Quotes of the Day:
"Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. . . . This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.
-John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
"The old terms must be invented with new meaning and given new explanations. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer what they were in the days of the late-lamented guillotine. This is what the politicians will not understand; and that is why I hate them. They want only their own special revolutions- external revolutions, political revolutions, etc. But that is only dabbling. What is really needed is a revolution of the human spirit."
- Henrik Ibsen
"...the predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation."
-Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart (Strategy, 1954)
1. France says drone strike killed leader of Islamic State in Sahara
2. FDD | A New Partnership to Counter China in the Pacific
3. America’s New Anti-China Alliance
4. The Counterterror War That America Is Winning
5. What Would a New US-Philippines Defense Agenda Look Like?
6. US troops are still in Syria and nobody can give a good answer as to why
7. A 9/11 in Space? UK ‘Space Force’ Chief Warns of Increased Threat of ‘Space Terrorism’
8. Generals Should Not Have to Break the Rules to Prevent Nuclear War
9. Opinion | The Downside of High Trust in the Military
10. The Marines Are Looking for a Few Older People
11. Lebanon's new Hezbollah government | Opinion
12. The Center Cannot Hold - Will a Divided World Survive Common Threats?
13. To take on Russia and China, the US Navy is standing up a new unit to do the missions that only SEALs can do
14. French airstrike kills ISIS leader responsible for deaths of 4 U.S. soldiers in ‘decisive’ blow to organization
15. The US Air Force's special operators are hustling to turn their biggest planes into flying boats
16. After 9/11, Good Intelligence is More Important than Ever
17. Can The US Army Transform Without A New Approach to Warfare?
18. Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition
19. Could Multinational Peacekeepers Prevent Worst-Case Outcomes in Afghanistan?
20. Biological Deterrence for the Shadow War
21. New disclosures show how Gen. Mark A. Milley tried to check Trump. They could also further politicize the military.
1. France says drone strike killed leader of Islamic State in Sahara
Thank you France for avenging the death of our soldiers. Does the drone operator get to collect the $5 million. Or were there some HUMINT sources that contributed to Abu Walid al Sahrawi's death?
France says drone strike killed leader of Islamic State in Sahara | FDD's Long War Journal
Abu Walid al Sahrawi pledging allegiance to the Islamic State’s so-called caliph.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced yesterday that Abu Walid al Sahrawi, the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, was killed in a drone strike in August.
Al Sahrawi’s men are prolific insurgents and terrorists. The jihadists under his command launched a series of attacks against African, French and U.S. forces since the group’s formation in 2015.
In Oct. 2017, Al Sahrawi’s fighters ambushed a U.S.-Nigerien patrol outside of Tongo Tongo, Niger. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in the attack. The U.S. government offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on al Sahrawi’s whereabouts as a result.
Al Sahrawi became a key figure in the global rivalry between the Islamic State and al Qaeda.
He first swore bayah (an oath of allegiance) to the so-called caliphate in May 2015. However, the Islamic State did not publicly recognize it until Oct. 2016, when the group’s Amaq News Agency released a short statement acknowledging Sahrawi’s oath, as well as a video of him reading his pledge.
Sahrawi previously served as the spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an al-Qaeda-linked group. In that role, Sahrawi was allied with Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was originally a commander in al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Disagreements with AQIM’s leadership led Belmokhtar to establish his own force in 2012. MUJAO merged with Belmokhtar and his men in 2013 to form Al Murabitoon. But Sahrawi and a cadre of fighters broke away to establish a branch of the Islamic State in Mali just two years later.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of Abu Walid al Sahrawi.
When Sahrawi first announced his oath of loyalty to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, he claimed to do so on behalf of the entire Al Murabitoon group.
However, only some of Al Murabitoon’s fighters joined Sahrawi in defecting to the Islamic State. Jihadists quickly released a statement in Belmokhtar’s name, saying that Al Murabitoon remained in al Qaeda’s camp. Local media reported clashes between Sahrawi’s men and fighters loyal to Belmokhtar in the weeks that followed.
In Aug. 2015, Al Murabitoon’s shura council elected Belmokhtar as the group’s new leader. But after the challenge from Sahrawi and the Islamic State, Belmokhtar’s men reunited with AQIM in late 2015.
Belmokhtar has been reportedly killed on several occasions and his status was murky throughout all of the infighting discussed above. To this day, it is not clear what exactly happened to Belmokhtar.
Regardless, Sahrawi’s group survived the clashes with the al Qaeda loyalists and remained a potent force in the years that followed. The Islamic State’s regional arm operates in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.
Macron’s announcement comes at a time when France’s campaign in West Africa has come under increased public scrutiny. Both al Qaeda and the Islamic State are waging jihad in the region for the purpose of building an Islamic Emirate.
AQIM and allied groups took over much of Mali in 2012, forming a nascent emirate. France then launched Operation Serval, a military campaign aimed at dislodging the jihadists’ proto-emirate, in January 2013. Operation Serval evolved in to Operation Barkhane in mid-2014. French soldiers have continued hunting al Qaeda and Islamic State figures, while also providing support to other local forces, ever since.
France has successfully targeted other senior terrorists throughout its mission. For instance, the longtime leader of AQIM, Abdelmalek Droukdel (a.k.a. Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud), was killed in a June 2020 counterterrorism raid in Mali. The U.S. provided logistical support to the French forces responsible for the operation. The French government described Droukdel as a member of al Qaeda’s “management committee” and as a top deputy to Ayman al Zawahiri after he was killed. Zawahiri, the global head of al Qaeda, finally eulogized Droukdel during a video released on Sept. 11 of this year. Files recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound show that Zawahiri was largely responsible for managing the relationship between AQIM and al Qaeda’s senior leadership during Droukdel’s tenure.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
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2. FDD | A New Partnership to Counter China in the Pacific
Excerpts:
If you read through the transcript of the briefing, you’ll notice something missing: China. There is no mention of Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the People’s Liberation Army or Xi Jinping.
No, to hear the three allies talk, or read their words, one might think they are worried about some abstract threat to international security. That is not the case. AUKUS is mostly about countering the CCP.
Australia is, in many ways, on the frontlines in the great power rivalry between the CCP and the U.S.—not just in terms of geography, but also political ideology. And Canberra’s decision to join AUKUS shows just how alarmed Morrison’s government has become in a very short period of time.
FDD | A New Partnership to Counter China in the Pacific
fdd.org · by Thomas Joscelyn Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD's Long War Journal · September 16, 2021
On September 15, President Biden joined a virtual press conference with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The trio gathered via screens to announce the creation of AUKUS. As Morrison explained, AUKUS is “a new enhanced trilateral security partnership” in which the technological, industrial, and defense sectors of the three nations will work “together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.”
If you read through the transcript of the briefing, you’ll notice something missing: China. There is no mention of Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the People’s Liberation Army or Xi Jinping.
No, to hear the three allies talk, or read their words, one might think they are worried about some abstract threat to international security. That is not the case. AUKUS is mostly about countering the CCP.
Australia is, in many ways, on the frontlines in the great power rivalry between the CCP and the U.S.—not just in terms of geography, but also political ideology. And Canberra’s decision to join AUKUS shows just how alarmed Morrison’s government has become in a very short period of time.
Morrison’s predecessor as PM, Malcolm Turnbull, claimed that Australia didn’t have to choose between Washington and Beijing. “We have a staunch, strong ally in Washington—a good friend in Washington—and we have a very good friend in Beijing,” Turnbull claimed in March 2017. “The idea that Australia has to choose between China and the United States is not correct.”
Initially, Morrison repeated the same formulation. “Australia doesn’t have to choose and we won’t choose,” Morrison said during a press conference in November 2018. “We will continue to work constructively with both partners based on the core of what those relationships are.”
From Canberra’s perspective, Beijing doesn’t look like a “very good friend” or a very stable “partner” today.
During his opening remarks at the virtual meeting this week, Morrison stressed that three AUKUS partners “have always believed in a world that favors freedom; that respects human dignity, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states, and the peaceful fellowship of nations.” The CCP’s diplomats often mimic these same concepts, but clearly Australia doesn’t think they are being honest.
Morrison’s own views were undoubtedly shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and the CCP’s response. Morrison drew rhetorical fire from the CCP’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomats after he called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. This exacerbated relations between the two countries. The Chinese have increased tariffs on imports of many Australian products with outright bans on others, such as rock lobster. Throughout this trade war, Morrison has trumpeted the high volume of economic activity between the two countries, arguing that robust economic ties show there is still “great value in the relationship.” In a purely monetary sense, that is correct: China remains Australia’s top trading partner. But in terms of the other values stressed by Morrison this week, the gap between Canberra and Beijing is widening.
The first initiative undertaken by AUKUS will be to deliver a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The U.K. will play a key role in developing and building the fleet. This will not turn Australia into a nuclear-armed country; the submarines won’t carry nuclear weapons. But the technology will increase the stealth capabilities of the Australians’ submarines.
Naturally, the CCP is outraged.
A reporter asked Zhao Lijian, a CCP Foreign Ministry spokesperson, about AUKUS during a press briefing on Sept. 16. “The nuclear submarine cooperation between the U.S., the U.K., and Australia has seriously undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race and undermined international non-proliferation efforts,” Zhao blistered in response. “The export of highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology to Australia by the U.S. and the U.K. proves once again that they are using nuclear exports as a tool for geopolitical game and adopting double standards.” Zhao also insinuated that Australia was skirting its non-proliferation commitments—a claim the AUKUS leaders flatly reject.
Zhao also returned to a favorite CCP motif—alleging that certain “relevant countries” (meaning the U.S.) adhere to an “outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception.” The CCP often talks in terms of “win-win” relationships, but this rhetoric is self-serving.
China isn’t the only party outraged by the move. So is France. The French had a multibillion-dollar contract in place to deliver diesel-powered submarines to the Australians. Morrison’s government canceled that contract to purchase the nuclear submarines provided by the British.
During the AUKUS press conference this week, President Biden tried to assuage France’s anger. “France, in particular, already has a substantial Indo-Pacific presence and is a key partner and ally in strengthening the security and prosperity of the region,” Biden said. “The United States looks forward to working closely with France and other key countries as we go forward.”
Biden’s words didn’t mollify the French.
“This brutal, unilateral, and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said during a radio interview. “I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.”
The decision to establish AUKUS is another significant milestone in the emerging competition between the U.S. and China. But it is not the only U.S.-led alliance or partnership aimed at containing the CCP. President Biden made it clear that AUKUS will work in concert with the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.), the Quad (a strategic dialogue partnership formed by Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.), as well as various other entities and bilateral arrangements.
But as Prime Minister Morrison made clear, AUKUS is intended to take security cooperation to a “new level.” And the CCP knows exactly what he means.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal. Follow Tom on Twitter @thomasjoscelyn. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Thomas Joscelyn Senior Fellow and Senior Editor of FDD's Long War Journal · September 16, 2021
3. America’s New Anti-China Alliance
Headlines like this play into China's narrative. This is not about countering China. It is about protecting the rules based international order. Of course if China does not want to be a part of that order then the likeminded democracies do have to counter China's malign activities.
Excerpts:
But what last night’s announcement also reflects is the need to shore up a world order that has been left to wither after 20 years of complacency, hubris, and imperial overreach that Brexit and Trump’s election revealed as much as caused. The decision to invite Beijing into the world economic system in 2001 has not led to anything like the more liberal or democratic China that world leaders had envisaged, only a more powerful and more draconian adversary that has grown and grown while the U.S. and its allies (including Britain and Australia) were distracted in the Middle East and Afghanistan. In effect, the U.S. is having to adapt to the new world of Chinese power in order to protect the old “free and open” world of global trade and American supremacy that Washington built after the Second World War.
The shocks of Trump and Brexit in 2016—the year Australia signed its original submarine deal with France—have led, inadvertently and circuitously, to today’s world, where a political consensus now exists in the U.S., Britain, and Australia that Chinese power must be contained.
Taken together, the end of the war in Afghanistan, the pivot against China, and the prioritization of the old Anglo alliances over the EU are all grand strategic moves. “When you make grand strategic moves,” the British official said, “you piss people off.”
The new military alliance to contain Beijing’s rise looks, then, at first glance, like a reassertion of the old order, but it is really one of the first murmurings of a new one taking its place.
America’s New Anti-China Alliance
The White House wants to build a new world order, all in an effort to preserve the old one.
A new world is beginning to take shape, even if it remains disguised in the clothes of the old.
The United States, Britain, and Australia have announced what is in effect a new “Anglo” military alliance. The basics are these: In 2016, Australia struck a deal with France to buy a fleet of diesel-powered submarines, rejecting an Anglo-American alternative for nuclear-powered vessels. In March this year, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (or, “that fellow down under,” as Joe Biden referred to him), began talking with Washington about reversing its decision. Then, last night, in a live three-way public announcement, Biden, Morrison, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed that the Australians would scrap their agreement with France to team up with Britain and the U.S. instead, forming a new “AUKUS” military alliance in the process.
The French response has been apoplectic. The country’s minister of European and foreign affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, called the decision a “knife in the back.” Benjamin Haddad, from the Atlantic Council, in Washington, said it had set relations between the U.S. and France back to their lowest point since the Iraq War. Bruno Tertrais, of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research think tank went even further, calling it a “Trafalgar strike.”
Yet behind the soap opera of French anger and the quiet crowing of les perfides anglo-saxons, sits something much more important: the faint outlines of a new world order, or at least an attempt to start drawing one.
As Karl Marx observed, leaders who try to create something new “conjure up the spirits of the past to their service.” Old language, slogans, and costumes are deployed to present the new scene in time-honored disguise. As such, President Biden went out of his way to praise France and to claim that it remained a “key partner” in the Indo-Pacific. He was also at pains to point out that the submarines that would eventually patrol Australia’s coastline were not nuclear-armed, but nuclear-powered. The U.S., Biden stressed, was not breaking its nonproliferation commitments, but simply strengthening existing alliances.
Indeed, in one reading, the formation of an AUKUS military alliance has a sense of deep continuity. As Biden pointed out, the three nations have fought together for most of the past 100 years and are core members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, alongside Canada and New Zealand. For France, in particular, the announcement only reinforces its belief in the difference between Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world. So much, so similar. (A senior Biden-administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last night that Britain and Australia were America’s “oldest allies.” That might be news to France, which was allied to the nascent U.S. as it fought for independence from … Britain.)
But to view the emergence of AUKUS as a sign of continuity—as its architects have presented it—is to miss the point. Although Biden twice name-checked France in his remarks last night, the country on his mind was the one not mentioned at all: China.
The senior administration official said the alliance was designed to strengthen capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region by anchoring Britain “more closely with our strategic pursuits in the region as a whole.” But what is Biden’s strategic pursuit?
In his statement last night, Biden, while far from being particularly eloquent, set out a vision for a “free and open Indo-Pacific”—in other words, one free of Chinese domination. According to a U.K. official I spoke with, this concept first emerged in Japan and has since been adopted by Australia, another Pacific power that has felt pressure from Beijing. It also fits in with Britain’s own stated pursuit of a peaceful and open international order, as set out in its strategic review this year, which is the centerpiece of Johnson’s foreign-policy vision. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said the move “seriously undermines regional peace and stability,” and the country’s embassy in Washington accused Britain, Australia, and the U.S. of having a “Cold War mentality.”
Biden was keen to stress that AUKUS is an example of an alliance that projects American power, contrasting the development with Donald Trump’s rejection of such global compacts, which the former president saw as freeloading on the U.S. And it is certainly true that the new grouping marks a break from Trump’s “America alone” approach. As one U.K. official put it to me: “Biden’s proposition is that China doesn’t do alliances, but ours have got a bit sleepy.” This is also a move to stabilize an order that Trump rejected. This, then, is a break from Trumpism—even if the French and other Europeans believe that the way they have been treated shows similar contempt.
For those in the U.S. concerned about the country’s imperial overreach, news that it has signed up to yet another alliance in defense of areas of the world far from its shores may seem like a nightmarish déjà vu, just as the argument for strategic retrenchment appeared to be winning following America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden and Johnson see a world of multiple and complementary alliances. Biden, for example, spoke of “the quad” in his statement, the informal grouping of the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia that is another pillar of Washington’s Chinese-containment policy. This marks a contrast to the 20th-century world, one which centered on a continent-wide military alliance to contain America’s then–rival superpower and a globe-spanning trade body. Johnson sees the emergence of today’s world, more ad hoc and nimble, as perfect for post-Brexit Britain, which has—in his mind—unshackled itself from the permanence and inflexibility of the European Union to enter a more “dynamic” world where Britain can react quickly to events, signing up to new alliances such as AUKUS based on its own national interests. (Critics would, of course, point out that EU membership and global alliances are not mutually exclusive—see France.)
