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"The Navy has never let me down in the past and it will not let me down this time." ... "We shall land at Incheon and I shall crush them!"

– General Douglas MacArthur , regarding the Incheon landing on September 15, 1950

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1. Ignore the Defeatists. America’s Strategy Is Working in Ukraine.

2. Ukrainian Troops Talk of Stiffer Resistance as They Fight in Russian Territory

3. Russian school kids torch $15m helicopter with cigarettes

4. U.K. Prime Minister and Biden Discuss Allowing Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia

5. The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare

6. Vladimir Putin's pivot to China is backfiring

7. China’s Risky Power Play in the South China Sea

8. The Kids Who Didn’t Know Their Parents Were Russian Spies

9. China’s $6.5 Trillion Loss Should Have Xi Jinping Looking In The Mirror

10. RT running covert military supply operation for Russian forces, State Dept. says

11. Ukraine captures multiple villages as Kursk incursion advances

12. North Korean Aid To Russia Poses Biggest Threat To Ukraine, Intelligence Chief Says

13. Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

14. With approval for Ukraine to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles on the horizon, Russia threatens war with NATO nations

15. Biden, NATO effectively declaring war on Russia

16. America’s future advantage depends on quick adoption of advanced tech

17. The Quad Is Not An Asian NATO – Analysis

18. What China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in store for coming decade as priorities evolve

19. The US Army put on a sudden show of force out on the far edge of Alaska to send the message it can as Russia and China drill in the Pacific

20. The Army doth protest too much: In Space, jointness must come first

21. Local Government Is Key to the Fight Against Disinformation

1. Ignore the Defeatists. America’s Strategy Is Working in Ukraine.

Excerpts:

But no combination of tanks and jet fighters and missiles could itself have ended the war. And we will wait in vain for a simple victory in Ukraine. To be truly beaten, Russia and President Vladimir Putin would have to be beaten at home, a massive and massively dangerous undertaking.

And, in fact, the U.S. and other countries supporting Ukraine have embraced (but not always articulated) a clear strategy: They have applied a formidable array of military, diplomatic and economic means to the crucial goal of containing the revanchist power of Putin’s Russia. They have executed this strategy with energy and determination, to the great benefit of Ukraine, and its future prospects are bright—but only if we have the patience to stick with it.

To understand the merits of this strategy, we must go back to the beginning of the story.

Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014. Unhappy with a Europhilic revolution in Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 and infiltrated eastern Ukraine with mercenaries and later with Russian troops. The U.S. and its European allies responded to the invasion with a series of half measures. The West’s economic sanctions, which may have prevented Russia from going further into Ukraine, were not enough to get Russia to exit Ukraine.

Ignore the Defeatists. America’s Strategy Is Working in Ukraine.

Kyiv remains far from victory, but the U.S. is achieving its primary goal: containing the spread of Russian power

https://www.wsj.com/world/ignore-the-defeatists-americas-strategy-is-working-inukraine-f13ba4ef?mod=latest_headlines

By Michael Kimmage

Sept. 13, 2024 9:00 pm ET

As summer turns to fall, the news from Ukraine has been harrowing. Across the country, Russia has been attacking civilian targets, destroying residential buildings, schools and hospitals. Russia has been steadily degrading Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, ensuring that Ukrainians have a very hard winter ahead of them. In the next few months, fresh waves of Ukrainian refugees could well be pouring into Europe.

Most ominously, Kyiv has not had the military momentum on its side since the summer of 2023. Back then, Ukraine’s counteroffensive petered out, yielding to some basic Russian advantages in manpower and materiel. Russia is currently lurching forward in Donbas in eastern Ukraine. It has discovered novel methods for waging this war, repurposing old stock into precision-guided “glide bombs.” The results on the ground have been devastating.

Amid the distressing footage of damaged cities and murdered civilians, a common refrain in the U.S. and among allies has been that we lack a strategy or endgame for the conflict, that our war aims are unclear. In October 2023, two Republicans, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas and Sen. James Risch of Idaho, published an open letter accusing the Biden administration of failing “to articulate a strategy outlining how U.S. assistance to Ukraine will help them achieve victory over Russia.” Vytautas Landsbergis, foreign minister of Lithuania, echoed the sentiment this past July, declaring that “we finally need a strategy that will lead to Ukraine’s victory in this war.”

Russia’s recent strikes on civilian areas included a barrage of missiles and drones on Sept. 4 in Lviv, near Ukraine’s western border with Poland. Photo: Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

There is certainly plenty to criticize in how the U.S. and its allies have approached the war. Judged in retrospect, the decisions to withhold (and then provide) one or another weapons system have often been baffling. With too much reluctance, the U.S. sent to Ukraine the Himars rocket system, ATACMS missile system, Abrams tanks and F-16 fighters. A more resolute commitment to providing weapons before and right after Russia’s 2022 invasion would undoubtedly have benefited the embattled country.

But no combination of tanks and jet fighters and missiles could itself have ended the war. And we will wait in vain for a simple victory in Ukraine. To be truly beaten, Russia and President Vladimir Putin would have to be beaten at home, a massive and massively dangerous undertaking.

And, in fact, the U.S. and other countries supporting Ukraine have embraced (but not always articulated) a clear strategy: They have applied a formidable array of military, diplomatic and economic means to the crucial goal of containing the revanchist power of Putin’s Russia. They have executed this strategy with energy and determination, to the great benefit of Ukraine, and its future prospects are bright—but only if we have the patience to stick with it.

To understand the merits of this strategy, we must go back to the beginning of the story.

Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014. Unhappy with a Europhilic revolution in Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 and infiltrated eastern Ukraine with mercenaries and later with Russian troops. The U.S. and its European allies responded to the invasion with a series of half measures. The West’s economic sanctions, which may have prevented Russia from going further into Ukraine, were not enough to get Russia to exit Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy (right) with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sept. 11, at the start of talks on easing restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-provided weapons within Russia. Photo: mark schiefelbein/Press Pool

Vladimir Putin, with head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov (second from left), inspects weapons provided by NATO countries captured in battles in Ukraine, Aug. 20. Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik/Associated Press

For years, a holding pattern prevailed. Russia let the guns fall mostly silent in 2015. The West maintained its sanctions and normalized relations with Moscow. The symbol of normalization was Germany’s Nordstream 2 pipeline deal with Putin, which Washington greenlighted in early 2021. Russia pretended to be content with its occupation of Crimea and parts of Donbas, and the West pretended that it had resolved the upheaval in Ukraine. All implicitly accepted that the absence of a visible war equaled the absence of war.

In this period, the West saw little need to disturb the status quo. It offered Ukraine no meaningful path to joining Europe. An agreement between Ukraine and the European Union was signed in 2014, but EU membership was unavailable to Kyiv. NATO membership was also unavailable. While keeping NATO out of reach, the West did almost nothing to arm Ukraine.

An exception to the rule was the U.S. under Donald Trump, who allowed the shipment of Javelin antitank rockets to Ukraine in 2019. (Trump withheld the weapons for months while his surrogates pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide negative information on Joe Biden—a turn of events for which Trump was impeached.) Once delivered, the weapons proved instrumental in the battle of Kyiv at the start of the 2022 war.

Such assistance notwithstanding, Ukraine was effectively on its own in the lead-up to Russia’s massive invasion.

The scale and brutality of the attack exposed the West’s delusions. At first, the U.S. and many other countries expected Ukraine to lose the war and prepared for an insurgency within a Russian-occupied Ukraine. When Ukraine held its own, a more energetic Western strategy came into focus.

It was not a strategy to defeat Russia, a nuclear power with a formidable conventional military and a dictatorial leader hellbent on war. Nor was it a strategy to rid Ukrainian soil of every Russian soldier, a laudable aim in theory but a very difficult undertaking in practice.

Members of a Ukrainian battalion fix and clean weapons and equipment used during a mission in the eastern town of Toretsk, which Russian forces are trying to capture, Aug. 31. Photo: Emanuele Satolli for WSJ

A Ukrainian serviceman with a U.S.-made F-16 fighting aircraft on Aug. 8 at an undisclosed location; the planes were delivered to Ukraine beginning in July. Photo: valentyn ogirenko/Reuters

The strategy has three pillars. The first is to furnish Ukraine with weapons, intelligence and help with targeting. This has been an enormous initiative, comparable to the Lend-Lease program for U.S. allies in World War II and encompassing the contributions not just of the U.S., France, Britain and Germany but of dozens of other countries, from Canada to South Korea.

Ukraine’s strength is the aggregate will of these countries, which command vast financial and technological resources. They have not hidden their commitment to Ukraine; they have proudly advertised it.

The second pillar has been to tighten ties to Ukraine. NATO membership may be elusive, but several countries are moving toward long-term, formalized military partnerships, precisely what the U.S. and the countries of Europe refused to do between 2014 and 2022.

Though these partnerships are subject to the push and pull of domestic politics, their trajectory traces an upward curve. In July 2023, the G-7 issued a joint declaration on long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, and since then over a dozen countries, including the U.K. and the U.S., have signed bilateral security agreements with Kyiv. The shared goal of these pacts is to end the war on the best terms possible for Ukraine and to ensure a peaceful future by making the country powerful enough that Russia will never invade again.

Finally, Ukraine is entering Europe. The depredations of the conflict will make it an arduous journey. Wars do not render countries more democratic, more enlightened or more demographically secure, and Russia is doing everything it can to undermine Ukraine’s societal foundations.

But Ukraine is not giving up on Europe, and Europe can no longer afford the benign neglect it cultivated for Ukraine in the 1990s and even after the Russian invasion of 2014. Europe’s own well-being depends on its ability to integrate Ukraine. It would be a catastrophe for Europe if Ukraine became a failed state or a Russian colony the size of Texas, bordering five members of the EU and NATO.

A monument near Pokrovsk in the Donbas region, seen on Aug. 11, draws Ukrainians to take photos or write messages. Photo: Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

Ukrainian cadets pass through an obstacle course during a ceremony marking the first day of training at the Cadet Lyceum in Kyiv, Sept. 2. Photo: Aleksandr Gusev/SOPA images/Zuma Press

This three-part strategy has succeeded. In 2014 and early 2015, Ukraine lost two battles—at Ilovaisk and Debaltseve—after which it sued for peace. Over the last two and a half years, Ukraine has lost still more battles. Russia took the city of Mariupol, it took Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and for the past few months it has been inching forward in the Donbas.

Yet in this war Russia has lost more battles than it has won. It lost the battle for Kyiv. It lost the battles for Kharkiv and Chernihiv. Ukraine took back Kherson in the fall of 2022 and, astonishingly, has just taken a few hundred square miles of Russian territory, holding a section of Russia (near the city of Kursk) for over a month. Relying on its own technological know-how and stock of drones, Ukraine is hitting military targets and degrading infrastructure deep inside Russia. In no way does Kyiv need to sue for peace.

Too much attention is paid to the weaponry Ukraine lacks and to the areas in which its military has fallen short. But the country has a growing military arsenal, from defense-industrial capacity that will come online in 2025 to the lived experience of its soldiers and officers, who are on the avant-garde of 21st-century warfare.

In February 2022, Russia occupied some 11% of Ukrainian territory. After the deaths of countless Russian soldiers, Russia now occupies just some 18% of Ukrainian territory. The numbers chart Russia’s humiliation in this war—its strategic quandary and ultimate dead end.

Ukrainian military vehicles drive toward the town of Artemivsk, now known as Bakhmut, on Feb. 1, 2015, as Russian-backed separatist forces make gains in the Donbas region. A ceasefire was reached two weeks later. Photo: Petr David Josek/Associated Press

Through rhetorical sleight of hand, Putin is constantly projecting the aura of victory. It is a mask he is skilled at wearing.

For the U.S. and other countries committed to Ukraine, the Cold War holds valuable lessons. Its essence was the containment of Soviet power, which was always messy and difficult. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, many thought that the Soviet Union was pulling ahead in the 1970s, that it was gaining ground and self-confidence and might win the Cold War.

By the 1980s, the fallacy of such reasoning was apparent, underscoring the value of not reading too much into news cycles and of not inferring too much from the status quo. Now the West is again containing the spread of Russian power. This is a strategic necessity, and it will demand Cold War-style patience. In Ukraine, such patience will be rewarded.

The one certainty about the coming election in the U.S. is that there will be a new administration. If Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, she will not necessarily stick with the old approaches. If former President Trump is elected, he may relish the image of himself as his predecessor’s mirror opposite. Either new president would likely conduct a review of U.S. policy toward Ukraine and would ask what could be done differently and what could be done better.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who backs U.S. military aid for Ukraine, sits by a Ukrainian flag for a meeting with President Zelensky on Capitol Hill, July 10. Photo: will oliver/epa/Shutterstock

But whoever wins the election should recognize that the strategy of containing Russia is working. It has not come at an exorbitant cost, and it has produced remarkable cooperation among partners and allies across the globe. The transatlantic edifice of support for Ukraine (so often alleged to be cracking) has held firm. And in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats have more often collaborated than diverged on Ukraine. It was a Republican Speaker of the House who brought forward the most recent military aid package. Almost all House Democrats voted for it, and President Biden happily signed it.

U.S. policy toward Ukraine may have been chaotic in the early days of the war, but since 2022 it has coalesced into an effective, sustainable strategy. Today more than 80% of Ukraine remains sovereign and independent—an astounding achievement against a brutal, determined and much more powerful adversary.

If the next president, whether Trump or Harris, can expand U.S. assistance to Ukraine while cajoling allies to do more, Ukraine may be able to make some modest progress on the ground. If all the next president can do is hold the line and continue containing Russia, that would be a major accomplishment too.

Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at Catholic University and is currently the Richard C. Holbrooke Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. His most recent book is “Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability.”

The Ukrainian flag flies over in Sumy, near the Russian border in northeast Ukraine; Aug. 12. Photo: Svet Jacqueline for WSJ

Appeared in the September 14, 2024, print edition as 'Ignore the Defeatists. America’s Strategy Is Working in Ukraine'.

2. Ukrainian Troops Talk of Stiffer Resistance as They Fight in Russian Territory

Ukrainian Troops Talk of Stiffer Resistance as They Fight in Russian Territory

Soldiers and military analysts say that Ukraine is largely holding onto land it seized in the Kursk region, even as Moscow has begun a counterattack.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-kursk.html?ngrp=mnp&pvid=AEB532FE-E51A-4430-8894-6CB818E34BB7&referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

Digging through the wreckage of a home after a missile strike on a neighborhood in Sumy, Ukraine, on Sunday.

By Marc SantoraPhotographs by David Guttenfelder

Marc Santora and David Guttenfelder traveled to Ukrainian villages near the border with Russia to report this article.

Sept. 14, 2024

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After racing across Russian fields in an American Stryker armored fighting vehicle this month, the six-man Ukrainian assault team dismounted in a tree line about 700 yards from the enemy’s trenches and waited for the order to attack.

When it came, Afonya, a 40-year-old construction worker drafted into the Ukrainian military just two months ago, said the Ukrainian soldiers were met with a hail of gunfire as soon as they moved from their hastily dug foxholes. He was hit in the hand by a bullet that shattered a bone.

Three members of the assault team were injured and pulled back while the other three waited for reinforcements to resume the attack in the Kursk region of Russia.

“There were too many of them,” Afonya said in an interview at a hospital in eastern Ukraine, where he was recovering after being evacuated.

More than a month after Kyiv launched its incursion into Kursk — sweeping across nearly 500 square miles and capturing around 100 Russian towns and villages in a few short weeks — Russian resistance is stiffening, Ukrainian soldiers interviewed near the border with Russia said as they moved to and from the front last weekend.

