and Guterres’ support for offering concessions places further pressure on the West to acquiesce to Russian demands for rejoining the grain deal, and Russian officials will likely continue to reject offers that meet many of these demands in the hope of extracting a maximalist set of concessions.[17] The Kremlin may alternatively have no intention of returning to the grain deal, however, and may instead aim to increase the market share and attractiveness of Russian grain by degrading Ukrainian grain export potential through continued strikes on grain and port infrastructure.[18]

The Telegraph reported on September 8 that the United Kingdom’s military aircraft are conducting patrols over the Black Sea to deter Russian forces from conducting attacks against civilian vessels carrying grain exports.[19] NATO previously announced on July 26 that it would increase surveillance and reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones, given Russian threats against civilian ships and attacks on Ukrainian ports.[20]

The Group of 20 (G20) adopted a standard and boilerplate consensus declaration during the G20 summit on September 9 that called for a “durable peace” in Ukraine without explicitly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[21] The G20 advocated for all states party to the G20 mandate to uphold the rules and principles of international law and called for initiatives that would lead to a “comprehensive, just, and durable peace in Ukraine.”[22]

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces made confirmed advances in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and made claimed advances south of Bakhmut on September 9.
Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitskyi reemphasized Ukraine’s right to target critical Russian strategic and military objects in rear areas.
Russia’s war in Ukraine is increasingly constraining Russian local and regional politics, with even the minimal pre-war competition suppressed and regional governments increasingly focused on their ability to generate resources for the war.
The Kremlin continues to refuse to rejoin the Black Sea Grain Initiative in an attempt to extract maximum concessions from the West and may believe that apparent support or acceptance for its demands from some international actors offers it more leverage in renegotiating the deal.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia and advanced in some areas on September 9.
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to manufacture a guise of legitimacy and legality around ongoing local elections in occupied regions of Ukraine.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these 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 the Ukrainian 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.

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and reportedly advanced on September 9. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk), Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk), and Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove) on September 8 and 9.[23] Russian Western Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Sergey Zybinsky claimed on September 9 that Russian forces captured five Ukrainian positions south of Serhiivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[24] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk), Novoyehorivka, and Berestove (30km south of Kreminna), and southeast of Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna).[25] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Ilya Yevlash stated that Russian forces in the Kupyansk direction are completing the formation of combat-ready assault units constituted piecemeal from defeated units, but noted that these new units are entirely composed of rear-area elements without combat experience.[26]

Russian officials claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited unsuccessful attacks on the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on September 9. Zybinsky claimed that Russian forces repelled three Ukrainian attacks in the direction of Kovalivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[27] Russian Central Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Alexander Savchuk claimed that Russian forces repelled six Ukrainian attacks near Torske (14km west of Kreminna) and the Serebryanske forest area (11km south of Kreminna).[28]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on September 9 and reportedly advanced. The Ukrainian General Staff and Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Ilya Yevlash stated that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified success south of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[29] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), although ISW has yet to observe visual confirmation that Ukrainian forces have liberated the settlement.[30] The milblogger claimed that the Russian line of control in the area now passes along the railway line east of Andriivka and Klishchiivka.[31] Other Russian sources acknowledged that Ukrainian forces control the majority of Klishchiivka, although one Russian milblogger asserted that Klishchiivka and Andriivka are contested “gray zones.”[32]

Russian forces counterattacked in the Bakhmut area on September 9 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to break through Ukrainian positions near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut) and regain lost positions near Klishchiivka, Andriivka, and Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[33] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Andriivka, tried to recapture heights near Klishchiivka, and attempted to push Ukrainian forces back from positions near Orikhovo-Vasylivka but did not specify an outcome.[34] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces counterattacked from positions in the northeastern outskirts of Klishchiivka and made marginal unspecified gains near Orikhovo-Vasylivka.[35]

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on September 9 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to dislodge Ukrainian forces from positions near Avdiivka and Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka) 10 times.[36] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces also conducted assaults near Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka) and Novokalynove (12km northwest of Avdiivka).[37] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also attacked Ukrainian positions near Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka) and on the southern approaches to Avdiivka but did not specify an outcome.[38]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and advanced on September 9. Geolocated footage published on September 9 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced northwest of Novomayorske (18km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[39] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced near Novodonetske (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) and northeast of Novomayorske.[40] Other Russian sources claimed on September 8 and 9 that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Novomayorske and Novodonetske and that Russian forces repelled all Ukrainian attempts to cross the Shaytanka River immediately northeast of the settlements, however.[41][42]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on September 9 and reportedly advanced. Russian sources claimed on September 8 and 9 that Russian forces attacked near Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and advanced up to three kilometers to the Hrusheva Gully, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[43] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces recaptured positions on the outskirts of Novodonetske and Novomayorske after Ukrainian forces gained a foothold in these positions on September 8.[44] Russian sources claimed that elements of the Russian 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District), 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet), 4th Infantry Brigade, 5th Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps) and the DNR “Kaskad” Operational Tactical Combat Formation are operating on the Novodonestke-Novomayorske line and that elements of the Russian 127th Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) are operating near Pryyutne.[45]

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced on September 9. Geolocated footage published on September 9 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced northeast and east of Novoprokopivka (13km south of Orikhiv), west of Verbove (20km southeast of Orikhiv), and south of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv).[46] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces achieved unspecified success south of Robotyne.[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked south of Robotyne, east and northeast of Novoprokopivka, and near Verbove.[48]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not advance on September 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Robotyne.[49] The Ukrainian General Staff and the UK MoD stated that Russian forces have deployed units, including elements of relatively elite Airborne (VDV) formations, to western Zaporizhia Oblast to replace degraded units operating near Robotyne, and a Ukrainian source stated that two regiments of the Russian 76th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Division have arrived in the Tokmak area.[50] The commitment of some of the Russian military’s most capable formations for limited counterattacks in this critical sector of the front will likely attrit these formations further.

A Russian milblogger claimed that small Ukrainian groups landed on areas in the Dnipro River on September 8. A Russian milblogger claimed that a 12-person Ukrainian force landed on the eastern part of Oleshkivskyi Island (southeast of Antonivka) and a 10-person Ukrainian force landed near the Antonivsky rail bridge to Prydniprovske on the night of September 8.[51]

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

Russian military officials continue to publicly emphasize that Russia will not conduct another mobilization wave. Russian State Duma Defense Committee Head Andrey Kartapolov claimed on September 9 that Russia does not need to conduct another mobilization wave to rotate personnel in Ukraine as Russia has recruited enough contract personnel to complete rotations. Kartapolov claimed that Russia has recruited over 200,000 contract personnel in 2023, which Kartapolov claimed is almost enough to conduct a one-to-one rotation with the 300,000 personnel Kartapolov claimed Russia mobilized during partial mobilization in fall 2022.[52]

Russia continues efforts to develop and produce UAVs outside of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Republic of Tatarstan. The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) announced the creation of a regional UAV research and production center in the republic.[53] Yakutia Head Aisen Nikolaev, Kremlin Spokesperson and National Technology Initiative Platform General Director Dmitry Peskov, and Yakutia Technopark Director signed a memorandum establishing technological cooperation to develop Yakutia’s technological industry over the next three years.[54] The “Vostok” Design Bureau based in Barnaul, Altai Krai announced on September 7 that it is testing the “Scalpel” multi-purpose UAV, which Russian forces plan to use as a loitering munition.[55] The “Vostok” Design Bureau stated that it plans to begin mass-producing Scalpels in October 2023 for Russian forces to use in Ukraine.[56] Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion operating along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border, claimed that some Russian forces ran out of Lancet loitering munitions soon after the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and that more of these drones would help conserve Russian manpower and target Ukrainian military assets.[57]

Reuters reported that Russia may be able to increase its artillery ammunition production in the coming years beyond prior Western expectations but in amounts still insufficient for the war in Ukraine. Reuters cited an anonymous Western official as reporting that Russia may be able to increase its artillery ammunition production to up to two million shells per year in the “next couple years.”[58] The official reportedly estimated that Russian forces fired between 10 and 11 million shells in 2022, and characterized the production and supply disparity as not “a very strong position.”[59] Russian milbloggers frequently complain of artillery and ammunition shortages and ineffective artillery targeting in frontline areas, including critical areas during the Ukrainian counteroffensive.[60]

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to manufacture a guise of legitimacy and legality around ongoing local elections in occupied regions of Ukraine. Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky both met with a cohort of “international election observers” on September 9, purportedly from Spain, the Netherlands, India, Brazil, Mozambique, Argentina, Germany, Serbia, Slovakia, and Mexico and claimed that these observers are monitoring polling stations throughout the occupied oblasts.[61] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor noted that Russian authorities are importing these “observers” in an effort to make elections look more legitimate, considering there is very limited local support for such elections in the first place.[62] Occupation officials have also recently gone to great lengths to post pictures and videos of local residents purportedly participating in elections, but Ukrainian sources have warned that voting is often carried out under coercion and threats of violence.[63]

Ukrainian partisan activity is targeting election infrastructure in occupied areas. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on September 9 that Ukrainian partisans in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast, blew up a car that Russian occupation officials used to move and secure ballots.[64] Ukrainian Severodonetsk City Head Roman Vlasenko similarly noted that local residents are spoiling ballots, damaging campaign materials, destroying election documents, and conducting arson attacks against polling stations to further challenge illegitimate elections.[65] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Federov posted footage on September 8 and 9 reportedly showing strikes on local settlement elections and United Russia party headquarters in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast.[66]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

Nothing significant to report.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

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.

2. FBI Director Wray issues warning about number of Russian spies in the US

FBI Director Wray issues warning about number of Russian spies in the US | CNN Politics

CNN · by Katie Bo Lillis · September 8, 2023

Washington CNN —

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday that the number of Russian spies operating inside the United States is “still way too big,” despite efforts to kick them out.

“The Russian traditional counterintelligence threat continues to loom large,” Wray said during public remarks at the Spy Museum in Washington. “The Russian intelligence footprint, and by that I mean intelligence officers, is still way too big in the United States and something we are constantly bumping up against and trying to block and prevent and disrupt in every way we can.”

The threat of Russian spies operating on US soil is nothing new. But as US officials have increasingly recognized Russia under President Vladimir Putin as an adversary, traditional counterintelligence concerns once thought of as Cold War relics – human spies operating on US soil rather than cyber spies acting from inside of Russia – have once again drawn top level attention.

The US in 2018 expelled 60 Russian diplomats whom the US identified as intelligence agents, as well as ordering the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, as part of its response to Russia’s alleged use of a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy living in the United Kingdom.

Russia employs not only “traditional intelligence officers” but also cut-outs, Wray said on Thursday, citing a Mexican national arrested by US authorities in 2020 and accused of assisting Russian intelligence.

Last year, a Dutch intelligence agency publicly identified a Russian military intelligence officer who had studied at the prestigious Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, an elite graduate program favored by US military personnel, young diplomats and future spies.

“I will say that, over the last several years, the US has made positive significant strides in reducing the size of the Russian intelligence officer footprint in the United States, kicking them out, in effect,” Wray said.

CNN · by Katie Bo Lillis · September 8, 2023

3. Analyzing Effective Strategies: ASEAN Countries Confronting the CCP in the Face of Rising Geopolitical Tensions

Excerpts:

Many countries, including Vietnam, have realized that seeking alliances is an effective approach to deal with China‘s assertiveness. President Biden’s visit to Vietnam and the agreement to allow US warships to enter Vietnamese ports for military supplies showcased Vietnam’s commitment to joining the first island chain of the United States in defending its territorial waters. This signifies that ASEAN countries are choosing sides and seeking assistance from the United States, Japan, and other nations, marking the most important strategy to counter the CCP’s actions in the South China Sea.

It is evident that ASEAN countries are increasingly aligning themselves with the United States and other allies to address the challenges posed by China in the region. With tensions persisting and countries seeking alliances, the situation in the South China Sea remains a contentious issue of concern for the international community.

Analyzing Effective Strategies: ASEAN Countries Confronting the CCP in the Face of Rising Geopolitical Tensions -

breakinglatest.news · by admin · September 9, 2023

4Senior leaders from the United States, China, and Russia attended the East Asia Summit in Indonesia on September 7, where they discussed various geopolitical issues, including tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Russia-Ukraine relations, and the Indo-Pacific region. Despite the discussions, tensions between these countries remain high, prompting scholars to analyze the most effective strategies for ASEAN countries to confront the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

During the summit, U.S. Vice President Harris reiterated the United States‘ support for the rules-based international order and criticized Beijing’s provocative behavior and illegal maritime claims in the South China Sea, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and the violence of the Myanmar military junta. These actions were deemed harmful to the international community.

The focus on China‘s geopolitical issues drew significant attention from the parties involved. In recent times, the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines conducted military exercises in the South China Sea. The U.S. presence at the summit was seen as providing ASEAN countries with confidence and backing for their military strength.

General Yu Zongji, former dean of the School of Political Warfare at Taiwan’s National Defense University, stated that the U.S.’ foundation of international order could be the fundamental solution to the South China Sea issue. He emphasized that no country should resort to violence or force to change the status quo and that local disputes must be resolved based on international law. According to Yu, China and Russia are the countries that currently ignore international law and attempt to use force to change the status quo, causing tension, turmoil, and conflict in the world.

One of the pressing issues for ASEAN countries is the continuous expansion of the Chinese Communist military in the South China Sea. China recently released a new version of its map for 2023, which included a ten-dash line, violating international law and sparking protests from countries such as India, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Memorandum of Understanding on the Principles of an India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/09/09/memorandum-of-understanding-on-the-principles-of-an-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor/

Pursuant to this Memorandum of Understanding, the Governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the Republic of India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Italian Republic, and the United States of America (the “Participants”) commit to work together to establish the India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The IMEC is expected to stimulate economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe.

The IMEC will be comprised of two separate corridors, the east corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the northern corridor connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe. It will include a railway that, upon completion, will provide a reliable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network to supplement existing maritime and road transport routes – enabling goods and services to transit to, from, and between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe.

Along the railway route, Participants intend to enable the laying of cable for electricity and digital connectivity, as well as pipe for clean hydrogen export. This corridor will secure regional supply chains, increase trade accessibility, improve trade facilitation, and support an increased emphasis on environmental social, and government impacts.

Participants intend that the corridor will increase efficiencies, reduce costs, enhance economic unity, generate jobs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions – – resulting in a transformative integration of Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

In support of this initiative, Participants commit to work collectively and expeditiously to arrange and implement all elements of these new transit 2 routes, and to establish coordinating entities to address the full range of technical, design, financing, legal and relevant regulatory standards.

Today’s Memorandum of Understanding is the result of initial consultations. It sets forth political commitments of the Participants and does not create rights or obligations under international law. The Participants intend to meet within the next sixty days to develop and commit to an action plan with relevant timetables.

5. Biden opens Vietnam visit by saying the two countries are 'critical partners' at a 'critical time'

"Comprehensive strategic partner."

Excerpts:

Vietnam is elevating relations with the U.S. to the level of a comprehensive strategic partner, which a top Biden adviser said represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.

...

Earlier Sunday, Jon Finer, Biden’s chief deputy national security adviser, said the elevated status represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.

“It’s important to make clear that this is more than words,” Finer told reporters aboard Biden’s flight to Hanoi. “In a system like Vietnam, it’s a signal to their entire government, their entire bureaucracy about the depth and cooperation and alignment with another country that is possible.”

Finer highlighted the five-decade arc in U.S.-Vietnam relations, from conflict during the Vietnam War to normalization and Vietnam’s status as a top trading partner that also shares Washington’s concerns over security in the South China Sea.

“We will be deepening that relationship through this visit,” he added.

Biden opens Vietnam visit by saying the two countries are 'critical partners' at a 'critical time'

AP · by JOSH BOAK · September 10, 2023

By and AAMER MADHANI

HANOI (AP) — President Joe Biden opened a brief visit to Vietnam on Sunday by telling the country’s leadership that the two nations have a chance to shape the Indo-Pacific for decades to come.

Vietnam is elevating relations with the U.S. to the level of a comprehensive strategic partner, which a top Biden adviser said represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.

Biden welcomed the move and said he hoped progress could be made on climate, the economy and other issues during his 24-hour visit to Hanoi.

“We can trace a 50-year arc of progress between our nations from conflict to normalization to this new elevated status,” Biden said as he and Nguyễn Phú Trọng, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, announced the new relationship status at party headquarters.

Trong pledged that his country will work hard to implement the agreement. “Only then can we say it is a success,“ he pledged.

Biden earlier Sunday during a separate appearance with Trong had described the U.S. and Vietnam as “critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time,”

Other countries sharing the same level of relations with Vietnam include China and Russia. Elevating the U.S. to the same status suggests that Vietnam wants to hedge its friendships as U.S. and European companies look for alternatives to Chinese factories.

With China’s economic slowdown and President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of political power, Biden sees an opportunity to bring more nations — including Vietnam and Cambodia — into America’s orbit.

Biden arrived in Vietnam on Sunday and was welcomed with a pomp-filled ceremony outside the mustard-colored Presidential Palace. Scores of schoolchildren lined the steps waving small U.S. and Vietnam flags and Biden watched from an elevated review stand as high-stepping members of the military marched past. He and Trong met afterward Communist Party headquarters.

Both expressed happiness over seeing each other again after last meeting some eight years ago in Washington, said Biden, who then was vice president.

Trong sought to flatter Biden, who faces persistent questions at home about being 80 years old and running for reelection next year.

“You have nary aged a day, and I would say you look even better than before,” Trong said. “I would say every feature of you Mr. President is complementing your image.” Biden chuckled.

Earlier Sunday, Jon Finer, Biden’s chief deputy national security adviser, said the elevated status represents Vietnam’s highest tier of international partnership.

“It’s important to make clear that this is more than words,” Finer told reporters aboard Biden’s flight to Hanoi. “In a system like Vietnam, it’s a signal to their entire government, their entire bureaucracy about the depth and cooperation and alignment with another country that is possible.”

Finer highlighted the five-decade arc in U.S.-Vietnam relations, from conflict during the Vietnam War to normalization and Vietnam’s status as a top trading partner that also shares Washington’s concerns over security in the South China Sea.

“We will be deepening that relationship through this visit,” he added.

Finer also addressed reports that Vietnam was pursuing a deal to buy weapons from Russia, even as it sought deeper ties to the United States. Finer acknowledged Vietnam’s lengthy military relationship with Russia and said the U.S. continues to work with Vietnam and other countries with similar ties to Russia to try to limit their interactions with a nation the U.S. accuses of committing war crimes and violating international law with its aggression in Ukraine.

U.S. trade with Vietnam has already accelerated since 2019. But there are limits to how much further it can progress without improvements to the country’s infrastructure, its workers’ skills and its governance. Nor has increased trade automatically put the Vietnamese economy on an upward trajectory.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that the CEOs she talks with rank Vietnam highly as a place to diversify supply chains that before the pandemic had been overly dependent on China. Raimondo has been trying to broaden those supply chains through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, an initiative Biden launched last year.

“Whether it’s Vietnam or Malaysia, Indonesia, India, companies are really taking a hard look at those countries as places to do more business,” Raimondo said. “It is also true that they need to improve their workforce, housing, infrastructure and, I’d say, transparency in government operations.”