But what last night’s announcement also reflects is the need to shore up a world order that has been left to wither after 20 years of complacency, hubris, and imperial overreach that Brexit and Trump’s election revealed as much as caused. The decision to invite Beijing into the world economic system in 2001 has not led to anything like the more liberal or democratic China that world leaders had envisaged, only a more powerful and more draconian adversary that has grown and grown while the U.S. and its allies (including Britain and Australia) were distracted in the Middle East and Afghanistan. In effect, the U.S. is having to adapt to the new world of Chinese power in order to protect the old “free and open” world of global trade and American supremacy that Washington built after the Second World War.
The shocks of Trump and Brexit in 2016—the year Australia signed its original submarine deal with France—have led, inadvertently and circuitously, to today’s world, where a political consensus now exists in the U.S., Britain, and Australia that Chinese power must be contained.
Taken together, the end of the war in Afghanistan, the pivot against China, and the prioritization of the old Anglo alliances over the EU are all grand strategic moves. “When you make grand strategic moves,” the British official said, “you piss people off.”
The new military alliance to contain Beijing’s rise looks, then, at first glance, like a reassertion of the old order, but it is really one of the first murmurings of a new one taking its place.
This story was originally published by The Atlantic. Sign up for their newsletter.
4. The Counterterror War That America Is Winning
Follow the money.
The Counterterror War That America Is Winning
The United States has centered its efforts on invasions and insurgencies. But another campaign appears to be having greater success.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has mounted wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—parts of a War on Terror that has publicly centered on invasions and insurgencies. As evidenced by the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, these militarized counterterrorism efforts have somewhat stalled in recrimination and regret.
At the same time, the U.S. has worked to debilitate terrorist groups through a separate approach, one that appears to be the greater success. It is a battle of financial access, not weaponry, and is led by bureaucrats, not soldiers. This campaign to stop terrorist financing offers more cautious optimism, as well as a path forward: We can use markets, rather than simply militaries, to curtail terrorists in the 21st century.
Trillions of dollars pass through the global financial system every day. Most of these transfers are unremarkable: investors purchasing foreign stocks or migrants sending money back home. But amid the inlays and outlays lurks something more nefarious: money intended for terrorists and criminals.
These illicit funds move alongside legitimate exchanges, passing through sometimes-indifferent financial institutions. A few cross-border transfers—a Gulf prince’s secret offshore account or the hawala vendor down the street—may be all a terrorist group needs to plan its next attack. The Islamic State’s Paris attacks, for example, cost less than $10,000, but killed 128 people.
Large-scale operations take more time, planning, and funds. Al-Qaeda spent close to half a million dollars in the years prior to the 9/11 attacks, much of which went to American bank accounts to purchase flight training and supplies. Yet not a single transfer was flagged as suspicious.
The U.S. has disproportionate market power, claiming the world’s largest economy and its biggest financial sector. Its currency is used in transactions across the globe. And even before 9/11, it had a framework for stopping illicit flows, using laws and regulations to target money from drug cartels and organized crime.
Tackling the kind of small-scale transfers that support terrorism, however, required a new global push.
The initial effort began only days after 9/11. Combatting terrorist financing was declared a top priority, as important as the fight against al-Qaeda itself. The PATRIOT Act forced through new banking laws, laying out a host of financial-transparency requirements: U.S. financial institutions now had to know whom they were doing business with, and screen those clients for potential risks. Banks had become tools of national security.
Treasury officials knew, however, that this approach had an underlying problem. Despite its outsize influence, the U.S. alone couldn’t keep questionable money out of finance. Global banking is like a network of underground tunnels: Plugging one passage only diverts traffic to other routes.
The Bush administration, fond of going it alone in other respects, took to multilateralism to address the issue. In a span of weeks, the U.S. added new names to a United Nations sanctions list targeting al-Qaeda and pushed through an expansive Security Council resolution that required all countries to criminalize the financing of terrorism. In a separate international forum called the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Washington rushed the adoption of special recommendations detailing precisely how countries should stop terrorist financing.
UN Security Council actions are binding under international law, and by acting through the UN, the U.S. forced other countries to freeze the assets of probable terrorists, and to pass new laws and regulations. The PATRIOT Act, meanwhile, gave free rein to the U.S. Treasury to deploy financial coercion; Washington could now maintain its own sanctions list of terrorist threats. And through the FATF, the U.S. could exercise informational power, collecting and disseminating best practices.
Law, coercion, and information were all viable influence strategies, yet all three started and stalled. Countries struggled to implement the UN’s asset freezes and delayed passing counterterrorism legislation. The laws that did pass typically had glaring gaps. Ignoring the FATF’s list of best practices, national parliaments tended to criminalize only illicit flows directly linked to a terrorist act, a significant limitation because, since funds are fungible, monetary support could continue unchecked.
The sanctions route encountered other problems. In the first few years, the Treasury was willing to list a few countries—Ukraine, Nauru, and Burma—over illicit financing concerns. But a decade later, the list was rarely used. The U.S. might have disproportionate financial power, but this couldn’t erase the political costs that accompanied unilateral sanctions: Targeting a few bad apples was fine, but what if the problem was a U.S. ally, as was often the case?
After years of limited progress, the then-34 members of the FATF decided that they needed a better way to fight illicit financing. The organization was monitoring policy, but too many countries were falling behind. It decided it would issue a public list. If a country, such as Turkey or Indonesia, was not doing enough to stop illicit financing, the FATF would publicize it.
Officially, the FATF rarely threatened punishment against listed countries; such efforts were reserved for major problems such as North Korea and Iran. Unofficially, however, the list was a signal for global banks. Listed countries began to face higher banking costs or delays in trade financing. The FATF might have called for few explicit consequences, but banks were stepping in to enforce FATF standards. Panama’s listing, for example, led some international banks to suspend their relations with Panamanian banks. In Thailand, the country’s listing meant diplomats struggled to cash checks.
So while defense officials were planning and carrying out invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Treasury officials were busy transforming the financial system into a place where banks everywhere would screen for illicit flows.
In 2009, more than 80 percent of countries had either no laws criminalizing terrorist financing, or laws with significant holes. Today, nearly every country has a complete legal framework in place. The FATF accomplished what law and unilateral coercion could not: a drastic shift in the way countries approach terrorist financing.
Market enforcement is predicated on an acute understanding of power in the modern era. Seventy years ago, the U.S. government used financial assistance to Europe to balance against the Soviet Union. The plan linked economic growth and trade with long-term security gains. Fast-forward to today, and those linkages have evolved into a global system in which governments fear the everyday caprices of international finance and trade more than the remote possibility of another world war.
Those who have the power to influence markets, thus, have the ability to change the world. The U.S. has dominated this space for many years, but policy makers don’t seem to be aware of the power they possess. Conversations about national security remain focused on weapons systems and alliances; ones focused on climate change suggest a passive acceptance of the status quo. But markets possess their own kind of influence and authority that can be wielded to great effect.
American power is slowly declining, the global stage gets more crowded each year, and nontraditional solutions are more essential than ever. One such solution, market enforcement, has a deep and widespread global reach. Its impact, however, is predicated upon a multilateral approach. By acting through the FATF, the U.S. has avoided many of the political costs that would make it difficult to pressure allies to combat illicit financing. American regulators might shape bank incentives, but the economic clout of the FATF membership ensures that banks around the world are part of this effort.
Multilateralism may also help protect market enforcement from itself. Market power, once unleashed, is not easy to control. When governments tinker with profit functions, they signal priorities that can undermine other important values. The fight against illicit financing means banks are less willing to support low-yield clients. So the rules that make it more difficult for a supporter to funnel money to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab have also made it harder for ordinary Somalis to receive aid and remittances. What costs are acceptable? And how can they be minimized? Such conversations cannot be had without broad engagement.
U.S. counterterrorism policy has left us all with many regrets. We cannot undo the mistakes of the past two decades, nor can we make what is happening right now in Afghanistan less painful to watch. But by understanding the shape of all things possible, we can honor those who died.
For too long, the U.S. government has viewed national security as best achieved through war, bombings, and coercion. But we are in a different era, and the policy solutions of the past 100 years are ill-suited for 21st-century threats. Market enforcement may be a key for pushing us into a new foreign-policy moment. Only by seeing our successes can we avoid repeating our failures.
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5. What Would a New US-Philippines Defense Agenda Look Like?
And we have to be careful and shape this with the post Duterte family regime mind. We cannot allow the agenda to be shaped by the Duterte regime. Fortunately there are good people like DEFMIN Lorenzana and NSA Esperon to be the adults in the room.
Excerpts:
To be sure, advancing this will not be without its challenges. New initiatives – whether they be joint vision statements or new infrastructure projects under EDCA – will need to be properly prioritized, resourced, and overseen to ensure progress. And even if progress is achieved on these specific items, their implementation will also occur amid the management of broader issues within the alliance, which include not just Duterte’s impulses, but also shifting domestic and regional dynamics such as intensifying U.S.-China competition and the upcoming Philippine elections and U.S. midterms in 2022. Unexpected developments could also intervene, not just on issues within the region such as the South China Sea but also with respect to fallout from events such as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has already intensified terror fears in Southeast Asia.
Yet the emerging effort to chart out a U.S.-Philippine defense agenda to address a new, diverse array of challenges is nonetheless worth being attentive to. Even as U.S. policymakers build out new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region such as those with Vietnam, progress in some of Washington’s older treaty alliances, such as the Philippines, could have implications not just for both sides, but also for Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region more generally.
What Would a New US-Philippines Defense Agenda Look Like?
Both sides are outlining an agenda that attempts to modernize the alliance in the face of new challenges.
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Last week, the defense chiefs of the United States and the Philippines met in Washington, D.C. in the latest high-level consultation between the two treaty allies since U.S. President Joe Biden took office earlier this year. While the talks were part of a process of ongoing interactions, they also signaled efforts to chart out new agenda items for the U.S.-Philippine alliance that bear watching for both countries and the region more generally in the context of lingering challenges for both sides.
The U.S.-Philippine alliance – enshrined in the 1951 U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty and part of a wide range of U.S. engagements with the Philippine people and a long history dating back to U.S. conquest of the Philippines in 1898 – has remained a key piece of U.S. defense engagement in the Asia-Pacific, despite facing its share of ups and downs over the decades. The rise of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had seen an uptick in friction between the two allies, with Duterte reversing Philippine positions on issues such as the South China Sea, strengthening ties with China and Russia and threatening to nix areas of cooperation, including the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
U.S. President Joe Biden’s entry into office presented an opportunity for both sides to recalibrate their relationship, including in the area of defense. While consultations on this score have been ongoing since the administration took office, signs of renewed optimism entered the public sphere during U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to the Philippines in July, during which both sides agreed to a restoration of the VFA.
Last week, the U.S.-Philippine defense relationship was in the spotlight again with a meeting between Austin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. The talks took place as part of a series of consultations between Washington and a visiting Philippine delegation led by Lorenzana and Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, which officials indicated included engagements with U.S. agencies including the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, as well as segments of the think tank, business, and Philippine-American communities.
Unsurprisingly, not much in the way of specifics was publicly disclosed by either side. Yet a readout of the meeting between the two noted that both sides had agreed to undertaken “a number of new initiatives” to ensure the alliance “is postured to address new and emerging challenges.” These included developing a joint vision statement, concluding a bilateral maritime framework, reconvening a Bilateral Strategic Dialogue (BSD) and resuming projects under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). While these are far from surprising individual initiatives, taken collectively, they hold significance in that they suggest an effort to outline an agenda to modernize the alliance amid new challenges.
The references to a joint vision statement and a bilateral maritime framework both point to new areas of collaboration within the alliance, even though no further specifics were publicly disclosed. If reached, a U.S.-Philippine joint vision statement of some kind would provide an opportunity for both sides to align broadly on priority areas of collaboration, as Washington has done in the past with other Asian allies and partners, such as Thailand, rather than working through narrow issues in a transactional fashion.
A formalized bilateral maritime framework would take into account the shifting dynamics within the alliance and in the region, including Washington’s evolving military presence, China’s maritime posture, and Philippine capabilities, which the Pentagon has already been evaluating as the Biden team shapes its overall approaches to China and the Indo-Pacific, which have also yet to be publicly disclosed.
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The references to BSD and EDCA are the two items that signal more continuity but are nonetheless notable for their own sake. The reference to the BSD is a nod to a high-level mechanism that situates defense-related issues within the overall alliance in the spirit of comprehensive cooperation in the face of challenges such as the pandemic and climate change – which could be boosted as well with a new “2+2” ministerial meeting held next year (a “2+2” meeting was introduced in 2012 but has rarely been held since). The reference to resumed EDCA activity speaks to both, one of the tangible manifestations of unrealized defense cooperation amid U.S.-Philippine alliance tensions under Duterte as well as a potential avenue for advancements in security ties.
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To be sure, advancing this will not be without its challenges. New initiatives – whether they be joint vision statements or new infrastructure projects under EDCA – will need to be properly prioritized, resourced, and overseen to ensure progress. And even if progress is achieved on these specific items, their implementation will also occur amid the management of broader issues within the alliance, which include not just Duterte’s impulses, but also shifting domestic and regional dynamics such as intensifying U.S.-China competition and the upcoming Philippine elections and U.S. midterms in 2022. Unexpected developments could also intervene, not just on issues within the region such as the South China Sea but also with respect to fallout from events such as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has already intensified terror fears in Southeast Asia.
Yet the emerging effort to chart out a U.S.-Philippine defense agenda to address a new, diverse array of challenges is nonetheless worth being attentive to. Even as U.S. policymakers build out new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region such as those with Vietnam, progress in some of Washington’s older treaty alliances, such as the Philippines, could have implications not just for both sides, but also for Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region more generally.
6. US troops are still in Syria and nobody can give a good answer as to why
Hmmm... Terrorism, ISIS, Assad, Oil, Iraq. Iraq, Lebanon, GPC with Russia? ... and probably some more.
US troops are still in Syria and nobody can give a good answer as to why
The roughly 900 U.S. troops who are currently deployed to Syria are mostly invisible to Congress, the media, and the American public.
Syria is just the latest forgotten battlefield in the Global War on Terrorism. The troops who went there have succeeded in destroying the Islamic State group’s former caliphate, but ISIS fighters are waging the type of insurgency that the American military has a bad track record of defeating.
For the time being, American forces are keeping a lid on the situation and protecting their Kurdish allies from Turkey, who considers them terrorists. But the mission is stuck in neutral. There seem to be no prospects for victory on the horizon but a withdrawal could be catastrophic for the Kurds.
It is long past time for President Joe Biden’s administration to figure out what exactly American troops in Syria need to accomplish and how they can leave without leaving Kurdish allies on the ground to be slaughtered. As long as the mission drifts aimlessly, there is a very real risk that U.S. troops could be drawn into a catastrophic situation, such as the 2017 ambush in Niger that left four brave American soldiers dead, or the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 service members.
These terrible episodes show what can happen when U.S. troops are placed in harm’s way on ambiguously defined missions that are justified by the belief that America must fight terrorists wherever they are.
A U.S. Army soldier sips tea passed out by local residents as his commanding officer and allied troops meet with local villagers on May 26, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
How did we get here?
There’s no question that the Syrian Democratic Forces bore the brunt of the fighting against ISIS, but the U.S. government’s tactical alliance with the YPG put it at odds with Turkey, a NATO ally. The YPG is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is Turkey’s sworn enemy and designated as a terrorist group by the United States.
It was not the last time that Trump tried to withdraw from Syria. Yet after many twists and turns, the U.S. military’s presence in Syria has endured even though the Islamic State group no longer controls any territory in that country – the original reason why American forces were deployed there.
A girl runs past a U.S. Army Oshkosh M-ATV Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle on May 26, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. U.S. forces, part of Task Force WARCLUB operate from remote combat outposts in the area, coordinating with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in combatting residual ISIS extremists and deterring pro-Iranian militia. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
While a senior administration official said the U.S. service members deployed to Syria are part of a broader effort to combat ISIS and al Qaeda, the unspoken truth is that if American troops do have a mission there, it’s protecting their Kurdish allies from Turkey, which views the Kurds as terrorists.
