Quotes of the Day:
“Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things."
- Miyamoto Musashi
“What we don’t know about North Korea is so vast that it makes the Kremlin of the 1950’s look like an open book. The communist northern tier of the peninsula once known as the Hermit Kingdom has lived up to that name with a vengeance, enveloping its 22 million people in a bell jar of propaganda, thought control and mythology glorifying the Kims, often in public pageants that would dwarf a Cecil B. DeMille production.”
- Arnold Kantor, Former U.S. Undersecretary of State
"The North Korean leadership faces three broad options: it can adopt fundamental economic reforms in an attempt to reverse the economic decline, recognizing that reform may unleash forces that threaten the character of the political regime; it can stand pat and try to ride out the current crisis, risking collapse; or it can muddle through, making ad hoc adjustments as circumstances dictate. In the end, North Korea will most likely follow Romania in a form of apparatchik capitalism in which growth will follow the initial decline in output that results from the relaxation of central control."
- Marcus Noland, Foreign Affairs, July 1997
1. Biden pitching partnership after tough stretch with allies
2. US encircling China on multiple new Cold War fronts
3. Governments around the globe are limiting online services, content and access
4. What Went Wrong in Afghanistan: A Primer
5. Will the U.S. Navy Defend Taiwan From China?
6. Our remote warfare counterterrorism strategy is more risk than reward
7. AUKUS and Australian Nuclear Submarines: Just the Beginning?
8. China's military has an Achilles' heel: Low troop morale
9. How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists
10. A plan for rooting out extremism in the military: report
11. AUKUS is a victory for freedom, democracy and the rule of law
12. How the U.S. Nailed the Economic Response to Covid-19
13. Will Turkey’s Détente with Egypt and the Gulf Extend to the Horn of Africa?
14. Biden Says 'America's Back.' The World Has Some Questions
15. After 20 years of waging religious guerrilla warfare, Taliban fighters in Kabul say they miss the battle
16. US-China relations: two economies linked by financial risk can’t afford to go to war
17. America's plan to build 747 arsenal ships packed with cruise missiles
18. The USA, China, and the “Whole of Society” approach
19. NEIL MACKAY'S BIG READ: Disney makes you sad. Jane Austen teaches you to kill ... meet the Scots genius who reveals all on the psychological science of stories
1. Biden pitching partnership after tough stretch with allies
Alliances remain at the heart of our national security.
Biden pitching partnership after tough stretch with allies
AP · by AAMER MADHANI · September 19, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden goes before the United Nations this week eager to make the case for the world to act with haste against the coronavirus, climate change and human rights abuses. His pitch for greater global partnership comes at a moment when allies are becoming increasingly skeptical about how much U.S. foreign policy really has changed since Donald Trump left the White House.
Biden plans to limit his time at the U.N. General Assembly due to coronavirus concerns. He is scheduled to meet with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and address the assembly on Tuesday before shifting the rest of the week’s diplomacy to virtual and Washington settings.
At a virtual COVID-19 summit he is hosting Wednesday, leaders will be urged to step up vaccine-sharing commitments, address oxygen shortages around the globe and deal with other critical pandemic-related issues.
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The president also has invited the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan, part of a Pacific alliance, to Washington and is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the White House.
Through it all, Biden will be the subject of a quiet assessment by allies: Has he lived up to his campaign promise to be a better partner than Trump?
Biden’s chief envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, offered a harmonious answer in advance of all the diplomacy: “We believe our priorities are not just American priorities, they are global priorities,” she said Friday.
But over the past several months, Biden has found himself at odds with allies on a number of high-profile issues.
There have been noted differences over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the pace of COVID-19 vaccine-sharing and international travel restrictions, and the best way to respond to military and economic moves by China. A fierce French backlash erupted in recent days after the U.S. and Britain announced they would help equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
Biden opened his presidency by declaring that “America is back” and pledging a more collaborative international approach.