Image

Afonya, a 40-year-old construction worker drafted into the Ukrainian military just two months ago, said he was wounded during an operation in the Kursk region of Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on Thursday that Russian forces had begun a concerted counterattack in Kursk.

Some of the heaviest battles have been taking place on the western edge of the new front, according to the soldiers and combat footage geolocated by military analysts. But the battle lines remained fluid, and there was little reliable information about the scale of Russia’s operation or how successful it has been in reclaiming territory.

Ukrainian soldiers said that even as Russia was counterattacking in some locations, they remained on the offensive along other parts of the Kursk front. But their advances have slowed and clashes are growing deadlier as Moscow deploys reinforcements and increases its aerial bombardments.

“There is more resistance,” said Yurii, 21, who was with one of the first Ukrainian units to cross the border when the incursion was launched on Aug. 6. There are more drones, “more shells, and even anti-tank guided missiles,” he said. “Their intelligence is also working very hard. As soon as a vehicle moves out, their artillery starts firing immediately.”

The Ukrainian soldiers spoke on the condition that only their first names be used, in accordance with military protocol. They also asked that their brigades not be named out of concern that it could give the Russians insight into the location of their forces.

Image

Ukrainian troops in a tank on a road near the border, heading toward the Kursk region of Russia, last month.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

While some of the information they provided is corroborated by geolocated combat footage, details about specific offensive movements could not be independently verified.

As powerful Russian guided bombs thundered in the distance on a recent day and a puff of smoke overhead marked the spot where a Russian surveillance drone was shot out of the sky, one group of soldiers, speaking on the side of a road near the border, said that more Russian troops were joining the fight every day.

Dmytro, a 40-year-old member of a drone unit, said the fighting in Kursk was still less intense than other battles he has fought in over the course of the war, but that is changing.

“They’re trying, but so far, nothing’s working for them,” he said. “We are still attacking.”

The soldiers said that much of the fighting before the Russian counterattack was for small tactical advantages — like taking control of a ridge or hill — that could prove useful in future battles.

Image

The remains of a destroyed Russian border post last month.

Ukraine is using new forward positions inside Russia to disrupt Moscow’s logistical operations, attacking roads and bridges along critical supply lines feeding Russian forces inside Ukraine, soldiers said.

And they are continuing efforts to isolate a large group of Russian soldiers in a 270-square-mile pocket of land between the Ukrainian border and the meandering Seym River about 10 miles inside Russia, they say.

Ukrainian forces destroyed all of the bridges across the river and are targeting temporary pontoon bridges as soon as they are spotted, according to soldiers, satellite imagery and geolocated combat footage. But the Russian counterattack this past week appeared designed to relieve pressure on that pocket of land.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its country’s forces had “penetrated” into the Kursk region, capturing 10 settlements.

The Institute for the Study of War, whose analysts use geolocated combat footage to track daily battlefield developments, wrote on Friday that they had yet to observe visual confirmation to support the Kremlin’s claims, with Russian soldiers appearing to be in partial control of two villages.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces breached the border in a new location west of the original incursion, according to combat footage released by both sides and geolocated by military analysts. The state of the fighting there is unclear, but it could complicate Russia’s counterattack.

As they battle to hold onto their gains, the Ukrainian soldiers said the campaign was coming at a steep cost.

“Every centimeter of our advance costs human lives,” said Serhii, a 40-year-old Ukrainian soldier whose home village, Sumy, is close to the Russian border.

Image

“Every centimeter of our advance costs human lives,” said Serhii, a 40-year-old Ukrainian soldier whose home village, Sumy, is close to the Russian border.

The Kremlin is clearly hoping the Ukrainian military has overextended itself, leaving outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region vulnerable as Russia continues to press the attack there, military analysts say.

President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to minimize the first invasion of Russia since World War II as a mere distraction. While saying it was a “sacred duty” to expel Ukrainian forces, he said Russia’s main priority remained seizing Ukrainian lands.

Mr. Zelensky and Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, have said the offensive has multiple goals, including drawing Russian forces from other parts of the front.

While the Ukrainian leaders acknowledged that the Kremlin has resisted pulling its best forces from the hottest parts of the eastern front as they had hoped, General Syrsky has maintained that the Kursk offensive is still affecting Russia’s ability to sustain other operations around the battlefield as it moves some 60,000 soldiers to the Kursk front.

Bill Burns, the C.I.A. director, told a conference in London last weekend that the operation was “a significant tactical achievement” that had boosted Ukrainian morale and exposed Russia’s weaknesses.

Mr. Zelensky has said the offensive is a part of a “Victory Plan” that he will present to President Biden and the two candidates vying to replace him — Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump — on a trip to the United States this month.

Whatever the ultimate plan, Kursk is now clearly another violent front in an already sprawling war.

“Same war, different place,” said Dmytro, the drone operator.

Image

The body of a Russian soldier in front of a destroyed Russian border post last month.

As the Russians fight to halt the Ukrainian advance, soldiers said, they are using the same tactics they use inside Ukraine — a scorched-earth approach that has left dozens of Ukrainian towns and cities in ruins.

But the Russian bombardments are now devastating Russian homes, soldiers said.

“I bring the guys food, fuel, diesel, and gasoline over there,” a 56 year-old soldier who works in logistics, also named Serhii, said at a rest stop on the Ukrainian side of the border. “It was strange, when our troops first came, everything was intact. The roads were fine, the warehouses were untouched.”

“But after a couple of weeks, everything was destroyed, shattered,” he said. “They are destroying their own villages.”

Those claims by the Ukrainian soldiers were supported by combat footage showing Russian strikes on Russian villages and towns occupied by Ukrainian soldiers.

Image

A Ukrainian soldier playing soccer in a border village in the Sumy region.

In Sudzha, the largest town under Ukrainian control, some high-rise and administrative buildings were destroyed as the Ukrainians advanced, but independent Western journalists who visited the region in the first days after it fell noted that the level of destruction was minimal compared with places in eastern Ukraine seized by Russian forces.

That is fast changing.

“Now, when you stand on a hill, for example, and look at Sudzha, you wake up every morning thanking God that you’re alive,” said Serhii, the soldier from Sumy. The town, he said, is a “land on fire.”

As he prepared to head back into Russia at nightfall, he said his heart was heavy with emotion. He understood the mission and thinks it is important, but would rather not have to fight on foreign soil.

“It’s one thing to defend your own land, but another to be over there,” he said.

Image

A car buried under the wreckage of a home after a missile strike on a neighborhood in Sumy on Sunday.

Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from eastern Ukraine.

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 15, 2024, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Russia Stiffens Its Defenses as Ukraine Presses Its Attack in Kursk. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

3. Russian school kids torch $15m helicopter with cigarettes

Long live the resistance.

Excerpt:

The incident adds to a string of accidents and cases of sabotage, as since the start of the conflict in Ukraine Russia's air force has been plagued by aircraft losses unrelated to combat missions over the war-torn country.

Russian school kids torch $15m helicopter with cigarettes

Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · September 11, 2024

ByNews Reporter

✓ Link copied to clipboard!

Two Russian teenagers burned and destroyed an Mi-8 military helicopter at an airport using flammable liquid and cigarettes, according to reports.

The Mi-8 helicopter—estimated by Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency to cost up to $15 million—was set ablaze at the Noyabrsk airport in Russia's Arctic Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district on Tuesday night, according to the Baza Telegram channel, which is linked to Russia's security services.

The incident adds to a string of accidents and cases of sabotage, as since the start of the conflict in Ukraine Russia's air force has been plagued by aircraft losses unrelated to combat missions over the war-torn country.

Ukrainian servicemen of an Army Aviation Brigade prepare an Mi-8 helicopter to fly in the Donetsk region on December 7, 2023.Two Russian teenagers burned and destroyed an Mi-8 military helicopter at an airport using flammable... Ukrainian servicemen of an Army Aviation Brigade prepare an Mi-8 helicopter to fly in the Donetsk region on December 7, 2023.Two Russian teenagers burned and destroyed an Mi-8 military helicopter at an airport using flammable liquid and cigarettes on September 10, 2024. GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images

The teenage boys, aged 13 and 14, made their way to the helipad where the helicopter was stationed, and doused it in flammable liquid.

"The schoolchildren set the helicopter on fire with cigarettes. After they poured the liquid on the helicopter, the boys decided to smoke and then threw a cigarette into the helicopter. There was no fire. Then one of the boys lit a second cigarette and then stuck it into the liquid. At that moment, an explosion occurred," the Telegram channel said.

The two teenagers were detained less than an hour later. They sustained serious burn injuries to their faces, and were hospitalized.

"The helicopter burned almost completely - only the tail remained," Baza said. The channel later published photos that purportedly show the charred remains of the aircraft.

The teenage boys were reportedly promised 5 million rubles (about $55,000) by an unknown individual on the Telegram messaging app for carrying out the task.

Newsweek couldn't independently verify the report and contacted Russia's defense ministry for comment by email.

Russia's state run news agency Tass describes the Mi-8, designed in the 1960s, as a "well-known Soviet and Russian model of helicopter, and one of the most mass-produced helicopters in the world." The twin-engined aircraft, designed to transport troops, has been sold to more than 100 countries.

A pair of Russian schoolchildren torched a Russian Mi-8T transport helicopter (RA-24519) at Noyabrsk airfield, Siberia. The helicopter is a complete loss.

The pair reportedly carried out the attack after receiving an offer of 5 million rubles from an unknown figure on telegram. pic.twitter.com/RzP1hjR1Zd

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 11, 2024

Publicly available figures indicate that Russia has lost a number of helicopters since President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

The Dutch open-source outlet Oryx said it has visually confirmed that since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, Russia has lost at least 144 helicopters, of which 112 were destroyed, 30 were damaged, and two were captured.

Meanwhile, figures published by Ukraine's General Staff on Wednesday showed the total number of Russian helicopters destroyed since the war began stands at 328.

Independent sources give numbers that are more conservative than Kyiv's, and Russia doesn't publish figures on its military losses.

Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and had previously worked with news outlets including the Daily Express, The Times, Harper's BAZAAR, and Grazia. She has an M.A. in Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London, and a B.A. in Russian language at Queen Mary, University of London. Languages: English, Russian

You can get in touch with Isabel by emailing i.vanbrugen@newsweek.com or by following her on X @isabelvanbrugen

Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ...

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Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · September 11, 2024

4. U.K. Prime Minister and Biden Discuss Allowing Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia

U.K. Prime Minister and Biden Discuss Allowing Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia

The White House meeting between the two leaders comes as Putin warns that a decision would put NATO ‘at war’ with Moscow

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/putin-warns-u-s-allies-against-allowing-ukraine-to-use-cruise-missiles-9f79b3d9?mod=latest_headlines

By Lara Seligman

in Washington and Max Colchester

in London

Updated Sept. 13, 2024 7:43 pm ET

President Biden met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House on Friday. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Zuma Press

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Biden on Friday discussed allowing Ukraine to use long-range European-made cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, according to U.S. and Western officials.

Until now, Western countries supporting Ukraine have balked at allowing Kyiv to use long-range weapons, such as the British-French Storm Shadow, inside Russian territory for fear of escalating the conflict. Officials are concerned in particular that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate by arming the Yemen-based Houthi rebels, who are engaged in a long-running campaign to attack ships in the Red Sea.

Putin has warned the U.S. and its allies that permitting Ukraine to use Western-made long-range missiles against Russia would mean the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s countries were “at war” with Russia.

Asked about that concern just prior to his White House meeting with Starmer, Biden said, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Western leaders are rethinking the restrictions after Iran went ahead with sending Russia short-range ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.

Biden didn’t indicate whether he had decided, but said they would discuss the potential use of Western long-range missiles inside Russia during the closed-door conversation.

A decision to lift a ban on Kyiv using the Storm Shadow missile, which can hit targets 155 miles away, to fire into Russia would be a major win for Ukraine, which has been urging Western countries for months to loosen restrictions on long-range weapons. The move might give besieged Ukrainian forces some breathing room at a time when Russia is slowly advancing along the front line.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West against allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons. Photo: Alexander Kazakov/Zuma Press

Kyiv has also asked for permission to use the long-range French Scalp missiles and U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS. France is leaning toward lifting the ban on Scalp, but U.S. officials insist that Biden isn’t ready to sign off on Kyiv using ATACMS to fire into Russia because of the Pentagon’s concerns over its own stockpiles. However, he has approved a plan to expand the geographic area from which Ukraine can fire other U.S.-provided weapons across the border in response to Russian attacks.

While the final decision on Storm Shadow will be made by the U.K. government, British officials will ask for the Biden administration to weigh in because some components of the missiles are made in the U.S.

American spy agencies have warned recently that Putin would interpret as an escalation a policy change allowing Ukraine to conduct deep strikes into Russia with Western-supplied long-range missiles, U.S. officials said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted that there is no change to the Biden administration’s stance on providing long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside Russia.

While Kirby said the administration takes Putin’s threat seriously, it is also similar to what the Russian leader has said previously. “We have our own calculus for what we decide to send to Ukraine and what not to,” Kirby said.

Storm Shadow missiles have a maximum range of 155 miles. Photo: Lewis Joly/Associated Press

Starmer’s meeting with Biden was wide-ranging, including discussions about the conflict in Ukraine and what support Kyiv needs from allies.

“They reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine as it continues to defend against Russia’s aggression,’’ the White House said in a statement after the meeting.

France and Britain have already delivered the long-range missiles to Kyiv but they have been largely used to strike at Russian forces in occupied Ukraine.

Several European and U.S. officials have advised the White House to grant permission, and are hopeful Biden will formally do so later this month. Biden said this week that his administration was weighing the matter. Western officials say that the Biden administration wants to leave Ukraine in as strong a position as possible before this November’s U.S. presidential election and the potential election of Donald Trump, who has questioned support for Ukraine.

Any approval would, however, be a significant escalation and mark the crossing of yet another symbolic red line since the intensification of the Ukraine war in 2022.

Putin said that because Ukraine relies on Western assistance for targeting, allowing its military to use longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia would bring NATO members a step closer to the conflict.

“This will mean that NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us,” the Russian leader said in comments published by the Kremlin late Thursday.

Asked about Putin’s comments, Starmer said Russia started the war and could end it anytime. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he wasn’t worried about Putin’s comments.

Drones and missiles from Russia struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last week. Photo: Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

The debate over the missiles comes as Ukraine finds itself desperate to fend off Russia’s slow but steady gains across much of the front line in Ukraine in recent months. The cruise missiles will give Kyiv the ability to strike at military equipment and logistics that sit deeper in Russian territory. The missiles are unlikely to alter the conflict much, given that Russia can simply move most of its war materiel farther away and in many cases has already done so. Some Western officials have argued that the missiles would force Russian aircraft to fly farther to reach Ukrainian targets, increasing wear and tear. Another factor hampering their effectiveness: Inventories of the missiles are limited.

British and U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, this week to meet with their Ukrainian counterparts and discuss how the extra weapons could be used inside Russia. That is expected to inform the U.S.’s decision. When asked whether the White House would grant approval, Biden on Tuesday said, “We are working that out right now.”

Russia also said on Friday that it had kicked out six British diplomats that it accused of spying, an allegation that Britain’s Foreign Office said was “completely baseless.” The timing of the expulsion was seen as an effort by the Kremlin to pressure Starmer before his meeting with Biden.

Britain has long taken a more forward-leaning approach to arming Ukraine. It was the first country to send Storm Shadows to Kyiv for the war effort. It was also the first nation to send a number of Western-made tanks. Both those moves created diplomatic space for other Western allies to follow suit.