A whole lot of things can go wrong
The tension between the Kurds and Turkey has long been a powder keg, but instead of having just one fuse, it has several and there’s a bunch of people standing around with matches.
The situation has almost come to a head at least once, and nearly derailed the U.S. military’s entire mission in Syria. All hell broke loose when Turkey invaded northeastern Syria in October 2019 to push Kurdish fighters away from its border. Videos quickly appeared online showing Turkish-backed militia executing Kurdish prisoners.
A boy peers though the scope of a U.S. Army soldier’s weapon on patrol on May 26, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. U.S. forces, part of Task Force WARCLUB operate from remote combat outposts in the area, coordinating with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in combatting residual ISIS extremists and deterring pro-Iranian militia. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Even though the ISIS caliphate no longer exists, several experts said having American troops in Syria continues to serve a strategic purpose.
ISIS sleeper cells remain active in northeastern Syria and U.S. troops continue to help Syrian Democratic Forces with planning missions, logistics, and providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance as well as airstrikes when needed, said Army Col. Wayne Marotto, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. troops also help Syrian Democratic Forces detain captured ISIS fighters “securely and humanely” by repairing and renovating detention facilities and providing other support, said Marotto, who referred to ISIS by the Arabic acronym “Daesh.”
“Our mission in NE [northeast] Syria remains the enduring defeat of Daesh,” Marotto said. “The Coalition supports our partner’s efforts in degrading the capabilities of Daesh, such as finance, recruitment, ideological influence and communication to ensure their enduring defeat in NE Syria.”
A U.S. Army gunner mans the turret of a patrol vehicle on May 26, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. U.S. forces, part of Task Force WARCLUB operate from remote combat outposts in the area, coordinating with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in combatting residual ISIS extremists and deterring pro-Iranian militia. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The U.S. military’s presence also allows the United States to maintain its influence in both eastern Syria and Iraq and deter Iran, said retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who led U.S. Central Command from March 2016 until March 2019.
“Moreover, it keeps us engaged on the topic of ISIS, and other VEOs [violent extremist organizations], and especially detained fighters – whose disposition is still not finally determined,” Votel said. “Finally, I think our presence is about showing support for a partner that was very valuable to us.”
These types of encounters rarely make it into the American news cycle, allowing members of Congress to ignore the dangers that U.S. forces in Syria face. In fact, after Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, the White House issued talking points to Democrats that incorrectly claimed there are no U.S. troops in Syria as well as Libya and Yemen.
America’s next forgotten war?
During a recent Senate hearing on Afghanistan, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) proudly declared, “I am relieved that for the first time in 20 years, children being born in this country today are not being born into a nation at war.”
Sen. @timkaine: "I am relieved that for the first time in 20 years children being born in this country today are not being born into a nation at war." pic.twitter.com/2ZAJYZBw0O
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 14, 2021
Kaine and other elected leaders either don’t know or don’t care that American troops are still at war in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in the world. And even though no U.S. forces are in Somalia any longer, the military still launches airstrikes there.
These battlefields are only covered by cable news when something truly disastrous happens, such as the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Despite the neat partisan narrative that America is now a country at peace, the war on terrorism continues every day, even if politicians have convinced themselves that the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was a strategic game-changer.
And so the question remains: How long can the military’s mission in Syria stay off Washington’s radar?
While U.S. troops in Syria are preventing eastern Syria from devolving into chaos – which would help ISIS return in strength – they are “merely buying time,” said Jennifer Cafarella, the national security fellow at the Institute for Understanding War research institution in Washington, D.C.
“The U.S. deployment in eastern Syria is sustainable only so long as no actor significantly increases pressure on them,” Cafarella said. Iran’s proxies have begun to escalate against U.S. forces in eastern Syria and could scale up a campaign of rocket and drone attacks in Syria if all U.S. forces do not leave Iraq by the end of the year.”
“Russia is also harassing U.S. forces and seeks to undermine the SDF by fueling tribal resistance that risks destabilizing liberated areas,” she continued. “Finally, the risk of another Turkish incursion into Syria remains high and could provoke a regional escalation between Turkey and the PKK.”
For the time being, Syria will hold the title as America’s latest forgotten war in a growing list of them.
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7. A 9/11 in Space? UK ‘Space Force’ Chief Warns of Increased Threat of ‘Space Terrorism’
Hmmm.... maybe SOF will need to provide some space shuttle door gunner (Apologies. I could not resist an attempt at humor.)
Seriously though. Just imagine what terror would happen if someone took down the GPS - no more Google maps and WAZE and no one would find their way anywhere. Sheer terror.
A 9/11 in Space? UK ‘Space Force’ Chief Warns of Increased Threat of ‘Space Terrorism’ - American Defense News
The rise of cheaper, smaller satellites, and civilian access to space is dramatically increasing the threat of future space terrorism, according to the head of the UK’s new Space Force equivalent – the Space Directorate. Air Vice Marshal Harvey Smyth spoke at the DSEI 2021 conference in London Sept. 14, just days after the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States.
The decreasing cost of launch and the increasing capability of relatively cheap, small satellites makes it easier than ever for governments, corporations and academics to access space. This development has been hailed for the possibilities it’s introduced in the commercial and defense spheres, but Smyth argued that it also opens up new challenges.
Referencing the 9/11 terror attacks, Smyth noted:
We all have witnessed what happens, and what particularly happens when the air domain became accessible to all — terrorists turned airliners into weapons. If such a trend holds true for space, when will we have to deal with our first example of space terrorism? And are we prepared for such a dramatic strategic shock?
The cost of access to space has fallen dramatically throughout this last decade, from $20,000 per kilogram to less than $2,000 today, with an aspiration to get below ten with an end point of $2 per kilogram. Pretty much anyone can now access space, and with this accessibility can come potential threat.
Following the U.S. creation of the Space Force under President Trump, the UK has reorganized its military space efforts over the past 18 months. As part of this effort, it established the Space Directorate, led by Smyth, to coordinate all government space activities.
It also created UK Space Command this year to oversee space-related defense programs and forces.
Smyth concluded:
We have a much more ambitious and new broad ranging defense space program, way beyond where we were 20 months ago — which was effectively centered on Skynet alone — with an approved and new funding profile which focuses on space domain awareness, globally secure SATCOM in the form of next generation Skynet, digitally networked architectures, multi-spectral [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] constellations and specific protect and defend capabilities, alongside a federated space education and training program. ADN
Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Defense News. A defense and national security expert, he served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. Paul holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. He is also CEO of SPECTRE Global Risk, a security advisory firm, and President of the Center for American Defense Studies, a national security think tank.
8. Generals Should Not Have to Break the Rules to Prevent Nuclear War
We will be discussing this for years to come. Questions about this will be asked at the next chairman's confirmation hearing.
Generals Should Not Have to Break the Rules to Prevent Nuclear War
Rather than criticizing Milley, we need to change the policy that put him in an impossible spot.
Just after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Gen. Mark Milley faced an impossible choice: should he allow President Trump to retain sole authority to start nuclear war, or should he intervene to block such an order?
Convinced that Trump had suffered “serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election,” Gen. Milley decided to intervene, ordering his staff to come to him if they received a strike order from the president.
"No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," Milley told the officers, according to Peril, a new book by journalist Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “You never know what a president's trigger point is.”
But Gen. Milley—though chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president’s chief military advisor—is not formally part of that procedure. As former Defense Secretary Bill Perry and I explore in our book The Button, policy established during the Cold War puts decisions about the use of nuclear weapons are solely in the hands of the civilian president, not Congress and above all not the military. All the president needs to do is call the Pentagon’s War Room—using the nuclear “football” or some other means—then identify himself and give the order to launch. The president may choose to consult with senior advisors such as Gen. Milley but is not required to.
If the Woodward-Costa report is accurate, therefore, Gen. Milley was breaking the rules and his actions were likely illegal and unconstitutional. (His spokesperson has said that the general “continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution.”) And his efforts might not have worked anyway, since his staff could still have chosen to honor the president’s orders over the general’s.
Even so, it was the right thing to do. Should Gen. Milley have let a clearly unstable president start nuclear war just to follow protocol? Of course not.
Not surprisingly, Milley has come under fire for this, and for his calls to reassure China about Trump’s intentions. The former president, for one, called his former military advisor’s actions “treason.” But rather than criticizing the general, we need to change the policy that put him in an impossible spot.
Unfortunately, under existing policy the only way to safeguard the nuclear arsenal from an unstable president is not to elect one. Once in office, the president gains the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president can unleash hundreds of atomic bombs, or just one. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say, and Congress has no role.
In retrospect, voters should never have entrusted Trump with the power to end the world. But do we really think any president should have this power? By now, it should be clear that no one person should have the unilateral power to end our civilization. Such unchecked authority is undemocratic, unnecessary and extremely dangerous.
For the past five decades, every president has traveled with a briefcase known as the nuclear football containing the codes that allow the president—on his sole authority—to order the launch of the nuclear arsenal even if we have not been attacked. Yet that awesome ability comes with grave dangers. Would any president be able to make a wise decision under such crushing time pressures? What if it were a false alarm? How would the president know? And what if the president was mentally unstable?
We came close to blundering into nuclear war several times during the Cold War. False alarms, in particular, are a real and growing concern because our weapons and warning systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks. If the president launches nuclear weapons in response to a false alarm, he would start World War III—by mistake.
Sadly, we cannot assume that we will never have another president as unqualified as Trump. There are numerous politicians competing to be Trump’s political heir. Trump himself could run again, and his children have political ambitions. Nor can we assume that future generals will stand up to them.
Trump is not the first president to trigger these concerns. There is always some chance that the president might be delusional (like Trump), drink to excess (like Richard Nixon), or engage in some other activity that could cloud his or her judgment. In fact, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger was worried that Nixon might order an impulsive nuclear attack and, like Milley, directed that all orders should go through him.
How many times do we need to see this play out before we realize that next time we might not be so lucky? President Joe Biden needs to fix the system for himself and all future presidents.
First, Biden should announce he will share authority to use nuclear weapons first with a select group in Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war, not the president. The first use of nuclear weapons is clearly an act of war.
Second, Biden should also declare that the United States will never start a nuclear war and would use the bomb only in retaliation. Biden has said that he supports a declaration that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter their use by others. This is a sensible position, and such a policy could also be designed to prohibit first use, including preemptive nuclear attacks and launches on warning of attack. These scenarios dangerously increase the risk of starting nuclear war by mistake.
Such policies would provide clear directives for the military to follow: A launch could be ordered only if the nation had already been attacked with nuclear weapons or if Congress had approved the decision, providing a constitutional check to executive power. Both would be infinitely less risky than our current doctrine.
Biden must limit presidential authority to start nuclear war before the next dangerous president gets elected. We must never again entrust the fate of the world to just one fallible human. This is not about “good” vs “bad” presidents. This is about making good policy that can keep us alive regardless of who voters happen to put in the White House.
9. Opinion | The Downside of High Trust in the Military
Blind trust perhaps. We need sufficient trust in the military just as we need trust in the executive, legislature, and the courts and of course sufficient trust in the civilian control of the military.
And I would say that all military professionals welcome robust civilian control (of course they also want effective policy goals, well articulated end states, missions, and tasks from the civilian leadership).
Excerpts:
So what can be done? We would benefit from efforts to demystify the military and re-emphasize the role of civilian policymakers. Making military bases less isolated from their surrounding communities and more accessible to civilians — as the congressionally mandated National Commission on Military, National and Public Service recommends — could be part of a strong foundation for such a change. The Defense Department could also do more to publicize the role of civilians in the conduct of the nation’s wars and emphasize the degree to which the day-to-day experience of many military jobs is relatable to civilians.
In the long term, as difficult a challenge as it may be, we should make every effort to shore up confidence in civilian democratic institutions and to elevate other forms of public service, which can be done without denigrating military service.
Any real solution will require political will on the part of America’s civilian leaders, who must publicly own the value decisions that can legitimately rest only on their shoulders.
Opinion | The Downside of High Trust in the Military
Guest Essay
The Downside of High Trust in the Military
Sept. 16, 2021
Credit...Jasper Rietman
By Jessica D. Blankshain and
Ms. Blankshain and Mr. Margulies have written extensively about national security, foreign policy and civil-military relations.
With the United States military withdrawn from Afghanistan, we are faced with many pressing questions, among them: How and why did we engage in war for so long with so little to show for it?
A common explanation blames the American public for inattention and indifference to the war’s lack of progress. At the heart of this alleged public apathy is an ever-widening gap between the military and the society it serves: When the public is almost totally insulated from the human and financial costs of war, it has no reason to care. Call this the “the military is at war, Americans are at the mall” theory. For those who hold this view, the solution is to make Americans pay the costs of war more directly, through a draft or explicit war taxes or both.
We’re not persuaded by this argument. First, the perception that most Americans are “at the mall” is not new. “Off the base, it was as if there was no war taking place,” one veteran said of Korea, America’s original “forgotten war” (despite the use of the draft and a large number of veterans in the population). “The war wasn’t popular, and no one wanted to hear anything about it.” Second, policymakers are unlikely to implement policies like a war tax or draft in a way that imposes substantial political costs, as American experience in Vietnam demonstrated. Finally, the logic of this argument — which shames the public while putting the military on a pedestal — may actually be making things worse.
We see a different civil-military relations problem — one that American experience in Afghanistan and the past 20 years of American foreign intervention have made painfully clear. The fundamental problem is a yawning gap between trust in the military and trust in civilian institutions of government.
For decades polls have shown that Americans trust the military more than most other institutions. One recent survey found that Americans were significantly more likely to say that the military has done a good job in Afghanistan over the past 20 years than to say the same of any relevant presidential administration.
This trust gap suggests at least a partial explanation for the longevity of the war in Afghanistan. As Phil Klay, a U.S. Marine veteran, argued in 2018, one reason the public doesn’t critically engage with military policy is that civilians have been convinced that they should defer to those with military experience and that criticizing the wars is akin to failing to support the troops.
It’s true that public opinion polling has suggested that the war in Afghanistan has not been popular for some time — but it does not show that the public has overwhelmingly turned against the war. Even if Americans were not enthusiastic about the war, they did not impose those preferences on elected officials or organize large-scale protests. This is consistent with the detrimental effects of the trust gap: Excessive deference to the military has made Americans less willing to weigh in on public debates where they believe they lack expertise or moral standing.
The post-Vietnam shift to the all-volunteer force layered new recruiting and retention incentives on top of an already large standing military. A result has been concerted efforts both to reassure Americans that such a force does not threaten civilian control by emphasizing the military’s professional, apolitical nature and to attract recruits and public support by emphasizing the special honor and status associated with military service.
At the same time, confidence in civilian institutions, and particularly in politicians, has plummeted. Civilian policymakers and politicians have exacerbated the trust gap by attempting to turn the military’s popularity to their own advantage, using the military and military advice as either a shield to defend their policy choices or a weapon to attack their opponents. Studies have found that public opinion on military and foreign policy is sensitive to perceptions of military recommendations and that civilian leaders are willing to defer to the military when it is politically useful. So military expertise has been favored over civilian expertise, and criticism of the military has been understood to be politically unacceptable.
Presidential decisions about Afghanistan were often framed in terms of their accordance with military advice. For example, debate over President Barack Obama’s troop “surge” in 2009 was shaped in part by the leak of a grim review of the situation in Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And many observers believe that in 2017, “Trump’s generals” persuaded him to send more troops to Afghanistan.
There is some evidence that military leaders and veterans are less willing than civilians to initiate use of force but, once it is engaged, prefer higher levels of it. It is not surprising that military leaders would be reluctant to give up on a mission their organization had invested so much in. But the issue is not the content of the military advice itself — there were certainly plenty of voices in civilian policy circles supporting a continued effort in Afghanistan.
The bigger concern is that in the context of the trust gap, this framing suggests that the public should be concerned not with evaluating the policy itself but rather with whether the military gets its way. Military expertise has an important place in sound policymaking. But in a democracy, it cannot be substituted for value judgments made on behalf of society by their elected leaders.
In addition, service members and veterans have a perceived moral competence. There is a perception that their service and sacrifice mean they have earned the right to weigh in on conflicts in a way civilians have not. But this impulse risks downplaying the importance of other forms of public service and civic engagement.