At the same time, he has focused on recalibrating national security priorities after 20 years marked by preoccupation with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and thwarting Islamic terrorists in the Middle East and South Asia. He has tried to make the case that the U.S. and its democratic allies need to put greater focus on countering economic and security threats posed by China and Russia.
Biden has faced resistance -- and, at moments, outright anger -- from allies when the White House has moved on important global decisions with what some deemed insufficient consultation.
France was livid about the submarine deal, which was designed to bolster Australian efforts to keep tabs on China’s military in the Pacific but undercuts a deal worth at least $66 billion for a fleet of a dozen submarines built by a French contractor.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has recalled France’s ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia for consultations in Paris. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Australia and the United States had both betrayed France. Biden and Macron are expected to speak by phone in the coming days, a French government spokesman said.
“It was really a stab in the back,” Le Drian said. “It looks a lot like what Trump did.”
Biden administration and Australian officials say that France was aware of their plans, and the White House promised to “continue to be engaged in the coming days to resolve our differences.”
But Biden and European allies have also been out of sync on other matters, including how quickly wealthy nations should share their coronavirus vaccine stockpiles with poorer nations.
Early on, Biden resisted calls to immediately begin donating 4% to 5% of stockpiles to developing nations. In June, the White House instead announced it was buying 500 million doses to be distributed by a World Health Organization-backed initiative to share vaccine with low- and middle-income countries around the globe. Biden is soon expected to announce additional steps to help vaccinate the world.
Allies among the Group of Seven major industrial nations have shown differing levels of comfort with Biden’s calls to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing. When the leaders met this year in England, they agreed to work toward competing against China. But there was less unity on how adversarial a public position the group should take.
Canada, the United Kingdom and France largely endorsed Biden’s position, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitancy.
Germany, which has strong trade ties with China, has been keen to avoid a situation in which Germany, or the European Union, might be forced to choose sides between China and the United States.
Biden clashed with European leaders over his decision to stick to an Aug. 31 deadline to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which resulted in the U.S. and Western allies leaving before all their citizens could be evacuated from Taliban rule.
Britain and other allies, many of whose troops followed American forces into Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on the United States, had urged Biden to keep the American military at the Kabul airport longer but were ultimately rebuffed by the president.
Administration officials see this week’s engagements as an important moment for the president to spell out his priorities and rally support to take on multiple crises with greater coordination.
It’s also a time of political transition for some allies. Longtime German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to leave office after Germany holds elections later this month and France’s Macron is to face his voters in April at a moment when his political star has dimmed.
J. Stephen Morrison, a global health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, expressed concern that the rift in U.S.-France relations has occurred at time when global leaders are far behind their goals for vaccinating the globe and need to step up their efforts.
“We need these countries to be in a position to come forward around the type of agenda ... that the U.S. has put together,” Morrison said of Biden’s planned vaccination push. “So the French being absent or not terribly engaged is a setback.”
AP · by AAMER MADHANI · September 19, 2021
2. US encircling China on multiple new Cold War fronts
Is a picture of containment shaping up? I am sure it looks that way from China's perspective.
And in addition to the South China Sea, this article discusses the importance of the INdian Ocean.
US encircling China on multiple new Cold War fronts
US-Australia nuclear submarine deal is part of a wider alliance-based strategy to counter and contain China's rise and ambitions
The Indo-Pacific’s Cold War is heating up as the region splits ever more decisively into opposed camps with a loose alliance of US-led democratic powers on one side and authoritarian China and its aligned satellites on the other.
And the first economic salvos of the contest launched by Donald Trump’s trade war are becoming more militarily provocative under Joe Biden.
The escalating contest took a game-changing turn last week when the US and Britain announced they will provide Australia with the technology and capability to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines in a new trilateral security arrangement that will put more pressure on China’s contested claims in the South China Sea and other maritime theaters.