Storm Shadow and its French equivalent Scalp are produced by a British-French-Italian company, MBDA. They use a mix of guidance systems that help them evade enemy jamming, maneuver and reach their targets. Ukraine has been launching the missile from Sukhoi jet fighters, the first time it has been carried by a non-Western aircraft.

Kate Vtorygina contributed to this article.

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com and Max Colchester at Max.Colchester@wsj.com

5.The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare

Excerpts:

China, of course, doesn’t need a D.I.U.; Xi Jinping and his predecessor, Hu Jintao, mandated that civilian technology be available to the People’s Liberation Army. This top-down, state-run economy is chasing quantum computers, nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons, and lofting into orbit its own 13,000-satellite equivalent to Starlink.

This is the civilizational race we’re in.

The way to win against both China and low-cost weapons in Ukraine and the Middle East is to unleash our market-based system so that scrappy, fast-moving product companies and the venture funds that back them revitalize our military’s technology pipeline. The good news is that market interest is robust: Venture capital funds deployed $120 billion of capital into national security startups over the last three years. Leading engineers are eager to work on problems that matter to preserving democracy. The question now is whether we can achieve this transformation in time to deter the next great power war and prevail in the more contained conflicts that threaten to envelop the U.S. and our allies.

“The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: too late,” Douglas MacArthur declared hauntingly in 1940. Eighty-four years later, on the eve of tensions not unlike what preceded prior great power conflict, we would do well to heed MacArthur’s warning.

The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for the New Era of Warfare

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/opinion/ai-drones-robot-war-pentagon.html?ngrp=mnp&pvid=829948B0-2BD5-4B6D-8FE3-94659F64B418&referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

Sept. 13, 2024

Credit...Jared Nangle

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By Raj M. Shah and Christopher M. Kirchhoff

Mr. Shah is the managing partner of Shield Capital. Dr. Kirchhoff helped build the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.

The First Matabele War, fought between 1893 and 1894, foretold the future.

In its opening battle, roughly 700 soldiers, paramilitaries and African auxiliaries aligned with the British South Africa Company used five Maxim guns — the world’s first fully automatic weapon — to help repel over 5,000 Ndebele warriors, some 1,500 of whom were killed at a cost of only a handful of British soldiers. The brutal era of trench warfare that the Maxim gun ushered in didn’t become fully apparent until World War I. Yet initial accounts of its singular effectiveness correctly foretold the end of the cavalry, a critical piece of combat arms since the Iron Age.

We stand at the precipice of an even more consequential revolution in military affairs today. A new wave of war is bearing down on us. Artificial-intelligence-powered autonomous weapons systems are going global. And the U.S. military is not ready for them.

Weeks ago, the world experienced another Maxim gun moment: The Ukrainian military evacuated U.S.-provided M1A1 Abrams battle tanks from the front lines after many of them were reportedly destroyed by Russian kamikaze drones. The withdrawal of one of the world’s most advanced battle tanks in an A.I.-powered drone war foretells the end of a century of manned mechanized warfare as we know it. Like other unmanned vehicles that aim for a high level of autonomy, these Russian drones don’t rely on large language models or similar A.I. more familiar to civilian consumers, but rather on technology like machine learning to help identify, seek and destroy targets. Even those devices that are not entirely A.I.-driven increasingly use A.I. and adjacent technologies for targeting, sensing and guidance.

Techno-skeptics who argue against the use of A.I. in warfare are oblivious to the reality that autonomous systems are already everywhere — and the technology is increasingly being deployed to these systems’ benefit. Hezbollah’s alleged use of explosive-laden drones has displaced at least 60,000 Israelis south of the Lebanon border. Houthi rebels are using remotely controlled sea drones to threaten the 12 percent of global shipping value that passes through the Red Sea, including the supertanker Sounion, now abandoned, adrift and aflame, with four times as much oil as was carried by the Exxon Valdez. And in the attacks of Oct. 7, Hamas used quadcopter drones — which probably used some A.I. capabilities — to disable Israeli surveillance towers along the Gaza border wall, allowing at least 1,500 fighters to pour over a modern-day Maginot line and murder over 1,000 Israelis, precipitating the worst eruption of violence in Israel and Palestinian territories since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Yet as this is happening, the Pentagon still overwhelmingly spends its dollars on legacy weapons systems. It continues to rely on an outmoded and costly technical production system to buy tanks, ships and aircraft carriers that new generations of weapons — autonomous and hypersonic — can demonstrably kill.

Take for example the F-35, the apex predator of the sky. The fifth-generation stealth fighter is known as a “flying computer” for its ability to fuse sensor data with advanced weapons.

Yet this $2 trillion program has fielded fighter airplanes with less processing power than many smartphones. It’s the result of a technology production system bespoke to the military and separate from the consumer technology ecosystem. The F-35 design was largely frozen in 2001, the year the Pentagon awarded its contract to Lockheed Martin. By the time the first F-35 was rolling down the runway, technology’s state of the art had already flown far past it. This year, the iPhone 16 arrives. Today, the F-35 is slowly progressing through its third technology upgrade with newer, but far from state-of-the-art, processors. The core issue is that this slow hardware refresh cycle prevents the F-35 from fully taking advantage of the accelerating advancements in A.I.

This is not an either/or argument. iPhones will not replace F-35s. The U.S. military requires unique platforms, such as stealth fighters and submarines, as well as newer technologies, including drones. All weapons systems, old or new, need to take full advantage of the software and A.I. revolution — a revolution driven forward primarily by Silicon Valley, not by large, traditional defense contractors.

There is progress. Merging these two systems of technological production — one for the military, another for everything else — is now a top Pentagon objective. Started in 2015, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, based in Silicon Valley, brings innovative commercial technology into the military, including A.I. It functions more like a venture capital firm than a military program office. D.I.U. created a faster way for startups to contract with the military that today has been used by the Department of Defense to acquire $70 billion of technology. (We helped build D.I.U.; one of us, Mr. Shah, now runs a venture firm focused on national security startups, including some that have received federal funding.)

A new generation of defense unicorns powered by this investment are creating advanced A.I.-powered autonomous systems. Joby Aviation has deployed an electrically powered S4 flying air taxi. Anduril Industries just advanced to the final round in the Air Force’s collaborative combat mega-contract, in which 1,000 advanced stealth drones will fight alongside manned fighters. D.I.U. is also leading the Pentagon’s high-profile Replicator initiative, developing swarming autonomous weapons for air, land and sea.

Yet there is much left to do. While D.I.U.’s budget is more than 30 times as large as it was in its first full year of operations, now totaling almost $1 billion annually, the Pentagon spends only pennies on innovation for each dollar it throws at legacy systems. The Replicator initiative accounts for just 0.059 percent of the defense budget at a time when our adversaries are making monumental shifts.

China, of course, doesn’t need a D.I.U.; Xi Jinping and his predecessor, Hu Jintao, mandated that civilian technology be available to the People’s Liberation Army. This top-down, state-run economy is chasing quantum computers, nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons, and lofting into orbit its own 13,000-satellite equivalent to Starlink.

This is the civilizational race we’re in.

The way to win against both China and low-cost weapons in Ukraine and the Middle East is to unleash our market-based system so that scrappy, fast-moving product companies and the venture funds that back them revitalize our military’s technology pipeline. The good news is that market interest is robust: Venture capital funds deployed $120 billion of capital into national security startups over the last three years. Leading engineers are eager to work on problems that matter to preserving democracy. The question now is whether we can achieve this transformation in time to deter the next great power war and prevail in the more contained conflicts that threaten to envelop the U.S. and our allies.

“The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: too late,” Douglas MacArthur declared hauntingly in 1940. Eighty-four years later, on the eve of tensions not unlike what preceded prior great power conflict, we would do well to heed MacArthur’s warning.

Vladimir Putin's pivot to China is backfiring

Newsweek · by Micah McCartney · September 15, 2024

ByChina News Reporter

Russia's pivot to China has faced multiple setbacks this year as Chinese banks, wary of U.S. sanctions imposed over Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, are rejecting transactions, forcing Moscow to raise fees on yuan (RMB) transfers.

Heavily sanctioned Moscow has benefited from the world's second-largest economy since the Ukraine war began, with bilateral trade rocketing up by 26 percent to a $240 billion high last year, and Russia becoming China's top source of oil.

Last month, Russian media reported that some 98 percent of Chinese banks now reject RMB-denominated settlements. First major, and now also more local, Chinese banks have stepped up compliance with the Biden administration to shield themselves from the secondary sanctions. This limited ability to use RMB has caused a liquidity squeeze, which seems to have driven the recent fee hikes by Russian banks.

Russian companies doing business with China began facing additional hurdles this month, this time from domestic lenders.

Russian commercial bank Expobank JSC dramatically raised its fee for money transfers in RMB last week from 1.2 percent with a minimum 350 RMB ($49) fee to 6.5 percent, Russian financial news portal Frank Media reported on Monday.

Composite image of Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in front of national monuments. Russia has come to depend heavily on China in light of the economic sanctions it has... Composite image of Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in front of national monuments. Russia has come to depend heavily on China in light of the economic sanctions it has faced since Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty

The minimum commission was increased to 7,500 RMB, previously the maximum commission.

Russian lender Uralsib Bank is also set to hike its commission on transfers of RMB to 6.5 percent of the transferred amount on Friday. It will also raise its minimum transfer amount in the Chinese currency to 400 RMB, the bank said.

Meanwhile, Russia's SDM Bank has hiked its commission for transfers in RMB to 6.2 percent.

"As it becomes more and more difficult to make payments in this currency, the cost is rising. Thus, the price increase is directly related to the lack of opportunities in the market, SDM Bank deputy chairman Vyacheslav Andryushkin told the news outlet. "For us directly, this translates into higher costs for transfers from our banks."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Finance Ministry and Chinese Foreign Ministry with written requests for comment.

Russian importers have also increasingly had to rely on intermediaries.

One possible workaround that could serve both countries would be a joint Chinese-Russian bank.

"The idea of a Russian-Chinese bank was discussed decades ago, but then it was not relevant, because the existing system worked rationally," Alexey Maslov, director of Moscow State University's Institute of Asian and African Countries, told state-owned news agency TASS.

The proposed bank is being "actively discussed by the media in China," he said, while acknowledging the concept is at a very early stage. In theory, "branches of the same organization operate on the territory of Russia and China," he said, adding that settlements would be hidden from third parties.

The inclusion of the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) on the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's sanctions list, restricted trading of dollar and dollar currency pairs, making the country further reliant on the yuan for international trade and currency reserves.

This also makes Russia's economy more vulnerable to its neighbor's monetary policy and exchange rate adjustments.

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About the writer

Micah McCartney

Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian security issues, and cross-strait ties between China and Taiwan.

You can get in touch with Micah by emailing m.mccartney@newsweek.com.

Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ...

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Newsweek · by Micah McCartney · September 15, 2024

7. China’s Risky Power Play in the South China Sea

Photos, video, and graphics at the link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/15/world/asia/south-china-sea-philippines.html?ngrp=mnp&pvid=65C2E6FE-89AC-4C00-AE4B-A22231183031&referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

China’s Risky Power Play in the South China Sea

By Agnes Chang, Camille Elemia and Muyi Xiao Sept. 15, 2024

China’s coast guard ships have swarmed and collided with Philippine boats. They have doused Philippine vessels with powerful water cannons. Chinese crew members have slashed inflatable crafts, blared sirens and flashed high-powered lasers at Filipino troops.

As China pushes to dominate the South China Sea, it is increasingly willing to use force to drive out the Philippines, a treaty ally of the United States. In recent months, China’s tactics have damaged Philippine boats and injured personnel, and raised fears of a superpower showdown in the strategic waterway.

A New Flashpoint

For months, the latest target of China’s power play was a Philippine coast guard ship, the Teresa Magbanua. The video above was taken by the crew of that ship, as a Chinese coast guard vessel collided into it late last month.

The episode was one of four confrontations between the two countries’ vessels, in just two weeks. The encounters were not only becoming more frequent, but they were also taking place in a new location — Sabina Shoal, a resource-rich atoll close to the Philippine mainland.

The two countries had in earlier months been facing off near another atoll in the disputed Spratly Islands, the Second Thomas Shoal, where Chinese ships regularly harass Philippine boats trying to resupply sailors stationed on a beached warship. Now, their feud has expanded.

These are the places where China has confronted the Philippines since 2023.

Confrontations involving collisions and the use of water cannons and other tools

Other confrontations

Nine incidents near Scarborough

Shoal, another disputed reef

north of the Spratly Islands

Philippines Exclusive

Economic Zone

Second Thomas Shoal

Where China has harassed

Philippine resupply missions

Sabina Shoal

New flashpoint where

recent incidents took place

Union Bank

Occupied by China

and Vietnam

Mischief Reef

Where China built

a military base

Incidents

last month

PHILIPPINES

SPRATLY ISLANDS

Palawan

25 miles

Note: Incident locations are approximated from locations broadcasted by the Philippine and Chinese coast guard vessels. Other tools include lasers, knives, axes, and rocks.

The Philippines wants to control Sabina Shoal, an unoccupied atoll inside its exclusive economic zone. Sabina Shoal, which lies just 86 miles west of the Philippine province of Palawan and over 600 miles from China, is near an area rich in oil deposits, and on routes Manila considers crucial for trade and security.

“A hostile China would be able to strangle our maritime trade with the rest of Asia and most of the world from Sabina Shoal,” said Jay Batongbacal, a maritime security expert at the University of the Philippines. Sabina Shoal would make “a good staging ground for vessels that will interfere with Philippine maritime activities,” he said.

Manila anchored the Teresa Magbanua, one of its largest coast guard ships, at the Sabina Shoal in April to try to stop China from what the Philippines sees as efforts to try to build an island there.

The Philippine Coast Guard has pointed to piles of crushed and dead corals apparently dumped on the shoal as signs of Chinese land reclamation under way. China has denied the accusation. But the building and fortifying of artificial islands is a key part of how China has asserted its claims over contested waters hundreds of miles from its coast.

China, which claims almost all of the South China Sea, says its tactics are needed to defend its sovereignty. Beijing has rejected a ruling by an international tribunal in 2016 that China’s sweeping claim to the waters had no legal basis.

China accused the Philippines of trying to permanently occupy Sabina Shoal by parking the coast guard vessel on it, just as it had grounded the warship at Second Thomas Shoal. Beijing even sent tugboats to Sabina Shoal, which some read as a threat to tow the Philippine ship away.

China has not resorted to guns. Rather, it is using what military theorists call gray zone tactics, aggressive moves that fall short of inciting all-out war. That includes imposing blockades, blasting water cannons and sailing dangerously close.

But the moves can still cause damage: The recent collision between Chinese and Philippine boats, for instance, left a three-foot hole on the Teresa Magbanua, as well as another Philippine vessel.

Damage on the Teresa Magbanua

Philippine Coast Guard via Associated Press

“If the Philippines insists on occupying more shoals, China will have no choice but to use all available measures,” said Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, a Beijing-based research group. “There is no limit.”

On Sunday, after months of pressure from China, the Philippines said that the Teresa Magbanua had returned to port in Palawan. The Philippine statement sought to cast the move as following the accomplishment of the boat’s mission.

But it nodded to the challenges of remaining in the face of a Chinese blockade that prevented the ship from being resupplied, saying the crew had been “surviving on diminished daily provisions” and that some needed medical care.

The Philippines said the vessel had suffered structural damage from being rammed by the Chinese coast guard, but indicated that the boat would return after undergoing repairs.

Tensions on the Rise

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines has taken on a more muscular approach against China than his predecessor did. He has beefed up the country’s alliance with the United States and invited journalists to join resupply missions at sea to highlight China’s actions.