These troubling “trust gap” trends may have far-reaching effects. When the military is seen as the most competent, trustworthy government institution, it becomes tempting to invite the military to undermine civilian control and democratic governance. This was evident in public speculation about the role the military might play in adjudicating or enforcing the 2020 presidential election and in recent reports that largely portray Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a check on an out-of-control president in the final days of the Trump administration.
So what can be done? We would benefit from efforts to demystify the military and re-emphasize the role of civilian policymakers. Making military bases less isolated from their surrounding communities and more accessible to civilians — as the congressionally mandated National Commission on Military, National and Public Service recommends — could be part of a strong foundation for such a change. The Defense Department could also do more to publicize the role of civilians in the conduct of the nation’s wars and emphasize the degree to which the day-to-day experience of many military jobs is relatable to civilians.
In the long term, as difficult a challenge as it may be, we should make every effort to shore up confidence in civilian democratic institutions and to elevate other forms of public service, which can be done without denigrating military service.
Any real solution will require political will on the part of America’s civilian leaders, who must publicly own the value decisions that can legitimately rest only on their shoulders.
Jessica D. Blankshain is an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Max Z. Margulies is the director of research and an assistant professor at the Modern War Institute at West Point. (The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Department of Defense, U.S. Naval War College, West Point or any other agency of the U.S. government.)
10. The Marines Are Looking for a Few Older People
This could bring about some radical change in Marine culture.
The Marines Are Looking for a Few Older People
The Corps’ shift to a lighter, distributed force requires skills and judgment that may be easier to recruit than build, training chief says.
The Marines are looking for a few older people—at least, a few years older than typical recruits. That’s because the Corps will need troops with new combinations of tech skills and mature judgment to meet the challenges and threats expected by 2030, according to the service’s trainer-in-chief.
“If we think about what the Commandant is asking us to do as part of the inside force—a force that will live, compete, contest, and then have to possibly transition to crisis and conflict later on—we need very, very intelligent Marines,” Lt. Gen. Kevin Iiams, who leads the Marine Corps’ Training and Education Command, said during Defense One’s State of Defense event Thursday.
This new level of critical thinking is needed to meet Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030 vision, which seeks to reorient the Corps toward expeditionary and distributed maritime operations. Iiams said these concepts will require Marines who can operate on their own in remote locations, thinking strategically as well as tactically.
“Have we trained that individual properly to understand the ramifications of ‘do I pull the trigger? Do I not pull the trigger?’ Do I know what I need to know to execute mission-type orders and carry out the nation's bidding based on what I have seen and what I think is going to happen?,’” he said.
Iiams said the Corps would be looking at ways to bring current Marines up to speed. But part of the solution may be simply to bring on people who have a bit more life experience. The average leatherneck is younger than troops in other services.
“We need them to be older to make these mature decisions. What I would tell you is, that is one answer that could cost us quite a bit of money as we pay higher salaries for more senior Marines, unless we can figure out a way to train young Marines better, stronger, faster from the outset,” he said.
Iiams said the Corps was thinking about ways to recruit people with skills developed in the civilian world, and paying them more to entice them to join up.
He asked the defense industry to consider an opportunity to allow people to spend a few years in the military and then return to their job as a means to share talent with the civilian world.
Iiams is also looking for a “healthy discourse” with the defense industry to hear ideas on solutions in several areas the Marines can use some help in such as: communications, the electromagnetic spectrum, energy, advanced sensors like antennas, transporting personnel, robotics, and machine learning.
“So we would love to hear great ideas from industry on what they think might be solutions in these fields. We'd also like to hear from the defense industry [on] things that they're working on that might be of use to us that we haven't even thought about,” he said.
11. Lebanon's new Hezbollah government | Opinion
Excerpts:
The U.S. posture is overdetermined both by its policy of realignment with Iran and by its Lebanon policy. The U.S. conceit in Lebanon is to prevent "state collapse" through investment in "strengthening state institutions," which Washington maintains will "counter Hezbollah's narrative." Exactly what this gibberish means is anyone's guess. What is clear, however, is that a policy of propping up a Hezbollah-run "state" is, by definition, a pro-Iran policy.
France's emerging partnership with Hezbollah belies the American pretense of distinguishing between Hezbollah and a distinct "Lebanese state." In its statement welcoming the announcement of the new government, the State Department, never once mentioned Hezbollah, despite the group's overt and decisive position in that government. The Biden administration nevertheless pledged to support the new government. In other words, everyone now recognizes that engagement with the "Lebanese government" means working with Hezbollah.
Lebanon's new Hezbollah government | Opinion
Newsweek · Tony Badran September 16, 2021
After a year of political bickering among Lebanon's sectarian chieftains, Hezbollah determined that the time had come for a new government to arise. By now, it should be clear to all observers that the terror group runs the Lebanese political order. And through this government, Hezbollah will now lead Lebanon's engagement with the outside world. Hezbollah's decisions on the make-up of the new government have telegraphed the basic contours of the group's plan.
It was a direct intervention by Hezbollah's emissary, the head of the directorate of general security, Abbas Ibrahim, that precipitated the formation of the government. Hezbollah's prodding ended a year-long spat between, on the one hand, two Sunni prime minister designates, Saad Hariri and Najib Mikati, and, on the other, Maronite president Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil. The prolonged paralysis only highlighted both sides' insignificance, in contrast to Hezbollah's position as ultimate arbiter.
Hezbollah not only controls the new government, as it did for Lebanon's predecessor governments, but it and its immediate allies also hold two-thirds of the governing portfolios. The ministries Hezbollah decided to hold, either directly or through its Shiite ally Amal, are telling.
Even though Hariri and Mikati ended up squabbling with Aoun and Bassil over ministries for over a year, Hezbollah had secured the key positions it wanted in the government from the outset. A year ago, as Lebanese and outside actors entertained themselves with talk of an "independent" and "technocratic" government, Hezbollah laid down its terms, which included keeping the Ministry of Finance in the hands of a Shiite picked in concert with the group's closest ally, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri. Berri named Youssef Khalil, former director of financial operations at the Central Bank of Lebanon. The Maronite president and the Sunni prime minister designee quickly consented.
External actors, such as France, also went along. Famously, French President Emmanuel Macron had launched an initiative last year to push for a new Lebanese government. But Macron always viewed Hezbollah as his primary interlocutor in Lebanon. After the explosion at the Beirut port in August 2020, Macron visited Lebanon and met with Hezbollah officials. According to the French press, Macron offered to partner with Hezbollah in Lebanon: "I want to work with you to change Lebanon," he reportedly told a Hezbollah member of parliament in Beirut. In addition to talking with Hezbollah, Macron also personally reached out to the group's Iranian patrons.
Superba oil tanker is seen docked near the Dora reservoir, north of the capital Beirut, on September 14, 2021. JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images
Macron has apparently resolved that, because Hezbollah and, behind it, Iran are the dominant players in Lebanon, partnership with them is a prerequisite for advancing French interests—both geopolitical and commercial. In addition to its existing investment in offshore gas exploration in Lebanon, France has also been eyeing other ventures. In September 2020, during his visit to Beirut, Macron was accompanied by Rodolphe Saade, chairman and chief executive officer of the French container shipping giant CMA CGM Group. CMA CGM, a subsidiary of which has operated the Syrian port of Latakia's containers terminal since 2009, is vying to rebuild the Beirut port.
Against this backdrop, Hezbollah's choice of ministries in the new government is revealing. After holding the Ministry of Public Health in two successive governments, Hezbollah opted to let go of that portfolio for the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which oversees the port. What's more, the new minister, Ali Hamie, also holds French citizenship. In fact, certain Lebanese media circles have gone so far as to suggest that Hamie's nomination represents a point of intersection between France and Hezbollah.
French policy in the Levant is hardly at odds with U.S. policy. In fact, in July, in a highly unusual move, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and her French counterpart jointly visited Saudi Arabia to urge the kingdom to reinvest in the Hezbollah-dominated order in Beirut. Similarly, the U.S. secretary of state and his French counterpart have tried to press the Saudis on the matter.
The U.S. posture is overdetermined both by its policy of realignment with Iran and by its Lebanon policy. The U.S. conceit in Lebanon is to prevent "state collapse" through investment in "strengthening state institutions," which Washington maintains will "counter Hezbollah's narrative." Exactly what this gibberish means is anyone's guess. What is clear, however, is that a policy of propping up a Hezbollah-run "state" is, by definition, a pro-Iran policy.
France's emerging partnership with Hezbollah belies the American pretense of distinguishing between Hezbollah and a distinct "Lebanese state." In its statement welcoming the announcement of the new government, the State Department, never once mentioned Hezbollah, despite the group's overt and decisive position in that government. The Biden administration nevertheless pledged to support the new government. In other words, everyone now recognizes that engagement with the "Lebanese government" means working with Hezbollah.
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria and the geopolitics of the Levant.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
12. The Center Cannot Hold - Will a Divided World Survive Common Threats?
Excerpt:
Two separate constellations of powers are steadily emerging, one largely democratic and led by the United States and the other authoritarian and led by China. These constellations are interdependent but riven by distrust and rivalry. Cooperation across this divide should always be the first choice in times of shared crisis, but as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the U.S.-led constellation must always have a backup plan. It did not have one in 2020. It needs one for the next crisis.
The Center Cannot Hold
Will a Divided World Survive Common Threats?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, Washington was coalescing around a new bipartisan consensus: great-power competition, especially with China, ought to be the main organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy. For some, the pandemic called that notion into question by suggesting that transnational threats pose an even greater danger to the American public than ascendant rival powers. Skeptics of great-power competition, such as Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, argued that the United States should seek to de-escalate tensions with China so that the two countries can work together to manage borderless risks such as pandemics and climate change.
But the debate over whether great-power competition or transnational threats pose the greater danger to the United States is a false one. Look back at strategic assessments from ten years ago on China and Russia, on the one hand, and those on pandemics and climate change, on the other, and it is clear that Washington is experiencing near-worst-case scenarios on both. Great-power rivalry has not yet sparked a hot war but appears to be on the brink of sparking a cold one. Meanwhile, the worst pandemic in a century is not yet over, and the climate crisis is only accelerating.
What COVID-19 has made powerfully clear is that this is an age of transnational threats and great-power competition—one in which the two phenomena exacerbate each other. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Chinese government has been obsessed with maintaining its grip on power and has refused to cooperate with the international community to fight the virus. For its part, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump framed the international dimensions of its pandemic response almost exclusively in terms of competition with China, extinguishing any hope of a multilateral cooperation, even with other democracies. At the height of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) became an arena for U.S.-Chinese rivalry, leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself.
Great-power rivalry and transnational threats will both shape U.S. foreign and national security policies in the years to come. Washington cannot downplay one in order to better deal with the other. Attempting to ease tensions with China to make cooperation on global public health possible won’t work, partly because Beijing cannot credibly commit to being more transparent and cooperative in the future. By the same token, ramping up competition with China without a plan to rally the world to deal with transnational threats (which can themselves fuel rivalry between great powers) would only guarantee future disasters.
The United States needs a strategy to address transnational threats under the conditions of great-power competition. It must aim to cooperate with rivals, especially China, to prepare for future pandemics and to tackle climate change. But in case cooperation fails, it must have a backup plan to rally allies and partners to provide a much greater share of global public goods, even if that means shouldering more of the costs. None of this will be easy, but all of it is necessary.
secrecy and survival
Competition between the United States and China has made the pandemic worse, and the pandemic, in turn, has deepened U.S.-Chinese rivalry and inhibited international cooperation more generally. But the negative synergy between great-power rivalry and transnational threats was evident even before COVID-19. In the decade after the SARS epidemic of 2002–4, the United States and China had developed a working relationship on global public health. On the eve of the current pandemic, the United States had dozens of public health professionals stationed at the U.S. embassy in Beijing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. Among them was a team of approximately 12 CDC officials working on infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness. (The Trump administration had redeployed a number of CDC officials working on AIDS funded through the President’s Emergency Plan for aids Relief to countries such as Uganda, but the embassy team working on pandemic preparedness remained in place.)
But as a number of U.S. embassy officials told the foreign policy analyst Colin Kahl and me for our book Aftershocks, this team’s cooperation with the Chinese government became more challenging as U.S.-Chinese rivalry intensified, largely because of China’s actions. In 2018 and 2019, for instance, Chinese officials refused to fully share samples of a strain of bird flu known as H7N9 with the WHO’s “collaborating centers” for influenza, frustrating their U.S. counterparts. At the time, public health experts believed that this form of influenza, or some variant of it, could potentially be the source of the next global pandemic.
Chinese public health officials also grew more reluctant to engage with their U.S. counterparts. In 2019, the U.S. embassy in Beijing hosted an event to mark 40 years of U.S.-Chinese relations. U.S. officials had planned to highlight public health cooperation—widely regarded as a success story in a sometimes tumultuous bilateral relationship—and several Chinese public health officials were slated to speak. But 24 hours before the event, amid rising trade tensions, all the Chinese officials canceled. It was a harbinger of things to come.
When COVID-19 hit, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) maintained near-absolute secrecy. All channels of communication between Beijing and Washington went silent, as they did between Beijing and other governments. Chinese leaders sought to conceal vital information about the emerging epidemic in China from the rest of the world, even attempting to prevent Chinese scientists from sharing the genetic sequence of the virus with scientists in other countries. (A Chinese scientist deliberately disobeyed the order and collaborated with an Australian counterpart.) Beijing also pushed the WHO not to declare the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern,” an official designation that would have required a coordinated international response, and not to support or even remain neutral on placing travel restrictions on China.
What COVID-19 has made powerfully clear is that this is an age of transnational threats and great-power competition.
The Chinese government’s actions put the WHO in a difficult position and constrained its choices. During the SARS epidemic, Gro Brundtland, the director general of the WHO, called out the Chinese government for covering up the outbreak and refusing to cooperate fully with the international community. The strategy helped persuade Beijing to shift course and eventually to engage with the WHO. The United States had hoped the WHO would use the same playbook with COVID-19 and publicly criticize—or at least refuse to praise—Beijing for withholding cooperation.
But senior WHO officials believed that Chinese President Xi Jinping was more dictatorial and less susceptible to outside pressure than his predecessors. If they tried to call him out, he was likely to shut them out completely. WHO officials also believed that working with China offered the only hope of stopping the virus. If that required publicly flattering Beijing, then so be it—a calculation that put the WHO on a collision course with the United States.
It is impossible to say for certain why the Chinese government behaved the way it did, but secrecy and control make sense in light of what the vast majority of China experts believe to be Xi’s top priority: regime survival. Xi did not want to facilitate an international response to COVID-19 that could have attributed blame to China or isolated it through travel restrictions, either of which might have damaged the regime’s domestic legitimacy. Instead, Xi leveraged the pandemic to his advantage: China’s suppression of the virus became a matter of national pride, held up by Beijing in sharp contrast to the experience of the United States.
Once it had controlled the virus at home, China became more assertive in its foreign policy. It linked pandemic assistance and, later, access to its vaccine to public praise for China and to favorable policy choices, such as participation in the health component of its Belt and Road Initiative. It also retaliated against Australia for seeking an international investigation into the origins of COVID-19. As the world reeled from the pandemic, China imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong, provoked a deadly border spat with India, and engaged in combative “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy around the world—aggressively responding to criticism, including by peddling falsehoods and disinformation. For China’s leaders, the pandemic revealed the inexorable decline of the West, confirmed Beijing’s power and capabilities, and created more latitude for the CCP to do as it wished.
TURNING POINT
Geopolitics also shaped the U.S. response to COVID-19. Contrary to popular belief, some senior Trump administration officials grasped the national security threat posed by the virus faster than their European counterparts did. Top officials in the National Security Council began focusing on the pandemic in early January, just days after news of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, became public. They were primed to pay attention in large part because of their suspicions of the Chinese regime: Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, had covered the SARS epidemic as a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, and he viewed the news trickling in from Wuhan in early 2020 through the lens of Beijing’s previous coverup. But even though Pottinger and other NSC officials were wise to the danger, they ultimately failed to persuade Trump to make the necessary preparations to deal with the pandemic when it inevitably reached the United States.
Throughout 2020, the Trump administration saw the international dimensions of COVID-19 almost entirely in terms of the U.S. rivalry with China. As the administration began to formulate its response, those who favored a more comprehensive public health approach both at home and abroad were excluded or marginalized at crucial moments. The result was that the Trump administration focused more on holding China responsible for the outbreak and reducing U.S. reliance on Beijing than on the minutiae of global public health policy or the hard work of rallying the world to tackle the pandemic.