Vietnam’s economic growth slipped during the first three months of 2023. Its exporters faced higher costs and weaker demand as high inflation worldwide has hurt the market for consumer goods.

Still, U.S. imports of Vietnamese goods have nearly doubled since 2019 to $127 billion annually, according to the Census Bureau. It is unlikely that Vietnam, with its population of 100 million, can match the scale of Chinese manufacturing. In 2022, China, with 1.4 billion people, exported four times as many goods to the U.S. as did Vietnam.

There is also evidence that China is still central to the economies of many countries in the Indo-Pacific. A new analysis from the Peterson Institute of International Economics found that countries in IPEF received on average more than 30% of their imports from China and sent nearly 20% of their exports to China. This dependence has increased sharply since 2010.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan saw an opening to broaden the U.S. relationship with Vietnam when one of its top officials, Lê Hoài Trung, visited Washington on June 29.

After talking with Trung, Sullivan walked back to his office and decided after consulting with his team to issue a letter to the Vietnamese government proposing that the two countries take their trade and diplomatic relations to the highest possible level, according to an administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss the details.

Sullivan picked the issue back up on July 13 while traveling with Biden in Helsinki, speaking by phone with Trọng, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

At a fundraiser at a barn in Maine a few weeks later, Biden went public with the deal.

“I’ve gotten a call from the head of Vietnam, desperately wants to meet me when I go to the G20,” Biden said. “He wants to elevate us to a major partner, along with Russia and China. What do you think that’s about?”

—-

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

JOSH BOAK

Boak covers the White House and economic policy.

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AAMER MADHANI

Aamer Madhani is a White House reporter.

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AP · by JOSH BOAK · September 10, 2023

6. FACT SHEET: President Biden and Prime Minister Modi Host Leaders on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment

"Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI)."

Excerpts:

To further scale this work, the United States will continue to leverage public capital to mobilize private sector investments and collaborate with partners to develop agile and flexible relationships that directly respond to our partners’ needs, laying the groundwork to create more security, prosperity, and opportunities for generations to come.

Across the world, from Asia to Africa to the Western Hemisphere, PGI will continue to build and strengthen coalitions of partners — governments, the private sector, and multilateral development banks — to develop key economic corridors and drive high-quality investments.

Today, President Biden announced a range of new projects to generate economic growth, incentivize new investments, and create quality jobs. They include a landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, as well as a partnership with the European Union to join the United States in supporting the expansion of the Lobito Corridor, and new PGI projects in a range of sectors and across regions.

FACT SHEET: President Biden and Prime Minister Modi Host Leaders on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/09/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-and-prime-minister-modi-host-leaders-on-the-partnership-for-global-infrastructure-and-investment/

At the 2023 G20 Summit in New Delhi, India, President Biden and Prime Minister Modi co-hosted a group of G20 leaders to accelerate investments to scale high-quality infrastructure projects and the development of economic corridors through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI).

The meeting of the leaders from the United States, European Union (EU), France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the World Bank demonstrated the collective urgency to make meaningful progress in narrowing the infrastructure gap in low- and middle-income countries to enable inclusive and sustainable growth and promote economic activity and prosperity.

To further scale this work, the United States will continue to leverage public capital to mobilize private sector investments and collaborate with partners to develop agile and flexible relationships that directly respond to our partners’ needs, laying the groundwork to create more security, prosperity, and opportunities for generations to come.

Across the world, from Asia to Africa to the Western Hemisphere, PGI will continue to build and strengthen coalitions of partners — governments, the private sector, and multilateral development banks — to develop key economic corridors and drive high-quality investments.

Today, President Biden announced a range of new projects to generate economic growth, incentivize new investments, and create quality jobs. They include a landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, as well as a partnership with the European Union to join the United States in supporting the expansion of the Lobito Corridor, and new PGI projects in a range of sectors and across regions.

Developing Key Economic Corridors

Launch of the Landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor: Earlier this year, President Biden outlined his vision to develop economic corridors by strategically layering transformative investments across multiple sectors in countries to leverage broader effects of boosting economic development, securing supply chains, and bolstering regional connectivity. Today, the leaders of the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union announced a new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor . The transformative partnership has the potential to usher in a new era of connectivity from Europe to Asia with a railway, linked through ports, connected by the Middle East. This will create novel interconnections to facilitate global trade, expand reliable access to electricity, facilitate clean energy distribution, and strengthen telecommunications links. The founding partners intend to work with international partners and the private sector to:

Connect India to Europe—linked by a railway line and existing ports through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel—that will generate economic growth while incentivizing new investments and the creation of quality jobs;
Connect two continents to commercial hubs and facilitate the development and export of clean energy;
Support existing trade and manufacturing synergies and strengthen food security and supply chains; and
Link energy grids and telecommunication lines through undersea cables to expand reliable access to electricity, enabling innovation of advanced clean energy technology and connect communities to secure and stable Internet.

Further development of the Lobito Corridor: Since President Biden announced investments to develop the Lobito Corridor in May 2023, the United States and its partners are advancing efforts to support a transparent and developed critical minerals sector that can both diversify the global electric vehicle supply chain and benefit local economies. The Corridor serves as an important economic link connecting both the continent and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia through the Lobito port in Angola. Once transport infrastructure connecting all three countries is fully operational, the Corridor aims to enhance export possibilities, boost the regional circulation of goods, and promote the mobility of citizens. Specific new announcements include:

Today, the European Union officially teamed up with the United States to support the development of the Corridor, including supporting the African Governments in launching feasibility studies for the construction of a new greenfield rail line expansion from eastern Angola through northern Zambia.
Together, the United States and the European Union intend to explore cooperation in the areas of transport infrastructure investments; measures to facilitate trade, economic development and transit; and support to related sectors to fuel inclusive and sustainable economic growth and capital investment in Angola, Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo in the longer term. Specifically, this includes developing clean energy projects to increase the power supply to surrounding communities, supporting diversified investment in critical minerals and clean energy supply chains, extending digital access, growing agriculture value chains to enhance local food production for the region’s expanding population and to address global food insecurity, as well as augmenting local workforce training, support for small and medium enterprises and economic diversification.

Driving High Quality Transformative Investments Around the World

This G20 event builds on recent PGI investment announcements by President Biden and Vice President Harris, including at the ASEAN Summit and visit to Indonesia, the bilateral meeting with G20 host, India, and travel to Vietnam. In addition to economic corridors, PGI is driving high quality transformative investments around the world across PGI target sectors, including:

Greater Economic Cooperation with India:

Renewable Energy Generation: U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC)’s Board of Directors approved the provision of up to $425 million in financing to TP Solar Limited, a subsidiary of The Tata Power Company Limited, to build and operate a solar photovoltaic cell and module manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, India. Pending congressional notification, this investment will support India’s ambitious program to increase renewable energy generation while developing domestic industry to take advantage of the global clean energy transition. DFC’s support of TP Solar will build on previous support for India’s leadership in clean energy and contributes to a more diverse global supply chain for clean energy technology.
Renewable Infrastructure Fund: India and the United States are also advancing the creation of investment platforms to lower the cost of capital and accelerate the deployment of greenfield renewable energy, battery storage and emerging green technology projects in India. Towards this end, India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and the DFC exchanged letters of intent to each provide up to $500 million to anchor a renewable infrastructure investment fund.
Diversified Supply Chain for E-Mobility: The United States and India committed to contribute public finance and mobilize philanthropic finance to execute a payment security mechanism that will expand electric mobility in India by accelerating the procurement and deployment of 10,000 electric buses in India, providing extensive climate benefits and diversifying the global e-mobility supply chain.
Health Manufacturing in India and Making Insulin Accessible Globally: DFC approved an up to $50 million loan to GeneSys Biologics Private Limited (“GeneSys”) to support its construction of a manufacturing facility in Telengana, India, to scale its production of insulin biosimilars by 10X, with the expectation that the biosimilars will be reviewed for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as equivalent regulators in India and other countries. GeneSys will do drug substance manufacturing in Telangana and has partnered with Civica Rx to do fill-and-finish drug product manufacturing in Virginia. This effort will help to making insulin accessible and affordable in India, the United States, and around the world. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has provided technical support throughout the development of the project.
5G Open RAN: The United States and India share a vision of creating secure and trusted telecommunications, resilient supply chains, and enabling global digital inclusion. Further collaboration includes establishing two joint Task Forces on advanced telecommunications, focused on Open RAN and research and development in 5G/6G technologies. Public-private cooperation between vendors and operators will be led by India’s Bharat 6G Alliance and the U.S. Next G Alliance. Both countries are partnering on Open RAN field trials and rollouts, including scaled deployments, with operators and vendors of both markets.

Modern Ports in El Salvador: The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) intends to provide a technical assistance grant of $900,000 to El Salvador’s national ports commission to modernize the container terminal at the Port of Acajutla. USTDA’s technical assistance aims to promote operational efficiency, reliability, and safety at El Salvador’s busiest seaport and to provide recommendations for deploying green port and digital technologies to reduce the port’s energy consumption, and decrease air pollution from maritime vessels.

Supply Chains in Mozambique:  DFC’s Board of Directors approved the provision of up to $150 million in financing to Twigg Exploration and Mining to fund investments in the company’s graphite mining and processing operation in Balama, Mozambique. Pending congressional notification, this investment will increase production and diversify the global supply chain for graphite which is a critical mineral for a range of clean energy and advanced technology products. DFC’s support will also lead to job creation and investment in local infrastructure while ensuring high environmental and social standards that are essential for responsible mining.

Transportation Systems in the Philippines: USTDA intends to provide grant funding towards a feasibility study to support the Philippines’ Department of Transportation in assessing the viability of developing an expanded vessel traffic management system in the Philippines. As a nation comprised of over 7,000 islands, over 800 commercial ports, and growing vessel traffic activity, the Philippines aims to expand its vessel traffic management system capabilities to cover major ports and navigational paths. The feasibility study will assess the viability of potential implementation at 8 to 10 locations in the Philippines and develop the technical architecture and infrastructure requirements for each location.

Bridge the Gender Digital Divide: During her March 2023 trip to Africa, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the launch of the Women in the Digital Economy Fund (Wi-DEF) by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a combined $60 million commitment. Since then, that commitment has leveraged further investment and led to the launch of the Women in the Digital Economy Initiative. This effort will advance digital access and affordability; develop relevant products and tools; provide digital literacy and skills training; promote online safety and security; and invest in sex-disaggregated data and research.

Since the launch of WiDEF, partners have pledged an additional $11.6 million – $10 million from Microsoft and $1.6 million from the Government of the Republic of Korea.
Building off of the success of this Fund, USAID is launching the Women in the Digital Economy Initiative which convenes new partners who have pledged over $515 million collectively to help close the gender digital divide. Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all pledged their support. In addition, private sector and philanthropic organizations have made contributions, including Amazon Web Services, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CARE, Citi, G20 EMPOWER India Chapter, the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, GSMA, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Microsoft Corporation, myAgro, Reliance Foundation, Viasat, Visa Foundation, and Visa Inc.

###

7. FACT SHEET: World Leaders Launch a Landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor

The 3 page Memorandum of Understanding can be downloaded here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Project-Gateway-Multilateral-MOU.pdf

FACT SHEET: World Leaders Launch a Landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor

Today, we the leaders of the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union announced a Memorandum of Understanding committing to work together to develop a new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Announced at the G20 Leaders’ event on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, this landmark corridor is expected to stimulate economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration across two continents, thus unlocking sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

Through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, we aim to usher in a new era of connectivity with a railway, linked through ports connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The United States and our partners intend to link both continents to commercial hubs and facilitate the development and export of clean energy; lay undersea cables and link energy grids and telecommunication lines to expand reliable access to electricity; enable innovation of advanced clean energy technology; and connect communities to secure and stable Internet. Across the corridor, we envision driving existing trade and manufacturing and strengthening food security and supply chains. Our approach aims to unlock new investments from partners, including the private sector, and spur the creation of quality jobs.

Looking to the future, the United States underscores our unwavering commitment to pursuing transformative regional investments and working to build out this corridor together with our partners. These investments are a gateway to our future and underpin our shared vision of an open, secure, and prosperous future.

Read the MOU here.

8. Xi’s Tight Control Hampers Stronger Response to China’s Slowdown

As I learned in college, no centrally controlled economy has ever been successful in the long term. Is Xi going to prove that?

Xi’s Tight Control Hampers Stronger Response to China’s Slowdown

While officials become more worried about growth, they can’t act without top leader’s approval

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/xis-tight-control-hampers-stronger-response-to-chinas-slowdown-868ab454

By Lingling Wei

and Stella Yifan Xie

Updated Sept. 10, 2023 12:05 am ET

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has emphasized the Communist Party’s leadership over all aspects of governance. PHOTO: TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS

Xi Jinping has placed the Communist Party—and himself—in greater command of China’s economy over the past decade. Now his centralization of power is delaying the country’s response to its worst economic slowdown in years.

Officials in charge of day-to-day economic affairs have been holding increasingly urgent meetings in recent months to discuss ways to address the deteriorating outlook, people familiar with the matter said.

Yet despite advice from leading Chinese economists to take bolder action, the people said, senior Chinese officials have been unable to roll out major stimulus or make significant policy changes because they don’t have sufficient authority to do so, with economic decision-making increasingly controlled by Xi himself.

The top leader has shown few signs of worry over the outlook despite the gathering gloom and hasn’t seemed interested in backing more stimulus, according to the people and publicized remarks by Xi.

In recent weeks, as one of China’s biggest property developers has teetered on the brink of default, putting billions of dollars of loans and other debts at risk, the government has expanded measures to revive home purchases. The steps follow other piecemeal measures over the past few months, such as modest interest-rate cuts.

Cattle roaming the site of a half-finished luxury housing project in northeastern China this past spring. PHOTO: JADE GAO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Economists say the steps will likely help somewhat, and more stimulus could follow. But they still fall short of what many experts say is necessary to stabilize the economy fully.

Without a clearer mandate from Xi to rekindle growth, local government officials worry they could be held accountable for policy mistakes. Many are sitting on their hands, adding to delays in addressing the slowdown, according to economists.

“The centralization of China’s political system has weakened the credibility of anyone not named Xi Jinping in delivering confidence-building messages that the leadership intends to change course,” wrote Logan Wright, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, in a recent commentary.

The State Council Information Office, which handles press inquiries for China’s leadership, didn’t respond to questions.

In private meetings, ‘anxiety’ over economy

The world’s second-largest economy has been struggling since a brief post-Covid recovery early in the year gave way to a sharp slowdown. Factory activity has contracted, investment has slowed and consumer sentiment has been weak. A once-booming property market is in distress.

As early as June, a sense of urgency was growing among senior Chinese officials who had been counting on a stronger rebound after the end of Xi’s “zero-Covid” policy, according to people familiar with the matter.

Various arms of the government, from its top economic-planning agency to those in charge of finance and housing, held at least a dozen closed-door discussions with economists to seek their advice.

“You can feel the anxiety in the room,” said one of the economists who participated in two of the sessions in June. “The consensus among the experts invited was that the government must act forcefully to stimulate growth.”

Li Qiang, a former Shanghai party boss, assumed the office of Chinese premier earlier this year. PHOTO: GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Then, for weeks, little happened. The government apparatus headed by the State Council, which has day-to-day responsibility for the economy, needs Xi’s signoff for any significant policy move—a change from previous years when the State Council and China’s premier, its No. 2 official, had more latitude in setting economic policy.

Even as the property market has become the biggest drag on growth, the government has continued to tread a cautious path toward relaxing policies embraced by Xi over the past few years to rein in speculative home buying and punish developers that expanded too quickly.

Many economists say China needs, in essence, to bail out the market, with more steps to help developers restructure their debts and complete unfinished projects, while boosting home buyers’ confidence through direct subsidies.

The perils of one-man rule

The top leader’s apparent reluctance to embrace such moves, which people familiar with the matter say is partly rooted in his ideological preference for austerity, is alarming a public that was already growing worried that Beijing might have shifted its overarching priority away from economic growth toward other matters such as national security.

Some people point to how Beijing has tightened restrictions on foreign companies, on top of a longer-running crackdown on private technology companies, which has led to weaker growth.

“Xi’s centralization of power has caused a crisis of confidence in China’s economy not seen since 1978,” after Mao Zedong’s death, said Minxin Pei, a Claremont McKenna College professor and editor of the quarterly journal China Leadership Monitor, who has called on Xi to delegate more responsibility to revive economic dynamism.

“To make people feel hopeful again about China’s prospects, he would need to empower those who understand the economy to set the policy, like his predecessors since Deng Xiaoping did,” Pei said.

Deng, whose “reform and opening” policies launched China’s decadeslong boom, introduced a collective-leadership system to protect against one-man rule, gave capitalist forces wider room to flourish, and made the Communist Party cede some control to the government bureaucracy on matters such as the economy.

Consumer sentiment in China has been weak since a brief, post-Covid recovery gave way to a sharp slowdown. PHOTO: GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Xi, by contrast, has cemented his one-man rule, reined in private businesses and emphasized the party’s leadership over all aspects of governance.

Some investors and entrepreneurs thought Beijing could be shifting toward a more pro-business, pro-growth approach when Xi’s handpicked premier, Li Qiang, took office earlier this year. The former Shanghai party boss is known among investors as a pragmatist.

Many of those hopes have since petered out, as Li and his team have done little to challenge Xi’s politics-in-command agenda.

Beijing sends mixed messages

By June, bad economic data was piling up. Some prominent voices in China’s economic circles began speaking out publicly about the need for more-assertive action.

Yin Yanlin, a former senior economic adviser to the leadership, said in a public forum that the economy was significantly weakening and that more-forceful policies should be pursued without hesitation. Yin warned against the use of piecemeal policies, “as if a person is squeezing the toothpaste.”

Liu Yuanchun, a prominent Chinese economist who has advised the government, warned in a report published by a Renmin University of China think tank that China’s record high youth unemployment rate could pose serious problems. He and his co-authors called for cash subsidies to households and steps to reinvigorate the private sector.

As economic worries mounted, Xi presided over a meeting on June 30 of China’s Politburo leadership body. But the meeting didn’t appear to be focused on macroeconomic issues, to the frustration of some Chinese economists who were advising the government.

An official account of the meeting published by Xinhua News Agency highlighted policy measures to support Xi’s plan to transform an area south of Beijing, known as the Xiong’an New Area, into an environmentally friendly, high-tech hub. Xi has described the Xiong’an plan, first announced in 2017, as China’s “1,000-year project.”

A few weeks later Xi attended a meeting with a group of prominent party supporters, urging them to “strengthen ideological and political guidance” for private entrepreneurs, interpreted publicly as a sign he wanted to keep a tight leash on the private sector.

While he acknowledged that the economy faced problems, he emphasized the positive.

“China’s economic recovery rate is leading among major global economies,” Xi said. China’s growth rate was 5.5% during the first half of the year compared with a year earlier, though that result was boosted by strong activity in the early part of 2023. “The long-term positive fundamentals haven’t changed,” he said.

On July 24, Xi hosted a Politburo meeting to discuss the economy. Instead of announcing major stimulus, the official statement from the meeting pointed to overall continuity of policy and signaled the use of more-targeted measures to support growth.

There was one notable change. The Politburo statement didn’t repeat Xi’s slogan “housing is for living, not for speculation,” which has been used to signal Beijing’s desire to rein in speculative behavior by keeping home-purchasing rules tight.