China has called the United States “the biggest troublemaker stirring up unrest in the South China Sea.” Mr. Hu, the expert in Beijing, said that China has been compelled to use heavier-handed tactics because diplomacy with the Marcos administration has failed.

With both sides digging in, they are tangling with each other more often and more aggressively.

Confrontations between China and the Philippines

Confrontations involving collisions and the use of water cannons and other tools

Other confrontations

2023

April

July

October

2024

April

July

Recent escalation

near Sabina Shoal

Before last fall, collisions were

uncommon and China used

water cannons less frequently.

December 9–10, 2023

China used water cannons

against Philippine ships in

two days of confrontations.

A brief moment of peace in July after Beijing and Manlia made an agreement.

In one confrontation in June, China’s coast guard used axes, tear gas and knives to harass Philippine troops on a resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal. Chinese sailors punctured Philippine military boats and seized their equipment, including guns.

Eight Filipino soldiers were hurt, including one who lost a finger. The Philippine military called it the “most aggressive” Chinese action in recent history.

Source: Armed Forces of the Philippines via Facebook

That episode on June 17 made clear that tensions needed to be dialed down. The two sides briefly came to a “provisional agreement” on the Second Thomas Shoal, and the Philippines was able to conduct a resupply mission at the end of July. But officials from both countries have disputed the details of the agreement, raising questions about how long it will last.

“China’s overarching strategy is to dominate the South China Sea. We should not expect the de-escalation to last,” said Rommel Ong, a professor at the Ateneo School of Government in Manila and a retired rear admiral in the Philippine Navy. “Unless they attain that objective, their coercive actions will wax and wane depending on the situation.”

Since October, the Chinese coast guard has used water cannons against Philippine ships more regularly than it likely ever has in the long-running dispute. Collisions have also become more common.

In recent confrontations, China has routinely used water cannons.

Sources: Armed Forces of the Philippines; Philippine Coast Guard; China Coast Guard; Reuters; Storyful

Whenever the Philippines has attempted to sail to disputed atolls, ships from the Chinese coast guard, maritime militia, and navy have rapidly confronted them.

Some of the Chinese ships shadow the Philippine boats. Others cut across their paths. The ships swarm around the Philippine vessels to form a tight blockade.

This is how Chinese ships set up a blockade.

Philippine coast guard

Chinese ships

Noon, June 17

A group of Chinese

ships moved to block

the Philippine vessel.

SECOND

THOMAS

SHOAL

SABINA

SHOAL

A Chinese ship began

tailing a Philippine

ship around 8 a.m.

More Chinese

ships waited here.

6 p.m.

SECOND

THOMAS

SHOAL

SABINA

SHOAL

The Chinese ships followed the Philippine ship.

They were here for 8 hours.

Midnight, June 18

SECOND

THOMAS

SHOAL

SABINA

SHOAL

The Philippine ship finally

headed home around 11 p.m.

and the Chinese vessels left.

5 miles

Note: Tracks show positions over the prior six hours. Location data not available for all vessels on scene. Times shown in Manila local time.

China, which boasts the world’s largest navy in terms of the number of vessels, has been deploying more boats to these disputed waters over the past year than it did previously. The Philippines sends on average a few ships on its resupply missions, which has mostly remained unchanged.

Mr. Hu, the Chinese expert, said that China’s show of strength in numbers is meant to deter the Philippines without resorting to lethal force. “If China sends only a small number of boats to stop the Philippines, they might have to use guns,” he said.

China has sent more ships to harass Philippine resupply missions.

April 30, 2021

May 8

Oct.22

Nov.16

Nov. 23

Dec.13

Dec.26

Feb.19, 2022

April 22

May 19

June 21

June 27

Aug. 2

Oct. 5

Dec. 17

Feb. 6, 2023

Number of

Phillipine boats

Number of

Chinese boats

March 30

April 19

April 23

May 10

June 9

June 16

June 30

Aug. 5

Aug.22

Sept. 8

48 Chinese ships

were on scene

Oct. 4

Oct. 22

Nov. 10

Dec.10

Feb. 2, 2024

March 5

March 23

May 18

May 19

June 17

July 7

July 27

Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (C.S.I.S.) Note: Data shows vessels counted during resupply attempts to Second Thomas Shoal.

From Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, a weeklong period, the Philippine military tracked 203 Chinese ships in contested areas in the South China Sea — the highest number recorded this year.

Tensions have risen at a time when the militaries of China and the United States have had limited contact. On Tuesday, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command held a rare video conference with Gen. Wu Yanan, the commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command, which oversees the South China Sea. The United States said such calls help “reduce the risk of misperception or miscalculation.”

During the call, Adm. Samuel Paparo urged China to “reconsider its use of dangerous, coercive, and potentially escalatory tactics” in the South China Sea. China, in its own statement about the call, said only that the two sides had an in-depth exchange of views.

On Thursday, though, Lieutenant General He Lei, a former vice president of the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Sciences, struck a more hawkish note.

“If the United States insists on being a plotter that pushes others to stand on the front line to confront China, or if it has no other choice but to challenge us by itself,” he told reporters at a security forum in Beijing, “the Chinese people and the People’s Liberation Army will never waver.”

Chinese flagged boats anchored at Sabina shoal. Jes Aznar for The New York Times

Note: Data shows incidents involving Chinese vessels and official Philippine coast guard or Bureau of Fisheries vessels where at least one side physically maneuvered to expel the other. Incidents data as of Sept. 1, 2024.

Sources: Philippine and Chinese coast guard statements; Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation; Center for Strategic and International Studies (C.S.I.S.); Starboard Maritime Intelligence; Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations; Esri; Flanders Marine Institute; Natural Earth. Top video from Philippine Coast Guard via Storyful.

Video production by Shawn Paik

8. The Kids Who Didn’t Know Their Parents Were Russian Spies

People, including children, are just pawns for Putin. This situation is certainly not "romantic" for those children who are suffering because Putin is a heartless b*st*rd

The Kids Who Didn’t Know Their Parents Were Russian Spies

Putin romanticizes Moscow’s network of deep-cover operatives, but ethical questions abound

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russian-spies-family-putin-ab7dfb58?st=iYYvjn&utm

By Joe ParkinsonFollow

and Drew HinshawFollow

Sept. 14, 2024 9:00 pm ET

“Ludwig” and “Maria” had suffered an abrupt end to their clandestine careers, arrested just after finishing breakfast in their suburban home and outed as deep-cover spies for Moscow. But as they flew in a Bombardier jet to freedom as part of an epic prisoner swap last month, they had more familial concerns in mind: How to break it to the kids?

Please, they’d quietly pleaded with their Slovenian escorts, don’t address us by our real names. They hadn’t yet told their son and daughter, touring the cockpit, that they were Russian.

The two officers from Directorate S, the so-called “illegals department” of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, had spent more than a decade building fake identities. Their children, 9-year-old Daniel and 11-year-old Sophie, knew their mom and dad as Argentine citizens named Ludwig Gisch and Maria Mayer Muños. What they didn’t know is that their family was a carefully constructed lie.

The couple’s real names are Artem and Anna Dultsev. After a marriage likely arranged by Directorate S, they had been sent to Argentina, where Daniel and Sophie were born. When Moscow moved the couple from Buenos Aires to a sleepy suburb in the capital of Slovenia, the children enrolled in an international school, completing the facade of a normal middle-class family.

Even after they were caught and jailed for espionage, the couple still hadn’t told their children that Spanish—the family’s language—was a second tongue, learned to fluency for a secret assignment meant to last until the siblings came of age and could hopefully be recruited to follow in their footsteps.

As Sophie and Daniel returned from the cockpit, they chatted with the bespectacled man who had overseen their care during their parents’ 1½ years of imprisonment. Unbeknown to them, he was the head of Slovenia’s spy agency, which had helped the U.S. capture and trade their parents. Also on board: a CIA officer who had brought a bottle of bourbon to drink with the Slovenes once the trade was complete.

Images from forged documents depicting Maria Rosa Mayer Muños and Ludwig Gisch (in reality Anna and Artem Dultsev).

The plane descended toward the exchange point in Ankara and the mood darkened as the parents fell into an earnest discussion about the culture shock awaiting their family in Moscow. It was only after they had been escorted onto a Russian plane by masked officers that the parents began the tough job of coming clean to their children. “The real hell for them was about to begin, when they returned,” said one person present.

The Wall Street Journal has unearthed new details about the Dultsev family’s decadelong mission and the sacrifices it entailed. A crucial piece of the story is the importance placed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the work of illegal spies, so called because they operate without diplomatic immunity.

Putin has spent decades restoring prestige to a clandestine program that harks back to the glory days of Soviet spycraft, when top illegal agents like Rudolf Abel, later depicted in Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies,” were celebrated in commemorative stamps. The future president’s first TV appearance, according to state-controlled media, was a 1991 interview in which he admitted he’d been in the KGB, then re-enacted the final scene of the most famous Soviet spy movie about a sleeper agent named Stierlitz—with Putin cast as the spy.

The movie, “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” entrenched the notion that the Communist bloc had a secret weapon: an unseen army of sleeper agents embedded into elite circles and ordinary society, who had already helped Moscow win World War II and steal the technology behind the atomic bomb.

“Not everyone can give up their current life, give up their loved ones, their relatives and leave the country for many, many years, dedicate their lives to serving the Fatherland,” Putin told state television in 2017. “Only the chosen ones can do that.”

The house in Črnuče, Slovenia, where the Dultsevs lived under assumed names. Photo: Matjaz Krivic for WSJ

In confidential meetings with the Central Intelligence Agency, Putin’s top spy chiefs have extolled the exploits of Soviet-era illegals as if their successes were recent, or relevant. Senior CIA officers who once worked in Moscow say they have seen little evidence in recent years that the program has generated results worthy of its huge investment—though they acknowledge its role in the mythology of Russian spy lore.

Building a family around a sleeper agent comes with a heavy price—presenting ethical quandaries so profound that Western intelligence services rarely go that route.

Officers are asked to live for years and sometimes decades inside a thickening web of lies. They usually don’t marry for love but are selected for unions by Directorate S. They might be deployed as professional philanderers to seduce a target. Their children grow up in nations they are suddenly expelled from, their identity and friendships shattered. In a rare admission, Vladimir Kryuchkov, a former head of the KGB, conceded in a 1996 memoir that the families of illegals often suffered “not just a generation gap but an irreconcilable hatred.”

Now free and giving TV interviews in Moscow, the Dultsevs have been transformed from ordinary Argentine immigrants into two of Russia’s most famous spies. Their admirers include Putin himself, who was waiting for them at the airport with a bouquet of flowers. When they descended the stairs from their jet, the president embraced them both, tenderly kissing a weeping Anna Dultseva on her cheek then shoulder. Their employer, the SVR, didn’t reply to detailed questions or requests for an interview.

“We told the children that we were Russian, that they were Russian, that we were the Dultsevs,” Anna told the nightly news on state TV’s Russia One, struggling to find words in her native tongue.

“The most important thing for us is family, and this supports us,” her husband interjected. “And family is the country.”

Taking cover

Putin’s covert rebuilding of the illegals program became visible in 2008, with the arrest of Herman Simm, an Estonian defense ministry security chief, who had become Russia’s top spy inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Simm’s handler was a man who claimed to be a Portuguese national named Antonio de Jesus Amurett Graf, but was in fact a Russian deep-cover agent named Sergey Yakovlev.

Surveilling Simm and Yakovlev gave Western spies new insights into how the Russian illegals’ tactics, or tradecraft, had changed.

Before each meeting, Simm sent a numerical code from a public pay phone to Yakovlev’s pager. The code was a combination of his identification number, 242, and the number 55, which signaled that the agreed meeting could take place. Simm was instructed to enter the number 77 if there was a problem.

In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested 10 Russian illegals living in the U.S., after a secret decadelong surveillance program dubbed Operation Ghost Stories.

The case harvested another treasure trove of intelligence: FBI agents bugged the spies’ homes, followed them around the country and ultimately cracked their secret communications network.

A number of Russians convicted of spying for the West arrive at Dulles International Airport in 2010 after they were traded in Vienna for 10 convicted Russian sleeper agents apprehended in the U.S. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

But the Obama administration, seeking a reset with Russia, played down its significance, framing it as a post-Soviet hangover rather than evidence of a reinvigorated illegals program.

When Russia’s spies returned to Moscow in a prisoner swap shortly after their arrest, Putin met them and said they sang patriotic songs, including “From Where the Motherland Begins,” which appeared in another Soviet spy movie, “The Shield and the Sword.”

Two of the illegals, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, had stolen the identities of dead Canadians, Donald Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley. The spies had adolescent children, Alex and Tim, who were born in Canada, before moving to the U.S.

The brothers said they had no idea they were Russians with the surname Vavilov until they were put on a plane to Moscow to start an entirely new life.

Neither wanted to stay in Russia long. Tim moved to Asia and Alex fought a nine-year legal battle to retrieve his Canadian citizenship, returning in 2019 to start a job in finance.

“Yes they can’t come here and that’s their punishment for what they have done,” he said of his parents, in an interview with the Canadian public broadcaster. “But why should I suffer?”

Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, who stole the identities of dead Canadians, are shown back in Russia after being traded by the U.S. Their sons Tim and Alex said they had no idea they were Russians before they were put on a plane to Moscow to start a new life.

In the case of the Dultsevs, Putin was closely monitoring their work as they traveled widely across the EU, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials. Artem founded an IT firm that sold domain names and cloud hosting. Anna opened an art gallery, providing cover as she traveled for exhibitions across Europe and discreetly moved money. They used their anonymity to meet and pay sources and identify and cultivate new assets that could be handed to SVR officers working under diplomatic cover at Russian embassies. One officer, working as a military attaché, was later deported from Slovenia.

The couple told their children nothing about their mission or their true identity, Slovenian officials said, but did mention that one day they may have to be separated because of their work. The siblings attended school in a communist-era building surrounded by trees. In one picture on the school website, Sophie is seen sitting under a linden tree with her reading book, looking at the camera.

On Dec. 5, 2022, just after the children had been dropped off at school, brown-clad Slovenian special forces approached the family’s pastel-colored house, climbed the gate and broke through the shutters on the windows. The authorities removed documents, computers, communication devices, and hundreds of thousands of euros found in a special compartment of their refrigerator. Artem and Anna were taken away.

The children were housed with a foster family. They were told their parents had some problems with Slovenian residence documents and would have to spend some time in police detention.

Joško Kadivnik, the Slovene spy chief, was personally monitoring Sophie and Daniel’s welfare to ensure they were affected as little as possible. They were allowed to video call daily with their parents, held in separate cells, who would help them with schoolwork. Once a week they would visit them in person and chat in Spanish about school and what they’d been doing with their friends. The siblings learned Slovene to near-fluency from their foster family and classmates. Later, they learned some Russian, unaware that they were picking up their mother tongue.

A view of the prison in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where Artem Dultsev was detained after he was arrested on spying charges. Photo: Darko Bandic/Associated Press

In the days after the arrest, senior Russian security officials had confirmed to Slovenia that the couple were SVR officers and asked them to be immediately released. When Slovenia refused, Russian officials requested they be treated differently from other prisoners. Western allies advised them they should be held in good conditions and given the chance to refuse extradition to Russia. “It’s like a Geneva convention among spies,” said Vojko Volk, Slovenia’s national security adviser.

The two spies swiftly became bartering chips in some of the most complex prisoner talks ever conducted. The ultimate trade, set for Aug. 1 on a cordoned-off runway in Ankara, encompassed 24 adults held in seven countries, including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Vadim Krasikov, an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany for murder.