COVID-19 also galvanized the Trump administration to intensify the contest with China. When it signed the Phase One trade agreement with China in January 2020, the Trump administration was split into two camps: one that wanted to contain China and one that wanted to focus narrowly on economic differences with China and not pursue a broader strategic competition. Trump spoke in the hawkish terms preferred by the containment faction, but he sided with the camp focused on economic issues in concluding the trade agreement. By mid-March, however, Trump had joined the containment faction, convinced that the crisis—and the lockdowns it necessitated—now threatened his personal political prospects.
COVID-19 galvanized the Trump administration to intensify the contest with China.
Two Trump administration officials who favored continued engagement with China told me that before COVID-19, Trump was something of a check on the containment faction. Once he saw the virus as a threat to his reelection chances, however, he became willing to endorse the containment faction’s preferred policies to counter China’s assertiveness. According to another senior official associated with the containment faction, the pandemic and China’s response to it helped unify the administration behind a more comprehensive strategy to push back against Beijing. Between March 2020 and the end of the year, the senior official said, the United States put in place more containment measures than it had in the previous three years, including restrictions on Chinese technology firms, sanctions on Chinese officials, looser regulations on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan, and recognition of the repression in Xinjiang as a genocide. In this sense, the pandemic was a pivotal moment in the U.S.-Chinese rivalry.
Competition between the two countries overwhelmed everything else, including U.S. cooperation with allies on the pandemic, leaving a global leadership vacuum that no one could fill. The foreign ministers of the G-7 countries were unable to agree on even a communiqué in March 2020, and the G-7 leaders’ summit in June was canceled and never rescheduled during Trump’s presidency. The EU tried to step up by increasing funding for the WHO and for COVAX, the global initiative to share vaccines, but it never came close to organizing a global response. China’s assertive foreign policy, and its attempts to use pandemic assistance to advance its interests, aggravated European leaders and convinced them to harden their positions toward China throughout the course of 2020.
During this period, there was hardly any international cooperation on vaccine development or distribution, no coordination on travel restrictions or the distribution of medical supplies, and limited cooperation on achieving a cessation of hostilities in conflict zones. The economic disruption caused by COVID-19 devastated low-income countries, which received little in the way of international assistance. Especially hard hit were countries, such as Bangladesh, that had made significant development gains in the last two decades and were propelling themselves into the lower tier of middle-income economies. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation found that in just 25 weeks, the pandemic reversed 25 years of progress on vaccination coverage, a key public health indicator. And according to the UN, the pandemic could force a total of 490 million people into poverty—defined as the loss of access to clean water, adequate food, or shelter—pushing the global poverty rate to around seven percent by 2030, compared with the pre-pandemic target of three percent.
CLIMATE WEDGE
Pandemics are not the only transnational threat that promises to intensify great-power rivalry and diminish the prospects for much-needed cooperation. Climate change could do the same. The global economic downturn caused by the pandemic occasioned a brief and modest reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, but those emissions have already begun to increase again. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body of experts that represents the scientific consensus on the climate, the world is on track to warm by around three degrees Celsius by the end of the century—a rate and magnitude of change that scientists warn could be cataclysmic. Absent drastic, cooperative action, the world will see more frequent droughts and wildfires; more intense hurricanes, storms, and flooding; more transmission of diseases from animals to humans; the inundation of many coastal areas and low-lying nations due to sea-level rise, leading to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people; and the devastation of ocean and terrestrial ecosystems.
Rather than unite the world around a common purpose, climate change is likely to deepen competition between major powers, especially as the transition away from fossil fuels creates economic winners and losers. Countries that aggressively decarbonize could place sanctions and other trade restrictions on countries that do not, leading to counterresponses and new trade wars. In a recent report for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Janka Oertel, Jennifer Tollmann, and Byford Tsang argue that the impediments to cooperation between Europe and China on climate change “are becoming higher” and warn that “decision-makers must not underestimate the highly competitive aspects of how China is changing its energy production and consumption.”
At a climate protest in Hong Kong, October 2010
Bobby Yip / Reuters
The United States and Europe will both compete with China for access to raw materials and in developing the technology needed to make their economies carbon neutral: magnets, batteries, high-performance ceramics, and light-emitting diodes, among other things. In some of these areas, the United States and Europe are at risk of dependence on China, so they will want to make themselves more self-reliant as they develop clean technology.
Climate change could even drive a wedge through the transatlantic alliance if the United States elects another president who seeks to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions, as Trump did. And even if the U.S. government remains broadly aligned with Europe on climate policy, the Europeans could still become disaffected if Congress blocks meaningful climate action, such as commitments to cut carbon emissions or invest in clean technology. This, in turn, could diminish Europe’s willingness to help uphold the U.S.-led international order.
THE LIMITS OF COOPERATION
Some analysts, mainly on the right, care about the foreign aspects of transnational threats only to the extent that they can blame China for them, effectively wielding China’s malign influence on the WHO or its centrality to the problem of climate change as a cudgel in the geopolitical rivalry. They do not even try to provide an affirmative agenda for international cooperation on these threats—all but guaranteeing that they will exact a heavy human toll and heighten geopolitical tensions. The disease that causes the next pandemic could be just as contagious as COVID-19 but much more lethal and impervious to vaccines. Climate change is only getting worse.
Other analysts, mainly on the left, argue that the United States should set aside its contest with China or at least attempt to ease tensions in order to cooperate on shared challenges. It is unclear what exactly they intend. If, on the one hand, they mean softening U.S. rhetoric without conceding much of substance to China, they would do well to look to Europe, where governments were much more inclined than the Trump administration to cooperate with China, but China did not take them up on the offer. To the contrary, China became much more assertive and confrontational in its approach to Europe. If, on the other hand, they mean unilaterally making major geopolitical concessions to China—on its territorial acquisitions in the South China Sea, for instance, or the status of Taiwan—the United States would not only pay an extremely high price but also likely embolden Beijing further without actually securing cooperation on pandemics or climate change beyond what Beijing has already offered. Deliberately undercutting U.S. interests on matters unrelated to transnational threats is not a sound strategy.
Outright confrontation with China can be avoided—but competition cannot.
There is no getting around strategic competition with Beijing: it is deeply embedded in the international order, mainly because China seeks to expand its sphere of influence in Asia at the expense of the United States and its allies, which are in turn committed to thwarting Beijing’s plans. The United States and China are also engaged in what Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, recently called “a competition of models.” China is seeking to make the world safe for the CCP and to demonstrate the effectiveness of its system. This entails pushing back against what it sees as pressure from liberal democratic countries that could thwart its objectives. For its part, the United States worries about the negative externalities of Chinese authoritarianism, such as censorship of international criticism of Beijing or the export of its tools of repression to other countries. The United States also worries about what would happen to the military balance of power if China secured an enduring advantage in key technologies. Even in diplomacy, friction will be endemic to the U.S.-Chinese relationship and will affect the broader international order for the foreseeable future. Outright confrontation can be avoided—but competition cannot.
This competition places real limits on cooperation. Take the arena of global public health: many studies on how to improve pandemic preparedness call on world leaders to dramatically strengthen the WHO, including by giving it the same power to enforce international health regulations as the International Atomic Energy Agency enjoys with nuclear nonproliferation rules. This recommendation is not new. Several reviews of the WHO’s performance during previous health emergencies, including the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014–16, have recommended sanctions in the event of noncompliance with international health regulations by member states, but the member states have not granted that power to the WHO.
The problem is getting every government to agree to a universally applicable mechanism for sanctions or some other enforcement mechanism. China will not agree to any reform that would involve intrusive inspections of its scientific research facilities. And even if Beijing were to agree to vague language that could be interpreted as allowing these actions, the lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it will not live up to its word when a crisis occurs.
WHEN COOPERATION FAILS
The need for cooperation on transnational threats must change how the United States competes with China—not whether it competes. U.S. officials should not give up on China entirely; instead, they should make a good-faith effort to work with Beijing, both bilaterally and in multilateral settings. Recognizing that there are strict limits on U.S.-Chinese cooperation is not the same as saying that no cooperation is possible. China has an interest in tackling pandemics and climate change, and diplomacy may help incrementally. But the real challenge is determining what to do when cooperation with China and other rivals falls short of what is required. The United States needs a backup plan to tackle shared challenges through coalitions of the willing.
When it comes to pandemic preparedness, this means fully supporting the WHO (including by pressing for needed reforms) but also forging a coalition of like-minded states: a global alliance for pandemic preparedness that would regularly convene at the head-of-state level and work alongside nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. Any country that accepts the conditions of membership should be able to join. But those conditions should be strict and include a commitment to transparency beyond what is currently required by the international health regulations—for instance, granting WHO inspectors the kind of authority enjoyed by their counterparts at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Crucially, whenever the WHO declared an international public health emergency, alliance members would coordinate on travel and trade restrictions, as well as on public messaging and financial penalties and sanctions. Those penalties and sanctions would be aimed at those states that failed to provide sufficient access to or fully cooperate with the WHO. The alliance would support, not supplant, the WHO.
For any such coalition to succeed, the United States and its allies and partners would have to take on a far greater share of the burden of providing global public goods. The G-7, for example, could have committed to vaccinating the world against COVID-19 at its June summit, instead of just promising to purchase and distribute 870 million vaccine doses, approximately ten percent of the global need. A coalition could also step up in a big way to help developing nations build the capacity to prepare for future pandemics and invest in therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines.
The situation is more complicated with respect to climate change. The United States is a less reliable partner in this arena, and China’s survivalist instincts could in theory make it more willing to mitigate climate threats than to strengthen the WHO. Sustained, managed competition with China could potentially help the United States build bipartisan support for investments in clean technology that would prevent Beijing from gaining an enduring advantage in this area. But the United States and the European Union will also need to build coalitions of the willing to deal with the international security consequences of accelerated climate change, such as extreme weather events that threaten large numbers of people, and to address the foreign policy dimensions of climate action, including managing the risk that a shift away from fossil fuels could destabilize countries and regions that are dependent on oil exports.
Two separate constellations of powers are steadily emerging, one largely democratic and led by the United States and the other authoritarian and led by China. These constellations are interdependent but riven by distrust and rivalry. Cooperation across this divide should always be the first choice in times of shared crisis, but as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the U.S.-led constellation must always have a backup plan. It did not have one in 2020. It needs one for the next crisis.
13. To take on Russia and China, the US Navy is standing up a new unit to do the missions that only SEALs can do
To take on Russia and China, the US Navy is standing up a new unit to do the missions that only SEALs can do
A SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two member prepares to launch a SEAL Delivery Vehicle from Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Philadelphia in the Atlantic Ocean, May 5, 2005.
US Navy/Chief Photographer's Mate Andrew McKaskle
- In August, the Navy SEAL Teams went through a significant restructuring, with two units being consolidated into a new one.
- Naval Special Warfare Group 8 will incorporate the SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams and intelligence-gathering and low-visibility capability of NSWGs 3 and 10.
- NSWG 8's creation is another sign of Naval Special Warfare's pivot to great-power competition with China and Russia.
10 Things in Politics: The latest in politics & the economy
Late in August, the Navy SEAL Teams went through a significant restructuring, with two units being disestablished and consolidated into a new one.
Naval Special Warfare Group 3 and Naval Special Warfare Group 10 were deactivated and their "headquarters, missions, functions, and tasks" combined in the new Naval Special Warfare Group 8.
The creation of NSWG 8 is yet another sign of Naval Special Warfare's pivot to great-power competition with near-peer states, namely China and Russia.
As US Special Operations Command's dedicated maritime special-operations force, Naval Special Warfare would play a significant role in that competition or a future conflict.
America's dedicated maritime commandos
A SEAL delivery vehicle team fast-ropes from an MH-60S helicopter onto USS Toledo in the Atlantic Ocean, January 17, 2005.
US Navy/Journalist 3rd Class Davis J. Anderson
Naval Special Warfare Command comprises the Navy SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen (SWCC). There are about 8,000 personnel assigned to Naval Special Warfare Command, but less than 3,000 of them are special operators — SEALs and SWCCs. The rest are military and civilian support personnel.
NSWG 3 contained the SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Teams, a capability unique to the Navy SEALs. Equipped with mini-submarines, SDV Teams specialize in underwater insertion and extraction of special-operations troops, underwater special operations, and special reconnaissance.
NSWG 10 was established in 2011 to give the SEAL Teams an organic intelligence-gathering and low-visibility capability. It included the Special Reconnaissance Teams and other units specializing in cyberwarfare; electronic warfare; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
The global war on terror showcased the need for dedicated intelligence-gathering units that could funnel actionable intelligence and targets to SEAL platoons.
In addition, the Special Reconnaissance Teams offered Naval Special Warfare Command an organic capability to conduct operational preparation of the environment or battlefield.
Rear Adm. H.W. Howard III, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, and Naval Special Warfare Group Eight Command Master Chief Brandon Barker unfurl the command’s new pennant during NSWG-8's establishment ceremony in Coronado, California, August 25, 2021.
US Navy/MCS2 Keypher Strombeck
For these low-visibility operations, small teams of special operators deploy to hotspots worldwide to take "atmospherics" and prepare for the deployment of larger follow-on forces.
"This realignment within NSW integrates distinctive capabilities to create new irregular options to help solve the hardest national security problems, undermine the confidence of our adversaries, and contribute to integrated [sic] all domain deterrence," Rear Adm. H.W. Howard III, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, said during the consolidation ceremony.
Now the Naval Special Warfare Command seeks to bring the two capabilities closer and combine command and control for benefit of both.
The consolidation is part of Naval Special Warfare's transformation from a force mainly focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to one geared toward great-power competition, which can include anything from proxy warfare to open conflict.
But the fact that the former commanding officer of NSWG 3 was selected to lead the new unit over his NSWG 10 counterpart suggests that the SDVs will have an important role going forward.
SEAL Delivery Vehicles: a unique capability
A SEAL Delivery Vehicle is loaded onto Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Dallas in Norfolk, Virginia, February 6, 2006.
US Navy/Chief Journalist Dave Fliesen
The SDVs were designed to operate clandestinely close to enemy coasts and inside harbors and anchorages. They can be deployed by land, in the water from a vessel or submarine, or by air from a helicopter.
The SDVs are a great option, as they can support or carry out intelligence-gathering or direct-action operations anywhere in the world.
When it comes to intelligence-gathering, SDVs can approach unfriendly coasts either to drop small teams of SEALs or place sensors at places of interest — such as sensitive areas in the South China Sea, Black Sea, or Baltic Sea.
For decades, the workhorse of the SDVs was the Mark 8 SEAL Delivery Vehicle, a mini-submarine that could stealthily carry several SEAL operators and all their gear close to a target over long distances.
SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two members prepare to launch a SEAL Delivery Vehicle from USS Philadelphia, May 5, 2005.
US Navy/Chief Photographer's Mate Andrew McKaskle
Another SDV, the Mark 9, which is now decommissioned, was outfitted with munitions and could sink enemy vessels at anchor or place limpet mines on enemy hulls.
A new generation of SDVs is now joining the fleet and taking the lead in underwater special operations. The Mark 11 Shallow Water Combat Submersible, Dry Combat Submersible, and a number of unmanned undersea vehicles are either in development, undergoing final operations trials, or in use.
"The SDV teams are a great booster for NSW, though many [in the community] chose to ignore that, or at least that was the mentality when the wars still demanded [SEAL] platoons," a former Navy SEAL operator told Insider. "Unless you like the element and mission, [the SDVs] suck. Spending eight or more hours diving isn't the idea of fun for many SEALs, lots of whom don't really like the water."
"But in the SDV teams you get to do some unique stuff that you won't find elsewhere in the military and only in a very few other places in the world. SDVs don't see action often, but their missions, whether it's training or not, are unique," said the former SEAL operator, who served in an SDV Team.
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
14. French airstrike kills ISIS leader responsible for deaths of 4 U.S. soldiers in ‘decisive’ blow to organization
Again, thank you France.
French airstrike kills ISIS leader responsible for deaths of 4 U.S. soldiers in ‘decisive’ blow to organization
The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett and Ellen Francis Today at 5:47 a.m. EDT · September 16, 2021
A French airstrike killed a top Islamic State militant believed to be the mastermind of a 2017 attack in Niger that claimed the lives of four U.S. soldiers, dealing the organization a decisive role.
Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, “was neutralized by French forces,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter late Wednesday.