The nuclear submarines will tilt the region’s strategic balance and potentially cause China to concentrate more of its security energies closer to home and less so on far-flung theaters. From that perspective, the submarine deal is part of a coordinated encirclement strategy that Beijing will certainly view as a threat to its plans to increase and strengthen its presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Meanwhile, the US and India signed a new agreement on July 30 to jointly develop Air-Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (ALUAV). The deal is the latest under the Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation Memorandum Agreement between India’s Ministry of Defense and the US Defense Department first signed in 2006 and renewed in 2015.
A September 3 statement describes the deal as yet another step towards “deepening defense technology collaboration between the two nations through co-development of defense equipment.” Needless to say, the target of the deal is China.
Just as provocatively, US ally Japan is now staging its largest military drills since 1993, separately but hardly by coincidence at the same time Taiwan has launched a new major military exercise known as Han Kuang to strengthen combat readiness in the event of a Chinese attack.
China considers self-governing Taiwan a renegade province that must be “reunified” with the mainland, a seizure Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated is a near-term priority. Taiwan’s incorporation into the mainland would undermine the US’ strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific, making the island a strategic center point of the new Cold War.
Taiwanese soldiers prepare grenade launchers, machine guns and tanks for the Han Kuang drill for simulation in the event of Chinese invasion, in Tainan, Taiwan, September 16, 2021. Photo: AFP via NurPhoto / Ceng Shou Yi
China was not explicitly mentioned as a target in any of the recent deals, tie-ups and exercises. Indeed, Biden administration officials who briefed reporters after the nuclear sub announcement said specifically that the new trilateral partnership “was not aimed at countering Beijing.” The US-India deal was likewise announced without mentioning China.
But there is no mistaking that Biden is actualizing his vow to build alliances of so-called like-minded powers to tackle and confront China’s rise. That alliance-building will be underscored at Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, meeting at the White House in Washington on September 24.
The Quad, a strategic tie-up of the US, Australia, Japan and India, is in China’s crosshairs. The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, ran a September 15 editorial headlined “Quad summit will see limited concrete outcomes as US, Japan, India, Australia are ‘four ward mates with different illnesses’: experts.”
The commentary said, “the summit will make no big chance [SIC] in its hostility against China, though the statement released by the White House about the summit didn’t mention China.”
Lü Xiang, a specialist in US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of the Global Times’ cited “experts”, spoke to contradictions and weaknesses in the Quad: “The US hasty pull-out from Afghanistan caused huge loss to India; Australia refused to make promise on coal mining for the climate change issue; Japan is now facing a chaotic political situation, and is being unwisely provocative toward China due to the Taiwan question.”
The Global Times has it right from one perspective: “hostility against China” is rising precisely due to Beijing’s increasingly assertive moves in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, an outward thrust that the Biden administration and its allies are broadly countering in the name of maintaining a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The shift in US strategic perspective from fighting terrorism to countering China is open and clear. US Vice President Kamala Harris renewed that pledge during a visit to Singapore and Vietnam in late August literally coincident with America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, where she said the US “will pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific that promotes our interests and those of our partners and allies.”
Like the Global Times, Harris did not mince words when she said “In the South China Sea, we know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea” [and] “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with civil society members who work on LGBT, transgender, disability rights and climate change,at the US Chief of Mission’s residence in Hanoi, Vietnam, August 26, 2021. Photo: AFP / Evelyn Hockstein
After four years of what many viewed as four years of neglect, mixed messaging and miscues under former president Donald Trump, the US under Biden is making clear the US’ renewed commitment to the region.
US ally Britain is also back in the region in a muscular manner not seen in decades. A strike group led by aircraft carrier HMS Elizabeth sailed through the South China Sea in route to Japan in July, a freedom of navigation flex that elicited a strong response from China.
Britain “is still living in its colonial days”, fumed Global Times’ columnist Lin Lan on July 26 while taking shots at issues unrelated to the aircraft carrier’s voyage in China’s nearby waters.