Also stepping off a plane that day were two children wearing hoodies and Harry Potter sneakers. Turkish officers escorted Daniel and Sophie across the runway onto another jet bound for Moscow by masked men from the Russian security services. Aboard that five-hour flight, Anna explained in Spanish that they had been involved in a secret mission for Russia.

“She distracted Sophie, who had toys, and was watching something on the screen,” Artem later told Russian TV. “I just noticed her emotions, then she started to cry a little.”

“I also told Daniel,” he added. “He took it more calmly, but very positively.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin greets the Dultsevs and other Russian citizens at Russia’s Vnukovo airport after they were released in a prisoner swap. Photo: mikhail voskresenskiy/sputnik/kr/Shutterstock

When they arrived at Vnukovo airport, Putin pinched Sophie’s cheek, as she stared forward impassively.

“Buenas Noches,” the president said.

“All of you will be nominated to receive for state awards,” he later told the parents and the other spies gathered in the airport with them. “You and I will meet again sometime later and we will talk about your future.”

Previous illegals and celebrated agents became lawmakers, corporate executives and media personalities. Russian agents Anna Chapman and Maria Butina have hosted talk news shows, while Cold War-era spy Kim Philby lectured at KGB headquarters with the rank of colonel.

Four days after the prisoner exchange, the Dultsev family appeared on the nightly news, answering questions in a garden at the SVR’s headquarters on the outskirts of Moscow. Anna Dultsev said that her family would continue to “serve Russia.”

The reporter gave Sophie a doll and handed Daniel a remote-controlled toy rocket, adding that the children have been practicing their Russian by reading the sign at a monument to a famous fictional spy.

“Just remember your duty,” Daniel reads, from the base of the statue.

The name of the spy? Stierlitz.

Novica Mihajlovic and Kate Vtorygina contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com

9. China’s $6.5 Trillion Loss Should Have Xi Jinping Looking In The Mirror

Excerpts:

The lesson here is that Xi must treat the underlying causes of China’s economic funk, not just the symptoms. As Japan taught us, throwing money at an economy traumatized by plunging property values and deflationary pressures isn’t enough.

Given China’s weak price dynamics, some well-targeted stimulus is understandable. But it’s far more important that Beijing go big on leveling playing fields, recalibrating growth engines and building a trusted market infrastructure. And with household demand lagging, it’s time Beijing created robust social safety nets to prod consumers to spend more and save less.

If not, China’s doddering may lead to even bigger stock losses that revive debates about whether the place really is “uninvestable.” Xi has the power to change the narrative -– and stop the bleeding. With any luck, this latest bout of market turmoil reminds Team Xi that time isn’t on Beijing’s side.

China’s $6.5 Trillion Loss Should Have Xi Jinping Looking In The Mirror

Forbes · by William Pesek · September 13, 2024

An investor watches the electronic board at a stock exchange hall.

VCG/Getty Images

When Chinese stocks lose an amount roughly equivalent to Japan’s entire market, it might be time for President Xi Jinping to do something about it. And preferably something new.

The $6.5 trillion that’s been erased from mainland bourses since a 2021 peak is an epically large price to pay for Beijing’s policies these last few years. From Covid-19 lockdowns to tech company crackdowns to glacial efforts to stabilize a crashing property market, Xi’s Communist Party hasn’t done Asia’s biggest economy any favors.

Or, for that matter, investors keen to harness Chinese growth. Among major economies, there’s no reform trade more tantalizing than China’s. If only Team Xi would kick it into a higher gear.

If successful, a pivot from state-enterprise dominance to a model that prioritizes private-sector innovation will be one of history’s most lucrative narratives for investors. Yet it remains too big an “if” for comfort in the Xi era.

At the moment, much of the chatter is about the need for greater stimulus from Xi’s government and the People’s Bank of China. As deflationary forces intensify, calls for fiscal pump-priming and monetary easing are growing in volume.

Admittedly, bigger efforts to boost gross domestic product might gain more traction than the untold billions of dollars authorities and state-backed funds have spent putting a floor under stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Yet none of these efforts would reap greater dividends than Xi getting serious about the reforms he’s promised for more than a decade now.

Stimulus and massive stock buying are mere Band-Aids. You’d think that Xi’s inner circle would notice by now that China’s big losses are in stark contrast with spectacular equity booms from New York to Tokyo. But then, Beijing officialdom might have to entertain the possibility that Xiconomics is falling flat with the biggest of the global big money.

Xi, it’s often said, is China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. But sadly, he too often prioritizes deepening his control over the party and municipalities rather than economic modernization.

Yes, yes, we were all wrong 25 years ago about China becoming more western, more tolerant of free speech and increasingly transparent. Those ideas that the internet, World Trade Organization rules and capitalist euphoria would have Xi’s party on the run? We were so quaint back then.

Perhaps the best bookend here may be then-U.S. President Bill Clinton’s October 1997 trip to Beijing. China’s leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, had the confidence to do a live press conference with Clinton in Beijing, televised around the globe.

It seemed like a game-changer moment. International economists and journalists — myself included — were convinced it signaled a new, more open and swashbuckling China. In 2002, Jiang passed that baton to Hu Jintao, who largely kept China on autopilot until 2012, when Xi rose to power.

Early on, Xi talked a great game of letting market forces play a “decisive” role in Beijing decision making. But then, reform ambitions seemed to fall away. Many blame the market crash of 2015, an event that had Xi’s party reverting to a defensive crouch.

In May 2015, epochal change seemed on path. That was when Xi unveiled his audacious “Made in China 2025” scheme. It aimed to morph the economy into a high-tech Mecca for semiconductors, renewable energy, electric vehicles, biotechnology, aerospace, artificial intelligence, robotics and green infrastructure.

But two months later, a mini-crisis arrived. Between July and August of 2015, Shanghai stocks plunged more than 30% in three weeks. The slow pace of upgrades — and vague details about regaining reformist momentum— irked investors, who fled en masse.

The chaos saw Beijing pivot to old-economy tactics: cutting interest rates, shelving initial public offerings, suspending trading in thousands of listed companies, capital controls, increased leverage and letting mainlanders use apartments as collateral to buy shares.

Once the dust settled, Xi’s team throttled back on plans for structural change. Fast forward nine years, Made in China 2025 remain a work in progress, at best. And foreign investors’ ability to bet on Chinese shares has far outpaced moves to build a more dynamic economic system and better capital markets.

The slow pace of increasing liquidity and transparency, strengthening corporate governance, building a trusted credit rating system, devising robust hedging tools and reining in a sprawling state sector is now dawning on investors. So much so that Chinese stocks have lost the combined gross domestic product of the United Kingdom and France.

The lesson here is that Xi must treat the underlying causes of China’s economic funk, not just the symptoms. As Japan taught us, throwing money at an economy traumatized by plunging property values and deflationary pressures isn’t enough.

Given China’s weak price dynamics, some well-targeted stimulus is understandable. But it’s far more important that Beijing go big on leveling playing fields, recalibrating growth engines and building a trusted market infrastructure. And with household demand lagging, it’s time Beijing created robust social safety nets to prod consumers to spend more and save less.

If not, China’s doddering may lead to even bigger stock losses that revive debates about whether the place really is “uninvestable.” Xi has the power to change the narrative -– and stop the bleeding. With any luck, this latest bout of market turmoil reminds Team Xi that time isn’t on Beijing’s side.

Forbes · by William Pesek · September 13, 2024

10. RT running covert military supply operation for Russian forces, State Dept. says

Wow.

Excerpts:

RT, formerly Russia Today, has been pulling this off by using a large online crowdfunding platform, promoted through social media, to buy military equipment and then channel it to Russian units in Ukraine, according to the State Department. The administration said the operations were administered by RT deputy editor-in-chief and head of international broadcasting for Sputnik Anton Anisimov and had avoided detection by importing small orders of weaponry and supplies.

That shopping list, according to State, includes sniper rifles and suppressors, personal weapon sights, body armor and tactical clothing, night vision equipment, drones, radio equipment and diesel generators.

New evidence from the State Department also linked some of the equipment — particularly recon drones — directly to China-based entities. The department also alleges that RT is facilitating production in coordination with the Russian Ministry of Defense.

RT running covert military supply operation for Russian forces, State Dept. says

By Joseph Gedeon

09/13/2024 01:26 PM EDT

Updated: 09/13/2024 03:31 PM EDT

Politico

The state-backed media outlet has been sending weapons to Russian units, including sniper rifles and suppressors, body armor, night vision equipment and drones, according to State.

09/13/2024 01:26 PM EDT

Updated: 09/13/2024 03:31 PM EDT

The State Department on Friday accused RT of having transformed from a state-backed propaganda outlet into a sophisticated arm of Russian intelligence, secretly operating a vast military procurement network to supply Russian forces in Ukraine.

RT, formerly Russia Today, has been pulling this off by using a large online crowdfunding platform, promoted through social media, to buy military equipment and then channel it to Russian units in Ukraine, according to the State Department. The administration said the operations were administered by RT deputy editor-in-chief and head of international broadcasting for Sputnik Anton Anisimov and had avoided detection by importing small orders of weaponry and supplies.

That shopping list, according to State, includes sniper rifles and suppressors, personal weapon sights, body armor and tactical clothing, night vision equipment, drones, radio equipment and diesel generators.

New evidence from the State Department also linked some of the equipment — particularly recon drones — directly to China-based entities. The department also alleges that RT is facilitating production in coordination with the Russian Ministry of Defense.

“I’ve instructed U.S. diplomats around the world to share the evidence that we’ve gathered on RT’s expanded capabilities and the ways it’s being used to target individual countries and the information ecosystem that we share,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Friday briefing.

To camouflage and obscure its evolved mission, State said, RT has even developed previously unknown cyber capabilities while deploying a network of fake news websites, social media accounts and online personas on a global scale. Since spring 2023, the department said, RT has harbored a cyber unit with direct ties to Russian intelligence that it uses to funnel information to spies, mercenaries and Kremlin proxies worldwide. The network has also expanded influence operations globally, with a particular focus on Europe, Africa and the Americas, including an ongoing effort to destabilize the government of Argentina.

Some covert influence fronts secretly run by RT include online platform “African Stream,” which boasts 460,000 YouTube subscribers, and “Red,” a Berlin-based English language platform with over 80,000 followers on X, the State Department said. A Paris-based journalist was also hired to run influence projects targeting French speakers, according to the State Department.

But one of the most notable influence campaigns the department said was run by RT involves Moldova’s October election, with State accusing RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan of being in direct coordination with the Kremlin to sway the results toward a pro-Russian candidate.

When reached for comment, RT shared a Russian-language post on Telegram on Friday from Simonyan with a brash admission. “American intelligence services have found out that we are helping the front,” a translated version of Simonyan’s post reads. “We are doing it openly, idiots.”

The news comes weeks after the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against senior employees of RT accusing them of using shell companies and fake identities to pay millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based media outlet to create pro-Russia content.

Simonyan had already been a target of Treasury sanctions earlier in September, and went on Russian state TV over the weekend to brag that RT runs covert operations in the United States.

Politico

11. Ukraine captures multiple villages as Kursk incursion advances

Who would have thought?

Ukraine captures multiple villages as Kursk incursion advances

Newsweek · by Flynn Nicholls · September 15, 2024

ByUS News Reporter

Ukrainian forces have made gains in Russia's Kursk Oblast, capturing several villages as part of its ongoing cross-border offensive, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The report claims that Ukrainian troops advanced in the Glushkovo district on Saturday, near the villages of Tyotkino and Sudzha, citing reports from Ukrainian and Russian sources.

Footage released on September 13 and verified through geolocation confirms Ukrainian troops are now operating in Veseloye, southwest of Glushkovo.

Additionally, Russian military bloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces had taken control of Veseloye.

A Ukrainian vehicle in Ukraine's Sumy Region travels on a road to Russia's Kursk region on August 15, 2024. Ukrainian forces have made gains in Kursk, capturing several villages as part of its ongoing cross-border... A Ukrainian vehicle in Ukraine's Sumy Region travels on a road to Russia's Kursk region on August 15, 2024. Ukrainian forces have made gains in Kursk, capturing several villages as part of its ongoing cross-border offensive. Libkos/Getty Images

Reports from Russian military sources indicate that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in several areas, including Obukhovka and Novy Put, between September 13 and 14.

Ukrainian Officials have claimed that the aggressive push into Russian territory has forced Moscow to bolster its military presence in the region.

Ukrainian Pivnich (Northern) operational command spokesperson Vadym Mysnyk said on Saturday that Russia has increased its troop deployment in Kursk Oblast from 11,000 personnel before the incursion in August to an estimated 30,000 to 45,000 now.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministries for comment via email.

On August 6, Kyiv began the operation that appeared to have takenRussian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's allies by surprise. NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance did not receive any warning of Ukraine's intentions for the push.

The ISW has released an updated map showing the extent of the Ukrainian advance into Kursk, showing the army progressing north compared to last Wednesday.

An ISW map showing Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast on September 14, 2024. Kyiv military spokesman Vadym Mysnyk said on Saturday that Russia has increased its troop deployment in the region from 11,000 personnel before... An ISW map showing Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast on September 14, 2024. Kyiv military spokesman Vadym Mysnyk said on Saturday that Russia has increased its troop deployment in the region from 11,000 personnel before the incursion in August to an estimated 30,000 to 45,000 now. Institute for the Study of War

On Saturday, Russian forces counterattacked near Lyubimovka and Daryino, with geolocation footage showing Russian infantry from the 810th Marine Brigade advancing into the center of Borki, southeast of Sudzha.

However, the Ukrainian advance north of Sudzha continued, with reports suggesting that Kyiv's troops had captured the village of Cherkasskoye.

The ISW claimed that Kyiv's cross-border operation has forced Russia to redeploy troops from the Ukrainian front line to Kursk.

As Ukrainian forces maintain their momentum, Moscow has been compelled to increase troop concentrations in the oblast, with President Volodymyr Zelensky indicating that Russia aims to deploy as many as 70,000 troops to the region.

The ongoing offensive appears to have strategic aims beyond territorial gains. A series of prisoner exchanges between the two countries have followed the incursion.

On September 14, Ukraine and Russia conducted their third prisoner swap since the start of the Kursk campaign, each exchanging 103 prisoners.

Ukrainian officials have suggested that the incursions enhanced Kyiv's negotiating position in securing the release of prisoners of war.

The ISW also covered reports from Russian military bloggers which surfaced on September 13 that said drone operators and electronic warfare specialists had been killed in battle after being reassigned to infantry units as punishment.

The think tank suggested that Russian commanders are degrading their forces by sending specialized personnel on dangerous frontal assaults.

About the writer

Flynn Nicholls

Flynn Nicholls is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. Originally from New Zealand, Flynn joined Newsweek in 2024 and had previously worked at the Wairarapa Times-Age. He is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington. You can get in touch with Flynn by emailing f.nicholls@newsweek.com. Languages: English.

Flynn Nicholls is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics and society. Originally ...

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Newsweek · by Flynn Nicholls · September 15, 2024

12. North Korean Aid To Russia Poses Biggest Threat To Ukraine, Intelligence Chief Says

North Korean Aid To Russia Poses Biggest Threat To Ukraine, Intelligence Chief Says

September 14, 2024 20:09 GMT

By AFP

https://www.rferl.org/amp/ukraine-russia-north-korea-budanov-ammunition/33120176.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport outside Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19.

Military aid provided to Russia by North Korea is the most damaging for Ukraine, intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on September 14 at a conference in Kyiv. "Our biggest problem from all these allies of Russia is from North Korea. Because with the volume of military products that they supply, they actually affect the intensity of the fighting," Budanov said. His remarks came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to deepen ties with Russia. Kyiv has been monitoring arms deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow and feels their effect on the battlefield. "There is a direct correlation. They are supplying huge volumes of artillery ammunition, which is critical," Budanov said.

13. Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

(and do not forget Russia-North Korea collaboration and collusion as well as Iran-north Korea collusion).

Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal | Keir Starmer | The Guardian

amp.theguardian.com

Show caption

US president Joe Biden, second left, and UK prime minister Keir Starmer, far right, hold talks in Washington on Friday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/Reuters

Keir Starmer

Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

US president Joe Biden and British PM Keir Starmer fear secret arms link-up amid talks in Washington over Ukraine

Dan Sabbagh in Washington

Sat 14 Sep 2024 15.00 EDT

Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.

During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.

If Starmer is on a US charm offensive, he must meet Trump as well as Harris

British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.

Keir Starmer meets with Joe Biden at White House as Putin warns Nato against letting Ukraine send long-range missiles – as it happened

On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.

“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.

Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.

But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.

Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.

Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.

Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.

Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.

Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.

Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.

Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.

Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.

UK foreign secretary David Lammy British PM Keir Starmer leave the White House after a meeting with US president Joe Biden on Friday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AP

The leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.

Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow; while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.

Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.

There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.

Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.

Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.

Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”.

View on theguardian.com

amp.theguardian.com

14. With approval for Ukraine to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles on the horizon, Russia threatens war with NATO nations

I saw a meme on the internet that said these are the threats and red lines from Putin and our fears of what Putin might do (but has not done).

No weapons to Ukraine.

No interference in Ukraine by outside powers.

No more western arms to Ukraine.

No MIG-29 fighters sent to Ukraine.

No long range missiles for Ukraine.

No western made missiles to be fired into Russia.

No supplying old Soviet tanks toUkraine. Germany is not to supply lethal arms to Ukraine.

Russian setbacks on battlefield will result in nuclear retaliation.

No missiles would even LONGER range are to be supplied.

No Patriot missiles for Ukraine.

No modern western tanks for Ukraine.

No modern fighter jets.

No HIMARS or Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russian territory.

No ATACMS long range missiles to attack Russian territory.

With approval for Ukraine to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles on the horizon, Russia threatens war with NATO nations - ABC News

By Heloise Vyas with wires

Posted Yesterday at 5:59am

amp.abc.net.au

Ukraine's pleas for permission to fire long-range missiles in Russia have dominated high-level engagements between US and UK officials this week

However, despite a visit to Kyiv by the nations' top diplomats and a meeting between their leaders, no consensus has been reached.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with US President Joe Biden in Washington on Friday and they discussed whether to allow Ukraine to strike deep in Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons, which already are in its possession but continue to be restricted by the White House.

At the centre of the talks was the Storm Shadow — a British-French missile that the UK supplied to Kyiv last year but has not been green-lit for use outside Ukrainian borders.

What are Storm Shadow missiles?

Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles can hit targets with precision.(Reuters: Benoit Tessier)

Storm Shadows are air-launched cruise missiles capable of hitting targets up to 250 kilometres away.

While Ukraine already has drones with much longer range (1,800km according to Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov), the missiles are designed for attacks against high-value targets such as hardened bunkers and ammunition stores.

Storm Shadows are low-flying missiles, making them harder to intercept than drones, and they can hit targets with precision.

Ukraine has pushed for months for the West to lift restrictions on their use inside Russia, thereby allowing it to pressure Moscow and gain an edge against the Kremlin's military forces on the front line.

Kyiv says long-range capabilities will help it counter glide-bomb attacks from Russian airfields, strike military command and control hubs, and target fuel and weapons depots.

Two European diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Ukraine had submitted to the US and Britain a list of potential targets inside Russia that could be hit if allowed.

Why is Washington's permission needed?

It concerns the parties involved in the production of the missiles.

The Storm Shadows were supplied by the UK, but they were developed jointly with France, with Italy also involved in their manufacturing.

The missile's components are provided by the US, which means Washington may also have to approve changes to the conditions of their use.

Storm Shadow missiles, known as SCALP missiles in France, are launched from military aircraft.(Supplied: MBDA)

In France, the identical missile is called SCALP, which Ukraine is also seeking to use.

Although Britain is expected to seek US approval before lifting its restrictions on Storm Shadows, a French diplomatic source said Paris did not need authorisation from Washington for Ukraine to use SCALPs.

Two US officials familiar with Friday's talks said they believed Mr Starmer was seeking Mr Biden's approval to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadows for expanded use in Russia.

The officials said they believed Mr Biden would be amenable.

US concerns

Britain became the first country to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine in May last year when it began sending the Storm Shadows, but a condition was that they only be used in counter-offensives within Ukrainian borders.

Kyiv's Western and European allies had so far refrained from easing this restriction over fears it would escalate the war.

US President Joe Biden has brushed off threats from Russian leader Vladimir Putin about war against the West.(AP: Manuel Balce Ceneta)

For Mr Biden, the decision is not just tactical. It also raises questions about whether authorising such strikes might risk a direct war between NATO and Russia.

Another US concern is that focusing on long-range strikes downplays what could be a bigger immediate threat: Russia's advances on the ground inside Ukrainian territory toward the strategic city of Pokrovsk.

US officials believe the loss of the city would be a significant blow.

However, Ukraine's unexpected invasion of Russia's Kursk region has changed the dynamic, putting Moscow on the back foot and exhibiting strength in its offensive capabilities, prompting the West to rethink the use of weapons.

Despite no decision being made on the cross-border use of Storm Shadows in Friday's meeting, reports have suggested the US gave the go-ahead in private.

Top US, UK diplomats visit Kyiv as Ukraine appeals for right to fire long-range missiles

The US and UK's chief foreign affairs advisors visit Ukraine to discuss the country's military needs in its fight against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also wants more long-range weaponry from Washington, including the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS.

But Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Dietz, a Pentagon spokesperson, said ATACMS were not the answer to the threat Ukraine faced from long-range Russian glide bombs, which were being fired from more than 300km away, beyond the missile's reach.

American officials also do not believe they have enough of the weapon systems available to provide Ukraine with the number to make a substantive difference on the ground.

They also believe Kyiv should focus on halting a Russian advance in Ukraine's east.

Mr Biden, however, has hinted that a change could be afoot. In an exchange with reporters this week about whether he was ready to ease weapons restrictions on Ukraine, he responded: "We're working that out now."

Russia threatens war with NATO

Russia warned at the United Nations on Friday that allowing Ukraine to fire missiles far into Russia would turn NATO into "a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power".

President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation and accused the US and European nations of de-facto participation in the conflict.

He argues the flight missions for the West-supplied missile systems "can essentially only be input" by NATO military personnel, not Ukrainians, and any decision to allow Kyiv to use them means nothing less than NATO's direct involvement in the conflict.

Vladimir Putin says allowing strikes in Russia would mean the US and its European allies were "at war with Russia".(AP: Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik)

White House spokesman John Kirby said on Friday the US took such threats seriously, but acknowledged there was nothing new in Mr Putin's rhetoric.

Democratic US Representative Jason Crow, a member of the House intelligence and foreign affairs committees, said Russian forces did not have the strength for a wider war.

"I don't believe there's any indication that Vladimir Putin has an interest in picking a fight with NATO," he told Reuters, pointing to Russia's massive losses of men and armour in Ukraine.

"To the contrary, I think he is avoiding a NATO confrontation."

"Vladimir Putin is not 10-feet tall. We have seen that repeatedly over the last couple of years. He's very vulnerable and, frankly, he's in a position of significant weakness."

Mr Zelenskyy's appeal has garnered support in US and European security and diplomatic circles, including from some former US generals and diplomats, politicians and security analysts.

They argue Russia's previous threats of escalation against the West have proven hollow and that US restrictions on weapons are making it impossible for Ukraine to gain the battlefield momentum it needs.

Asked what he thought about Mr Putin's threat, President Biden said: "I don't think much about Vladimir Putin."

ABC/wires

amp.abc.net.au

15. Biden, NATO effectively declaring war on Russia

But didn't Putin declare war on the West first?

Biden, NATO effectively declaring war on Russia - Asia Times

Ukraine leader Zelensky off to Washington to discuss missile strike targets inside Russia, an escalation that could ignite World War III

asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · September 14, 2024

There is no other way to interpret it: Washington and its client NATO members are declaring war on Russia.

That is the direct meaning of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forthcoming visit to Washington, where the parties will agree on targets inside Russia.

To say this is an insane, reckless move is an understatement. This is the most dangerous step possible for the US and NATO – and it will likely lead to World War III.

Don’t believe any rhetoric “justifying” the use of long-range missiles on Russia. Putin has pointed out that while Ukraine will host the missiles, they will be fired by NATO personnel who will also insert the targeting data coming from overhead satellites covering Russian territory. Those satellites are American.

The upcoming Zelensky-Joe Biden meeting should also include Vice President Kamala Harris, so she takes full responsibility for starting a war.

No one can presume what the outcome will be. Will Russia unleash nuclear weapons and bring a definitive end to the Ukraine war? Will it shoot down American satellites? Will Russia send rockets to hit supply depots in Europe, especially in Poland, which is the jumping-off point for military supplies to Ukraine?

There are many other possibilities open to Russia. Russia could transfer nuclear weapons to Iran, for example, or to Syria.

The truth is Washington wants to take up Zelensky’s proposals for deep strikes on Russian territory because Ukraine is losing the war and could be defeated even before the presidential elections in November.

The Biden-Harris team will have to explain why they kept backing a loser, causing tens of thousands of casualties, instead of seeking a diplomatic settlement that was easily within their grasp.

Here again, Washington stopped a deal in the making between Ukraine and Russia, and Biden and Harris are directly responsible for that.

Zelensky’s strategy is easy to grasp. He knows everything is falling apart and Ukraine won’t be able to fight anymore by winter, as its infrastructure, especially electrical power but also fuel, dries up.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski says that Ukraine’s electrical power has been degraded by 70%, perhaps more. So Zelensky’s strategy is to bring NATO directly into the war. And, stupidly and arrogantly, Washington is playing the same game.

No one, other than the UK, wants to see a war in Europe. The UK is no longer an important European country and lacks a land army worth talking about.

Instead its government built a couple of massively expensive aircraft carriers that function poorly, if at all, instead of strengthening its military and rebuilding its defenses.

In any case, the UK dances to the US tune. The British are anxious to attack Russia but haven’t bothered to figure out what will happen when Russia blows up the UK.

The big question is why Washington wants to fire missiles into Russia. It means that Biden, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken know that their Ukraine policy is a disaster.

Instead of trying to open communications with the Russians, they are upping the ante and taking huge risks, with little idea of how things will end up, unless they are really getting ready to send in NATO troops and use NATO airpower in the Ukraine war.

Russia may not match the US in many military categories but it occupies a large landmass and has strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

For years, we have known that Russia’s military does not really differentiate between tactical and strategic nuclear systems; rather it sees them all along a continuum to be used as necessary.

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What this means is that Russia can launch ICBMs and submarine IRBMs against US continental targets. People in Washington should understand that the US has almost no continental air defenses capable of stopping a Russian nuclear attack.

For years, strategists have worried about a so-called “first strike” capability. I can’t say Russia really has that, but no one should want to find out.

The only hope is to persuade our current leaders, soon to be replaced, that they will be held accountable for starting a war without any grounds for doing so.

One of the features of government is that people make decisions without taking responsibility. In the case of World War III, no matter what soap opera propaganda flows into US newspapers, our leaders will have a lot of blood on their hands if they go ahead with bombing Russia.

Stephen Bryen is senior correspondent at Asia Times. He served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

This article was originally published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack, and is republished with permission.

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asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · September 14, 2024

16. America’s future advantage depends on quick adoption of advanced tech

America’s future advantage depends on quick adoption of advanced tech

Defense News · by Mark T. Esper · September 14, 2024

After more than two years of conflict in Ukraine, it is obvious how lower-cost, more easily producible, advanced technologies — notably unmanned systems — are giving the Ukrainian military an asymmetric advantage against a much larger and more heavily armed foe.

While many aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resemble World War I — trenches, barbed wires, heavy exchanges of artillery — the innovative use of drones has been game-changing. Unmanned systems are altering the character of warfare, and the ongoing integration of AI and robotics will further accelerate this dramatic shift. It is why these were my top modernization objectives during my tenure as Army secretary and secretary of defense.

The potency of unmanned systems is most pronounced when it comes to small aerial drones — essentially robots — that are used today to conduct the same tasks that soldiers performed in the past: reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting and direct attack. But they do it far more efficiently and accurately. For instance, when I was a platoon leader decades ago, it typically took a couple infantrymen to destroy a tank at a max range of 3,750 meters. Today, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can do the same at far greater distances, with better success, and at much less cost.

To date, Ukraine has destroyed over 10,000 Russian vehicles, nearly one-third of which are tanks. Many of these were killed by UAVs. Ukraine has also had great success using unmanned surface vehicles to sink or damage a number of Russian ships in the Black Sea.

The introduction of drone swarms — think of dozens or hundreds of UAVs being employed simultaneously — will make the battlefield more lethal than ever before. From a production perspective, generating such a number is not an arduous task. At a gathering this summer of the Aspen Strategy Group that focused on AI, I co-led a panel discussion where one former U.S. official reported that Kyiv is acquiring well over 50,000 drones a month. The speed and cost at which the Ukrainians can do this compared to the United States is shocking.

As important, because the software on these drones is easily modified, Ukraine’s military can keep up with the changing threats and tactics of the modern battlefield. This is something many of our existing platforms, which are defined — and usually trapped in time — by their hardware, often cannot do. The good news is that this can be remedied with more investment in American innovation and process changes.

AI is also revolutionizing a wide range of administrative and logistical functions far removed from the front lines. It will do what AI does best: improve the speed, accuracy, cost and quality of decision-making. Artificial Intelligence can be used for preventive maintenance to reduce the likelihood of equipment breaking down during the fight; it can ensure the right supplies get to the right place at the right time; it can improve talent management in the force; transform supply chain risk management in the defense industrial base; and the use of large language models can hyperpower military staffs. This is the future for a broad range of ordinary military tasks, in addition to enhancing our warfighters’ effectiveness and survivability on the battlefield.

All this demands that DOD accelerate its across-the-board adoption of AI and advancement of robotics and autonomy. It is an asymmetric advantage the U.S. must master first and retain preeminence over. This means investing far more in these technologies, adopting commercial standards and processes as much as possible, capturing all the department’s data in a central repository, prototyping and testing far more aggressively and showing a willingness to deploy needed systems even when one’s confidence level is less than 100%. At the same time, the Pentagon must continue to do these things responsibly, beginning with the ethical principles for AI that I established in February 2020.

As the war in Ukraine rages on, we must heed the lessons from it and do everything in our power to ensure our military has the advanced AI, robotics and autonomy tools it needs to fight — and win — the battles of tomorrow. Doing so, and with a far greater sense of urgency, will serve us incredibly well in any future conflict; especially if we must face off against our greatest strategic threat today — a People’s Republic of China — with the world’s largest and most concentrated armed forces.

Dr. Mark T. Esper was the 27th secretary of defense and author of the New York Times bestseller, “A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times.” He is also a partner and board member in the AI venture firm Red Cell Partners.

17. The Quad Is Not An Asian NATO – Analysis

Excerpt:

The Quad is not so much a tight alliance as a core group that seeks to enlist the support and cooperation of other states in both military and non-military actions. The notion of a “Quad Plus” captures this well without focusing on membership. The elasticity of this framework incentivizes other states who may want to link to and unlink themselves from specific Quad initiatives as and when useful. Importantly, the open-ended nature of the Quad belies China’s criticism of “enclosed small cliques” that will “destroy the international order.”