That omission made room for lower-level officials and localities to ease policies to encourage more home buying. But they remained cautious about changing course drastically.

The latest steps by China’s central bank and local governments have included cutting mortgage rates and lowering minimum down-payment ratios to spur home buying. Many restrictions on home purchases remain, such as limits on the number of properties families can buy in China’s largest cities.

More-aggressive moves, such as rescuing major developers, are needed to ensure a recovery, said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.

The open question now is how to boost the property sector without fueling another asset bubble, said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Group.

An article published Aug. 23 by Economic Daily, a state-owned newspaper, warned against reinflating the housing bubble, triggering fresh debate over Beijing’s commitment to rescuing the real-estate market.

The principle of housing is for living, not for speculation, must be adhered to in the long run, the article said, adding that “China cannot go down the old path of relying on the real-estate sector and allowing home prices to appreciate too fast.”

Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com and Stella Yifan Xie at stella.xie@wsj.com

9. The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release

But can they or anyone prevent this technology from falling into the hands of authoritarian regimes?

The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release

By Kashmir Hill

Kashmir Hill covers technology for The New York Times. She is the author of “Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It,” from which this article is adapted.

The New York Times · by Kashmir Hill · September 9, 2023

Credit...By Shira Inbar

Engineers at the tech giants built tools years ago that could put a name to any face but, for once, Silicon Valley did not want to move fast and break things.

Credit...By Shira Inbar

Sept. 9, 2023

One afternoon in early 2017, at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., an engineer named Tommer Leyvand sat in a conference room with a smartphone standing on the brim of his baseball cap. Rubber bands helped anchor it in place with the camera facing out. The absurd hat-phone, a particularly uncool version of the future, contained a secret tool known only to a small group of employees. What it could do was remarkable.

The handful of men in the room were laughing and speaking over one another in excitement, as captured in a video taken that day, until one of them asked for quiet. The room went silent; the demo was underway.

Mr. Leyvand turned toward a man across the table from him. The smartphone’s camera lens — round, black, unblinking — hovered above Mr. Leyvand’s forehead like a Cyclops eye as it took in the face before it. Two seconds later, a robotic female voice declared, “Zach Howard.”

“That’s me,” confirmed Mr. Howard, a mechanical engineer.

An employee who saw the tech demonstration thought it was supposed to be a joke. But when the phone started correctly calling out names, he found it creepy, like something out of a dystopian movie.

The person-identifying hat-phone would be a godsend for someone with vision problems or face blindness, but it was risky. Facebook’s previous deployment of facial recognition technology, to help people tag friends in photos, had caused an outcry from privacy advocates and led to a class-action lawsuit in Illinois in 2015 that ultimately cost the company $650 million.

With technology like that on Mr. Leyvand’s head, Facebook could prevent users from ever forgetting a colleague’s name, give a reminder at a cocktail party that an acquaintance had kids to ask about or help find someone at a crowded conference. However, six years later, the company now known as Meta has not released a version of that product and Mr. Leyvand has departed for Apple to work on its Vision Pro augmented reality glasses.

In recent years, the start-ups Clearview AI and PimEyes have pushed the boundaries of what the public thought was possible by releasing face search engines paired with millions of photos from the public web (PimEyes) or even billions (Clearview). With these tools, available to the police in the case of Clearview AI and the public at large in the case of PimEyes, a snapshot of someone can be used to find other online photos where that face appears, potentially revealing a name, social media profiles or information a person would never want to be linked to publicly, such as risqué photos.

What these start-ups had done wasn’t a technological breakthrough; it was an ethical one. Tech giants had developed the ability to recognize unknown people’s faces years earlier, but had chosen to hold the technology back, deciding that the most extreme version — putting a name to a stranger’s face — was too dangerous to make widely available.

Now that the taboo has been broken, facial recognition technology could become ubiquitous. Currently used by the police to solve crimes, authoritarian governments to monitor their citizens and businesses to keep out their enemies, it may soon be a tool in all our hands, an app on our phone — or in augmented reality glasses — that would usher in a world with no strangers.

Clearview AI cofounder Hoan Ton-That wearing the AR glasses version of Clearview AI.Credit...Kashmir Hill/The New York Times

‘We decided to stop’

As early as 2011, a Google engineer revealed he had been working on a tool to Google someone’s face and bring up other online photos of them. Months later, Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, said in an onstage interview that Google “built that technology, and we withheld it.”

“As far as I know, it’s the only technology that Google built and, after looking at it, we decided to stop,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Advertently or not, the tech giants also helped hold the technology back from general circulation by snapping up the most advanced start-ups that offered it. In 2010, Apple bought a promising Swedish facial recognition company called Polar Rose. In 2011, Google acquired a U.S. face recognition company popular with federal agencies called PittPatt. And in 2012, Facebook purchased the Israeli company Face.com. In each case, the new owners shut down the acquired companies’ services to outsiders. The Silicon Valley heavyweights were the de facto gatekeepers for how and whether the tech would be used.

Facebook, Google and Apple deployed facial recognition technology in what they considered to be relatively benign ways: as a security tool to unlock a smartphone, a more efficient way to tag known friends in photos and an organizational tool to categorize smartphone photos by the faces of the people in them.

In the last few years, though, the gates have been trampled by smaller, more aggressive companies, such as Clearview AI and PimEyes. What allowed the shift was the open-source nature of neural network technology, which now underpins most artificial intelligence software.

Understanding the path of facial recognition technology will help us navigate what is to come with other advancements in A.I., such as image- and text-generation tools. The power to decide what they can and can’t do will increasingly be determined by anyone with a bit of tech savvy, who may not pay heed to what the general public considers acceptable.

‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’

How did we get to this point where someone can spot a “hot dad” on a Manhattan sidewalk and then use PimEyes to try to find out who he is and where he works? The short answer is a combination of free code shared online, a vast array of public photos, academic papers explaining how to put it all together and a cavalier attitude toward laws governing privacy.

The Clearview AI co-founder Hoan Ton-That, who led his company’s technological development, had no special background in biometrics. Before Clearview AI, he made Facebook quizzes, iPhone games and silly apps, such as “Trump Hair” to make a person in a photo appear to be coifed like the former president.

In his quest to create a groundbreaking and more lucrative app, Mr. Ton-That turned to free online resources, such as OpenFace — a “face recognition library” created by a group at Carnegie Mellon University. The code library was available on GitHub, with a warning: “Please use responsibly!”

“We do not support the use of this project in applications that violate privacy and security,” read the statement. “We are using this to help cognitively impaired users sense and understand the world around them.”

It was a noble request but completely unenforceable.

Mr. Ton-That got the OpenFace code up and running, but it wasn’t perfect, so he kept searching, wandering through the academic literature and code repositories, trying out this and that to see what worked. He was like a person walking through an orchard, sampling the fruit of decades of research, ripe for the picking and gloriously free.

“I couldn’t have done it if I had to build it from scratch,” he said, name-dropping some of the researchers who had advanced computer vision and artificial intelligence, including Geoffrey Hinton, “the godfather of A.I.” “I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Mr. Ton-That is still building. Clearview has developed a version of its app that works with augmented reality glasses, a more fully formed realization of the face-calling hat that the Facebook engineering team had rigged up years earlier.

The end of anonymity

Mr. Ton-That demonstrates the company’s facial recognition software using a photo of himself.Credit...Seth Wenig/Associated Press

The $999 pair of augmented reality glasses, made by a company called Vuzix, connects the wearer to Clearview’s database of 30 billion faces. Clearview’s A.R. app, which can identity someone up to 10 feet away, is not yet publicly available, but the Air Force has provided funding for its possible use at military bases.

On a fall afternoon, Mr. Ton-That demonstrated the glasses for me at his spokeswoman’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, putting them on and looking toward me.

“Ooooh, 176 photos,” he said. “Aspen Ideas Festival. Kashmir Hill,” he read from the image caption on one of the photos that came up.

Then he handed the glasses to me. I put them on. Though they looked clunky, they were lightweight and fit naturally. Mr. Ton-That said he had tried out other augmented reality glasses, but these had performed best. “They’ve got a new version coming,” he said. “And they’ll look cooler, more hipster.”

When I looked at Mr. Ton-That through the glasses, a green circle appeared around his face. I tapped a touch pad at my right temple. A message came up on a square display that only I could see on the right lens of the glasses: “Searching …”

And then the square filled with photos of him, a caption beneath each one. I scrolled through them using the touch pad. I tapped to select one that read “Clearview CEO, Hoan Ton-That;” it included a link that showed me that it had come from Clearview’s website.

I looked at his spokeswoman, searched her face, and 49 photos came up, including one with a client that she asked me not to mention. This casually revealed just how intrusive a search of someone’s face can be, even for a person whose job is to get the world to embrace this technology.

I wanted to take the glasses outside to see how they worked on people I didn’t actually know, but Mr. Ton-That said we couldn’t, both because the glasses required a Wi-Fi connection and because someone might recognize him and realize immediately what the glasses were and what they could do.

It didn’t frighten me, though I knew it should. It was clear that people who own a tool like this will inevitably have power over those who don’t. But there was a certain thrill in seeing it work, like a magic trick successfully performed.

A lost opportunity?

Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta said, said that face recognition was “hugely controversial” and that granting broad access to it was “a debate we need to have with the public.”Credit...David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Meta has been working for years on its own augmented reality glasses. In an internal meeting in early 2021, the company’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said he would love to equip them with facial recognition capabilities.

In a recording of the internal meeting, Mr. Bosworth said that leaving facial recognition out of augmented reality glasses was a lost opportunity for enhancing human memory. He talked about the universal experience of going to a dinner party and seeing someone you know but failing to recall their name.

“We could put a little name tag on them,” he said in the recording, with a short chuckle. “We could. We have that ability.”

But he expressed concern about the legality of offering such a tool. Buzzfeed reported on his remarks at the time. In response, Mr. Bosworth said that face recognition was “hugely controversial” and that granting broad access to it was “a debate we need to have with the public.”

While Meta’s augmented reality glasses are still in development, the company shut down the facial recognition system deployed on Facebook to tag friends in photos and deleted the more than one billion face prints it had created of its users.

It would be easy enough to turn such a system back on. When I asked a Meta spokesman about Mr. Bosworth’s comments and whether the company might put facial recognition into its augmented reality glasses one day, he would not rule out the possibility.

Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter and the author of “Your Face Belongs To Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest To End Privacy As We Know It.” She writes about the unexpected and sometimes ominous ways technology is changing our lives. Contact her at kashmir.hill@nytimes.com. More about Kashmir Hill

A version of this article appears in print on , Section BU, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Anonymity Is Over. Big Tech Tried to Save It.

The New York Times · by Kashmir Hill · September 9, 2023

10. 30 fighting days left for Ukraine’s offensive - US Army chief

I suppose we should give the headline editor a pass. General Milley is an officer in the U.S. Army and was once the Chief of Staff of the Army.

30 fighting days left for Ukraine’s offensive - US Army chief

BBC · by Menu

Published
54 minutes ago

By Laura Kuenssberg & Emily McGarvey

Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Ukraine has little more than 30 days left of fighting before the weather hinders its counter-offensive, the top-ranking US military officer says.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Gen Mark Milley said colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to manoeuvre.

He admitted the offensive had gone more slowly than expected. But he said: "There's still heavy fighting going on.

"The Ukrainians are still plugging away with steady progress."

Gen Milley said it was too early to say whether the counter-offensive had failed, but said Ukraine was "progressing at a very steady pace through the Russian front lines".

"There's still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days' worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren't done.

"There's battles not done... they haven't finished the fighting part of what they're trying to accomplish."

Kyiv's counter-offensive, which was launched in the summer and aims to liberate Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine, has so far seen only small gains.

But Ukrainian generals claim they have breached Russia's formidable first line of defences in the south.

"I said at the very beginning of this [war] that this was going to be long, slow, hard, and high-casualty-producing, and that's exactly what it is," Gen Milley said.

In the same interview, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the UK chief of defence staff, said "Ukraine is winning and Russia is losing".

"That is because the aim of Russia was to subjugate Ukraine and to put it under Russia's control", he said.

"That has not happened and it never will happen, and that's why Ukraine is winning."

He added that Ukraine was making progress in its battle to regain its territory, having recovered 50% of the ground Russia seized.

Ukraine's progress was also down to the international community "applying economic pressure and diplomatic pressure, and Russia is suffering because of that", he said.

Image source, Reuters

Image caption,

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un met in the Russian port city of Vladivostok in 2019

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin's alliance with North Korea shows the Russian president is in a "state of desperation", said Adm Radakin.

He said the ties between the two countries showed how few partners Russia had left.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un reportedly plans to visit Russia this month to meet Mr Putin for weapons talks.

The two leaders are said to be planning to discuss North Korea providing Moscow with weapons to support its fight in Ukraine.

There is concern both in Washington and in Seoul about what North Korea would get in return for an arms deal, which may result in increased military co-operation between the two countries in Asia.

The alliance was "a reflection of the catastrophic mistake that Russia made by invading Ukraine", said Adm Radakin.

And it was also a reflection of the domestic situation in Russia, he said.

"You've got to look at the fact that [Russia's] economy is under pressure, the sanctions are having a greater impact. It doesn't have a raft of international partners.

"It's lost half a million people that have fled the country. There's at least a million more that want to leave the country.

"It's struggling to have enough people to keep supporting the war," he said.

On the subject of Donald Trump, Gen Milley said the US military's allegiance was "to the constitution", when asked if it would serve a commander-in-chief who was in jail.

Donald Trump, who hopes to be the Republican candidate in the 2024 US election, faces multiple criminal charges which could see him jailed if found guilty.

"We take our oath to a document, the constitution of the United States of America," he said.

"So we will be faithful always to that constitution regardless of who occupies the White House."

He said the military would obey all lawful orders from whoever is the duly-elected president of the United States.

Gen Milley ruled out entering politics himself, and said he would "run for best grandad" when he retires in a few weeks.

Media caption,

Watch - Laura Kuenssberg: State of Chaos trailer

BBC · by Menu

11. China may never become the world's biggest economy and has thrown out its old playbook, Mohamed El-Erian says

China may never become the world's biggest economy and has thrown out its old playbook, Mohamed El-Erian says

Business Insider · by Filip De Mott

Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Getty Images

It's highly unlikely that China will implement large-scale stimulus, Mohamed El-Erian said.
Without it, markets shouldn't expect China's previous rate of growth to come back, he wrote in the Financial Times.
"Despite what many may continue to tell you, it is no longer a given that China will become the world's largest economy."

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Bets that the Chinese economy still has a shot at reaching the top might have to be reconsidered, Mohamed El-Erian wrote in the Financial Times.

Though blowout growth of past decades has helped China become the second-largest economy in the world, Beijing's approach towards the current slump has dampened views that it will overtake the US.

"It is time for the markets to recognize that China is not reverting to its old economic and financial playbook, and its return as a powerful driver of global economic growth is unlikely in the near future," El-Erian wrote. "Economic performance is likely to remain lackluster for the remainder of 2023 and the first half of 2024."

After China lifted pandemic restrictions late last year, the economy saw a brief rebound early this year. But since then, consumption, industry activity, investment, and exports have been disappointing, while youth employment hit record highs and prices have tipped into deflationary territory.

Though analysts and investors have loudly voiced hopes that China's authorities implement a large-scale stimulus program to uplift its economy and fuel domestic spending, Beijing is unlikely to do so in the face of larger structural issues, El-Erian wrote.

That's because previous stimulus strategies are responsible for high debt levels now seen in China's local governments and teetering property market. In place of this, the country's authorities have implemented a series of smaller-level measures.

Leaders are further unlikely to pursue traditional stimulus, out of a worry that continued reliance on it would increase the chances China would fall into the middle-income trap and also encourage corruption, El-Erian wrote.

Instead, he predicted Beijing is likely to continue with smaller-level measures, while looking to transition towards new growth industries, such as green energy, healthcare, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence.

But challenges to growth will persist, and China will have to implement larger debt restructuring measures. Added to that, Beijing may need to rethink its role in domestic markets, El-Erian said:

"The authorities will also need to overcome their now overwhelming inclination towards centralization and, instead, enable but not micromanage the emergence of powerful private sector engines of growth. Despite what many may continue to tell you, it is no longer a given that China will become the world's largest economy."

Similarly, Bloomberg Economics said on Tuesday that China is unlikely to permanently take the top spot, predicting gross domestic product would briefly surpass the US's in the mid-2040s, but by "only a small margin" before "falling back behind."

The economists — who previously saw China overtaking the US in the 2030s — believe GDP growth will slow to just 1% by 2050, revised down from an earlier prediction of 1.6%.

Business Insider · by Filip De Mott

12. US, Canada sail warships through the Taiwan Strait in a challenge to China

US, Canada sail warships through the Taiwan Strait in a challenge to China

ABCNews.com · by ABC News

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The U.S. and the Canadian navies sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, in a challenge to China's sweeping territorial claims.

The USS Ralph Johnson and the Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class frigate HMCS Ottawa sailed through the narrow band of ocean that separates China and self-ruled Taiwan, according to the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunited by force if necessary, and views transits by the U.S. Navy and its allies as provocative actions.

The cruisers “transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” the Navy statement said.

The U.S. routinely sails through the strait in what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations.

China has stepped up its military activities around Taiwan, including sending warships and warplanes on a near daily basis.

In June, the U.S. released a video in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the U.S. vessel to slow to avoid a collision. The U.S. ship also was conducting a transit with a Canadian vessel.

China said it tracked both ships throughout their entire transit and its forces "dealt with the situation according to law and regulation,” said Senior Col. Shi Yi, spokesperson for the People Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command in a statement.

ABCNews.com · by ABC News

13. China blindsided by historic challenge to Belt and Road project at G20

China blindsided by historic challenge to Belt and Road project at G20

Newsweek · September 10, 2023

A landmark move to counter China's growing influence and boost global infrastructure development has been announced at the G20 summit.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden co-chaired a special event on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) on September 9, 2023, during the summit in New Delhi, India. The event was attended by leaders from the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the World Bank.

The PGII is an initiative designed to bridge the infrastructure gap in developing countries and accelerate progress towards global sustainable development goals. The IMEC, on the other hand, consists of an eastern corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf region and a northern corridor connecting the Gulf to Europe, including a railway and ship-rail transit network and road transport routes.

U.S. President Joe Biden (center) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) with world leaders at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, on September 10, 2023. A historic project to counter Chinese influence was unveiled at the summit. LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty

This historic initiative represents a strategic effort by the participating nations to strengthen economic ties and foster development across Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Those involved say it is a collective move toward creating an integrated and sustainable global economy centered on clean energy, digital connectivity, and secure supply chains.

Importantly, it also poses a direct challenge to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by providing countries in the region with an alternative for infrastructure development and economic cooperation. Additionally, it embodies a shared vision among the participating nations for an open, secure and prosperous future, which could be interpreted as a strategic effort to counterbalance China's expanding influence in the region.

Modi emphasized the importance of physical, digital, and financial connectivity in his remarks, noting that the IMEC would facilitate economic integration between India and Europe. "Charting a journey of shared aspirations and dreams, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor promises to be a beacon of cooperation, innovation and shared progress," he posted on X, formerly Twitter.

"As history unfolds, may this corridor be a testament to human endeavor and unity across continents."