“His death deals a decisive blow to the leadership of the Islamic State in Sahel. They will without a doubt have difficulty replacing him,” Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said Thursday in a news conference.
The operation took place from Aug. 17 to Aug. 20 and was a combination of drone and fighter jet strikes that killed around a dozen members of the group, officials announced at the conference.
Parly added that the operation was months in the making and involved cooperation with local forces as well as the U.S. military.
Rumors of Sahrawi’s death had circulated for weeks before Macron’s announcement. The Islamic State leader, who was 48 this year, was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and became an al-Qaeda ally. He switched allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015 and founded its Sahel affiliate.
ISGS, which operates mainly in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, has targeted U.S. and French military personnel. One of its most notable attacks occurred in October 2017, when a U.S. Special Forces team carrying out a reconnaissance mission in Niger was caught in a deadly ambush by militants armed with machine guns, small arms and rockets.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the ensuing firefight. At least four Nigerien troops also died. ISGS was the Trump administration’s primary suspect for the ambush and Sahrawi himself claimed responsibility for the attack. The State Department’s Reward for Justice program offered $5 million for information leading to his capture.
The 2017 mission ignited a political firestorm in the United States at the time, raising questions about the U.S. military’s broader mission in Africa and why one of the fallen soldiers, Sgt. La David Johnson, was not recovered for two days, The Washington Post previously reported.
Sahrawi’s group was also responsible for the death of six French aid workers and their local guide in Niger in 2020.
Sahrawi’s death comes as France has announced plans to slash its military presence in West Africa by about half over the next year. The former colonial power, which continues to have close political and cultural ties with West African countries, has long led one of the biggest forces in the fight against extremist groups in the region. But the mission has become unpopular in both France and West Africa.
France has about 5,100 troops in West Africa, the most of any overseas partner. Three military bases are slated to close in Mali’s north, the heart of the crisis. Analysts have previously warned the decision to draw down French troops will upend the international community’s response to the menace of extremism at a time when violence shows no sign of abating.
Those concerns have been amplified following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last month, which has buoyed local extremists hoping for a Taliban-style victory in the region.
Parly insisted in the news conference that “we will continue to wage this battle … we will not abandon the Sahel.”
Fighters across the continent — many of who have professed loyalty to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State — have publicly celebrated the Taliban’s takeover as the result of perseverance against the United States and other Western armed forces.
Danielle Paquette in Dakar, Senegal and Rick Noack in Paris contributed reporting to this article.
Read more:
The Washington Post · by Rachel Pannett and Ellen Francis Today at 5:47 a.m. EDT · September 16, 2021
15. The US Air Force's special operators are hustling to turn their biggest planes into flying boats
Wow. What a concept. Lots to consider here. Could this be a game changer for some missions?
Of course the sea state will play a big role. I would think this could have application for long range rescues at sea but unfortunately most rescues take place in rough seas. and I doubt a concept like this could be effective in those kinds of situations.
But I think this is a concept worth considering.
Did they run "MAC' ( MC-130J Commando II Amphibious Capability) by the acronym control officer? Didn't that acronym used to belong to the Military Airlift Command (MAC - formerly "maybe aircraft come" and now AMC - "airplane might come" - if you do not run things through the acronym control officer and have his or her service E4s examine them for humor and satire you will end up with "JIffycom.")
The US Air Force's special operators are hustling to turn their biggest planes into flying boats
A rendering of an amphibious modification to an MC-130J Commando II.
US Air Force Special Operations Command
- The prospect of a war in the Pacific has the US military thinking about how to spread out and conduct amphibious operations.
- Those challenges have renewed the US military's interest in an old concept: amphibious aircraft.
- US Air Force Special Operations Command now plans to rapidly develop an amphibious prototype of its workhorse plane, the MC-130J.
10 Things in Politics: The latest in politics & the economy
US Air Force Special Operations Command said this week that it will conduct a rapid prototyping effort to increase the "runway independence and expeditionary capacity" of its MC-130J by developing "a removable amphibious float modification."
A rendering of a twin-float amphibious modification to an MC-130J.
US Air Force Special Operations Command
The $114 million aircraft has advanced navigation and radar systems that allow it to operate in unfriendly territory, but the MC-130J Commando II Amphibious Capability, as the effort is called, will allow it to support operations at sea and in near-shore areas, according to AFSOC.
MAC "allows the Air Force to increase placement and access for infiltration, exfiltration, and personnel recovery, as well as providing enhanced logistical capabilities," Lt. Col. Josh Trantham, AFSOC's science, systems, technology, and innovation deputy division chief, said in a release.
Seaborne operations offer "nearly unlimited" places for landing and would extend the reach and survivability of the MC-130J and the commandos who use it, Trantham said.
AFSOC is working with the Air Force Research Lab's Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation directorate and with private industry. The command plans to use a five-phase rapid prototyping schedule that will allow it to conduct an operational capability demonstration in 17 months.
AFSOC and private-sector representatives are already testing prototypes in the Digital Proving Ground, a virtual setting that includes virtual-reality modeling and computer-aided design — "paving the way" for more digital simulation and testing and the use of advanced manufacturing, the release said.
A rendering of a twin-float amphibious modification to an MC-130J.
US Air Force Special Operations Command
The effort also intends to "de-risk" the concept for potential use in a future program to give MC-130Js or other C-130 variants an amphibious capability.
The last US military seaplane left service with the US Coast Guard in 1983, 16 years after the Navy retired its last seaplane. Amphibious aircraft played an important role in World War II, but technological advances during the Cold War made them less valuable.
Interest in amphibious aircraft has increased in recent years, however. Several countries — including Russia and Japan — still operate them, and China's development of the AG600, the world's largest seaplane, is steadily advancing.
China has invested heavily in its fleet of military airlift planes in order to support long-range operations, and the AG600 provides "some niche but important capabilities," Timothy Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, told Insider earlier this year.
China's AG600 floatplane.
Xinhua/Li Ziheng/Getty
"An amphibious plane allows you to reach areas that otherwise are hard to get to. They can also support ships that are stranded at sea or just if it needs to connect with some ship at sea where there is no runway," Heath said.
China is expected to use the AG600 for search-and-rescue, transport, and firefighting, among other operations. It would be especially useful in the South China Sea, supporting operations around the island bases China has built there.
AFSOC officials have said amphibious aircraft would be a valuable capability in an era of great-power competition, and Trantham echoed that view in the release.
"MAC will be able to be used by our sister services, allies, and partners," Trantham said, and its use "alongside other innovative tools will provide even more complex dilemmas in future battlespaces for our strategic competitors."
16. After 9/11, Good Intelligence is More Important than Ever
But it has never not been more important than ever1 :-)
After 9/11, Good Intelligence is More Important than Ever
Cipher Brief Expert Daniel Hoffman is a former senior officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served as a three-time station chief and a senior executive Clandestine Services officer. He led large-scale HUMINT (human intelligence gathering) and technical programs and comlpeted tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia. Hoffman also served as director of the CIA’s Middle East and North Africa Division. He is currently a national security analyst with Fox News. His piece was first published in The Washington Times.
OPINION — On the morning of September 11, 2001, my then-CIA colleague Rob was in Manhattan on the subway, headed to a 9 a.m. meeting in the World Trade Center. At 8:46 a.m., moments before he exited the subway, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the Center’s North Tower.
Rob exited the subway station only to be pushed back inside the train by a throng of people hysterically running down the stairs, fleeing the chaos after the first plane crashed.
Rob managed to get out at the next stop. Not a native New Yorker and having spent comparatively little time in Manhattan, Rob used the gigantic twin towers as a guide as he made his way back to the meeting he was still planning to attend. With dust in the air clouding his vision, he at first thought, like so many other eyewitnesses, that a small plane had accidentally crashed into one of the twin towers.
As he got closer to the World Trade Center, Rob encountered bystanders shouting about the first plane crash.
Rob was walking in between the two towers at the World Trade Center when United Airlines Flight 175, which had taken off from Boston’s Logan Airport with 51 passengers and 5 crew onboard, crashed into the South tower at 9:03 a.m.
A gulf of warm air shot down towards Rob’s body and sucked out all the oxygen around him. For a moment, he could not breathe.
Everyone looked up to the sky in shock as debris swirled in the air and covered their shoes.
Now there was no question that the U.S. was under attack — not in the Middle East or Africa, where our embassies and military had been targeted in recent years past, but at home in the heart of the world’s greatest financial center.
Rob watched with unimaginable shock and horror as people jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center’s upper floors. Policemen were putting themselves in harm’s way as they directed people to safety from the danger zone.
Rob had begun walking away from the site and moved to safety just minutes before the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. Walking north towards mid-town when the North Tower collapsed 29 minutes later, Rob was close enough to feel the impact and see the total destruction of one of New York’s most recognizable landmarks.
These images would be seared into Rob’s consciousness and set the course for the next two decades of his CIA career, during which he served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan, including a stint as station chief.
During the decade before 9/11, the CIA had faced budget cuts and hiring freezes. But a myriad of threats emerged on the horizon, none with a shorter fuse than al Qaeda. In 1993, al Qaeda operatives tried unsuccessfully to blow up the World Trade Center. In 1995, an alert Philippines Police officer disrupted the al Qaeda Bojinka plot to hijack and explode passenger aircraft. In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring a jihadist war on the U.S. In 1998, al Qaeda launched simultaneous truck bomb attacks that killed over 200 people at U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. And in 2000, al Qaeda mounted a suicide terrorist attack against the USS Cole in Yemen.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, there was no talk of nation-building in Afghanistan, just delivering justice to the al Qaeda terrorists who had attacked our homeland.
Intelligence, starting with sensitive reporting from human sources, has always been the key to protecting our homeland in the 20 years since that awful day. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in April, CIA Director William Burns testified, “When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish.”
After keeping our homeland safe by successfully targeting senior terrorists and severely depleting their cadre of foot soldiers over the past two decades, the U.S. left Afghanistan in dire circumstances. Absent counterterrorism pressure, this extremist Petri dish will once again grow like a cancer into a clear and present danger to our national security.
Director Burns’ admonition must have been extraordinarily distressful to the brave patriots in the nation’s intelligence community, always at the ready to serve on the front lines and in harm’s way. But knowing we remain in the crosshairs of our ruthless enemies, they will push on relentlessly with their increasingly complex, challenging, dangerous, and sacred mission.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
17. Can The US Army Transform Without A New Approach to Warfare?
Hmm... maneuver room on the Korean peninsula? Has anyone examined the terrain there?
Excerpts:
MDO is not an operational concept. It is unclear if it will ever be one. It is more of a fires doctrine or target servicing plan. This is particularly the case in the Indo-Pacific theater, where there is precious little room for offensive maneuver warfare except maybe on the Korean Peninsula. As described in a recently published strategy paper, the Army’s approach to fighting in the Indo-Pacific is to disperse formations across various islands to make them hard to detect while taking pot shots at Chinese air and naval forces.
In addition, the weapons may be getting better, but the required intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications, and logistics to make them effective are not there. Moreover, US forces are not deployed where they can effectively conduct MDO activities, either in Europe or the Indo-Pacific.
How will the US Army counter a fast-moving Russian ground offensive against the Baltic States, Poland, or Ukraine? It may be much more important to have large, heavy armored ground forces deployed forward along NATO’s Eastern flank than to deploy batteries of long-range fire systems located well to the rear.
What the Army needs is a transformative way of conducting theater-scale, high-end combat against equally well-equipped adversaries with the advantages of proximity to the likely battlefield and the ability to choose the time and place to initiate hostilities.
Can The US Army Transform Without A New Approach to Warfare? - Breaking Defense
When did the Army come to believe that acquiring new stuff fast equals modernization?
Future Soldiers will partner with autonomous systems to accomplish missions. (U.S. Army illustrations/DVIDS)
The US Army is pursuing bleeding-edge weapon systems at breakneck pace in the name of modernization. But in the op-ed below, the Lexington Institute’s Dr. Dan Goure asks whether the service is confusing technological advancement with a real modern warfighting strategy.
When the US Army talks about transforming itself, it focuses primarily on new, advanced capabilities, and on streamlining the acquisition system. And there is a lot to be positive about in Army’s success in accelerating development of an array of new and hopefully significantly more capable weapons systems, platforms, and enablers.
But the Army’s effort to transform itself is, at best, an uneven success. While it may soon have a lot of new capabilities to deploy, and despite the optimism surrounding its Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) concept, it is still unclear how it intends to exploit this advantage to defeat adversaries who are technologically its equals and have the advantage of being close to where the conflicts will occur.
The Army is proceeding full speed ahead with its modernization efforts, the so-called 31+4 programs. Over the next few years, the Army claims it will achieve initial fielding of capabilities from at least 22 of the 35 programs. These include a hypersonic missile, several long-range precision strike weapons, enhanced soldier vision systems, tactical lasers, and artificial intelligence. By the end of the decade, the Army expects to begin deploying a rich array of land, air, space, and cyber capabilities from its 31+4 modernization programs.
In support of its efforts to produce transformational capabilities, Army leadership harvested some $35 billion dollars from existing acquisition and R&D activities in a series of budget reviews, labeled “Night Courts.” In doing so, the Army successfully protected its highest priority, the development of new capabilities. It also maintained funding for critical enablers, including sensors and communications systems necessary to the ability to employ its modernized capabilities to full effect.
But at the same time, the Army chose to cut back its investments in other, less transformative systems, such as the advanced SEPV3 version of the Abrams tank and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs), even though these will be critical to its ability to wage high-end land warfare. Therefore, even with the most successful modernization program in its history, the Army will continue to depend on variants of existing capabilities for many decades to come.
The pursuit of new tech over a more holistic modernization is evidenced by new Army offices as well.
Even after establishing the Army Futures Command to oversee rapid modernization, the Army stood up an additional organization, the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), to focus on making rapid advances in the most difficult but potentially impactful areas such as hypersonics, directed energy, artificial intelligence, and space. Recently, the director of the RCCTO, Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood cited his organization’s success in changing the way his service’s acquisition culture in order to deliver the first battery of a hypersonic missile in about four years as an example of successful modernization.
When did the Army come to believe that acquiring new stuff fast equals modernization? Military history would suggest that while better equipment can make a difference in a future conflict, it is much more important to develop an operational concept and, eventually, a doctrine that can defeat the way an adversary intends to fight.
In 1940, the French military had, on balance, better tanks and fighters than Germany’s Wehrmacht. France was defeated because they didn’t know how to fight a mechanized war. Its new equipment was employed in service of a strategy based on static, positional defenses. Germany, with inferior tanks and an army only 10% mechanized, developed new ways of employing its forces and a novel approach to air-ground cooperation that proved successful in battle with multiple adversaries for the first years of the war.
The last time the US Army successfully transformed itself was in the 1980s, when it had the good fortune to be able to capitalize on the timely intersection of two developments. The first was a long-term, multi-pronged modernization effort that produced the so-called Big Five weapons systems that still constitute the core of Army land warfare capabilities: the M1 Abrams tank, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, Patriot air defense system, AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter.
The second development was the articulation of a new operational concept called AirLand Battle. It was designed to exploit penetrating airpower and offensive ground maneuver to take advantage of the highly structured and relatively predictable operating style of the Soviet army. The Big Five fit closely with the needs of AirLand battle by enhancing the Army’s ability to exploit seams in Soviet ground force deployments.
At present, the Army is developing what it describes as a new operating concept, called Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). It is not a way of fighting but an attempt to exploit opportunities created by the development of offensive “fire” systems across multiple environments or domains; land, sea, air, space and cyber. MDO documents speak of creating dilemmas for an adversary by being able to manage diverse distributed offensive capabilities across the Joint Force in a coordinated manner. In doing so, the Army will be able to penetrate and disintegrate enemy anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, thereby creating opportunities for the Joint Force to conduct strategic maneuvers.
While the Army has invested heavily in acquiring new means for conducting battle, it has done much less to develop a fully fleshed-out operational concept with which to fight a future high-end conflict. What good is a battery, or even entire battalions of hypersonic weapons, when it is not clear what there are supposed to shoot at or why? The six modernization priorities provide new toys for every tribe in the Army, but firing farther and flying faster is not an operational concept.
MDO is not an operational concept. It is unclear if it will ever be one. It is more of a fires doctrine or target servicing plan. This is particularly the case in the Indo-Pacific theater, where there is precious little room for offensive maneuver warfare except maybe on the Korean Peninsula. As described in a recently published strategy paper, the Army’s approach to fighting in the Indo-Pacific is to disperse formations across various islands to make them hard to detect while taking pot shots at Chinese air and naval forces.