The Quad Is Not An Asian NATO – Analysis

September 13, 2024 0 Comments

By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud

eurasiareview.com · September 13, 2024

In March 2021 renowned newspaper The Diplomat printed an article titled The QUAD is not an Asian NATO, but was a reply to security threat posed by China to international order.

China along with Russia replied that QUAD was a fitting reply to the domination by Western powers since the days of the defeat of Japan and her surrender after the nuclear explosion that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the order of then US President Harry Truman. Analysts have been perplexed as to why though Japan was an adversary and the main theater of war was Germany which too was defeated leading to the suicide of Adolf Hitler and subsequent trial of Nuremberg leading to the trial and punishment of the leading military lights of Hitler.

Decades have passed since then and new world has emerged where QUAD has been welcomed as a fitting reply to China’s aggressive behavior in South Asia, and in the disputed areas in South and East China sea. Forgotten are the days of the Rape of Nanking when the US had been an arms supplier to beleaguered China to confront the Japanese. Military developments drew Americans and Chinese closer together.

United States support for China increased dramatically soon after the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). After Japan launched an all-out offensive in China in the summer of 1937, American popular opinion shifted overwhelmingly in China’s favor. Over the next few years, the U.S. Government extended aid to the Nationalist Government, first through credits for purchases and then through the Lend-Lease program. At the same time, it increased pressure on Japan, ultimately enacting an embargo after Japan expanded its military offensive into Southeast Asia. Individual Americans also made important contributions to the Chinese war effort. In addition to providing food, medical care, and the protection afforded by their status as non-Chinese, they tried, with limited success, to raise international support for China by publicizing accounts and pictures of the Japanese assault on Nanjing. While these Americans protected Chinese from the war, others launched a plan to help China fight it.

American aid also appeared in the form of direct combat involvement. Claire Lee Chennault, a retired Army Air Corps pilot, went to China in 1937 and became one of Jiang Jieshi’s military advisers. Together with Chinese officials, he soon began lobbying the U.S. Government for military supplies and support for the Nationalists’ resistance. In 1940, he finally achieved his goal when President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave 100 fighter planes to China and allowed Chennault to recruit pilots from among the U.S. military ranks to fly the planes and train Chinese pilots.

Collaboration between the United States and China

Collaboration between the United States and China reached its zenith after Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The United States no longer had to limit its assistance to China and immediately engaged in a formal alliance to fight the common enemy. President Roosevelt sent General Joseph Stilwell, who had completed several tours of duty in China after World War I, to the wartime capital of Chongqing (Chungking) to serve as a military adviser to the Chinese Government and as the leader of United States forces in the region. Roosevelt funneled as much aid as possible to China to support the anti-Japanese resistance. Franklin Roosevelt also took the symbolic step of making China one of the Big Four allied powers of World War II and one of the ABCD powers (American, British, Chinese, Dutch) fighting Japan in Asia.

In addition, in 1943, the United States abolished its exclusionary immigration laws and joined with Britain in ending extraterritoriality, and in recognizing China’s future sovereignty over Taiwan and Manchuria once Japan was defeated. The combination of U.S. supplies and training and Chinese military forces proved effective in keeping Japan tied down in China for years, while the United States pressed the battle by air and sea. Relations between China and the United States improved during the waning stages of World War II.

Relations after World War II

After Richard M. Nixon took office in 1969 did the United States and the PRC start decisively down the path towards formal relations. From the start of his administration, President Nixon privately signaled his willingness to change American policy toward China and begin a dialogue with Beijing. To do so, he enlisted the leaders of both France and Pakistan as intermediaries. In February 1971, Nixon referred to China as the People’s Republic of China for the first time, and in March the Department of State removed all restrictions on the use of U.S. passports for travel to China.

On April 14, the United States allowed France to ship vehicles with American-made engines to China, breaking the long-time trade embargo. In April, Premier Zhou Enlai replied to a December 1970 message from President Nixon, paving the way for more intense bilateral exchanges. Diplomatic backchannel communications culminated in National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing in July 1971. Kissinger prepared the way for President Nixon’s historic trip to China in February 1972, dubbed by Nixon as “the week that changed the world.” Nixon and Mao agreed on the Shanghai Communiqué, a statement of broad principles rather than a plan for action, and an agreement to begin the process of reestablishing diplomatic ties. In 1973, both governments set up Liaison Offices in the other’s capital. After a prolonged series of talks, the two sides agreed to normalize relations on January 1, 1979, during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Under the terms of this agreement, the United States recognized the PRC as the sole legal government of China, “acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China,” and stated that it would maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.

Deng Xiaoping Visit the USA

In February 1979, Deng Xiaoping became the first leader of the PRC to make an official visit to the United States. Normalization did not mean the end of all disputes; rather, it brought with it a new emphasis on using diplomacy to deal with those disagreements that had previously been handled with generally antagonistic unilateral statements. In fact, these diplomatic channels both kept U.S.-China relations moving forward, and guided the two nations towards areas of growing common interest. The first contact between the PRC and a major American corporation took place even before President Nixon’s visit to Beijing.

During the early years, the Americans sold more goods to China than they bought, since China produced few export products. However, that began to change in September 1975, when a delegation from one of China’s foreign trade corporations visited the United States to get a better idea of the kind of products that Americans would buy. As trade grew from $5 million in 1972 to $142 million in 1978, individual Chinese and Americans began to come in contact with each other. The process of reform and opening initiated by Deng Xiaoping, the de facto leader of China at that time, was the single most important factor in pushing trade to the forefront. In their plans, Deng and other reformers emphasized the acquisition of Western technology to modernize China’s defense and its industrial, and consumer production capabilities. As China developed exchange programs with the United States, it placed the highest priority on such activities as sending Chinese doctors and scientists to the United States for study and training and bringing U.S. engineers to China as advisers.

For China, the most significant trade issue in the 1990s was gaining admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Admission held numerous economic advantages, along with the symbolic value of being included in the world’s largest trading organization. China received Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR—previously MFN status) from the U.S. Congress in May 2000, and entered the WTO the following year. During the second half of the 20th century, the number of Chinese immigrants to the United States grew rapidly. Chinese-Americans made important contributions to academics and research after World War II.

Several Chinese-Americans entered into U.S. national politics at the highest levels. In 1959, Hiram Leong Fong became the first Chinese-American—in fact, the first Asian-American—to serve in the U.S. Congress, when he was elected as a Senator from Hawaii. In 1964, Fong also sought the Republican nomination for President. David Wu became the first Chinese-American to serve in the House of Representatives, when he won the seat for the First Congressional District of Oregon. In 2001, Elaine Chao became the first Chinese- American to hold a cabinet level post in the U.S. Government, when President George W. Bush appointed her as Secretary of Labor. Gary Locke became the first Chinese-American Governor in U.S. history in 1997, when he was inaugurated in the State of Washington.

The Quad’s recent resurgence

The March 12 summit meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, comprising the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, has not been fully grasped by most analysts. The Quad’s recent resurgence – after an abortive start in 2007 – has been driven by uneasiness about the rise of China and the security threat it poses to the international order. Yet there is no direct reference to China, or even military security, in the Quad’s first-ever Joint Statement or the Washington Post op-ed penned by its four leaders.

Commentators often cast it as an “alliance” in the making, perhaps an “Asian NATO.” It is not. Rather, the Quad is designed as a loose-knit network of like-minded partners aiming at a broader purpose. Post-summit statements, which stressed the humanitarian origins of their collaboration in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, set out the group’s uniting principles – democracy, a rules-based order, and a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific – and emphasized its role as a “force for global good.” These provide the broad framework within which the Quad will operate with the aim of shaping global order in an age of transition from the U.S. “unipolar” world to one in which China is seeking a decisive role.

The threat posed by China is at one level military, as evidenced by its proactive pursuit of territorial claims in South Asia, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea. At another, it is economic and technological. China is a pivotal player in global supply chains, most visible today in its major role as a vaccine supplier, a major investor of surplus capital globally through the Belt and Road Initiative, and a rapidly rising technological power. It is this broader aspect of global order that the Quad aims to address, as is clear from two of the joint statement’s specifics, which focus on the establishment of working groups on vaccine development and critical technologies. Both these efforts seek to constrain China’s central position in the global system, but also to develop a world order that is broad-based and inclusive. The third working group being set up is on climate change, an area in which China is a cooperative player and not a competitor, and thus downplays the notion that the Quad is simply an instrument of containment. Together, the three initiatives are designed to create an environment that encourages China to be a positive player and persuades other states to shed their hesitancy toward the Quad.

Though the summit focused on non-military initiatives, the Quad by no means downplays the military dimension. Its members have established the basis for regular defense cooperation through naval exercises, and the sharing of intelligence and military logistics. Adding further heft to previous bilateral efforts, the trilateral India-U.S.-Japan Malabar naval exercises expanded to include Australia last year. The four states have consolidated their military responses by building a set of nested strategic partnership: linking their bilateral relationships with the India-Japan-U.S., India-Australia-Japan, and U.S.-Japan-Australia trilateral.

The Quad is a logical extension of this network and has the potential to build a “Quad Plus” arrangement involving Canada, France (scheduled to join in a five-nation military exercise in April), and perhaps New Zealand and the United Kingdom. With these arrangements doing the heavy lifting on the security front, the Quad has the bandwidth to focus on countering the challenging non-security frontiers of Beijing’s influence.

Addressing the latter, the group has promoted Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure – rechristened the Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure – and introduced the multi-stakeholder Blue Dot Network process, both intended to create a globally recognized evaluation and certification system for investments in sustainable developmental projects in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quad has also prioritized restructuring supply chains to wean them away from Chinese interference.

With China leveraging vaccine diplomacy to a large number of recipient states, the four members have decided to test the Resilient Supply Chain Initiative (conceived by the India-Australia-Japan trilateral) through vaccine production with India as their production hub. If the vaccine initiative is to counter China’s vaccine diplomacy and influence, their cooperation over critical technologies is a second non-military action aimed to undercut the potential of China to achieve a dominant role in telecom and biotech (both mentioned in the joint statement) and other strategically significant areas.

Attention to climate change as a third area of mobilization underlines the interdependence and “global common interest” aspect of our world and demonstrates that this is ultimately an open-ended effort to alleviate a serious universal problem. Therein lies the Quad’s unique selling point: offering value to all states and banking on the network effect that underpins an emerging world order.

The Quad is not so much a tight alliance as a core group that seeks to enlist the support and cooperation of other states in both military and non-military actions. The notion of a “Quad Plus” captures this well without focusing on membership. The elasticity of this framework incentivizes other states who may want to link to and unlink themselves from specific Quad initiatives as and when useful. Importantly, the open-ended nature of the Quad belies China’s criticism of “enclosed small cliques” that will “destroy the international order.”

What does India stand to gain from the Quad?

First, the security dividend will be significant, though not immense since India can take care of the more severe threats to its security, as is evident from the Ladakh crisis, and is already benefiting from bilateral U.S. arms transfers. The Quad will bring additional gains from sharing of intelligence and logistics and from the skills obtained through military exercises. Second, greater gains can be expected from the steady restructuring of regional and global trade and investment relationships, which will reduce India’s dependence on China and bring in increased investment and manufacturing activity. Third, India’s status as a major power will be further enhanced through its expanded role in the making of a redesigned world order less susceptible to Chinese power and associated with more widely accepted values. Above all, India stands to gain from the creation of a more stable, cooperative world which it has the capacity to shape in unprecedented way

eurasiareview.com · September 13, 2024

18. What China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in store for coming decade as priorities evolve

Excerpt: "to link economies into a China-centred trade network"

I think this reinforces my thesis: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions directly and/or indirectly through proxies, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, while displacing democratic institutions.

Belt and Road Initiative

Economy Global Economy

Explainer | What China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in store for coming decade as priorities evolve

Gone may be the days when huge infrastructure projects left partner countries holding a big bill and facing environmental implications

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3278274/what-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-has-store-coming-decade-priorities-evolve

Ralph Jennings

Published: 10:00am, 13 Sep 2024

The Belt and Road Initiative, an ongoing effort to link economies into a China-centred trade network, largely via Chinese-backed megaprojects abroad, has entered a phase that Beijing says involves “small but beautiful” additions.

As the plan to grow global trade approaches its 11th anniversary, the ambitious undertaking is expected to shift away from massive projects that have sometimes been accused of resulting in large debt piles or environmental damage in other countries.

Here are four points of interest and importance for the initiative in the coming decade:

1. High-priority countries

China has present or past agreements with 152 countries to pursue belt and road projects. Belt and road work could eventually cost Beijing US$1 trillion to US$8 trillion over an unspecified period, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank estimated in 2018.

Today, 44 of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, more than in any other region.

Over the next decade, China might shift its focus to Central and Southeast Asia, said Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Central Asian projects help fortify China’s trade links to Europe because of the largely landlocked region’s geography, he explained.

Landlocked countries “can become land-linked”, President Xi Jinping said last year at the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Developed nations are likely to stay out, said John Simon, senior adviser for the Project on Prosperity and Development under the Centre for International & Strategic Studies, a US think tank.

Those countries, he said, see little benefit from China’s initiative, and “the few that have received [belt and road financing] have not had great experiences”, he said. In total, 17 European Union countries have previously taken part. Italy withdraw from the initiative in December.

The [Belt and Road Initiative] will likely become more commercial and aim to position itself distinctly from Western development models

Christoph Nedopil, Green Finance & Development Centre

2. Likely types of project

The belt and road plan will “deepen cooperation” abroad in “green infrastructure, green energy and green transport”, Xi said at a forum for the initiative in October. Hydroelectric, wind and solar energy projects particularly fit into the “new era”, he said.

In Bangladesh, for example, a wind-power project invested by China-based Wuling Power and built by PowerChina Chengdu Engineering will cut coal use by 44,600 metric tonnes, the Shenzhen Daily reported last year.

Xi further forecast cross-border cooperation in science and technology.

Future projects will run less debt risk than earlier ones and would – if small and non-polluting – reduce criticism from abroad about environmental degradation or population resettlements, Menon said.

For instance, in June, Xinhua said that the Namagumba-Budadiri-Nalugugu Road in Uganda’s mountainous eastern region would be upgraded from gravel to asphalt. Chinese construction firm Shandong Luqiao Group is tasked with improving a 39km (24-mile) stretch of the road. The three-year effort will employ more than 600 locals and reduce travel time from one hour to 20 minutes in a region known for its trade in coffee, bananas, potatoes and milk.

In contrast, Chinese contractors built a 472km railway in Kenya in the previous decade.

“Overall, the [Belt and Road Initiative] will likely become more commercial and aim to position itself distinctly from Western development models,” said Christoph Nedopil Wang, director of the Shanghai-based Green Finance & Development Centre.

China’s Belt and Road, 10 years on

3. Top funding sources

China, like Japan and the United States, is shifting to multilateral development banks to find funding for its projects in other countries.

Beijing could go in that direction by tapping the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Menon said. China spearheaded creation of the AIIB in 2016, and the Beijing-based lender now has 109 member countries.

The New Development Bank, established by Brics countries nine years ago, may offer additional help as it seeks resources to build infrastructure in emerging-market economies. The Brics acronym covers Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were admitted this year.

Development banks are set up so that no single member country accepts responsibility for project outcomes.

Hong Kong as a Chinese international finance centre is expected to provide further funding for belt and road projects. Speaking at a summit on Wednesday, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the city contributes to belt and road environmental goals by developing “green tech” and “leveraging our expertise in financial services”.