A White House communiqué elaborated on the initiative, stating, "Today, we the leaders of the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Union announced a memorandum of understanding committing to work together to develop a new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. Through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, we aim to usher in a new era of connectivity with a railway, linked through ports connecting Europe, the Middle East and Asia."

The communiqué highlighted the goals of linking both continents to commercial hubs, facilitating the development and export of clean energy, expanding reliable access to electricity, enabling advanced clean energy technology innovation, and connecting communities to secure and stable internet.

It also underscored the intention to drive existing trade and manufacturing, strengthen food security and supply chains, unlock new investments from partners, including the private sector, and spur the creation of quality jobs. It concluded by reaffirming the U.S.' commitment to pursuing transformative regional investments and building the corridor in collaboration with its partners.

The memorandum of understanding on the IMEC was signed by India, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, UAE, European Union, Italy, France and Germany, solidifying their commitment to work collectively and expediently to arrange and implement the new transit routes.

The initiative not only signifies a strategic move towards strengthening global economic ties and development, but also represents a crucial countermeasure to China's increasing influence in the region.

A Closer Look at the China Factor

China's Belt and Road Initiative has several negative implications for the U.S. and India:

Geostrategic Influence

The BRI enhances China's geostrategic influence across Asia, Africa, and Europe, which could potentially undermine U.S. influence in these regions. For India, it increases Chinese influence in its immediate neighborhood and along its borders, raising concerns of strategic encirclement.

Economic Influence

By providing funding for infrastructure projects, China gains significant economic influence over countries participating in the BRI. This could lead to a decline in the economic influence of the U.S. and India in these regions.

Debt Diplomacy

There are concerns that countries participating in the BRI could fall into a debt trap, leading to increased Chinese influence over their domestic and foreign policies. This is concerning for both the U.S. and India, as it could lead to a decline in their influence over these countries.

Security Concerns

For India, the BRI also has security implications, as some of the projects pass through disputed territories like the China-Pakistan economic corridor through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Military Access

The development of ports and other infrastructure could potentially be used by the Chinese navy, posing a security threat to both the U.S. and India.

Economic Competition

The BRI also poses economic challenges as it enhances China's access to markets and raw materials, potentially at the expense of the U.S. and India.

The IMEC initiative, spearheaded by India and the U.S. and supported by key global players, marks a significant step toward offering an alternative to China's BRI. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping remained conspicuously absent from the G20 summit.

Newsweek · September 10, 2023

14. Diamonds, girlfriends, illicit lobbying: The fall of a former ambassador

Quite a story. I cannot recall reading anything quite like this. If the allegations in this article are true we have to ask how someone in government could get away with these activities for so long.

Diamonds, girlfriends, illicit lobbying: The fall of a former ambassador

By Craig Whitlock

Updated September 9, 2023 at 11:34 a.m. EDT|Published September 9, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Craig Whitlock · September 9, 2023

When Richard G. Olson Jr. retired from the State Department in 2016, he was lauded by colleagues for an illustrious, 34-year career that included high-profile postings as the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, as well as risky assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Rick is quite simply one of our most distinguished diplomats,” then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry effused in a statement.

But in the years since, Olson has come under federal investigation for a pattern of conduct atypical of the upright, protocol-observant world of international diplomacy.

Previously undisclosed records filed in court reveal that the State Department’s inspector general investigated Olson for failing to report a $60,000 gift of diamond jewelry to his mother-in-law from the emir of Dubai. As part of a broader investigation, the FBI also questioned him about his extramarital affair with a Pakistani journalist while serving as the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, according to the documents.

The FBI learned that Olson had arranged for a Pakistani American businessman — who is now serving a 12-year federal prison sentence for illegal campaign donations and tax crimes — to pay $25,000 in tuition bills that enabled the ambassador’s girlfriend to move to New York and attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Records show that Olson led a complicated love life that could have left him vulnerable to blackmail. While stationed in Pakistan from 2012 to 2015, he dated multiple women even though he was married to another U.S. diplomat, who was serving at the time as the ambassador to Libya, court documents filed by his attorneys show. Olson told the FBI that he had confided in the CIA’s Islamabad station chief about his dating habits, but court records indicate that he did not report his liaisons to U.S. diplomatic security officials in accordance with State Department counterintelligence rules.

Olson, 63, is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Washington on Tuesday after pleading guilty last year to two misdemeanors. On the first charge, Olson admitted that when he was the ambassador to Pakistan he failed to disclose that he received an $18,000 first-class ticket to fly to London for a job interview with a Persian Gulf investment firm. On the second charge, he acknowledged that he illicitly lobbied U.S. officials on behalf of the government of Qatar in 2017, violating a federal “cooling-off” law that prohibited him from doing so for a year after his retirement from the State Department.

He was not charged with wrongdoing related to the diamonds or his girlfriend’s tuition, but the Justice Department has argued in connection with his sentencing that the episodes show a pattern of unethical behavior. In court filings, prosecutors called the emir’s jewelry “an exorbitant and obviously inappropriate gift” and accused Olson of lying to avoid accountability.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Olson could receive up to six months in prison, though his attorneys have said he should not have to serve any time behind bars. “His career and service to his country has been nothing but honorable,” J. Michael Hannon, one of his lawyers, wrote in a memo to the court, arguing that his client had been unfairly targeted by overzealous prosecutors. Hannon declined to be interviewed for the record and did not respond to a list of written questions.

In recent years, the Justice Department has stepped up its enforcement of foreign-influence laws. Members of Congress have also sought to clamp down on the secretive practice of retired U.S. military personnel working as consultants or contractors for foreign powers.

Olson’s legal and romantic problems began after he reported to Islamabad as the U.S. ambassador in 2012. U.S.-Pakistani relations were in tatters because of the daring U.S. military raid on the country a year earlier to kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Pakistan had also shut down U.S. ground supply routes for the war in Afghanistan in retaliation for a NATO airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.

While Olson’s primary task was to soothe tensions with Pakistan’s powerful military and spy chiefs, he also began seeing Muna Habib, a young television reporter working in the country, court records show. They dated for two years but broke up in late 2014 after Habib discovered that the ambassador had been cheating on both her and his wife, Olson’s lawyers acknowledged in court documents. “Ms. Habib believed that they were dating exclusively, while Amb. Olson was not under that same impression,” the lawyers wrote.

They resumed contact a few months later. Habib was admitted to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2015 but couldn’t afford the $93,000 she needed to attend. Olson agreed to help by introducing her to Imaad Zuberi, a Pakistani American dealmaker with high-level business and political contacts in Pakistan, China and the Middle East, according to court records.

Zuberi had never heard of Habib before, the records show, but within days he offered to pay $25,000 to offset her tuition expenses and arrange a $50,000 loan. Records show that he sent a $20,000 check to Columbia University and $5,000 to Habib but never made good on his promise of a loan. Zuberi was sentenced in 2021 to a 12-year prison term in a separate case after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and other charges. An attorney for Zuberi did not respond to a request for comment.

In court filings, Olson’s attorneys said that he “merely made an introduction, a very common practice for a diplomat” and that there was nothing improper about the tuition payment because he was not dating Habib at that point.

But emails submitted to the court indicate that the ambassador and the journalist still had feelings for each other.

“Our break up has been one of the most difficult periods of my life,” Habib wrote on June 16, 2015, while the tuition deal was being sorted out. “I knew how you had behaved in all your previous relationships and I continued to see you. It didn’t matter to me because of how you made me feel loved, special, something that I had never experienced before.”

“Glad we’re still friends,” Olson replied. “I care deeply about you too.”

In a brief phone interview, Habib dismissed questions about her relationship with Olson as “salacious gossip,” adding, “I’m sick and tired of it.” She asked for a list of questions in writing but did not respond to them.

Olson reported his relationship with Habib to the CIA’s station chief at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad but “did not report his contact with Habib in any other way,” according to notes from a 2019 FBI interview with the ambassador. According to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual, diplomats with high-level security clearances are required to report any “intimate/sexual contact” with foreign citizens to diplomatic security officials for counterintelligence purposes.

Olson’s attorney did not respond to questions from The Washington Post about whether he had properly reported his relationship with Habib or how many other women he dated while in Pakistan. Jennifer McKewan, a State Department spokesperson, declined to comment on Olson’s case.

While Olson was ambassador to Pakistan, he was also fending off a State Department investigation about a different matter.

In 2014, someone tipped off the State Department’s inspector general that 11 years earlier, while Olson was serving as the head of the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, the emir of the Persian Gulf city-state had delivered a velvet box to his office, records show. Inside were four diamonds set in white gold — a pendant, a ring and a set of earrings — that federal officials later valued at $60,000, according to court documents. They do not name the emir; Dubai has had two different two emirs since 2003.

Under the standards of the Foreign Gifts and Decoration Act in effect at the time, U.S. officials were required to report gifts with worth more than $285 and could not keep them unless they reimbursed the federal government for the fair-market value.

Olson did neither. He told State Department investigators that the emir had given the diamonds not to him but to his mother-in-law, who was living with him in Dubai, according to correspondence from State Department officials and other documents submitted to the court by his lawyers. He said the emir wanted to express gratitude to his mother-in-law for coming to Dubai to help care for the ambassador’s two children.

Olson’s then-wife, Deborah Jones, was based in Washington at the time as a senior State Department official, overseeing the Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs. The department also placed Jones under investigation because she supervised U.S. policy in the region and had formerly served as the deputy chief of mission in the United Arab Emirates, records show.

In an interview with The Post, Jones defended the jewels as a legitimate gift to her mother and said neither she nor Olson did anything wrong by failing to report it. She recalled that State Department officials confronted her about the diamonds while she was serving as ambassador to Libya in 2014, and called the investigation “very offensive” and “very unpleasant.” She said her mother considered the diamonds to be a genuine personal gift from the emir, adding, “I find it incredibly sexist that I was somehow pulled into this by virtue of being her daughter.”

The State Department closed the investigation without taking personnel action against Jones or Olson after they successfully argued that Jones’s mother was not their dependent for tax purposes and therefore not covered by the gift rules, records show. Even so, in a September 2016 letter, State Department lawyers asked the couple to voluntarily relinquish the diamonds, saying it was “extremely disappointing that you were not sufficiently concerned with the gift to seek guidance from the ethics office.”

In a November 2016 letter, Olson told the State Department that he couldn’t force his mother-in-law to hand over the diamonds, “which I think she would regard as robbery.” Jones told The Post that she also tried but failed to persuade her mother to part with the jewels. “I said, ‘Mom, look, these are really causing a problem, and they’re causing a problem to me.’ But she said they were hers.”

Jones said that her mother died in December and that she’s not sure what happened to the diamonds. She and Olson filed for divorce in 2018, though she said they have a cordial relationship.

Around the same time, Olson rekindled his romance with Habib, who by then had completed her studies at Columbia University’s journalism school, according to documents filed by his attorneys. They married in June 2019 and now live in New Mexico.

The Washington Post · by Craig Whitlock · September 9, 2023

15. Vietnam Chases Secret Russian Arms Deal, Even as It Deepens U.S. Ties

Vietnam Chases Secret Russian Arms Deal, Even as It Deepens U.S. Ties

By Hannah Beech

Sept. 9, 2023

The New York Times · by Hannah Beech · September 9, 2023

Defying U.S. sanctions, a Vietnamese government document lays out a plan to buy Russian weapons, which officials see as a way to upgrade its military as a hedge against China.

President Biden arriving in New Delhi on Friday for the G20 summit, ahead of his trip to Vietnam.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Sept. 9, 2023, 6:57 a.m. ET

When President Biden is greeted by Vietnamese officials in Hanoi on Sunday, he will be celebrating the prospect of adding another friend in Asia to a coalition that his administration hopes will side with American interests rather than China’s and Russia’s.

During Mr. Biden’s visit, the two nations will underscore their commitment to “increase peace, prosperity, and stability in the region,” a White House press statement said. Nguyen Phu Trong, the top Vietnamese leader, is expected to confer upon the United States an upgrade of strategic ties. The Biden administration has reciprocated early, glossing over the Communist Party of Vietnam’s intensifying human rights crackdown.

But even as the United States and Vietnam have nurtured their relationship over recent months, Hanoi is making clandestine plans to buy an arsenal of weapons from Russia in contravention of American sanctions, an internal Vietnamese government document shows.

The Ministry of Finance document, which is dated March 2023 and whose contents have been verified by former and current Vietnamese officials, lays out how Vietnam proposes to modernize its military by secretly paying for defense purchases through transfers at a joint Vietnamese and Russian oil venture in Siberia. Signed by a Vietnamese deputy finance minister, the document notes that Vietnam is negotiating a new arms deal with Russia that would “strengthen strategic trust” at a time when “Russia is being embargoed by Western countries in all aspects.”

For Vietnam, the idea makes a certain sense. Once one of the world’s top 10 arms importers, Vietnam has long depended on Russian weaponry. The United States’ vow to punish nations that buy Russian weapons has roiled Vietnam’s plans to revamp its military and create a tougher deterrent to Chinese encroachment on its maritime borders in the South China Sea.

Yet by developing its secret plan to pay for Russian defense equipment, Vietnam is stepping into the center of a larger security contest that is steeped both in Cold War politics and the hot war of the moment, in Ukraine.

A Chinese ship patrolling in waters near the Spratly Islands, a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea, in April.

American diplomatic officials did not respond to requests for comment about the prospect of the arms deal.

Hanoi is adept at dancing between world powers. But its pursuit of a Russian arms deal undercuts its outreach to the United States. And it shows the risks of an American foreign policy that forces countries to make a binary “us or them” choice.

“I feel in some ways that America has unrealistic expectations of Vietnam,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and author of an upcoming book on Russia’s relations with Southeast Asia. “I’m not sure that they fully understand how sensitive Vietnam’s relationship with China is and how deep their relationship with Russia is. Misunderstanding these things could get America burned.”

Once again, Vietnam’s strategic positioning — dominated by China to the north, bound to Russia by history and, most recently, courted by the United States — has fashioned this Southeast Asian nation of 100 million people into a geopolitical fulcrum. And once again, Vietnam, a country that within a quarter-century repelled three invaders — France, the United States and China — is hoping to stay clear of a superpower showdown and forge its own path.

Building an Arsenal

The Ministry of Finance document sets out a detailed plan for how the Ministry of National Defense would pay for Russian weapons. To avoid American scrutiny, money for Russian arms would be transferred within the books of a Russian-Vietnamese joint venture called Rusvietpetro, which has oil and natural gas operations in northern Russia.

“Our party and state,” the document says, “still identify Russia as the most important strategic partner in defense and security.”

Two months after the Ministry of Finance proposal was internally circulated, Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian prime minister and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made a quiet trip to Hanoi. The visit was barely covered in Vietnam’s state media, but the Vietnamese officials say he was there to firm up the defense deal. One Vietnamese official put the terms of a new arms agreement with Russia at $8 billion over 20 years.

In a photo provided by Russian state media, Dmitri A. Medvedev, a former prime minister of Russia, greets President Vo Van Thuong in Hanoi, Vietnam, in May.Credit...Yekaterina Shtukina/Sputnik, via Reuters

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, Vietnam has provided cover to its longtime ally. Vietnam has refused to condemn the invasion at the United Nations, and it voted against suspending Russia from the body’s Human Rights Council. At a security conference in Moscow last month, Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu of Russia singled out Vietnam as an ideal buyer of the latest in Russian arms.

For its part, the United States has tried to pull Vietnam out of Russia’s orbit. In 2016, Washington lifted a weapons embargo on Hanoi. While no one expected Vietnam to immediately acquire American fighter jets, it was clear that Vietnam would be rewarded as a useful hedge against China. The upgrading of U.S.-Vietnamese strategic ties on Sunday will also make it easier for U.S. allies like South Korea to sell advanced weaponry to Vietnam.

Even before the war in Ukraine exposed problems with some Russian military hardware, Hanoi had begun to diversify, tapping suppliers in Israel and the Czech Republic, among others. Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 forced Vietnam to source frigates in Russia but get key parts for them in Ukraine, an awkward scramble. And Moscow’s need to supply its own war effort has raised questions about whether Russian factories can churn out enough to meet foreign arms orders, too.

The United States placed a round of sanctions on Russia, among others, in 2017, raising the possibility of penalties for countries that do business with Russian military or intelligence bodies. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the United States also excluded Russian banks from global payment systems that Vietnam had used to buy military equipment.

“If Vietnam continues to buy weapons from Russia, our international prestige will be harmed,” said Nguyen The Phuong, a defense analyst who has lectured at the University of Economics and Finance in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. “Importing weapons from Russia will have a negative effect on Vietnam’s future economic growth because the United States and our European partners are the main stream for our exports. It’s not worth it.”

Nevertheless, Vietnam’s military remains deeply tied to Russia — and changing that could take years, if not decades. Historical allegiance is strong. During what the Vietnamese call the American War, Soviet missiles helped Vietnamese Communist forces battle the Americans. Generations of Vietnam’s top brass trained in the Soviet Union and later Russia.

There are practical considerations. Vietnamese fighter jet and submarine control boards are in Cyrillic. Switching would take time and money, neither of which Vietnam has in abundance. It needs newer fighter jets after a string of crashes within its fleet of aging Russian combat aircraft.

A tank operated by a Vietnamese crew taking part in the International Army Games 2022 in Alabino, outside Moscow. Vietnam’s military remains deeply tied to Russia.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Another reason for keeping open the Russian arms pipeline: buying Western weapons would require more transparency than dealing with the Russians.

“Every contract with Russia goes with money under the table or something under the table,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra and an expert on the Vietnamese military. “Are Vietnamese generals going to want to give that up?”

Hard-line members of Vietnam’s leadership now have the upper hand as Mr. Trong tightens his grip. They remain distrustful of the United States, regardless of the welcome for Mr. Biden. There is fear that the United States might try to foment a democratic revolution in Vietnam or, at the very least, attach human rights conditions to future arms purchases, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and author of an upcoming book about the Vietnamese military.

“A deal with Russia makes every sense in the world,” he said. “Everyone wants to talk about this burgeoning defense relationship with the United States, but it ain’t going to happen because the Vietnamese military is very pro-Russian.”

A Balancing Act

The Vietnamese military has vanquished powerful enemies. It chased out the imperial French and the Americans. In 1979, Vietnamese forces clashed with the People’s Liberation Army, whose brief invasion evoked China’s colonial domination of Vietnam for a millennium.

Yet Hanoi has also depended on a flexible “bamboo diplomacy” to preserve relations in a difficult neighborhood, said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. For every measure of friendship with one superpower, Vietnam tends to extend a handshake to another. Vietnam watchers expect that Xi Jinping of China and perhaps even Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will visit Vietnam this year, on the heels of Mr. Biden’s stop in Hanoi.

“Now that the Vietnamese are raising their ties with the United States, they also need to show China and Russia that they are not abandoning them,” Mr. Vuving said. “It’s a very delicate balance they have to maintain.”

Secretly tying the Vietnamese military to an arms supplier that is having trouble supplying itself might not seem like the most deft strategy. Some younger Vietnamese officials and others associated with the government say they do not support a new arms deal with Russia. But the military is the most conservative of national institutions, and its foremost priority is to protect the Communist Party, not the state.