In addition, the weapons may be getting better, but the required intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications, and logistics to make them effective are not there. Moreover, US forces are not deployed where they can effectively conduct MDO activities, either in Europe or the Indo-Pacific.
How will the US Army counter a fast-moving Russian ground offensive against the Baltic States, Poland, or Ukraine? It may be much more important to have large, heavy armored ground forces deployed forward along NATO’s Eastern flank than to deploy batteries of long-range fire systems located well to the rear.
What the Army needs is a transformative way of conducting theater-scale, high-end combat against equally well-equipped adversaries with the advantages of proximity to the likely battlefield and the ability to choose the time and place to initiate hostilities.
Dr. Daniel Goure is a Senior Vice President at the Lexington Institute, a public policy research organization in Northern Virginia. Dr. Goure served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1991-1993 as Director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness.
18. Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition
Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition
For 25 years as the sole Superpower, the U.S. neglected strategic threats from China and a rearmed Russia. The country, our elected officials, and our military committed to a decades-long battle to ensure that terrorists like those who executed the 9/11 attacks cannot attack us on that scale again. Meanwhile, our country's legacy weapons systems have too many entrenched and interlocking interests (Congress, lobbyists, DOD/contractor revolving door, service promotion of executors versus innovators) that inhibit radical change. Our economic and foreign policy officials didn't notice the four-alarm fire as we first gutted our manufacturing infrastructure and sent it to China (profits are better when you outsource); then passively stood by as our intellectual property was being siphoned off; had no answer to China's web of trade deals (China's Belt and Road). The 2018 National Defense Strategy became a wake-up call for our nation.
National power is ephemeral. Nations decline when they lose allies, a decline in economic power (the UK in the 20th Century); they lose interest in global affairs (China in the 15th Century); internal/civil conflicts (Russia in the 20th Century); a nation's military can miss disruptive technology transitions and new operational concepts. One can make the case that all of these have/or are happening to the United States.
Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I are about to start our second year of teaching what was our Technology, Innovation, and Modern War class. (See all the class sessions here.) The goal of last year’s class was to explain how new emerging technologies have radically changed how countries fight and deter threats across air, land, sea, space, and cyber. And to point out that winning future conflicts requires more than just adopting new technology; it requires a revolution in thinking about how this technology can be acquired and integrated into new weapons systems to drive new operational and organizational concepts that change the way we fight.
This year we’ve expanded the scope of the class to look beyond just the effect of new technology on weapons and operational concepts. We’re now covering how technology will shape all the elements of national power (our influence and footprint on the world stage). National power is the combination of a country's diplomacy (soft power and alliances), information/intelligence and military and economic strength. The instruments of national power brought to bear in this "whole of government approach" was long known by the acronym DIME (Diplomatic, Information, Military and Economic) and in recent years have expanded to include “FIL”- finance, intelligence and law enforcement-or DIME-FIL. Given the broadened scope of the class, we’ve tweaked the course title to Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition.
Our goals in this year’s class are to:
- Help our students understand how each component of our national security and instruments of national power are now inexorably intertwined with commercial technology. We will explore the complexity and urgency of the impact of the 21st century onslaught of commercial technologies (AI, machine learning, autonomy, biotech, cyber, commercial access to space, et al.) in all parts of the government -- State, climate change, Department of Defense, economic policy, et al.
- Give them hands-on experience to propose and prototype solutions to these problems.
Much like last year's class, this one has three parts – teaching team lectures, guest speakers, and, most importantly, team projects. We'll be using the concept of commercial technologies' impact on DIME as the connective element between each week's class.
In addition to the teaching team lectures and assigned readings, last year we had 20+ guest speakers, including two Secretaries of Defense, a Secretary of State, members of Congress, Generals, Admirals and policymakers. We hope to enrich the student experience with similar expertise and experience this year.
Last year, team projects started with a mid-term paper and finished with what was supposed to be a final paper project. However, one team took their project, got out of the building, and interviewed and presented a radically new operational concept for the South China Sea. It’s an idea that has caught fire. So this year, we're going to build on that success. Teams will form on week 1, pick an area of interest across DIME and spend the quarter interviewing key stakeholders, beneficiaries, policymakers, etc., while testing proposed solutions.
If the past is a prologue, our students, a mix between international policy and engineering, will be the ones in this fight. They'll go off to senior roles in State, Defense, policy, and companies building new disruptive technologies.
This is the first in a series of classes from the new Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security. (More on this in a later post.)
Lessons Learned
- Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition will focus on how our national security and national power is intertwined with commercial technology. We will explore:
- AI, machine learning, autonomy, biotech, cyber, commercial access to space, et al.
- In all parts of the government; State, climate change, Department of Defense, economic policy, et al.
- Give our students hands-on experience to propose and prototype solutions to these problems
19. Could Multinational Peacekeepers Prevent Worst-Case Outcomes in Afghanistan?
Could Multinational Peacekeepers Prevent Worst-Case Outcomes in Afghanistan? - War on the Rocks
How should the U.N. Security Council, Afghanistan’s neighbors, and international organizations engage with the new Taliban government in Afghanistan? How will these decisions impact Afghanistan’s stability in the next five to 10 years? To date, many analyses have focused on the short-term implications of the Taliban takeover. However, relatively little thought has been given to policy interventions that can bring long-term stability to Afghanistan. The U.N. Security Council and the U.N. Department of Peace Operations should analyze how a multinational peacekeeping operation (PKO) can play a critical role in stabilizing Afghanistan. Empirical research provides compelling evidence on how PKOs support peace settlements and protect local civilians in the fragile time period following conflict termination, leading to durable peace. While several recent works have analyzed an Afghanistan peace operation’s viability, the idea has received relatively little attention in broader policy discourse. Given PKOs’ proven track record in stabilizing post-conflict states, the U.N. Security Council should seriously consider whether a PKO can provide a credible monitoring and verification mechanism to help stabilize Afghanistan.
Based on the Taliban’s consistent demands that all foreign forces depart Afghanistan, a third-party monitoring force may not be feasible. However, with dire economic and humanitarian crises facing Afghanistan, the Taliban’s need for external support might provide a window for a coordinated effort by the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to convince the Taliban of the benefits of a PKO. A successful PKO would depend upon the right conditions and the right force structure, and must deal with the risks posed by spoilers like the Islamic State in Afghanistan.
An Afghanistan PKO would be a new type of peace operation. PKOs traditionally provide monitoring and verification capabilities to support internal peace settlements between mistrusting former combatants at the conclusion of civil conflicts. However, the Taliban’s recent military victory obviates the need for a more traditional intra-Afghan peace settlement. Rather than monitoring and facilitating trust between former internal combatants, an Afghanistan PKO would foster trust between the Taliban and other states and international and non-governmental organizations. Given reports of reprisal killings and human rights abuses (despite the Taliban’s pledges to avoid such practices), international donors are understandably wary of resuming financial aid to a Taliban-led regime. However, if credible third-party monitoring forces were in place to verify that external aid was being responsibly spent and Taliban commitments were being honored, then international donors might be more likely to resume financial assistance. A PKO also provides a reliable mechanism for the donor states and organizations to verify the Taliban’s pledge that Afghanistan will not be used as a terrorist safe haven, as recent reporting indicates. Such trust-building measures might facilitate diplomatic recognition by some states, who are waiting to see how the Taliban will govern.
A PKO could also play a critical role in fostering intra-Afghan trust between the Taliban and millions of Afghan civilians who are living in fear and skeptical of the new regime’s promises. Rather than taking an active part in hostilities and applying coercive military force, traditional peace operations are based on three foundational principles: impartiality, host nation consent, and the non-use of force (beyond self-defense). Neutral peacekeepers would be ideally positioned to facilitate peace between the Taliban regime and remaining resistance groups by supporting disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration efforts, thus strengthening post-conflict peace duration. Increasing trust between former government officials, urban residents, and the Taliban could mitigate Afghanistan’s refugee crisis, which is predicted to worsen in the coming months. Without external support, international isolation of the Taliban regime in the face of mounting humanitarian disaster will spell calamity for millions of innocent Afghans and threaten the Taliban’s nascent sovereignty.
Assessing Taliban Consent and International Political Will
The first and most important condition for a successful PKO is the consent of the Taliban. Deploying multinational troops without consent from the de facto government would amount to an invasion, not a PKO. The Taliban’s insistence on the departure of all foreign forces from Afghanistan seems to make consent unlikely. However, as the Taliban assumes governance responsibilities, their clear need for continued external support may provide donor states, Afghanistan’s neighbors, and international organizations with critical leverage to recommend a PKO. The fact is that, in addition to averting a humanitarian catastrophe, the Taliban stand to benefit from a PKO that facilitates expanded international assistance. Inducing the Taliban to see that such an operation could be in their interest would require a coordinated international pressure campaign orchestrated by a diverse array of state and non-state actors.
Specifically, top donor states, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Afghanistan’s neighbors, and international governmental organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund could withhold financial aid, humanitarian assistance, and diplomatic recognition, conditional on the Taliban consenting to a U.N.-led multinational PKO. While the United States, Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan lack histories of robust cooperation with one another, their interests align when it comes to the question of stabilizing Afghanistan. As Afghanistan teeters toward humanitarian catastrophe, the subsequent second- and third-order effects — such as millions of Afghan refugees, continued disease transmission, and the creation of terrorist safe havens — risk regional destabilization. These risks provide strategic incentives for the U.N. Security Council and Afghanistan’s neighbors to support stabilizing policy interventions. Coordinated action among this broad, international coalition could persuade reluctant Taliban leaders.
Despite a PKO’s obvious benefits, and the clear risks posed by international isolation, Taliban consent to a PKO risks the organization’s internal legitimacy. While the Taliban are frequently cast as a unified organization, some analysts have pointed to the group’s diverse and disparate assemblage of various armed groups from across Afghanistan. It remains to be seen if Taliban unity, which was boosted by opposition to U.S. and NATO forces, will persist after those forces withdraw. Given the existential threat of organizational splintering, Taliban leaders must balance their need for internal legitimacy amongst Taliban ranks (and between moderate and radical elements) against international legitimacy and external demands for the Taliban to protect human rights, civil liberties, and Afghanistan’s democracy.
Overall, a PKO with credible monitoring and verification capabilities aligns with the Taliban’s long-term interests by facilitating trust with skeptical Afghans, donor states, regional neighbors, and international and non-governmental organizations. Enabling international humanitarian relief will be critical to stabilizing Afghanistan by providing urgently needed aid to millions of Afghans facing famine, drought, a pandemic, and displacement. Despite these clear benefits, Taliban leaders will be wary of consenting to a PKO, which risks alienating the group’s radical elements and organizational splintering. If the United Nations wishes to deploy a PKO to Afghanistan, it will need to carefully craft the mission’s force structure and mandate in a manner that facilitates intra-Taliban legitimacy.
Structuring a Peace Operation for Success
Peace operations vary widely in size, composition, and force structure based on their specific mandate. PKO force structure considerations would likely be critical to obtaining Taliban consent. An Afghanistan PKO would require adequate resources to credibly fulfill its mandate while balancing the Taliban’s internal legitimacy concerns. A large PKO with a robust mandate that includes civilian protection is likely a non-starter. A lightly armed observer mission, concentrated in the main cities is most realistic, given probable Taliban doubts.
The U.N.’s Department of Peace Operations has the experience and capabilities to manage such a complex mission. A force of 10,000 to 12,000 peacekeepers, spread between Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif would provide a credible PKO with geographic coverage across Afghanistan. These four cities alone contain approximately 12 percent of Afghanistan’s total population. Given widespread doubts over the Taliban’s recent pledges, stationing peacekeepers in major cities would be critical for the Taliban to build trust with donor states and international organizations. It would also build trust with vulnerable Afghans who previously supported or worked in the government of Afghanistan. From a humanitarian perspective, the PKO’s presence in major cities would increase international and non-governmental organizations’ access and ability to provide aid to millions of Afghans.
This PKO is also ideal for the mission’s force protection requirements. As is evident with Kabul’s recent U.S. and NATO evacuation, Afghanistan’s geography creates large risks for external forces’ mobility and their ability to resupply and evacuate casualties. Militants can isolate and cut off disparate peacekeeping units by controlling key chokepoints, such as airports or Highway 1, posing a large risk to units based away from major cities. Concentrating the PKO in a few major cities with large transportation nodes will similarly ease the mission’s logistical burden, which is a formidable challenge with Afghanistan’s geography.
Though beneficial from force protection and logistics perspectives, concentrating peacekeepers in cities reduces the mission’s monitoring and verification capabilities in rural Afghanistan. Urban PKO units will have limited ability to travel significant distances beyond their local regions, degrading the mission’s ability to patrol in rural areas and deliver humanitarian aid across the entire country. Despite these shortcomings, PKO force protection concerns may outweigh mandate considerations in a necessary trade-off to keep the mission’s risk profile suitably low to attract troop-contributing countries.
This limited geographic reach is especially problematic if the PKO’s mandate includes verifying that Afghanistan is not being used as a terrorist safe haven. However, new technology provides options to mitigate these risks. Specifically, the PKO could be supplemented with unarmed and unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, extending the mission’s monitoring capabilities into the countryside and mountain ranges. Though it seems improbable that the Taliban would accept foreign intelligence systems, if these assets were operated under the auspices of the U.N. Department of Peace Operations, it should assuage Taliban concerns. Deploying with these capabilities would be critical to monitoring rural Afghanistan and strengthening the PKO’s verification credibility. As suggested by recent research, integrating new technologies would allow an Afghanistan PKO to strengthen its monitoring and verification capabilities without significantly increasing the number of peacekeepers.
As with all peace operations, selecting donor states and PKO leaders that are acceptable to combatants is critical. In the case of an Afghanistan PKO, Muslim-majority countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Azerbaijan, or Bangladesh would be potential troop contributors. Interestingly, the Taliban previously proposed a majority-Muslim peace operation as a transitional force in 2009. These countries and Afghanistan’s neighbors should play an active leadership role in overseeing the PKO. Given these states’ interest in attaining regional stability, political will might be present for sustaining the PKO. For obvious reasons, the United States, NATO members, and partner states who supported Operation Enduring Freedom should not play a role in the PKO. While these states can offer support through PKO financing and applying international pressure to induce Taliban consent, their direct participation would detract from the mission’s neutrality and impartiality. The Taliban will also be apprehensive about formally incorporating gender considerations into a PKO’s mandate. However, compelling research highlights the importance of deliberately utilizing female peacekeepers and these considerations should not be overlooked when resourcing the PKO’s composition in a manner that protects Afghan women.
Research indicates that PKOs must be adequately resourced to fulfill their mandates. Under-resourced PKOs have routinely struggled to accomplish their mandates, as was the case with the ineffective United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Initially deployed in 1988, the mission was mandated with three core tasks to monitor: “(1) non-interference and non-intervention by the parties [Afghanistan, Pakistan, Soviet Union, and the United States] in each other’s affairs; (2) the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan; and (3) the voluntary return of refugees.” Deployed with only 50 total peacekeepers and without an intra-Afghan peace settlement, this severely under-resourced peace operation failed to provide a credible monitoring and verification capability needed for intra-Afghan parties to overcome mutual mistrust. Following the Soviet Union’s withdrawal, spiraling violence between various Afghan militias significantly increased risk to peacekeepers, sapping the political will of troop-contributing states. The mission ended in 1990 as Afghanistan devolved into civil war. Under-resourced PKOs were also incapable of fulfilling their mandates in Rwanda and Bosnia, with horrific consequences.
The Risk of Spoilers
Even if the U.N. Security Council and Afghanistan’s neighbors can induce Taliban consent for a peace operation, the mission will still be vulnerable to spoilers — parties threatened by peace settlements that employ violence to undermine internal peace processes. As seen with the tragic bombings at Kabul Airport on Aug. 26, spoilers will continue to play an active role in Afghanistan and these groups would almost certainly target peacekeepers. Though the Islamic State in Afghanistan is the most prominent threat, radical Taliban factions may also serve as spoilers in the same way that splinter factions have done in other post-conflict settings. Beyond targeting the PKO, spoilers may target remaining international and non-governmental organizations to discredit the Taliban-backed regime. In addition to extremist groups, criminal organizations are taking advantage of Afghanistan’s instability to settle scores and disrupt competitors, making attribution of attacks difficult. While these spoilers pose a certain risk for a PKO, their presence simultaneously highlights the need to have impartial third-party observers on hand who can investigate attacks and credibly attribute spoiling attacks. The risk posed by spoilers increases PKO force protection requirements, further strengthening the case for a mission that is concentrated in large cities that can leverage existing military bases.