“While Britain is trying to show off its strength, its own problems are acute. On July 14, a Covid-19 outbreak was reported on the HMS Queen Elizabeth and around 100 cases were confirmed…Besides, the UK’s economy has fallen into recession and about one-fifth of UK pensioners are living in poverty, according to an analysis of government figures in June.”
The Global Times also shot at Japan’s recent military exercise. Columnists Yang Sheng and Liu Xuanzun wrote on September 15: “Right-wing political forces in Japan have been lying to the Japanese public about the essence of the Diaoyu Islands issue [disputed islands in the East China Sea] and Taiwan question.
“Now the Japanese public holds unreasonable hostility and bias against China, and this is why the massive drills targeting China could win support for Japanese politicians.”
Their comments were punctuated with what could be construed as a veiled warning from Beijing: “But to what extent Japan would intervene militarily, the US has the final say … China is prepared for the worst-case scenario — the US and its allies, including Japan, launch an all-out military intervention to interrupt China’s national reunification.”
But China’s leadership has been doing more than printing provocative articles in their mouthpiece aimed at international audiences.
In a sign of China’s wider global ambitions, Beijing recently built a 330-meter-long pier large enough to accommodate an aircraft carrier at its naval base in Djibouti, China’s only foreign military base strategically located at the southern entrance of the Red Sea.
China’s first domestically made aircraft carrier, the Shandong, has completed regular testing and training missions at sea that focused on actual combat after serving in the People’s Liberation Army Navy for 10 months, China Central Television reported. Photo: Global Times
From there, China’s navy can readily monitor traffic to and from the Suez Canal — and collect vital intelligence from the entire region. At least 2,000 Chinese navy personnel are present at the Djibouti base, which has been expanded gradually since it was opened in August 2017.
To be sure, China’s move into the Indian Ocean makes strategic sense. Christopher Colley, a security analyst writing in the Washington-based War on the Rocks, recently noted:
“Roughly 80% of China’s imported oil transits through the Indian Ocean and Malacca Strait” and that “in addition, 95% of China’s trade with the Middle East, Africa, and Europe passes through the Indian Ocean. More importantly from Beijing’s perspective, this region is controlled by Chinese rivals: the United States and India.”
Japan and Australia, which also see less benign motives behind China’s interest in the Indian Ocean, could be added to that list.
Its newly established presence has unmistakably shifted the huge and strategically important ocean’s security dynamics to their mutual detriment, particularly as China projects power through two aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong, with a third under development.
China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean has been seen in the growing presence of Chinese survey ships and submarines. In January, the Paris-based Naval News website reported that Chinese ships “have been carrying out a systematic mapping of the [Indian Ocean’s] seafloor. This may relate to submarine warfare.”
That echoes a 2020 US Department of Defense report that said the Chinese navy may have an Indian Ocean fleet “in the near future.”
The Chinese obviously want to protect their economic and therefore strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, not least their crucial fuel imports from the Middle East, but it is also clear that China has wider strategic ambitions to challenge the US as the world’s leading military superpower.
The 16th installment of the China navy escort fleet conducts a two-ship alongside replenishment in the eastern waters of the Indian Ocean in a file photo. Photo: Twitter
“Although China’s ultimate aims in the Indian Ocean remain somewhat ambiguous, it is clear that the Chinese leadership is actively pursuing capabilities that would allow it to undertake a range of military missions in the region,” said a Brookings Institution think tank report from last year.
The Australian nuclear submarine deal, US-India drone deal and rising Quad meetings and operations should all be viewed from the perspective of China’s perceived expanding threat, a multi-pronged strategy driven by multiple aligned actors to encircle and contain Beijing’s global ambitions.
While the US and its allies cloak many of these moves in euphemisms about “freedom”, “liberty” and “democracy”, the battle lines are being drawn and pieces positioned for what increasingly seems like an inevitable new Cold War conflict to come.
3. Governments around the globe are limiting online services, content and access
We should not be surprised by this. Information can be a threat to governments.