The skyline of Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam and the United States have dawn closer over mutual suspicion of China’s intentions. But U.S. sanctions on Russia have not changed the fact of Vietnam’s military ties with the Kremlin.Credit...Justin Mott for The New York Times

In the Ministry of Finance’s laying out of Vietnam’s arms dilemma, the document noted that although the United States could impose sanctions on Vietnam for buying Russian weapons, Washington was unlikely to do so because of Hanoi’s value to Washington as a partner in its Indo-Pacific Strategy, a blueprint to contain China.

Vietnam may well have recognized the complex calculus of great powers. In April, Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters that it would be in Vietnam’s interests to conform to U.S. law, including sanctions, and to diversify military spending away from Russia.

But Mr. Kritenbrink reserved criticism of Hanoi, and he did not elaborate on whether sanctions might be imposed.

“I’ll leave to Vietnam and my friends in Hanoi to comment on their own views and their own position, but certainly we’ve made very clear what our position is on that matter,” he said, adding that “Vietnam is one of our most important partners in the region, and I’m very optimistic about our future.”

“The United States will not want to alienate Vietnam at a time when they want to build partnerships and alliances in this region to counter the rise of China,” said Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and a former Vietnamese foreign ministry official. “Both sides are practicing the art of strategic patience.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting.

Hannah Beech is the senior correspondent for Asia based in Bangkok. She was previously the Southeast Asia bureau chief. More about Hannah Beech

The New York Times · by Hannah Beech · September 9, 2023

16. Vietnam Is a Partner, Not an Ally Against China

Excerpts:

However, improving relations with the United States is also crucial for Vietnam’s sense of security and for its export economy. And, strangely enough, the United States is popular in Vietnam, including fond memories of President Donald Trump, who made two visits to Hanoi. To Vietnam, the United States represents an opportunity, rather than a threat.

China is Vietnam’s current worry. China was the enemy in its most recent war, which ended in 1991, and the two have conflicting sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. Vietnamese do not divide into pro-China and anti-China factions, but into anti-China and more anti-China opinions. But all are conscious of the necessity to have steady and thick relationships with China. Like the rest of Pacific Asia, Vietnam lives in a region centered on China’s presence, population and production. China is both an opportunity and a worry.

Vietnam’s best strategy for continuing its remarkable development is to diversify and develop its relationships. This is why Biden’s visit is so important. Vietnam exports almost as much to the United States as it does to China, and it is our tenth largest trading partner. More importantly, we are the major global power and it would be disquieting for Vietnam to be next to China without having a strong political relationship with us. Vietnam was delighted when President Bill Clinton normalized relations in 1995.

Vietnam Is a Partner, Not an Ally Against China

Published 09/09/23 07:00 AM ET

Brantly Womack

themessenger.com · September 9, 2023

On Sept. 10, Joe Biden will become the sixth American president to visit Vietnam. It will be quite a different visit from the first presidential visitor. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson spent one day at the American military base in Da Nang, visiting with our troops. Biden will also spend one day, but in Hanoi. His visit has been prepared by numerous Cabinet-level working visits, and will raise the official U.S.-Vietnam relationship from a “comprehensive partnership” to a “strategic partnership.”

Vietnam has three ranks of official partnerships and Biden’s visit will move us to the middle level, and possibly beyond. The top level of Vietnam’s partnerships — “comprehensive strategic partnership” — is currently occupied by Russia, China, India and South Korea, with Australia an incoming addition. By the standards of American foreign policy, this top group is a mixed lot: two of our allies, one cornerstone of the Indo-Pacific, and then Russia and China, the two main targets of our strategic thinking. What is going on?

Like most countries in the developing world, Vietnam tries to reduce its international uncertainties by stabilizing and improving relationships with as many countries as possible. Membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is important to Vietnam, as are relationships with partners outside the region. The partnerships are “both/and,” not “either/or.” To have a bad relationship with China, its neighbor and major trading partner, would hamper Vietnam’s economy and greatly increase its anxiety.

However, improving relations with the United States is also crucial for Vietnam’s sense of security and for its export economy. And, strangely enough, the United States is popular in Vietnam, including fond memories of President Donald Trump, who made two visits to Hanoi. To Vietnam, the United States represents an opportunity, rather than a threat.

China is Vietnam’s current worry. China was the enemy in its most recent war, which ended in 1991, and the two have conflicting sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. Vietnamese do not divide into pro-China and anti-China factions, but into anti-China and more anti-China opinions. But all are conscious of the necessity to have steady and thick relationships with China. Like the rest of Pacific Asia, Vietnam lives in a region centered on China’s presence, population and production. China is both an opportunity and a worry.

Vietnam’s best strategy for continuing its remarkable development is to diversify and develop its relationships. This is why Biden’s visit is so important. Vietnam exports almost as much to the United States as it does to China, and it is our tenth largest trading partner. More importantly, we are the major global power and it would be disquieting for Vietnam to be next to China without having a strong political relationship with us. Vietnam was delighted when President Bill Clinton normalized relations in 1995.

But normal relations with Vietnam were a long time coming. Recognition of reunified Vietnam came 20 years after the end of the war. We were caught up with our conflicting emotions and experiences from the war. To us, “Vietnam” remained the war, not the country, and it had become a unified communist country. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese were resentful that the funds promised by President Richard Nixon were not paid, and in any case were arrogant after their success.

But by the 1980s, they were disillusioned with Soviet-style socialism and, in 1986, began to shift toward reform and openness policies similar to China’s. Vietnam began negotiating with us regarding their withdrawal from Cambodia and finding remains of American soldiers missing in action. It remained a slow road. A trade agreement was signed in 2000, and normal trade status was granted to Vietnam as the last act of the 109th Congress in 2006. President Barack Obama initiated the partnership in 2013. Vietnam appreciates the warming relationship exemplified by Biden’s visit, and it understands that a common concern about China is one of the motivations of the new partnership.

However, we should not make a new version of the mistake that brought President Lyndon Johnson — and the soldiers — to Vietnam. At that time, we thought that the relationship between China and North Vietnam was so close that a victory over South Vietnam would cause a domino effect of collapsing non-communist governments. Instead, Vietnam was at war with China three years after the unification of Vietnam, and the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were also at war with Vietnam. The dominos fell backwards!

Now some imagine that Vietnam would be happy to join an alliance to contain China. But the relationship between China and Vietnam was neither so solid back then nor so hostile now. A partnership with Vietnam benefits us as well as Vietnam, and that is what Vietnam wants.

Brantly Womack is a senior faculty fellow of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and professor emeritus of foreign affairs. He is the author of “Recentering Pacific Asia: Regional China and World Order” (Cambridge, 2023), and “China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry” (Cambridge 2006).

themessenger.com · September 9, 2023

17. Irregular Warfare, Who has Ownership and Expertise within the U.S. Government?

The question is where are the irregular warfare proficient campaign headquarters? Who produces them? How do we ensure we have PME that results in commanders and staff who are proficient in IW strategy and campaigning?

Irregular Warfare, Who has Ownership and Expertise within the U.S. Government?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/irregular-warfare-who-has-ownership-expertise-within-us-sal-artiaga%3FtrackingId=ge5eqmG4qs5ttLPwmVv6Ww%253D%253D/?trackingId=ge5eqmG4qs5ttLPwmVv6Ww%3D%3D

Sal Artiaga

13 articles Following

September 9, 2023

Open Immersive Reader

Introduction

Irregular Warfare (IW) represents a spectrum of operations that go beyond traditional, open warfare. The strategies, tactics, and methods employed in IW often stand in stark contrast to conventional battles. As the face of global conflict continually evolves, the debate over the ownership and mastery of IW within the U.S. government intensifies. The recent establishment of the Irregular Warfare Center has added fuel to the debate.

The Multi-faceted Ownership of Irregular Warfare

Irregular warfare, in its very nature, demands a multi-agency approach. It encompasses not only direct military actions but also a blend of intelligence operations, diplomacy, economic strategies, information operations, and more. As a result, IW falls under the purview of multiple U.S. government agencies.

The Department of Defense (DoD), for instance, views IW from the perspective of countering unconventional threats. The CIA, on the other hand, approaches IW through the lens of covert and clandestine operations. Other agencies, including the Department of State, see IW as an extension of diplomacy, where soft power is used to manage and resolve conflicts.

Thus, while each agency interacts with irregular warfare in its unique way, no single entity has comprehensive ownership over it. Instead, the complexities of IW demand collaborative interagency responses.

Special Forces and the Claim to IW Mastery

U.S. Special Forces, a component of the broader U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), have often been at the forefront of IW operations. Their engagements, from counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East to counter-insurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and South America, are testimonies of their active role in IW. As a result, there is a perception, both within parts of the military and the public, that Special Forces are the primary or sole "owners" of IW expertise.

However, while Special Forces are undeniably integral to IW operations, their claim to comprehensive mastery is not without contention. One notable point of contention is the absence of a dedicated irregular warfare course within Special Forces training modules. For a force that is actively involved in IW operations and that claims expertise in this domain, the lack of structured training specifically on IW raises eyebrows.

Such an omission not only impacts the readiness of Special Forces but can also perpetuate misconceptions about IW. Without systematic instruction, there's a risk of perpetuating ad-hoc approaches to IW, leading to less effective operations and potentially compromising the safety of both operators and local populations. In recent history, the Special Warfare Center and School canceled the only course it had dedicated to the study and education of Irregular Warfare. How does this help Special Forces with their claim?

The Need for a Comprehensive Approach

Given the vast and multidimensional nature of IW, a multi-faceted approach to training and operations is essential. A singular claim of ownership or mastery, without comprehensive education and inter-agency collaboration, can be counterproductive.

To genuinely master IW, the U.S. Special Forces should consider introducing specialized training modules that encompass the full breadth and depth of IW. Such training should not only focus on military tactics but also on understanding the socio-political dynamics of conflict regions, the nuances of diplomacy, and the intricacies of economic warfare.

Additionally, inter-agency collaboration should be strengthened. Regular dialogues, joint training exercises, and collaborative mission planning between the DoD, CIA, Department of State, and other relevant entities can ensure a more unified and effective approach to IW.

Conclusion

Irregular warfare, given its intricate nature, cannot be the sole domain of any single agency or military branch. While U.S. Special Forces play a pivotal role in IW operations, true mastery demands a broader perspective, enriched training, and heightened inter-agency collaboration. As the challenges of the 21st century continue to evolve, the U.S. government must adopt a unified, informed, and strategic approach to irregular warfare.

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Irregular Warfare (IW) - A Spectrum of Complexity Irregular Warfare is like a puzzle with multiple pieces, each held by different government agencies. It encompasses military action, intelligence, diplomacy, information operations, and more, making it one of the most complex challenges in conflict. My latest essay sheds light on the role of Special Forces and their claim to IW mastery, all while pointing out the need for structured training in this domain. The key takeaways: IW requires a multi-agency approach. U.S. Special Forces play a pivotal role but need dedicated training. Inter-agency collaboration is crucial for success. As the global landscape continues to evolve, it's clear that addressing IW demands unified, informed, and strategic action across agencies. Let's stay informed and work together to master the intricacies of Irregular Warfare. #IrregularWarfare #SecurityStrategy #GovernmentPolicy #Collaboration #GlobalConflict #MilitaryStrategy #specialoperations #specialforces #departmentofdefense #armedforces #usasoc #ussocom #securitychallenges

18. CIA seeks to recruit Russian officials with video about truth

Is this the appropriate message for the target audience? Will it resonate and influence the right people?

CIA seeks to recruit Russian officials with video about truth

Reuters

MOSCOW, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which is trying to recruit more Russians as spies, has released a video targeting Moscow officials with an appeal to tell the truth about a system it said is riddled with lying sycophants.

CIA Director William Burns said in July that disaffection among some Russians over the war in Ukraine was creating a rare opportunity to recruit spies, and that the CIA was not letting it pass.

The agency released the video in Russian entitled "Why I made contact with the CIA - for myself" on social media which shows what is clearly supposed to be a Russian official walking through the snow of what looks like a Russian city.

"I insisted to everyone that it was unscrupulous to distort the truth in reports but those who rose through the ranks were those who did that very thing," the voice over says in Russian.

"Before I believed that the truth had some value," the video shows as the actor playing a Russian official enters a Russian government building and shows his pass above the double-headed eagle of Russia.

"Those around you may not want to hear the truth. But we do," the video says before detailing ways to contact the CIA, which is based in Langley, Virginia. "Integrity has rewards."

After major failures over the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. and British spy agencies claimed an intelligence victory over the Russian invasion of Ukraine by warning of the Kremlin's plans way in advance.

Moscow is so difficult for Western spies to operate in that they developed "Moscow Rules" in Soviet times to guard against complacency. It has been updated for modern Russia.

Russia accuses Britain and the United States of supporting Ukraine in an attempt to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources - assertions Washington and London deny.

Putin, a former KGB spy who served in what used to be East Germany, has restored some of the clout of the once-mighty Soviet intelligence agencies though the CIA says the Kremlin chief was poorly informed about the real situation in Ukraine ahead of his decision to invade.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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19. 'I have a lot of regrets': Exclusive interview with top general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal

Video at the link: https://www.foxnews.com/world/have-lot-regrets-exclusive-interview-top-general-oversaw-afghanistan-withdrawal

'I have a lot of regrets': Exclusive interview with top general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal

Retired Gen Frank McKenzie speaks out on 2021 US pullout from Afghanistan

By Jennifer Griffin , Liz Friden Fox News

Published September 9, 2023 6:26pm EDT

foxnews.com · by Jennifer Griffin , Liz Friden Fox News

Video

EXCLUSIVE: Retired CENTCOM general reflects on Afghanistan

Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has an exclusive interview with former head of U.S. Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie (ret.) on the 2021 U.S. pullout from Afghanistan on "Special Report."

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), put the withdrawal from Afghanistan bluntly: "I believe history is going to view the decision to come out of Afghanistan in the way that we did and the manner that we were directed to come out as a fatal flaw," McKenzie said.

Now retired, McKenzie was commander of U.S. Central Command, the combatant command of the Middle East, from March 2019 to April 2022. He oversaw the largest evacuation in U.S. history, evacuating an estimated 124,000 Afghans from the country before the Taliban would take over at the Aug. 31, 2021, deadline.

US EQUIPMENT ABANDONED IN AFGHANISTAN NOW BEING USED BY MILITANTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES, PAKISTANI PM SAYS

McKenzie revealed that he has many regrets, including the basic decision to evacuate.

"I have a lot of regrets about how it ended in Afghanistan. I have a regret with the basic decision, which I think was the wrong decision. And I particularly regret that we did not choose to begin to evacuate our people, our embassy personnel, our American citizens and our at-risk Afghans at the time we made the decision to bring in our combat forces. I think that was a serious mistake, and I think that led to the events of August 2021 directly," McKenzie said.

"I have a lot of regrets about how it ended in Afghanistan. I have a regret with the basic decision, which I think was the wrong decision."

The countdown to Aug. 31 was pure chaos: Parents tossing their babies over fences in hopes their children could have a better life as orphans than under Taliban rule; people clinging onto the side of C-17’s with nothing left to hold onto; thousands of men, women and children of all ages waiting with whatever belongings they could carry on their backs to get into the gates of Kabul’s then-Hamid Karzai International Airport, known as HKIA.

A U.S. Marine pulls an infant over a fence of barbed wire during the evacuation at then-Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri / AFP via Getty Images)

On Aug. 26, with just days to go, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and almost 200 Afghans. McKenzie laid out the threats that the U.S. was monitoring before the Abbey Gate attack and pushed back against allegations that military leaders could have prevented it.

Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine sniper, lost several limbs in the Abbey Gate bombing. In a March 2023 hearing on Capitol Hill, Vargas-Andrews said he saw a person that matched the suicide bomber's description but was told to not engage.

"Plain and simple, we were ignored," Vargas-Andrews, who is now medically retired, told lawmakers.

"There was no description of a bomber meeting the description that you just played that day or the day prior in and around Kabul," McKenzie said.

BOOK CLAIMS BIDEN ‘EXPLODED’ AS AFGHANISTAN COLLAPSED DURING HIS VACATION: ‘GIVE ME A BREAK’

"We were dealing with the possibility of a suicide vest attack but without specific description of the person," McKenzie said.

"We were dealing with a possibility of an indirect fire attack, either rockets or mortars," he continued, "but I do know that there was no intelligence to support the assertion that we knew what the bomber looked like that he was carrying a backpack with three yellow stripes. There were just none of that. We just did not have that intelligence."

Another senior U.S. commander who was at the Kabul airport that day said that "the threat reporting was ‘off the charts.'"

Taliban fighters stand guard in front of then-Hamid Karzai International Airport after the U.S. withdrawal in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021. (AP Photo / Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi)

It was the Taliban’s job to provide security around the perimeter of the airport. But McKenzie said he does not regret cutting the deal.

"I feel had we not done so, our casualties would have been significantly higher," he said.

Asked if he had intelligence the suicide bomber and members of ISIS-K were gathering at a hotel by the airport, McKenzie said there were a variety of targets that U.S. military leaders told the Taliban to take a look at.

"Some they did, some they didn't. We have nothing specific about a hotel that we asked them to take a look at," McKenzie said.

He also does not believe the Taliban let the ISIS-K suicide bomber through intentionally.

A U.S. Marine helps a woman and child during an evacuation at then-Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Department of Defense / File)

"I further believe that other attacks were prevented by the fact that we had the Taliban operating outside the wire. And there was a downside to the Taliban being out there, too, in that people that we wanted to get through had trouble getting through. And that's just the difficult equation you got to solve when you're trying to balance force protection against the desire to get people out of Afghanistan, McKenzie said.

McKenzie said Abbey Gate was open because it was one of the only locations the U.S. could bring people in directly. The U.K. had asked the U.S. to keep it open, so they did.

"Abbey Gate gave us the opportunity to bring people in, and we were trying to bring some final U.K. personnel," McKenzie said. The U.K. personnel had been staying in a hotel just outside the airport wires."

McKenzie said he still thinks the U.S. should have troops in Afghanistan and trusts the current CENTCOM commander’s assertion that ISIS-K has grown capable of carrying out an attack on U.S. interests from within Afghanistan.

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Asked what he could have done differently, McKenzie said, "You always look back any time you lose people and you wonder if you could have done things differently, and I am haunted by that. I think about it quite a bit. It's one of the many regrets that I have. I examined everything we did. I think about it particularly in the month of August of every year for the rest of my life."

Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) and is based out of the Washington D.C. bureau. She joined the network in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.

foxnews.com · by Jennifer Griffin , Liz Friden Fox News

20. Three Navy SEAL commanders face charges in Hell Week death

Three Navy SEAL commanders face charges in Hell Week death

Medical teams at BUD/S were "poorly organized, poorly integrated and poorly led," an investigation found.

BY MATT WHITE | PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2023 6:38 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · September 8, 2023

Three senior Navy SEAL officers will face an Admiral’s mast for dereliction of duty over the death of Kyle Mullen, a SEAL candidate who died during BUD/S at the end of the infamous “Hell Week” in February 2022.

The three officers face charges of negligent dereliction of duty. Each held senior leadership positions at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California, when Mullen Died.

Mullen died hours after completing the most grueling stretch of the infamous Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training course, or BUD/S, in February 2022, a five-day grind of relentless physical tests known as “Hell Week.”

A New Jersey native and former college football player, Mullen died within hours of finishing Hell Week. A Navy investigation determined that medical personnel failed to treat pneumonia he’d developed over the week-long event. Investigators determined that that deadly mistake by medics emerged from cultural and command deficiencies at the Naval Special Warfare Center and BUD/S.