Expect Middle Eastern investment and construction firms to act as belt and road “partners” as well, Wang said. China has been strengthening relations in the Middle East over the past two years.

Financing from Chinese institutions, at the same time, “should become more strategic and limited” with some from the private sector, Wang added.

4. Opportunities and risks

Smaller and more cautiously financed projects would improve China’s image in belt-and-road recipient countries, analysts expect.

Chinese projects built in foreign economic corridors stand to make money by themselves if those zones are “economically vibrant”, Menon said. Brisk income would make it easier to pay back any construction loans.

One example may be the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The region of Pakistan that is heavily invested in by China is expected to enhance agriculture, industry and tourism, according to the host country’s government.

But even smaller projects run the risk of not being paid back as the Chinese economy struggles to get back on solid footing in its post-pandemic recovery, analysts say.

Belt and road projects such as underused airports and railways in Africa are particularly exposed to unpaid debt, said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at investment bank Natixis.

Last month, officials in Nepal asked China to convert a 1.379 billion yuan (US$193 million) Export-Import Bank of China airport loan into a grant because the 20-month-old project had not generated enough income to pay back the debt, according to Nepali news reports.

“Chinese banks are more likely to continue to focus on fine-tuning specifics of loans already made, to enable cash flows through trade,” said Zha Daojiong, an international studies professor at Peking University.

Ralph Jennings

Ralph Jennings joined the Political Economy desk as a Senior Reporter in August 2022 having worked as a freelancer since 2011. Ralph previously covered news for Thomson Reuters in

19. The US Army put on a sudden show of force out on the far edge of Alaska to send the message it can as Russia and China drill in the Pacific

The US Army put on a sudden show of force out on the far edge of Alaska to send the message it can as Russia and China drill in the Pacific

Business Insider · by Chris Panella

Military & Defense

Chris Panella

2024-09-14T12:36:46Z

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A US Air Force airman guides a M142 HIMARS from the back of a C-17 Globemaster III after landing on Shemya Island, Alaska on September 12, 2024. (US Army photo by Spc. Brandon Vasquez)

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The US Army quickly deployed assets to Alaska's Aleutian Islands amid Russia and China's Pacific naval drills.
The 11th Airborne Division led the event, which included long-range artillery and counter fire radars.
The move sends a clear message to US adversaries, the division's commander said.

The US Army rapidly deployed weapons and soldiers out to the far tip of Alaska in a sudden show of force.

The force projection event, which began this week in the North Pacific, sends a message to American adversaries at a time when key rivals Russia and China are conducting joint naval drills in the Pacific.

In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, the Army's 11th Airborne Division commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert said that the event demonstrates US Army Pacific's ability to move assets adeptly and with little notice into even the most remote locations.

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.

"The Army looks at us to be Arctic experts," Hilbert said, and as a part of US Army Pacific,"we've got to be ready to operate in the region as a part of the land power there."

US Army photo by Spc. Brandon Vasquez)

For the event, the 11th Airborne Division pulled together a range of capabilities from across the US Army, including a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System platoon from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, communications equipment from Hawaii, and a target acquisition radar and an infantry security force from the 11th Airborne Division. The number of soldiers deployed was around 130 for this exercise.

The Army doth protest too much: In Space, jointness must come first - Breaking Defense

In this op-ed, Charles Galbreath and Jennifer Reeves of the Mitchell Institute respond to the Army's thoughts on its role in space.

breakingdefense.com · by Charles Galbreath, Jennifer Reeves · September 13, 2024

Col. Mark Cobos, commander, 1st Space Brigade, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, thanks Chief of Space Operations US Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman and Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna for visiting the brigade headquarters at Fort Carson, Colo., April 10. (US Army photo by Dottie White)

Our Aug. 13 op-ed on the Army’s overreach to create a new space career field and expand its space control capabilities struck a surprising chord, and generated a robust and frankly overdue debate about the Army’s role in space. After reading the Army’s formal rebuttal, visiting soldiers doing space missions, and having many conversations with members of the US Space Command, our takeaway is clear:

The need to clearly understand the distinctions in roles and functions of the various services and combatant commands is foundational to the success of joint operations, and the conversation around the Space Force and its relationships needs to continue for all stakeholders to really understand each other’s stances.

In our discussions since our first op-ed, we have concluded that there are three broad reasons behind the Army’s desire to increase its organic space expertise and capabilities. While these may make sense from a pure Army perspective, it does not mean they fit into the integrated warfighting construct now being pushed by top Pentagon leaders, who understand that joint collaboration is the best way to maximize effectiveness and efficiencies to win.

First, the space missions are just the latest in a pattern of Army actions stemming from what appears to be deep-seated mistrust of other services providing tactically relevant cross-domain support. This sentiment goes back decades and spans multiple military functions. This is why the Army maintains its own uninhabited aerial vehicles for its own “organic” use, of the same class that the Air Force operates for joint force application. This is also why the Army is now spending over $990 million on long-range fixed-wing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft.

At the heart of these efforts is the desire to maintain control. The underlying mindset seems to be that if the Army doesn’t directly control it, they can’t trust it to deliver their desired effects. While it is understandable that an Army commander would feel this way, this is the antithesis of joint integration at a time when no one service will ever fight by itself.

The second major factor is money, and maintaining funding priority in a new warfighting environment. This is clearly the case with the Army’s pursuit of very long-range, theater-capable hypersonic missiles (at over $50 million a shot) in response to China becoming the Department of Defense’s “pacing” threat. Over two decades following 9/11, the Army received $1.3 trillion more than the Air Force, largely thanks to the focus on counter-insurgency operations. Given the nature of the threat and the priority to our nation, this was a justified expenditure. As the preponderance of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army used these funds for missions critical to our defense strategy at the time. They also used this money to modernize their equipment across the entire Army.

But this was not without negative impacts to the other services. A 2022 Mitchell Institute paper describes how other services that were the source of the funding for the Army severely atrophied. As our nation and its military’s attention now shift to China, the relative priority and corresponding funding should likewise shift from the Army back to the Air Force, Space Force, and Navy, to reflect the preponderance of forces that will be involved in a China fight.

Third, there is a breakdown in the joint lexicon for space missions and functions. For example, the Army states its systems are for space control, to “interdict” adversary use of space against their soldiers in combat, as a service-unique requirement. But all service components that comprise a joint task force require protection from adversary space-enabled attacks. This is, in fact, a key element of space superiority and the central role of the Space Force, along with the continued delivery of capabilities and effects such as missile warning, satellite communication, space-based environmental monitoring, and position, navigation, and timing. The Space Force must secure our nation’s ability to deliver space capabilities and effects while denying the same to adversaries.

The Army component of a joint task force—just like every other service component—may have requirements to interdict adversary use of space, but national leaders must clearly understand that space interdiction is simply a facet of space superiority. Trying to achieve it piecemeal would be like trying to achieve localized air superiority with fighters assigned to Army units—it doesn’t work. The current Army rationale is anachronistic when today, the Space Force and US Space Command are now assigned and responsible for performing this mission.

Modern War Requires A Modern Joint Construct

A long-standing mistrust of joint operations, improper budget prioritization, and terminology that is confusing and outdated is a recipe for failure against a peer adversary like China. The Department of Defense must take steps to better align and synchronize joint efforts if initiatives like Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) and the delivery of overwhelming cross-domain effects are to be realized.

The following suggestions are aimed at increasing collaboration and ensuring future joint and coalition operations have the tools and skills to win against any adversary.

1) Most simply, all services should develop new space capabilities consistent with existing joint processes. Right now, that means the Joint Requirements Oversight Committee must validate an existing requirement. Then an analysis of potential non-materiel solutions must conclude that a materiel solution will be necessary to adequately address the requirement. Finally, the Space Acquisition Council must then determine which material solution(s) are necessary and which service will lead the efforts.

As the DoD lead for space integration, the Space Force, through the Space Acquisition Council, must have a leading role in defining the integrated space architecture. Once fielded, regardless of the service operating the system, US Space Command must centrally coordinate space superiority effects. This approach ensures the appropriate allocation of taxpayer dollars, synchronizes operations, and avoids unintentional redundancy.

2) Additionally, all services must prioritize the execution of their existing assigned responsibilities that are critical for joint force operations over those that are parochial. For example, the Army is responsible for base defense and must deliver an effective suite of air and missile defense capabilities essential for all the service component requirements for future conflict. This is an Army mission, and they should fund it. Failing that, the other services should be funded to field active defense systems for their forward operating bases, and the Army budget reduced accordingly.

3) The Department of Defense should conduct a review of existing service and joint publications to ensure doctrine, policy, and organizational roles and responsibilities are consistent with service core missions and appropriate joint agreements. Previous updates conducted immediately after the stand-up of the Space Force had accelerated timelines and happened during a period when the Space Force’s presence in the Pentagon was woefully understaffed. Now five years later, it is time to reassess these documents to ensure they accurately reflect the relationships and responsibilities of all services as they relate to space missions. Guardians assigned to the Pentagon, on the Space Force Staff, Joint Staff, or Office of the Secretary of Defense Staff, should scrutinize the language in policy and ensure service equities are properly addressed.

4) To improve cohesion and trust, the DoD should ramp up joint and coalition exercises and training events that specifically address the role of space operations. It takes practice and repetition to develop trust and refine the operational and tactical effectiveness of joint and coalition operations. When possible, these exercises should employ live jamming and coordination of joint fires to increase realism and refine employment tactics, techniques, and procedures.

5) Congress must ensure the resources and organizations within the Department of Defense are consistent with the spirit and intent of the guidance that created the Space Force and US Space Command. Congress should review joint space programs to verify the DoD is developing them with joint operations in mind and that they have followed the appropriate processes to ensure the most effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

6) The current overlap in perceived service roles in space operations with the Space Force is reason enough for Congress to direct the establishment of a commission, independent from the Department of Defense, to conduct a review of service roles and missions. The last such commission conducted this kind of review in 1994/95, well before the standup of the Space Force. While longstanding agreements should remain in place, new functions and authorities related to space and cyber would benefit from an updated evaluation and agreement.

These are dangerous times. Organizing the DoD to ensure the United States is prepared for future challenges is vital. The discussion on Army overreach highlights the need to properly steward our nation’s resources to maximize effectiveness and lethality in a fiscally responsible and coordinated manner.

There is undoubtedly a role for the Army and all services when it comes to space security. However, the DoD must identify and develop these approaches in a deliberate and coordinated manner, not passively allowing the services to independently and parochially pursue what only they determine is necessary for their own service component purposes.

Charles Galbreath is a retired United States Space Force Colonel, a Command Space Operator with expertise in Missile Warning, Space Control, Space Launch, and ICBM operations, and a Senior Materiel Leader with experience developing advanced technology demonstration and prototype systems.

Jennifer Reeves is a retired United States Air Force Colonel with almost 29 years of active duty, finishing her career as the Chief of the Air Force’s Engine Room, leading the service’s Program Objective Memorandum (POM) build. Immediately prior to joining the Mitchell Institute, Reeves worked for a non-traditional government contractor focusing on creating purpose-built software applications to assist in decision-making in the POM build process.

Both are Senior Resident Fellows for Space Studies at the Mitchell Institute.

breakingdefense.com · by Charles Galbreath, Jennifer Reeves · September 13, 2024

21. Local Government Is Key to the Fight Against Disinformation

Local Government Is Key to the Fight Against Disinformation

TIME · by Michael Vandergriff

State governments, it is sometimes said, are the laboratories of democracy. If so, the rest of the world should make use of the new discoveries that are occurring there in the fight against election disinformation.

2024 is a pivotal year for democracies around the globe with more than half the world’s population going to the polls. However, the unprecedented threat of election-related disinformation looms large, particularly in the United States.

Authoritarian countries like Russia, China, and Iran are leading disinformation campaigns, enhanced by artificial intelligence, to push narratives that undermine democratic governance, exacerbate political divisions, and support strongman and populist leaders. It is also increasingly apparent that foreign actors are poised to ramp up influence operations as Americans head to the polls. While it’s not the only threat in the disinformation landscape, they are certainly ones to be taken seriously, especially as the U.S. prepares for a polarized and divisive presidential election.

With Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a competitive race for the White House, the contest to determine who will secure the presidency is likely be decided by a thin margin of voters in a handful of states. And any widespread disinformation campaign targeting battleground states has the potential to tip the scales or delegitimize election results. Down-ballot races are also at risk.

This comes at a time when the U.S. has also been experiencing a steady decline in local news sources since 2005. Instead, social media has become a crucial aspect of news consumption, and one that amplifies misinformation, leading to increased division, polarization on partisan grounds, and a loss of confidence in our institutions.

The terrain is becoming more treacherous as technology rapidly advances. From AI-generated robocalls that impersonated President Biden to discourage votes in New Hampshire to a manipulated campaign ad shared by Elon Musk on X which used AI to mimic Vice-President Harris.

So, what should we do to protect ourselves from falling victim to disinformation?

The most robust solutions may lie in the hands of states and local governments.

Traditionally, federal agencies take the lead, given their national security mandates, on countering foreign disinformation threats. However, states should not cede the battle on disinformation to federal agencies, but instead take a central role creating a great opportunity to inoculate individuals from falling victim to mistruths and conspiracy theories set loose online.

States and municipalities can complement and bolster national efforts to combat the spread of disinformation through the following measures:

Invest in local media

A number of state governments are taking measures to support local news outlets. Local news is essential to combatting disinformation because in the absence of community centered journalism, many seek information from social media, which has become a well-known vector for the spread of false claims and conspiracy theories. States such as New York have used tax incentives while others, like California, New Mexico, and Washington have established publicly funded fellowship programs for young and aspiring journalists. Illinois is one of the first states in the nation to mandate state agency spend on local news advertisement. While these are a great start, local news outlets are woefully underprepared for an information ecosystem where disinformation can so easily stifle and muddle the truth.

States should prioritize resources for local news organizations so that they can build the capacity to pre-bunk and de-bunk information that floods the online environment, especially when it comes to elections. Debunking claims takes a significant amount of time and resources, one even nationally syndicated news outlets have difficulty in keeping up with.

States can compensate for the stagnating momentum in the global fact-checking ecosystem. By building the capacity for de-bunking at the local level, this can begin to build a network of professionalized journalists dedicated to inundating their communities from being overwhelmed with fake news.

News literacy

Several states have implemented media literacy programs at the middle and high school levels. California, Delaware, and New Jersey have recently passed laws requiring K-12 students to learn media literacy skills— such as recognizing fake news and thinking critically about information they encounter online.

These steps can help prepare younger generations for a media environment where disinformation is constant. However, the same resources need to be made available to adults too, particularly those susceptible to fake news. As technology advances, even those with higher media literacy may even have difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction.

Election security response units

States should develop rapid response election security units within the state executive branch, that work with counties, in coordination with federal authorities, to monitor and detect state-sponsored disinformation campaigns leading up to the election, particularly those which violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This strategy should include the creation of units that counter misinformation campaigns with facts. States could rely on the example set by New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene established a dedicated Misinformation Response Unit to focus on monitoring misinformation, rapidly responding by disseminating accurate information related to vaccine safety.

With the accelerated spread of disinformation supercharged by sophisticated artificial intelligence tools, the federal government is simply far too ill-equipped to tackle this challenge alone. Politics aside, it should be in every leader’s interest at the state and local level to ensure that our democratic process is decided by an informed electorate—free from the influence of foreign powers who wish us harm or to sow chaos and division. Nationwide efforts adopted by states can reduce the spread of misinformation and strengthen our democracy for the better

States have an opportunity to experiment with solutions. We should encourage them to use it.

TIME · by Michael Vandergriff

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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