Conclusion
Complex trade-offs dominate many aspects of this proposal. An Afghanistan PKO’s size would be directly linked to the mission’s monitoring and verification capabilities. However, the mandate’s scope and the mission’s size must be constrained in a manner that enables Taliban internal legitimacy and consent, while still providing a credible peace operation that will assuage international concerns and incentivize Taliban compliance with their stated promises. Further, the PKO’s risk profile must be low enough to gain and sustain troop-contributing countries’ support. While Taliban consent to such a mission would significantly reduce risk, the persistent threat of spoilers like Islamic State in Afghanistan will increase force protection considerations’ importance while simultaneously limiting the mission’s geographic reach. I argue these trade-offs can be carefully balanced in a manner that produces a credible PKO and a limited mandate.
Beyond trade-offs, a critical question is: Why should the U.N. Security Council, Afghanistan’s neighbors, and international organizations cooperate with the Taliban to stabilize Afghanistan? While a PKO paired with conditional foreign aid would be a vital step in stabilizing Afghanistan, it would simultaneously enable a Taliban-led regime to consolidate power in a manner that is not aligned with democracy, civil liberties, or women’s rights.
The answer is that continued civil conflict and humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan carries significant concerns. Beyond the normative considerations regarding the safety and security of 39 million Afghans, there are clear strategic imperatives for a stable Afghanistan. The widespread abandonment of Afghanistan following the 1989 Soviet withdrawal offers an instructive lesson for world leaders today. Isolating a Taliban-led Afghanistan risks continued civil war, state failure, and humanitarian disaster. Further, this isolation will likely strengthen radical sects within the Taliban. Extremist organizations may take advantage of the security vacuum, risking further regional destabilization in South Asia.
While Taliban rhetoric diminishes a PKO’s feasibility, coordinated effort across groups such as the U.N. Security Council, Afghanistan’s neighbors, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank might increase the likelihood of the Taliban government consenting to a U.N.-led PKO. Following four decades of persistent conflict, creative and proactive steps ought to be considered to bring stability to Afghanistan. Decades of research suggests peace operations’ monitoring and verification capabilities can overcome post-conflict mistrust and assist in providing Afghanistan lasting stability.
Ryan C. Van Wie is a U.S. Army Infantry officer who has deployed to Afghanistan. He has a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and his research focuses on civil conflict dynamics and military force structure. This paper only reflects the author’s views and does not represent the views of the U.S. Army or the U.S. government.
20. Biological Deterrence for the Shadow War
Biological Deterrence for the Shadow War - War on the Rocks
JOSEPH BUCCINA, DYLAN GEORGE, AND ANDY WEBER
The inadequate initial U.S. response to COVID-19, coupled with new advances in biotechnology, could make biological weapons more appealing for U.S. adversaries. The biological weapons capability achieved by the United States in the 1960s and by the Soviet Union in the 1980s suggests that it is very likely that near-peer adversaries have the capabilities to launch a biological attack with the same destructive capacity as a nuclear strike. However, in future decades, less lethal biological attacks may become more appealing. The risk is a new biological component to the low-boil actions by China and Russia that have been dubbed the “Shadow War.”
To respond to the threat of another pandemic or a bioweapons attack, the United States first needs to improve its woefully underfunded public health infrastructure. Then, with the specific risk of low-level attacks in mind, the government should enhance its capacity to defend against and deter biological attacks. This means giving the Department of Defense a bigger and better-funded role in public health preparedness, publicizing a credible strategy for attributing and responding to biological attacks, and devoting more resources to biotechnology research and development.
Improve the Public Health Infrastructure
U.S. public health infrastructure and its workforce have been slowly deteriorating for decades, throughout Democratic and Republican administrations. This hindered the initial U.S. response to COVID-19. Much of America’s public health capacity lies in state and local public health departments. Long before COVID-19, organizations like the Institute of Medicine highlighted the impact of state and local budget cuts on U.S. public health preparedness. The state and local funding landscape is characterized by boom-and-bust cycles. In Fiscal Year 2001, state public health laboratory funding was at roughly $20 million. After the 2001 Amerithrax letter attacks, there was a boom: funding ramped up to $200 million in FY2003. Then came the bust: from FY2004 to FY2008, funding declined to approximately $70 million. Since then, the Center for Disease Control’s funding was basically flat from FY2009 to FY2017 and state public health funding largely declined during the same period.
Obviously, the bust years are difficult ones for public health capacity. More subtly, and perhaps more perniciously, the uneven funding means that money from the boom years cannot always be effectively used — maintaining human capital and physical infrastructure is difficult when annual funding varies widely.
An effective U.S. response to a major biological event, whether a coronavirus pandemic or a large-scale biological attack, requires a robust public health system. And this requires sustained attention and adequate resourcing. Human capital may be the most critical. This includes, among other professions, disease outbreak modelers, experts to guide policy decisions, and laboratorians for genomic sequencing and testing. Also important are physical assets such as data infrastructure, testing capacity, and a resilient supply chain for vaccines, drugs, and tests.
As we have seen with the joint Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense Operation Warp Speed, public-private partnerships will be an integral component for many aspects of public health response. Americans have explicitly accepted the need for private sector capabilities in manufacturing vaccines and drugs at-scale for a pandemic. Similarly, COVID-19 has demonstrated that data and data infrastructure should be similarly transformed for at-scale use during a pandemic. The private sector has taken a much larger role in designing, developing, and executing data systems for COVID-19. This will need to be sustained long-term for future outbreaks. The United States needs to rethink how to effectively maintain the current coalition of civil society, philanthropists, academics, volunteers, and the private sector for future pandemic response.
The overlap is not perfect, but much of the U.S. public health infrastructure will be needed for both naturally occurring and man-made biological threats. To be truly prepared for a major biological event, we need a long-term strategy and a sustained, consistent funding model to provide these capabilities. Translational research capacity, vaccine administration, personal protective equipment, testing, outbreak modeling, and many other components are vital for both a coronavirus outbreak and a biological attack from an agent like anthrax. This is why U.S. adversaries may be giving biological weapons a closer look in light of its failed response to COVID-19.
Biodefense for the Shadow War
In revising the U.S. public health infrastructure in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. policymakers should pay particular attention to the possibility of more subtle biological weapons threats. In the future, less lethal biological attacks may be used by adversaries as a new biological component to the “Shadow War.” As described by Jim Sciutto, Shadow War features tactics that weaken the United States without kinetic force, such as cyberattacks, election interference, and industrial espionage. China and Russia have used such actions to weaken the U.S. strategic position relative to their own, without provoking America into an undesired military conflict.
Advances in biotechnology, most notably in synthetic biology, might give attackers a range of more targeted and less lethal bioweapons that they could more easily deploy. For example, consider anthrax (Bacillus anthracis), which has long been seen as an ideal bioweapon. Anthrax can be released surreptitiously in its hardy spore form, which can cause a deadly infection once inhaled. Unlike many biological agents, anthrax is not highly contagious and person-to-person transmission is rare. Anthrax is deadly because of the anthrax toxin produced by the bacteria. But what if anthrax were engineered to produce something less deadly? Perhaps anthrax could be genetically edited to produce a protein that incapacitates, rather than kills, the person it infects. A savvy adversary could transform the bacteria from a weapon of mass destruction to a weapon of mass distraction. Creative uses of bioengineered anthrax (or other spore-forming bacteria) could provide a geo-targeted attack that is difficult to attribute. The use of such subtle biological agents could have meaningful consequences and perhaps stay under the radar for some time: Consider a biological agent that makes a person slightly more susceptible to a chronic disease or minorly impedes cognitive abilities.
As with election interference and industrial espionage, the United States may struggle to come up with an appropriate response to such attacks. Thus, with this threat in mind, a number of specific actions are needed.
The first is an expanded role for the Department of Defense in deterring biological weapons. A near-peer adversary could launch biological attacks, whether large-scale or more subtle, against either America’s deployed forces or its population. The Department of Defense cannot only focus on deterring biological weapons use against U.S. forces. In partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, it should be actively engaged in deterring biological weapons use against the homeland as an equally important mission, and its biodefense efforts should be structured and funded accordingly. Public health infrastructure and capabilities to respond to pandemics for warfighters and civilians should be considered as a top national security priority.
This requires more money. Building off the success of Operation Warp Speed, the Department of Defense should continue to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services on biological preparedness efforts. Although the United States woke up to the danger of biological threats last year, the Department of Defense’s program for chemical and biological defense was cut by 10 percent in 2020. Thirty percent of those cuts were applied to the medical biodefense component that encompasses vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. But given the severity of the threat, we believe that the United States should invest $10 billion each in the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services for biodefense over each of the next 10 years. Much like an improved public health system, better biodefense capabilities for the homeland will have dual benefits: potentially deterring the use of biological weapons and enhancing the U.S. response should such an attack occur.
Second, the United States should establish and publicize a credible retaliation strategy for the range of potential biological weapons that could be used by adversaries. America has sometimes relied on a policy of strategic ambiguity that hinted a biological attack against it could be answered by a nuclear strike. Nuclear retaliation would be a disproportionate response for the type of lower-consequence biological attacks that could be employed by a sophisticated adversary. A more effective response, even to most large-scale biological attacks, would be the use of overwhelming conventional force. Additionally, improvements in attribution are particularly important for a robust retaliation strategy — without accurate attribution, the United States does not have a return address for retaliatory actions. A well-established retaliation strategy, with a robust attribution capability as its foundation, may tilt the strategic calculus of adversaries away from using biological weapons of any sort against the United States.
Third, the United States should take actions at home to promote continued global leadership of biotechnology research and development. A comprehensive strategy would include a sustained increase in funding for life sciences research and development and more robust support for translational science. Ramping up funding in these areas would help for a range of needs, especially for the ability to rapidly design and manufacture vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Retaining leadership in this sector will help the United States to develop the medical countermeasures and related technologies that are constituent components of its public health system and biodefense capabilities.
America should begin taking these steps now. Policymakers should balance the near-term response to the delta variant surge with these longer-term actions that will help us prepare for the next major biological event. Before the memory of the pandemic fades, we should tap into the current reservoir of political will for these longer-term actions. The steps recommended here will help the United States to reestablish biological deterrence and prepare for another potential pandemic. When U.S. adversaries see the country making progress in this area, it should deter the use of biological weapons, whether they are large-scale or more subtle threats.
Joseph Buccina is managing director, federal services at Cogitativo, working at the intersection of machine learning and health data. He has held several roles supporting the public sector health security mission.
Dylan George, Ph.D., is a former vice president at Ginkgo Bioworks. He served as senior policy adviser to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2014 to 2016, and various other positions within the U.S. federal government.
Andy Weber is a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks. He served from 2009 to 2014 as President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs. Follow him on Twitter @AndyWeberNCB.
21. New disclosures show how Gen. Mark A. Milley tried to check Trump. They could also further politicize the military.
We must prevent the politicization of the military as best we can (it will always be politicized to a certain extent).
New disclosures show how Gen. Mark A. Milley tried to check Trump. They could also further politicize the military.
New revelations showing how Gen. Mark A. Milley, the nation’s top military officer, quietly maneuvered to check President Donald Trump reveal the lengths that top officials went to prevent potentially rash action, but the disclosures also threaten to thrust the military deeper into the partisan fray, former officials said.
A series of dramatic inside-the-room accounts, including one in which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs promised to alert China’s top officer if Trump was preparing to launch an attack, provides new insight into military leaders’ response to the previous administration’s fraught final period.
But Kori Schake, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said the revelations that Milley covertly acted to counter his commander in chief are “bad for the military as an institution.”
“It encourages people to do what Americans are already doing, which is viewing the military as they view the Supreme Court: apolitical when they agree with them, partisan when they don’t,” she said.
The latest exposé comes in a book by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who write that Milley, alarmed by the possibility Trump might strike China as he tried to stay in power, reached out to Gen. Li Zuocheng in the months surrounding the 2020 election in order to dismiss any Chinese fears of a preemptive American attack, they said.
That followed other dramatic accounts involving Milley, including in a book by Washington Post journalists Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, which said the general likened the circumstances around the election to those of Nazi-era Germany.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told others, referring to the 1933 attack on the German parliament, the book reported. “The gospel of the Führer.”
Supporters of the general, a stocky, blunt-talking infantryman, credit him with successfully sheltering the military from Trump’s most problematic impulses, then pivoting to serving a president who is different from his predecessor in almost every respect.
“He has been asked to do the most difficult Olympic dive of any of the chairman since Goldwater-Nichols,” a 1986 congressional act that cemented the power of the top officer, said Peter Feaver, a scholar on civil-military relations at Duke University. “So when you’re evaluating the quality of the dive and evaluating him, you have to recognize that,” he said.
Milley “did what he had to do to fulfill his oath to the Constitution and to protect this country,” a senior military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
But critics say that Milley’s unusually prominent role in the nation’s charged political discourse has the potential to exacerbate the erosion of the military’s nonpartisan status that occurred under Trump. Chairmen, who usually keep their military advice to the president confidential, typically keep a low profile and are little known outside government circles.
Trump flouted norms concerning the military, intervening in military justice cases, treating troop events like campaign rallies and referring to the top brass as “my generals.”
“Whatever one thinks of the reports on General Milley’s actions, it’s of great concern that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has become a regular topic of political debate, commentary and intrigues,” John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter, said on Twitter. “This won’t end well.”
Milley has attracted more attention than many of his predecessors since even before he became chairman. In December 2018, Trump announced his decision to nominate Milley, who was then serving as Army chief of staff, disregarding the recommendation of another candidate by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
A former senior official said Trump was fascinated by Milley’s medals and “tough guy” swagger. Trump later said he picked Milley to spite Mattis, who has since criticized his former boss.
Perhaps the most searing moment of Milley’s tenure occurred in June 2020, as Trump mounted an aggressive response to protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Milley, dressed in fatigues, joined the president as he walked across Lafayette Square outside the White House, which authorities had forcibly cleared of protesters moments before, for a photo op. Pictures of that event appeared to suggest Milley was a willing supporter of Trump’s heavy-handed approach.
People who know Milley said he was deeply affected by the barrage of criticism he received from respected former senior officers, and considered resigning. Days later, he issued a rare public apology.
In the months after, Milley appeared to be attempting to atone for what happened at Lafayette Square.
He has issued instructions to the military ranks to remain loyal to the Constitution rather than any individual. After President Biden chose to withdraw troops from Afghanistan despite Milley’s impassioned arguments against doing so, the general sought to display his deference to the president’s decision.
At other times, though, he has appeared to go out of his way to wade into politically charged matters.
Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee in June, Milley launched a heated counterattack to criticism — which came during an exchange between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and a Republican lawmaker — of critical race theory, which examines the societal impact of racism. Some Republicans have asserted that “woke” Pentagon policies, including the lifting of a ban on transgender personnel, distract from the military’s core mission.
“I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist,” Milley said. “I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military . . . of being ‘woke’ or something else because we are studying some theories that are out there.”
Conservative figures including Fox News host Tucker Carlson assailed Milley. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) tweeted, “With Generals like this it’s no wonder we’ve fought considerably more wars than we’ve won.”
Critics have also responded angrily to the disclosure about Milley’s promise to share information with China’s top general. Trump called it treason. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) demanded Milley resign, as did Christopher Miller, who served alongside Milley as acting defense secretary in the final months of Trump’s presidency.
Responding to the report related to China on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he saw “nothing in what I’ve read that would cause any concern.”
Biden told reporters that he has “great confidence in General Milley.”
But some Democrats, while supportive of steps that sought to prevent Trump from illegally staying in office, have privately voiced worries that the disclosures may create a precedent for unelected military officials to go around civilian leaders, despite Milley’s admonitions that the military must obey orders if they are lawful.
A former senior defense official said the recent disclosures appeared to reflect the attempt by Milley, starting with the Lafayette Square incident, to shake free of the toll his affiliation with Trump may have on his legacy.
“He’s trying to recalibrate and show his bona fides for the new administration,” the former official said. “It’s not ideal, but it’s not unexpected.”
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