The three men are:

Capt. Brian Drechsler, the NSW Center’s commanding officer at the time of Mullen’s death. The Center is the hub of the Navy’s special warfare training. Drechsler had been scheduled to leave that post in late 2022, but his departure was moved up to May 2022 after Mullen’s death.
Capt. Bradley Geary, who commanded the Center’s Basic Training Command, which directly oversees BUD/S.
Cmdr. Erk Ramey, a Navy radiologist who oversaw medical operations as the Center’s top medical doctor.

The mast will be convened by Rear Adm. Keith B. Davids, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command.

Rolling Stone first reported Thursday that the three officers would face the Admiral’s mast. Task & Purpose confirmed the three officers were served with notice of the mast last week and have until sometime next week to decide whether or not to accept it.

Task and Purpose reported in June that the investigation that led to charges found that leadership at BUD/S and the Center allowed “complacency and insufficient attentiveness” to creep into the school and its staff, which led to Mullen’s condition worsening despite multiple medical checks and warning signs.

Kyle Mullen, his mother Regina, and brother, TJ, after a Yale football game. (Regina Mullen/courtesy photo).

The report found that medical teams that oversaw the rigorous early phases of BUD/S training — and particularly Hell Week — were unprepared for the high levels of sickness and injuries the training routinely produces. Medics, the report said, were “poorly organized, poorly integrated and poorly led.”

In the training itself, the report found, SEAL instructors were “hunting the back of the pack,” picking off students they deemed too slow or weak. And those instructors believed they were acting on their boss’s orders, or at least had tacit approval.

The three officers can now accept to have their charges settled by the Admiral’s mast, which is adjudicated without a jury or lawyers. They can also refuse the mast and instead face a court martial.

An Admiral’s mast is a non-judicial punishment process in which a commander reviews charges against subordinates and hands down a variety of punishments, from minor rebukes to major career-affecting reprimands like loss of rank. Punishment from a mast cannot include dismissal from the Navy or extended confinement, though Navy officials can use the results of a mast to open further inquiries that could lead to expulsion from service.

Lawyers for both Ramey and Geary told Task and Purpose Thursday that their clients were reviewing the charges and documents provided by the Navy before deciding how to proceed.

Mullen’s mother, Regina Mullen, has hounded the Navy since her son’s death, insisting in media interviews and meetings with lawmakers that the culture at BUD/S had grown unaccountable and rife with hazing, steroid abuse, and poor leadership. Rolling Stone reported Thursday that several of Mullen’s classmates who failed out of the course said they had personally been or had witnessed brutal hazing, often encouraged by instructors.

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Regina Mullen told Task and Purpose Friday that the Admiral’s masts for the three officers was not a full accounting, but “I wanted something to happen.”

Notably absent from the list, she said, was now-retired Rear Admiral Hugh Howard, the commanding officer of NSW Command when Mullen died.

“I want Admiral Howard to be court-martialed up front, but that can only happen from either the Secretary of the Navy or the [Chief of Naval Operations],” she said.

She also wonders why the Admiral’s mast was being handled within NSW Command by Howard’s successor rather than by an outside command. The investigation that uncovered the issues at BUD/S was produced by officials in the Navy’s training command, who had no relationship with NSW or the SEALs.

“They couldn’t investigate themselves, and now they’re supposed to charge themselves? Right,” she said. “In any normal mind, that’s so ridiculous. But it’s still the process apparently.”

Having the three officers face an Admiral’s mast, she said, was not the level of accountability she hoped to see but did sidestep the risk of a Court Martial ending in no action at all.

“It’s a jury of their own peers, and it’s out in California, and they’ll find a loophole and get fancy lawyers and get off,” Mullen told Task and Purpose. “And I didn’t want that to happen. Also, Geary is a father. As a mother myself, I cannot put children through that. That doesn’t bring my son back alive if he went to jail or put their entire family through that.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · September 8, 2023

21. OPINION: North Korean Support Will Only Extend Putin’s War Against Ukraine

Excerpts:

“Pay a price” is a hollow threat. Tough talk sans the punch. Sullivan’s declaration, "[This] is not going to reflect well on North Korea” is not going to deter Kim Jong-un. Neither did State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel vaguely declaring the U.S. would “take appropriate steps as necessary” in coordination with Washington’s partners when pressed about “potential consequences.”

All Kim Jong-un likely heard was “yada, yada, yada,” and he will not lose any sleep traveling on his armored train to Russia.

Nor will Putin, if several reports earlier this week prove to be accurate. According to BILD, a German publication, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres sent a “confidential letter” dated August 28th to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposing in exchange for renewing the Black Sea grain deal, Russian banks would return to SWIFT, Lloyd’s of London would insure Russia vessels against Ukrainian attacks, and Russian oligarch assets would be unfrozen.

In another potentially damning report, Andrei Piontkovsky and Frederick Starr in the Kyiv Post claimed there has been back-channel discussions led by Thomas Graham, former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff, and Lavrov – and all designed to ensure Russia does not lose the war.

According to Piontkovsky and Starr, Sullivan denied responsibility and his press spokesperson issued a statement saying, “The United States has not requested any official or former officials to open a back channel and is not seeking such a channel. Nor are we passing any messages through others. When we say nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, we mean it.” Nonetheless, Piontkovsky and Starr maintain Sullivan “lied.”

OPINION: North Korean Support Will Only Extend Putin’s War Against Ukraine

Putin and Kim Jong-un are following in the footsteps of Hitler and Mussolini and, as then, need to be stopped now, sooner rather than later.

https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/21464?utm

By Jonathan Sweet

By Mark Toth

September 10, 2023, 11:16 am

War is drawing nearer to Moscow and the Atlantic allies are resolutely united. Two powerful heads of state resolve to meet to discuss a “New Order.’ Armored trains are prepared to deliver them. Both strongmen are confident of ultimate victory, and they are determined to dominate Europe and the West economically and militarily.

Conquering Ukraine, however, is first, and maps of gains are already laid out for review upon arrival at their wartime conclave.

While this may seem like a scenario playing out today, the two dictators are not Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Not yet. That meeting is soon to come.

Rather, the two men are Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Italian Duce Benito Mussolini – and the year is 1941.

That August, Hitler met with Mussolini near the small village of Strzyżów in southern Poland, where his “Anlage Süd” bunker, replete with a hardened train bunker, was located. During the conference, Hitler’s armored train, paradoxically named “Amerika,” was parked there, while Mussolini’s train was in a tunnel near Stępina.

Ukraine, they know, is key to controlling Europe

Ukraine, they know, is key to controlling Europe, and the news is encouraging as they walk the battlefields of the “Battle of Uman,” where Joseph Stalin’s army met a decisive defeat. First central Ukraine, next the rest of the country.

Then, as today, Ukraine is fundamental to the security of Europe and the West. Now, 82 years later Putin and Kim Jong-un are set to meet to ensure the nation’s destruction. Not as a premature victory lap as Hitler and Mussolini did in Uman. However, out of a growing wartime exigency given Kyiv’s Multi-Domain Operation strategy, Ukraine is taking the fight to Russia, and perilously drawing closer to putting a decisive end to Putin’s ‘special military operation.’

Nonetheless, it is essential to understand Putin is not conceding. His summoning of Kim Jong-un to travel to Vladivostok or Moscow to discuss supplying weapons and ammunition, makes it abundantly clear Putin has no desire to give up on his war in Ukraine. Conditions for the meeting were set in July when Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Pyongyang to attend the celebration of North Korea’s 70th anniversary of "Victory Day."

What the Kremlin lacks in supplies, military equipment, weapons and ammunition must be outsourced from what we coined a year ago as his “arsenals of evil,” and North Korea alongside Iran is at the top of that list.

Finding bodies to fill Russian uniforms and trenches does not seem to be an issue either. But they will not come from Moscow or St. Petersburg; rather, through the mobilization of reservists, compulsory military service and foreign fighters.

On July 18th, the Russian Duma made more reservists available for mobilization when it “extended the maximum age at which men can be mobilized to serve in the military by five years, meaning that some as old as 70 can now be called up to fight.” In addition, beginning January 1st, 2024, the upper age limit for men to be called up for compulsory military service will increase from 27 to 30, and a law was passed that “prohibits conscripts from leaving the country once the enlistment office has sent them their draft notice.”

Hitler turned to his so-called “Hitler Youth” and old men as Nazi Germany began to lose – and now so too must Putin.

Putin is also outsourcing his fight internationally. Fighters from Cuba, Syria, and Chechnya are being recruited, while ads target ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan and Armenia, along with migrants from Central Asia working in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine. According to United Kingdom intelligence, signing bonuses of up to “approximately £4,000 [$5002] as well as a monthly salary of around £1,500 [$1875]” are being used to lure recruits.

Putin’s calculus is clear. Call it what it is – a war of attrition or “never-ending war.” The U.S. Presidential Election is 14 months away, and polls are trending towards cutting funding for the war in Ukraine, and Putin is banking he can ride out the storm. Until he does, he has little regard for the lives of his soldiers, but he needs equipment, weapons, ammunition, and supplies to sustain them and freeze the war.

Kim Jong-un will support Putin for a price. Specifically, technology that could advance its military satellite and nuclear-powered submarine capabilities, along with its nuclear and missile programs. He might also renew his August 2022 offer to provide the Kremlin upwards to 100,000 volunteers to fight in Ukraine.

Dealing with Russia would validate Kim Jong-un and make North Korea a Mussolini-like player in Moscow and Beijing’s vision of a Multipolar World. He would take center stage, and as Lee Byong-chul, a North Korean expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul stated, achieving “a win-win situation for both sides.”

Warnings from White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that North Korea will “pay a price” for any arms deal with Russia will go unheeded. “Pay a price” implies economic sanctions, and thus far, as “deterrence,” they did not stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, nor Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“Pay a price” is a hollow threat. Tough talk sans the punch. Sullivan’s declaration, "[This] is not going to reflect well on North Korea” is not going to deter Kim Jong-un. Neither did State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel vaguely declaring the U.S. would “take appropriate steps as necessary” in coordination with Washington’s partners when pressed about “potential consequences.”

All Kim Jong-un likely heard was “yada, yada, yada,” and he will not lose any sleep traveling on his armored train to Russia.

Nor will Putin, if several reports earlier this week prove to be accurate. According to BILD, a German publication, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres sent a “confidential letter” dated August 28th to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposing in exchange for renewing the Black Sea grain deal, Russian banks would return to SWIFT, Lloyd’s of London would insure Russia vessels against Ukrainian attacks, and Russian oligarch assets would be unfrozen.

In another potentially damning report, Andrei Piontkovsky and Frederick Starr in the Kyiv Post claimed there has been back-channel discussions led by Thomas Graham, former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff, and Lavrov – and all designed to ensure Russia does not lose the war.

According to Piontkovsky and Starr, Sullivan denied responsibility and his press spokesperson issued a statement saying, “The United States has not requested any official or former officials to open a back channel and is not seeking such a channel. Nor are we passing any messages through others. When we say nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, we mean it.” Nonetheless, Piontkovsky and Starr maintain Sullivan “lied.”

The Biden Administration’s red lights are interpreted as green lights by Putin and Kim Jong-un.

The Biden Administration’s red lights are interpreted as green lights by Putin and Kim Jong-un. Further, the White House’s permissive environment on national security undermines its messaging to Russia and North Korea. Nor will Cold War era tactics demonstrating military capabilities or show of force – B52 flyover and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile testing – intimidate let alone deter Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-un’s North Korea is already one of the most isolated countries on the planet. Additional hardships incurred by Western economic sanctions will likely be offset by Russia and China – and responded to by North Korean missile tests in the Sea of Japan.

Before Putin and Kim Jong-un meet in a modern day “Anlage Süd” summit, Washington and Brussels must stop making policy decisions that will only result in turning Kyiv’s fight for independence into a “forever war.” Kim Jong-un already knows that game. North Korea’s corrupt regime has survived playing the “forever war” game with South Korea, Japan and the U.S. – and now Putin is betting he can play the same “forever war” game with the Biden Administration and NATO.

Ukraine is approaching the 19th month in a war of survival. The U.S. and NATO chose to ‘stand with’ Ukraine and support their defense of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy – to defend against Russian aggression. Against all odds, Kyiv turned back Putin’s onslaught, and are now in position to win the war.

For Ukraine the best solution is to win now. Not to wait for Russia to receive military assistance from North Korea. Zelensky and his generals know how to win, but they need the tools necessary to take down the Russian Bear.

As M1 Abrams main battle tanks roll into Ukraine, reports that the U.S. is once again considering sending ATACMS is encouraging, but waiting months to receive the precision deep fire missiles is the cost – unless the Biden Administration authorizes Poland and Romania to contribute from their stockpiles.

Last week, an unnamed senior State Department official told reporters, “It’s very important that Ukraine win this war. And by ‘win,’ I mean as President [Joe] Biden said, Russians leave all of Ukraine.” Winning, however, takes resolve.

Franklin Roosevelt was determined to defeat Hitler and Mussolini’s “New Order.” The Biden Administration must follow suit and vanquish Putin, Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of a “Multi-Polar” world. Russia cannot be allowed to win the war, nor freeze the conflict.

Neither can Putin be given a ‘soft landing’ via third party negotiations “about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Biden got it right in Warsaw back in March 2022 when he said, "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."

Mr. President, if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will remain in power.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the authors and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.

To suggest a correction or clarification, write to us here

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Jonathan Sweet

Army Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet (@JESweet2022) served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14.

Mark Toth

Mark Toth (@MCTothSTL) writes on national security and foreign policy. Previously an economist and entrepreneur, he has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. A former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, he has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world.

22. The era of Chinese growth is over. Like Germany in 1914, war could follow

An ominous warning?

The era of Chinese growth is over. Like Germany in 1914, war could follow

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Fri, September 8, 2023 at 3:00 AM EDT·6 min read

news.yahoo.com · by Sam Ashworth-HayesSeptember 8, 2023 at 12:00 AM·6 min read383Link Copied

In 2012, Harvard professor Graham Allison coined the term “Thucydides Trap” to describe the situation in which a rising power threatens to displace the ruling power, resulting in war between them.

As China’s economic miracle continued, Beijing seemed destined for a collision with Washington that might destroy both.

In 2023, it looks as if what might finally trigger war between China and the West is not strength, but weakness.

China is less a rising power than a peaking one. Its economy is entering what may prove to be a permanent slowdown, as easy growth dries up and the population declines.

Bloomberg Economics, which only recently said China would overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2035, now believes it may never do so. America, for all its internal political turmoil, remains leagues ahead in military equipment and technological dynamism.

The conventional wisdom was that China had time to wait; economic growth would make it a rival centre of geopolitical power to the United States.

Time, and investment, would deliver armed forces capable of deterring American intervention within its sphere of influence. But if China’s power has peaked, and still lags behind, none of this holds true. Instead, the incentive is to be aggressive and take what it can, now.

The flashpoint, if it comes, is likely to be Taiwan. Just as Vladimir Putin and the nationalists in the Kremlin saw Ukraine as a “Russian land” snatched away by the West, Beijing sees the existence of Taiwan as an independent democracy as unfinished business from the Chinese Civil War.

Aggression towards Taipei has become practically the norm; Chinese aircraft regularly encroach upon Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, the military carries out wargames simulating invasion and, when then US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited, Beijing carried out days of live fire exercises around the island.

Washington, meanwhile, maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity”, refusing to state whether it would or would not intervene if China ever actually were to invade. While President Joe Biden has made pointed statements suggesting that he would, it’s far from clear that a Republican successor would feel bound by something so intangible.

And the window for Chinese action is narrowing. Flicking through the headlines offers a constant stream of bad economic news; the renminbi is at its lowest level against the dollar since 2007, exports are shrinking, the property sector is mired in bad debts. The government’s growth target is “around 5pc”, the lowest in decades; economists expect the word “around” to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

The long term trends look worse still. Up until now, China’s growth has been powered by the dynamics of “catch up”.

When you’re very far from the front of the pack, there’s a lot of low lying fruit to pick. Spectacular growth can be generated simply by building roads, getting the electricity grid up and running and opening up to do business with the world. But the closer you get to the frontier, the less this works. State-directed investment is no longer enough to get you over the hump.

In 2011, the economist Barry Eichengreen identified $17,000 as the per capita income at which the transition to slower growth begins. China passed that boundary at some point in 2020-21. Lo and behold, at the same time up crop a series of pieces identifying Vietnam, Mexico and others as the “new China”; low wage, low income economies where manufacturing could be done cheaply.

This is exacerbated in Beijing’s case by justified Western wariness about the regime’s intentions.

Barely a day goes past without some new reference to “friendshoring” or “securonomics”, generally understood to mean “removing China from our supply chains as quickly as we reasonably can”.

The UK is stripping Huawei components out of its 5G networks and Chinese-made security cameras from government sites; Washington is openly engaged in a trade war over microchips. For all that President Biden has broken with his predecessor in image, he’s kept Donald Trump’s tariffs in place.

There are other headwinds facing China, too. Last year the country registered its first population decline since the 1960s. For all the chatter about the ageing West fading from relevance, China’s problem is worse; by 2050, the median Chinese person will be 50 years old.

The consequent decline in manpower is unlikely to be compensated for in economic dynamism; Xi Jinping’s focus on centralising power and control of the economy has come alongside crackdowns on business leaders. It is difficult to see the sort of economic liberalisation that might break the ceiling on China’s growth prospects happening soon.

Throughout history, countries that sense opportunity beginning to slip from their grasp have attempted to seize what they can. Germany in 1914 saw its economic miracle coming to an end, a developing alliance between Britain, France and Russia aimed at containing it, and a military build-up that threatened its primacy on the continent.

Chief of the general staff, Helmuth von Moltke, urged the government to launch a “preventive war in order to defeat the enemy while we still stand a chance of victory”.

Japan, in 1941, found itself in a similar situation. Already embroiled in a conflict of its own devising, it was placed under economic sanctions by the United States. Facing the prospect of curtailing its ambitions, or attempting one last great gamble, it chose to strike Pearl Harbor. In Germany, Hitler, who believed his country was destined to fall further behind the United States, hesitated, and then declared war upon America, too.

An invasion of Taiwan is a daunting prospect today. The country has lived under the threat of war for decades. Amphibious assaults are challenging at the best of times, let alone against an island turned into a “porcupine” by defensive weapons systems. Add in the prospect of highly likely defeat in any engagement with the Americans, and why would the Chinese try it?

The only answer is “if the alternative is intolerable”. Accepting that the chance for reunification has finally vanished would be intolerable. The Communist Party facing unrest as growth slows and troubles mount would be intolerable. And allowing China’s peak period of influence to pass without action could prove intolerable, too.

We have heard a constant drumbeat of comments from US military figures suggesting that the People’s Liberation Army wants to be ready for war by 2027, or next year, or maybe next decade.

A recent poll of China specialists suggested 63pc believed an invasion would be “possible within the next 10 years”. If the Chinese economy continues to falter – and America continues to prepare Taiwan for conflict – Beijing’s closing window could bring that conflict sooner than we think.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.

news.yahoo.com · by Sam Ashworth-HayesSeptember 8, 2023 at 12:00 AM·6 min read383Link Copied

23. Twenty-two years after 9/11: 3 lessons we need to teach about courage, unity and resilience

Twenty-two years after 9/11: 3 lessons we need to teach about courage, unity and resilience

I'm president of a university. I know many of our students weren't even born when the 9/11 terror attacks happened. Here's what I want them to know

By Dr. Kent Ingle Fox News

Published September 10, 2023 7:00am EDT

foxnews.com · by Dr. Kent Ingle Fox News

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Tunnel To Towers CEO Frank Siller joins Fox News' Rick Reichmuth at One World Trade Center for the Tunnel To Tower Annual Tower Climb, discusses the organization's mission and honors the heroes of September 11, 2001.

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I’ll never forget where I was 22 years ago when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Being in the Pacific Time Zone, I woke up to a call from my wife, asking if I was watching the news. I can still hear the shock of the news reporters and see the images of black smoke coming from the towers and the ash-filled streets.

That morning I drove to attend a presbytery meeting, where we turned on the news and continued to watch the events unfold. We ended our meeting early so we could go home to comfort our communities. I was pastoring a church in Thousand Oaks, California.

I remember driving home through Los Angeles. A freeway usually packed with cars was completely empty. I was one of the only cars on the road. It felt eerie. The gravity sunk in. I knew this would become a monumental day.

America will always remember September 11, 2001.

BIDEN TO OBSERVE UPCOMING 9/11 ANNIVERSARY IN ALASKA IN DEPARTURE FROM TRADITION

On that catastrophic day, four coordinated terrorist attacks crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people, and taking aim at our nation’s symbols of economic prosperity and military fortitude. These events led to the War on Terror, and our nation grappled with the sobering reality of our freedom under threat.

As the president of a university, I recognize most college-aged students weren’t even born at that time. They didn’t experience what we did. It’s as distant an event as World War I is to many of us. But they still live with the effects of that day, especially when it comes to airport transportation.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

While we commemorate and reflect on what happened, there are many lessons we can teach college students to help them recognize the significance of 9/11.

First, democracy is built on courage.

When the World Trade Center buildings and Pentagon were hit, firefighters, law enforcement officers, members of the U.S. Armed Forces and civilians sprang into action to rescue people trapped in the buildings and under the debris. An estimated 13,000-15,000 people were evacuated and 20 people were pulled out of the rubble from the towers.

GOP ANGER GROWS OVER BIDEN ADMIN'S POTENTIAL PLEA DEAL FOR SUSPECTED 9/11 ARCHITECTS

The men and women of Flight 93 heroically acted to prevent another attack. That courage doesn’t solely rest on those who protected our homeland on that fateful day, but also on the men and women who subsequently enlisted in our Armed Forces and fought in the War on Terror.

These brave individuals are a reminder of the courage that permeates our history — something we need more of today. History documents how our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence risking their lives by committing treason for liberty. They recognized that the pursuit of freedom outweighed the cost. A flourishing democracy requires people willing to fight for what is right in the face of adversity, fear and risk, and even against the status quo.

We can ignite that sense of courage today by sharing stories with college students of the heroic men and women from 9/11 who valued humanity and American ideals over their own safety. And we can encourage our students to reach out to firefighters, local law enforcement or members of the Armed Forces to thank them for their service and learn more about what they are doing to safeguard our nation.

Second, united we must stand.

America came together in the gloomy aftermath of 9/11. Thousands of people volunteered to clean up the rubble and restore what had been shattered. People lined up to donate blood. Others handed out meals, provided shelter and helped families navigate through uncertainty.

Political parties, religious affiliations and demographic differences dissipated. Hours after the attacks, members of Congress — bridging political divides — gathered on the steps of Capitol Hill to sing "God Bless America."’ In unity, they sang the beautiful words, "God Bless America, my home sweet home." Penned by Irving Berlin, he aspired to celebrate how special of a place America is.

America is a place where everyone can fulfill their dreams — seeking similar goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a place where unity took precedence over polarization in the wake of the American Revolution. And it’s a place where we pledge to stand as "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

A hijacked plane crashing into the World Trade Center on 9/11 (Seth McAllister/AFP via Getty Images)

We can demonstrate how beautiful a place America is by showing the importance of civil discourse. One of the greatest threats to our nation is disunity. We can teach college students — at home or in the classroom — the value of working through conflict, respecting varying opinions and reaching an agreement to strive for a better tomorrow. As people demonstrated during 9/11, unity is possible when we focus on what we have in common.

Third, unwavering resilience preserves our foundation.

Many of us will never forget the image of the three firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero. The red, white and blue shone brightly amongst the gray ashes. It was a beacon of hope. Terrorists had destroyed our buildings, but they did not crush the American spirit.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

In the days following, 9/11 was often compared to Pearl Harbor, being a few months shy of the 60th anniversary of the bombings. In his speech declaring war on Japan in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the U.S. would win through "absolute victory" and the "unbounding determination of our people." Roosevelt knew that nothing could destroy the foundation of what American democracy was built on.

It’s this same strength Americans had on 9/11. As President George W. Bush said on Sept. 11, "These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." The days following 9/11 were filled with fear, sorrow and pain. The grief still lingers, but it did not define America. As she did in the past, America rebuilt herself stronger.

( RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

For college students to truly understand the events of 9/11, we must share personal stories of what happened — where we were and the people it impacted. Encourage them to visit the 9/11 Memorial, in person or virtually. Have them attend an event on their college campus or in their local community that commemorates 9/11. And then, discuss how it made them feel and what they learned from the experience.

As they study the events of 9/11, encourage them to think about what they would do in the face of tragedy. Who would they decide to become? We are all bound to face moments of unthinkable pain, but it’s what we do after that matters the most.

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Like any tragedy in history, once we stop talking about it is the moment it starts to fade into the past. So, we must continue to share stories…stories of where we were (even if it was driving on a freeway in Los Angeles), and stories of people who were at Ground Zero.

On Sept. 11, we must always remember. We must remember those who courageously walked into a disaster to make a difference in the lives of others. We must remember those souls who were taken so early. And we must remember the bravery of those who preserved our freedom.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE DR. KENT INGLE

Dr. Kent Ingle presently serves as the President of Southeastern University (SEU) located in Lakeland, Florida. Southeastern University can be found online at seu.edu and their prayer community can be found on pray.com.

foxnews.com · by Dr. Kent Ingle Fox News

24. ‘Traitors Have Been Liquidated’ – How Ukraine’s Partisans Have Been Sabotaging Russia’s Sham Elections

‘Traitors Have Been Liquidated’ – How Ukraine’s Partisans Have Been Sabotaging Russia’s Sham Elections

“This is another warning to the occupiers and collaborators that Ukrainian land will literally burn under their feet,” an SBU source told Kyiv Post.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/21461

by Kateryna Zakharchenko | September 10, 2023, 10:56 am | Comments ( 1)

On the ground, residents of the occupied territories have shown considerable resistance to the pseudo-elections and are attempting to disrupt proceedings for the Russians, according to Kyiv officials.

A spokesperson for the National Resistance Center (NRC), who identifies himself only as Ostap, told Kyiv Post that large scale protests are taking place and that the elections are being ignored by the local population.

“Of course, there is a percentage of people who have been waiting for this – this [so-called] ‘Russian peace,’ and they do not care what burns or does not burn there, but the majority of Ukrainians are resisting and helping the defense forces,” Ostap said.

Ukrainian resistance ranges from putting up leaflets calling for locals to ignore the elections, to passing on information about all those involved in the elections to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR).

Andriy Yusov, a representative of the HUR, has confirmed that supplied information about collaborators is now being worked on.

“Some of the names of collaborators and traitors, as well as the invaders involved in the organization of these pseudo-elections, have been established, and some have already been liquidated. Further work is underway,” Yusov explained.

He added that the work of locals is “greatly helping the Ukrainian security and defense forces.”

Even before the elections, the NRC discovered that Russians were transporting election materials and ballots via their military and had targeted Russian military political workers using drone strikes.

Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have been running a major leaflet campaign drop using drones, one of which states: “We will save you and protect you! Do not participate in the ‘election’ farce. Do not play along with the invaders! Today we are in Tokmak, tomorrow we will be in Berdiansk!”

Leaflet distributed to locals in Berdiansk.

Some of the leaflets contain action planning information should residents find themselves in a situation where they are forced to vote. It advises that the simplest solution is to spoil the ballot, such as ticking multiple boxes.

As Ostap explains, such actions will not change the election results, but will create problems for the Russians and give the Ukrainian forces greater opportunity to find those involved in coordinating the pseudo-elections.

Collaborators

Currently, more than 3,000 Ukrainians are already known to be in the Zaporizhzhia region, helping Russians to hold the pseudo-elections, authorities have said.

Head of temporarily occupied Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, clarified that whilst the number may seem large, it represents just one per cent “or even less” of the region’s population of 300,000.

The main goal of the Russian Federation in its election activities appears to be the forced passportization of the local population.

“The first thing they want is to update the lists of men in order to create a full-fledged mobilization,” Ostap told Kyiv Post.

The same message was echoed by Yusov, who said that forced passportization, as well as pseudo-elections, “are aimed only at identifying the mobilization potential on the temporarily occupied territories.”

Meanwhile, the lives of Ukrainians who oppose occupation and refuse passports are being made increasingly difficult.

“People are literally forced to obtain Russian citizenship, creating impossible conditions for employment, for humanitarian assistance, for medical care and for the provision of various services,” Yusov explained.

According to Ostap, medical care is not available without evidence of Russian citizenship.

It is understood that the occupying forces had previously managed to conceal their activities and even maintained cordial relations with the local population. But that has since changed with the onset of elections.

“The attitude towards Ukrainians is terrible. It's an open-air prison. Not much will change, only that most men will simply be packed into cars and mobilized,” Ostap said.

Against national and international law

According to Oleh Nikolenko, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the pseudo-elections contradict both Ukrainian and international law, as well as the UN Charter.

“The topic of fake elections is not new. We all remember how, in March 2014, Russia held fake elections, the so-called referendum in Crimea, and since then has held other illegal elections in the occupied territories,” Nikolenko said.

Back then, according to the Russian authorities in Sevastopol, 95.6% voted to join Russia.

The NRC said that every member of the so-called election commission, along with observers, candidates and agitators who call for “voting” in the occupied territories, will be held liable in accordance with Ukrainian law.

The collaboration of Ukrainians with the occupying forces equates to high treason. But, as Yusov emphasized, the majority of candidates and supervisors are not the local population.

“About two thirds of candidates for these elections are not local residents. They are citizens of the Russian Federation imported from other territories, or directly from the Russian Federation itself.”

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Kateryna Zakharchenko

Born and lives in Kyiv. A journalist for Kyiv Post. Writes exclusive articles and interviews.

25. Uncertainty at the top blurs Marine Corps’ work on 2025 budget

Uncertainty at the top blurs Marine Corps’ work on 2025 budget

Like the Army and Navy, the Corps is without a confirmed chief, thanks to a GOP senator’s hold.

BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY

STAFF REPORTER, DEFENSE ONE

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

The lack of a Senate-confirmed Marine Corps commandant is making it harder to draw up and defend the 2025 budget proposal, the service’s would-be leader said.

“We’re very close to wrapping that up. But what I think the challenge is, again, when I cannot be somewhere to say that ‘The Marine Corps’ position is exactly this,’” said Gen. Eric Smith, the assistant commandant and nominee for the top job.

For example, Navy or Defense leaders will inevitably have questions about the Marines’ spending proposal, said Smith, one of three service-chief nominees whose appointments are being held up by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

“‘We think it might be better to spend dollars here instead of here; what’s your position?’ I’m not there to offer that,” he said Wednesday at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Smith and the Corps are in all-but-unprecedented limbo—along with the Army and Navy—thanks to the GOP senator’s blanket hold on Senate confirmations. Tuberville imposed the hold to protest Pentagon policies that help troops travel to get reproductive health care, including abortions.

The defense secretary and service secretaries have argued that the holds undermine readiness and national security. The acting chiefs have restrictions on what they can do in their role, including issuing guidance documents that set the priorities for the services for the coming years.

On Thursday, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh was asked how the holds affect modernization efforts in services led by acting chiefs.

“When you don’t have a confirmed leader in that position that would oversee a modernization effort, you’re talking about someone that’s going to set the vision for that command or for that department. When you have someone on hold or in a limbo state, of course that’s going to impact the mission,” Singh said.

While Smith remains “responsible and accountable” for the service, he has had to send others to attend meetings to discuss the budget, which also means their work is being passed on to others to handle.

“[A]nd I send very qualified people, but they're not me,” he said. “I send someone to do that for me and then get a report back. And when it didn’t quite work out, then I have to go back, and at that point, sorry, the day has passed because that clock didn’t stop.”

“So, to me, that is the unsustainable part of having actings, because everyone has a full-time job.”

Smith later told reporters that having multiple people try to convey what the Marine Corps’ priorities are will have the service “lose synergy and cohesion in budget messaging, which is very important, both internal to the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, and on the Hill.”

ROK President Yoon's Initiation Party to the Anti-Asia and Pro-West ClubBy Prof. Joseph H. ChungGlobal Research, September 04, 2023Region: Asia, USATheme: History Translate WebsiteShqipአማርኛالعربيةՀայերենAzərbaycan diliEuskaraБеларуская моваবাংলাBosanskiБългарскиCatalàCebuanoChichewa简体中文繁體中文CorsuHrvatskiČeština‎DanskNederlandsEnglishEestiFilipinoSuomiFrançaisქართულიDeutschΕλληνικάગુજરાતીKreyol ayisyenHarshen Hausaעִבְרִיתहिन्दीHmongMagyarÍslenskaIgboBahasa IndonesiaItaliano日本語Basa Jawaಕನ್ನಡҚазақ тіліភាសាខ្មែរ한국어كوردی‎КыргызчаພາສາລາວLatviešu valodaLietuvių kalbaМакедонски јазикMalagasyBahasa MelayuമലയാളംMalteseTe Reo MāoriमराठीМонголဗမာစာनेपालीNorsk bokmålپښتوفارسیPolskiPortuguêsਪੰਜਾਬੀRomânăРусскийSamoanСрпски језикSesothoShonaسنڌيසිංහලSlovenčinaSlovenščinaAfsoomaaliEspañolBasa SundaKiswahiliSvenskaТоҷикӣதமிழ்తెలుగుไทยTürkçeУкраїнськаاردوO‘zbekchaTiếng ViệtCymraegisiXhosaיידישYorùbáZulu All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.*** I am writing this paper to warn the world about the destructive impact of the trilateral military alliance that will not only kill South Korean democracy, security and economy but also widens the expressway to the East-West war. This trilateral summit was a summit of three dangerous men. The President of U.S. Joe Biden has pathological obsession to kill Asia led by China.The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida has the dangerously outdated dream of conquering again Asia starting with Korea and restoring the past years’ imperial power and glory of Japan.The President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol is idiotic and cowardly enough to sell his country for his own protection from angry South Koreas and the vengeful North Koreans.The trilateral summit was a summit of three leaders who do not have the necessary condition for being leader, namely, the love for the people. Biden is indifferent to ordinary Americans’ suffering. Kishida despises ordinary Japanese people. Yoon hates ordinary Korean people.The trilateral summit was a summit of the most unpopular global leaders. According to Global Leader Approval Rating Tractor (August 16-22, 2023). The approval rates were: Biden (40%), Kishida (23%), Yoon (22%). Yoon was just before the most unpopular Petr Fiala of Czech Republic (21%). By the way, Biden’s approval rate after two-year presidency is the lowest in comparison with other presidents’ corresponding approval rates.What happened at the summits is a story of how two seasoned diplomats have mercilessly exploited an idiotic and stupid man in order to promote their interests, especially, their personal political and other interests. It is a story of a wrong man (Yoon Suk-yeol) who appeared at wrong time to do wrong things.This paper offers the story of why and how Yoon Suk-yeol offered South Korea to powerful U.S. and cunning Japan.This summit is a cursed summit, for two reasons:First, it will destroy South KoreaSecond, it will lead to the Mutual Destructive War (MDW) of the West’s crusade war against the EastThis paper discusses the following issues:Historical context of Yoon’s anti-Korea behaviourYoon’s anti-Korea diplomacyImpact of Yoon’s anti-Korea diplomacy***Historical Context of Yoon’s Anti-Korea BehaviourTo understand Yoon’s anti-Korea behaviour, we need to know more about the fatal fight between the pro-Japan conservative South Korea (PJCSK) and the liberal nationalist South Korea (LNSK).I have published a Global Research article (Ultimate Battle Between Pro-Japan South Korea and Nationalist South Korea: Democracy at Stake, Economy in Crisis, Security at Risk, December 22, 2022) which provided more information on this intra-South Korea fight. Yoon Suk Yeol leaving the People Power Party (PPP) headquarters shortly after joining the party on 30 July 2021 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)The PJCSK was formed during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945). Korea was annexed to Japan in 1910 due to the treason of pro-Japan politicians led by the traitor, Lee Wan Yong. This group collaborated with colonial Japan in the stealing of Korea’s assets, in capturing more than 200,000 young girls to be sent to the Japanese military comfort women camp, in mobilizing about 800,000 Korean workers to work as salves in Japanese mines and factories, in forcing Koreans to give up their Korean family name and pick up a Japanese name and other treasonable activities designed to oppress and exploit Koreans.Thus, the PJCSK were “traitors” who betrayed Korea.You may ask me why I call the PJCSK as pro-Japan and conservative.They identified themselves more with Japan than with Korea. Moreover, they were and are more interested in promoting Japan’s interests than protecting Korea’s interests. So, they were and are pro-Japan.They did every illegal and immoral activity to conserve their wealth which was and is largely stolen. So they were and are conservative.Their conservatism has little to do with the conservation of some noble values. This fact may be applied to many countries throughout the world.The present PJCSK is composed of the traitors and their descendents. It is represented by the People Power Party (PPP) which is the linear descendent of the Republican Party created in 1963 by General Park Chung-hee with USD 66 million given by Kishi Nobuske who was the key aid of Tojo Hidekki, Japan’s prime minister during the Pacific War.The opposing political force in South Korea is the liberal nationalist South Korea (LNSK) represented by the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). The leader of the DPK is Lee Jae-myung.The PJCSK represents about 30% of the South Korean population, while non-PJCSK population represents 70% led by the LNSK group.I may add here that, in a way, the post-WWII political history of South Korea has been the history of PJCSK-LNSK battle.After WWII, the leaders of the PJCSK (traitors) were supposed to be punished even liquidated. In fact, the LNSK made a list of these traitors, but the list was confiscated by the pro-Japan police. Furthermore, the American military government (1945-1948) and the rotten government of Syngman Rhee (1948-1960) appointed the traitors to key positions of the government.There were a series of large-scale protests movements against the American military government and Rhee’s government resulting in massacre of several hundreds of thousands of civilians by the American CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) and Rhee’s terrorist youth gangs and the police.The traitors’ big headache was the survival and the protection of their privileges and wealth obtained illegally and immorally.To do that, they had to keep control the South Korean people through the perpetual government. But, they knew that they could never get the power through democratic way. Only way was the dictatorship.As a matter of fact, South Korea was oppressed and exploited by the merciless and criminal military dictatorship for 25 years from 1962 to 1987. General, Park Chung-hee ruled from 1962 to 1979, while General Chun Doo-hwan ruled from 1980 to 1987.After 1987, General Rho Tae-woo governed South Korea from 1987 to 1993 followed by Kim Yong-sam from 1993 to 1998. During this 10-year period, the PJCSK continued to strengthen their power through well organized system of the embezzlement of tax payers’ money.In 1998, something happened. Kim Dae-jung was elected as president of South Korea. Kim was the leader of the LNSK. Kim’s victory was the results of the LNSk’s sustained fight against the PJCSK. Kim’s victory was also the results of his remarkable plans of handling of the foreign currency crisis of 1997 caused by the corruption of the traitors.Kim’s government (1998-2003) was succeeded by the government of Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008). Kim and Rho, leaders of the LNSK, did two things which alarmed the PJCSK.One was the increase allocation of tax payers’ money for the welfare of all the citizens. This meant less money to be stolen by the traitors.The other was something which threatened the future of the PJCSK, because Kim and Rho were able to produce the North-South peace process.They also produced North-South joint statements for peaceful unification and economic cooperation. Kim Dae-jung produced it on the 15th of June 2000; Rho Moo-hyun produced it on October 4, 2007.It must be pointed out that the peaceful unification of Korea means, as far as the PJCSK was concerned, not only the marginalization of the PJCSK community but also harsh punishment of the traitors by North Koreans.The peace process and the North-South economic cooperation have resulted in the weakening of the PJCSK’s political and economic position.However, the PJCSK was not idle. It fought back. In 2008, Lee Mung-bak became president of South Korea (2008-2013). Lee was notorious for his cunning methods of killing adversaries and enriching the corruption culture community of the PJCSK.He forced Rho Moo-hyun to kill himself through the manufactured bribe scandal of Mrs. Rho.However, the vision and the spirit of Rho are still alive and they remain the source of the courage and the determination of LNSK to get rid of the traitors.Lee Myung-bak would have embezzles billions of dollars through the “4-Rivers Project” and the “Natural Resources Diplomacy.” Lee was succeeded by Park Geun-hye, daughter of General Park Chung-hee (2013-2017).She was not qualified to run a government. But she was picked to enrich the PJCSK.However, what was a historical irony was the fact that their complicity to enrich the PJCSK with stolen money has resulted in the further loss of PJCSK’s legitimacy and credibility.Thus, the force and the credibility of the PJCSK which began to fall due to the ten-year governing by the LNSK under Kim Dae-jung and Rho Moo-hyun has been further damaged by the corruption and the abuse of power by Lee Mung-bak and Park Geun-hye.Then, in 2017, Moon Jae-in came along and became president after the 8-month long Candle-Light Revolution carried out by 27,000,000 South Koreans. Moon hit hard the PJCSK through the social and economic reforms, the promotion of PMEs along with the war against the corruption culture of the PJCSK.I may point out here that the power of the LNSK has been attributable to a series of mass protest demonstrations leading to the ruin of PJCSK presidents and the LNSK’s access to power.Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, Panmunjom Declaration (2018) The following is the list of massive protest demonstrations by the LNSK and the punishment of the six PJCSK presidents:April 19, 1960: The Student Revolution forcing President Rhee Syngman to flee after being accused for corruption and abuse of power.October 16 1979: the BUMA Protest leading to the assassination of President Park Chung-hee for corruption and abuse of power.May 18, 1980: the Kwangju Democratic Movement leading to the imprisonment of Presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Rho Tae-woo for treason (Chun), corruption and abuse of power.June10, 1987: the Democratic Movement leading to the amendment of the Constitution leading o the formation of civil government.2016-2017: the Candle-light Revolution resulting in the imprisonment of Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye for corruption, abuse of power and incompetence de govern (Park).Thus, none of the six presidents of the PJCSK has ended his or her presidency in honourable way. This shows how deeply the PJCSK has been corrupted on the one hand, and, on the other, how hard the LNSK has fought back risking the lives of its members.This is what has made the PJCSK panicky and made it to do everything possible to take back the power.The PJCSK was searching for the possible presidential candidate who could restore the PJCSK’s power, privileges and wealth. They picked Yoon Suk-yeol.As I mentioned several times in my previous Global Research articles, Yoon has none of the qualities to become president.On the other hand, he has one quality useful for the PJCSK — he has the desire and means to kill the enemies of the PJCSK which may threaten the vested interests of the corrupted PJCSK.He has been a prosecutor all his professional life capturing, sending innocent people to prison and even destroying the entire family of those who are suspected to be against the interests of the PJCSK.Despite the absence of presidential qualities, the PJCSK chose Yoon as their presidential candidate at the 2022 election.Once elected, the first priority of Yoon Suk-yeol was the destruction of the LNSK on the one hand and, on the other, the survival of the PJCSK allowing the recovery of its wealth and the privilege. To do so, Yoon applied the following measures.The destruction of the trace of the DPK by imprisoning the all of the key former aids of the Moon Jae-in government.The killing of possible leaders of the LNSK trough fabricated scandals, usually sex scandals or bribes scandals.The mobilization of the media, the prosecutor office and the police to do politically assassinate the leader of the opposition party, Lee Jae-myung.The nomination of prosecutors to most of the major minister jobs and deputy minister positions in order to create the prosecutor dictatorship.In fact, South Korea is now run by prosecutors who are absolutely ignorant about running a government.The imposition of extreme form of neo-liberal economic system by facilitating the PJCSK’s embezzlement of public funds, by making the Chaebols richer and more powerful and by preventing job creation through the prevention of SME expansion.Yoon has been deploying every possible means to destroy the LNSK. But, he still feels unsecure and seeks protectors, which are Japan and the U.S.Now, we will see below how Yoon has been trying to destroy South Korea through dangerous and criminal diplomacy in complicity with Kishida and Biden.Yoon’s Anti-Korea DiplomacyDiplomacy with JapanThe relation between PJCSK and Japan has always been the master-servant relations. In fact, the PJCSK has been Japan’s neo-colony, ever since 1945, in the sense that the PJCSK has been promoting the economic, political and ideological interests of Japan and those of the PJCSK at the expense of the interests of the LNSK.What is amazing is this. The PJCSK thinks that its fate depends on the destiny of Japan, because the PJCSK was co-offender of war crimes committed during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945).The PJCSK thinks that Korea is an extension of Japan. It may even wish for Korea’s annexation to Japan 2.0.This may sound absurd. Is it? It happened before in 1910 because of the traitor Lee Wan Yong. Many think that Yoon Suk-yeol is the reincarnation of Lee Wan Yong.Yoon’s diplomacy with Kishida has produced two results which are catastrophic to Korea.One was the justification of Japanese colonialism and the other was the promotion of the Japanese interests at the expense of Korea’s interests.Justification of Japanese colonialismYoon supports the Japanese arguments that the Japanese colonialism was beneficial to Korea, that Korea was annexed, because of Korea’s incapacity to govern Korea, that the crime of the sex slavery of the 200,000 comfort women never happened, that the labour slavery of 800,000 Korean workers never took place.Yoon did not protest when Kishida hinted that Dokdo/Takeshima Island was Japanese territory. The issue of Dokto /Takeshima Island can provoke ROK-Japan war.Japan does not like to pay compensation to the Korean workers who were exploited by the Japanese firms as salves. The Supreme Court of Korea ordered the guilty Japanese firms to pay the compensation. Japanese firms refused to pay. Stupid Yoon has asked the Korean firms that have nothing to do with labour slavery to pay it.Promotion of Japanese Interest at the expense of Korea’s interestsSouth Korean GDP per capita has been catching up rapidly the Japanese GDP per capita. In 2004, Japan’s per capita GNP (nominal) was USD 38,307 as against USD 16,283 for South Korea. Thus, the ROK’s per capita GDP was mere 43% of the Japanese per capita GDP. Now in 2023, the Japanese per capita GDP is USD 35,400 as against USD 34,967 for South Korea. Thus, in 2023, the South Korea’s per capita GDP is 96.5% of the Japanese per capita GDP.Moreover, if we compare the two countries’ per capita GDP (PPP), Korean per capita GDP (PPP) is USD 56,693 as against USD 51,800 for Japan. Thus, South Korean per capita GDP (PPP) is 9% higher than the Japanese per capita GDP (PPP). By the way, PPP stands for purchasing power parity.Yoon has applied every possible measure to sow down the ROK’s GDP growth so that the Korean economy stops being competitive with the Japanese economy.Yoon has adopted the extreme form of neo-liberal economic policy by favouring large corporations at the expense of the welfare of the people. This policy leads to the fall of the GDP growth due to falling domestic demand resulting from skewed income distribution in favour of the PJCSK and Japan which dislikes fast growth of ROK’s GDP.Japan does not like the competitive South Korean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which provide chemical products needed for the production of semi-conductors. Therefore, Yoon cut subsidies usually given to Korean SMEs and brought in Japanese SMEs to South Korea.Yoon does not care much about the falling Korean exports to China which is attributable to ROK’s joining the American war camp preparing the war against China. The reason is that Japan will fill the trade vacuum left by South Korea.Yoon’s diplomacy with Biden Yoon’s diplomacy with Biden has resulted in the de fact trilateral military alliance.Image: Yoon with President Biden in the Oval Office, April 2023. (Licensed under the Public Domain) The joint statement said: “If one member country is attacked, it is considered as attack to all the three countries.” [Is this not “a copy and paste” of Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty] It means, in fact, the trilateral military alliance.Moreover, the military alliance will be institutionalized. This means that even if the government changes in the countries, the alliance will be made to stay through every possible mean including, most likely, cyber manipulation of the election results and even covert operation to destroy government which tries to break the military alliance.In the trilateral military alliance, the whole strategy of the alliance will be determined by Washington; Japanese army will have the task of the field command; South Korean army will do all the dirty works.The trilateral military alliance is more than welcome by Washington.It has been long time since Washington wanted the trilateral military alliance needed to preserve its global hegemony and to eliminate those countries which may challenge America’s hegemony such as China and Russia.True, Washington has the AUKUS and QUAD. But, the AUKUS is not strong enough. The UK is far away from Asia, Australia a small military power. The QUAD is not reliable, because India is not a sure military ally.Therefore, Washington’s is more than happy to have the ROK army in its war camp. Remember, the ROK army had, in 2021, 500,000 regular soldiers 3,100,000 reserves giving a powerful military might.ROK army is now the 6th most powerful army in the world in fire power. The Japanese military is the 8th most powerful military. The country that gained most from the three summits is surely Washington. I am sure that the American pro-war community (APWC) is very happy, because the trilateral military alliance increases the probability of shooting Sino-American war.Therefore, the defence budget will rise substantially. It will make the APWC richer.But, this will reduce the resources needed to solve internal problems including the infrastructure decaying, widening income gap, street violence, the jobless, the homeless. Impact of Yoon’s Anti-Korea DiplomacyThe impacts of Yoon’s diplomacy may be grouped into two sets of impacts: economic impacts and security impacts.Economic ImpactsThe economy of South Korea has been declining ever since Yoon Suk-yeol took over the power in 2022. The rate of GDP growth has been continuously downward adjustment and the 2023 projection is not far from 1.0% even lower than the Japanese GDP growth rate (2%).The slowing down of GDP growth is due to several factors: pro-PJCSK economic policy; pro-Japan economic policy and the weaponization of trade.The Pro-PJCSK economic policy Yoon’s economic policy has been designed to maximize the wealth of the PJCSK at the expense of the income of the ordinary South Koreans. Yoon cut down corporate tax, increased subsidies to large corporations, cut subsidies to SMEs and cut down welfare expenditures. This has resulted in falling domestic demand inviting slower GDP growth.The pro-Japan economic policy: The objective of Yoon’s pro-Japan economic policy consists in making the ROK economy more dependent on the Japanese economy. To do this, Yoon has begun to discourage the domestic production of major high-value added intermediate materials needed for the production of high-tech goods including semi-conductors.The weaponization of trade and investments: Under the system of military alliance, the trade becomes highly strategic and selective determined by Washington. ROK is no longer free in selecting trade partners and the choice trade goods.Similarly, international investments become strategic and selective determined by Washington. The ROK companies are no longer free in selecting out-going and incoming investing countries and investing fields.The combination of the above three sets of policies can lead to the long-run stagnation of the South Korean economy.Security Impacts The security impact of the trilateral military alliance includes these impacts:Rapid increase of the number of enemies and loss of ROK’s international markets,The loss of credibility of South Korea’s foreign relations,The increasing danger of the Korean War 2.0,The danger of forming the trilateral military alliance among North Korea, China and Russia,The increasing danger of Japan’s holy war 2.0.Increasing number of enemies and loss of ROK’s international markets: South Korea has no enemies so far. It is true that North Korea has been regarded as enemy, but most of South Koreans regard North Koreans as brother and sisters. The PJCSK and the U.S consider North Korea as enemy either for the maintenance of power or weapon sales.ROK’s joining the trilateral military alliance has made all the American enemies and all the Japanese enemies South Korea enemies including of course China, Russia and North Korea, let alone American enemies in the Middle East, Africa and the South America.It is just horrible to imagine the impact of these enemies on ROK’s trade. Remember this. In South Korea, the two-way trade represent as much as 100% of its GDP.The Loss of credibility of South Korea’s foreign relations: Under President Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), South Korea’s foreign relations received credibility and respect throughout the world due to the fact that Washington’s interference was relatively weak. President Moon had the courage and the wisdom to develop more autonomous foreign relations. But under the trilateral military alliance, Seoul’s autonomous foreign relations become much more difficult.Increasing danger of Korean war 2.0: The trilateral military alliance increases the danger of the second Korean War. Ever since Yoon took the power, he has been provoking North Korea in words and in actions. He mentioned his intention of undertaking the pre-emptive attack in addition to expanding scale of the ROK-US-Japan military exercises.North Korea is angry and has been increasing the frequency and destructive power missile tests. Kim Yo-jong, second in command in North Korea said about Yoon Suk-yeol: “I don’t like him as human being.” What is scaring is the possibility of Yoon’s provocation of North Korea with small scale military attack in order to increase his falling approval rate knowing well that this can lead to the Korean War 2.0.The danger of forming the trilateral military alliance among North Korea, China and Russia (NKCR): The Japan-ROK-U.S. military alliance (JKORUS) can accelerate the formation of NKCR which can lead to the exclusion of South Korea from the Eurasian economic block.The future of the ROK economy will be determined by its integration into the Eurasian economic bloc not the Indo-Pacific economic bloc. Hence the JKORUS can be a fatal factor of long-run stagnation of the ROK economy.The increasing danger of the Japan’s Holy War 2.0:There are several signs of the feasibility of Japan’s ambition to dominate Asia and restore the Great Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (GACPS)Yoon’s defence of the Japanese colonialism: Japanese colonialism was beneficial to Korea; the crime of comfort women never took place, the slavery of Korea workers never happened.The Japanese elite group is composed of the descendents of the elite group of former imperial Japan who ruled Asia. This group is represented by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by the Kishi Nobuske-Shinzo Abe line of political and business leaders whom I call as the Neo-Meiji-Reformation Group (NMRG).The existence of powerful pro-war think tank, the Japan ConferenceThe creation of pro-war social climate: return of Shintoism and BushidoThe persistence of Japanese complex of racial superiority of the elite group over Koreans and Chinese and the missionary conviction to enlighten Asians.The Japanese racial superiority complex and the mission to rule Korea and China had its origin in the famous speech of Fukizawa Yukichi, founder of Keio University, “Good-by Asia” of 1885.The persistent campaign to amend Article 9 of the 1948 Peace ConstitutionThe 2015 law allowing Japan to join the war to help allyThe plan of doubling Japanese defence budget in five yearsThe trilateral military alliance allowing Japanese to find excuse to intervene in Korean military conflict.The trilateral military alliance allow Japan to use ROK military in Japan’s Asia conquest.The possibility of the existence of the Biden-Kishida Agrement of 2023 similar to the Katsura-Taft Agreement of 1905 allowing Japan to annex Korea and letting the U.S to colonize the Philippines.Already in South Korea, opinion makers are talking about the revival of the Japanese colonial government in Seoul.It is now common belief that Yoon wants the revival of Japanese colonialism in Korea in order to protect himself and the PJCSK so that himself and members of the PJCSK can feel security and enjoy the wealth stolen from Koreans just like Lee wan Wong and has gang did under Japanese colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945.ConclusionMy first conclusion is that the tragic and catastrophic destruction of a country (South Korea) has happened due to the choice of a wrong leader whose actions are only for the protection of the stolen wealth and power for the PJCSK. The wrong leader is Yoon Suk-yeol.Yoon knows nothing about economics, politics and diplomacy. He has spent all his professional life by arresting and imprisoning those who were critical about the corrupted culture of the PJCSK.His policy decisions are affected by Shaman. His mother-in-law is in prison for frauds, bribes, blackmailing and other crimes. His wife has committed so many crimes deserving a very long imprisonment. But she is still free because of the corrupted prosecutors.Yoon is a psychopath and has absolute worship for the strong. Biden is the strong; Japan is the strong. That is why he worships Biden and Kishida.Let me repeat this. Yoon is coward who is afraid of Koreans and seeks refuge in Japan-dominated Korea. In other words, he wishes for the return of Japanese colonial power to Korea in which he may feel secure and in which he can exploit Koreans to become richer, more powerful and more comfortable just like Lee Wan-yong , the traitor, did in 1910.My second conclusion is about Kishida and Biden. These two leaders know who and what Yoon is and, nonetheless, lured him to sign the cursed trilateral military alliance.I am just wondering how far Biden and Kishida can go in using stupid Yoon to destroy South Korea. Don’t they have any sense of guilt? One would expect a little decency and compassion, if they are really world leaders.Besides, South Korea is an ally of Japan and the U.S. Is it ethical to treat an ally in this way?My third conclusion is about the anti-humanity behaviour of Biden and Kishida.Biden is obsessed by the idea of destroying Asia led by China.Kishida is infatuated with the imperialist dream of conquering again Korea and Asia.The sad thing is that Biden’s obsession and Kishida’s dream will lead to global East-West war in which nobody is winner.It will speed up the end of the humanity which has already started because of human greed, perpetual wars and man’s savage and irrational handling of the God-given nature.I hope that the leadership in South Korea will change soon so that the dangerous military alliance can be broken. The mass movement for Yoon’s impeachment is getting strength. Bonne chance to the impeachment fight!*Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and member of the Research Center on Integration and Globalization (CEIM-UQAM).He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).Featured image is from The White House FacebookThe original source of this article is Global ResearchCopyright © Prof. Joseph H. Chung, Global Research, 2023

“Because if someone goes on my behalf to speak to Senator X, and I'm speaking to Senator Y, and there's some slight dissonance because I use a different term, then those two senators may say, ‘well, the Marine Corps doesn't know what they want.’ We know exactly what we want,” he said. “But two people telling the same story, there's going to be dissonance in their telling of that story, even though they both see the exact same thing. That causes me concern.”“Because if someone goes on my behalf to speak to Senator X, and I'm speaking to Senator Y, and there's some slight dissonance because I use a different term, then those two senators may say, ‘well, the Marine Corps doesn't know what they want.’ We know exactly what we want,” he said. “But two people telling the same story, there's going to be dissonance in their telling of that story, even though they both see the exact same thing. That causes me concern.”

A spokesperson for Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the acting chief of naval operations, declined to comment about the budget process with an acting leader.

defenseone.com · by Caitlin M. Kenney

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

FBI Director Wray issues warning about number of Russian spies in the US | CNN Politics

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