Governments around the globe are limiting online services, content and access
Axios · by Scott Rosenberg
Governments around the world are finding it easier than ever to make the internet, and the companies that run it, knuckle under.
Driving the news: Russia Friday forced Apple and Google to remove an app that supporters of dissident leader Alexei Navalny had created to coordinate opposition votes in Russian elections.
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Also last week, China's government removed nearly all online content connected with one of its top movie stars as part of a broader campaign against the power of celebrities, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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Full shutdowns of internet access by governments seeking to cut off citizens' access to information for political reasons have become increasingly common, a study Axios reported earlier this month found.
The big picture: Governments are limiting or banning applications, content and connectivity itself — and Big Tech companies, rich and powerful as they are, can't or won't fight back.
- From the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter protests, the internet has helped organizers build popular movements and even, on occasion, overthrow governments.
- But for now, at least, the tables have turned, and technology is giving entrenched leaders and parties an effective lever to bolster their power.
In Russia, per a New York Times report, the government of Vladimir Putin threatened specific Apple and Google employees with prosecution if the companies did not act to remove the Navalny app, which the government had said was illegal.
- The move came as Russians went to the polls Friday, and followed weeks of government pressure on the companies.
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Once the app, which distributed information to opposition voters on how best to deploy their ballots, got blocked, Navalny organizers started using Telegram to spread the word, but by the end of the day that service had taken down their account, too.
In China, actress Zhao Wei's internet presence vanished at the end of August, per the WSJ. Movies featuring the star, who had 86 million fans on Weibo, have disappeared from online services. The government offered no explanation for why she seemed to have fallen out of favor.
Around the world, nonprofit Access Now documented 50 internet shutdowns in 21 countries during the first five months of 2021.
- Governments in countries including India, Belarus, Turkey, Myanmar and Ethiopia have sought to cut their citizens off from internet access or to ban content and services they don't like.
- In the U.S., meanwhile, leaders of both parties have targeted online giants with complaints of censorship and promoting misinformation, amid a broad government effort to constrain the companies' power.
Between the lines: Companies aren't sovereign, so when governments take legal action against them, whatever the motivation, they have little choice but to buckle under or stop operating in a particular nation.
- That last option is largely out in China, where most of the U.S.-based internet giants have either been sidelined or chosen to exit, and most online services are provided by domestic firms that can't pick up stakes and leave.
- China's model may well become more common as governments seek control — and as the technology powering internet services becomes easier to copy.
Our thought bubble: Organizing our online universe around centralized chokepoints like app stores and search engine monopolies does much of the work in advance for authoritarian governments looking to squelch dissent.
Axios · by Scott Rosenberg
4. What Went Wrong in Afghanistan: A Primer
Conclusion:
We deeply regret what is coming for Afghanistan, which is most likely a new civil war, waged between Afghan proxies on behalf of regional powers. We also regret what is coming for the world, which will only be able to see the U.S. defeat as the profound failure of a declining power. The American adventure in Afghanistan was a disaster from the beginning to the end. Many good, inspired, brave, and even noble people from all over America and all around the world tried very hard to make Afghanistan a success, as others fought and schemed to thwart that. They won, and the United States – we – failed.
What Went Wrong in Afghanistan: A Primer
America’s youngest soldiers today were not even born when this war began but their generation will suffer its consequences most.
Why was America there? Thucydides reminded us in The Peloponnesian War some 2,500 years ago that, war’s “three…strongest motives [are] fear, honor, and interest.” The United States went to war in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks due to fear and to protect its honor, but inadequate understanding of Afghanistan and its geopolitical neighborhood as well as limited U.S. interests prompted mission creep, such that 20 years marched on. America’s youngest soldiers today were not even born when this war began, but their generation will suffer its consequences most. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will destroy American honor and undermine American interests. Further, the suicide bombing reportedly carried out by the terrorist group ISIS-Khorasan on August 26, 2021, suggests that even fear, the initial motive for intervention, still exists. Perhaps the United States and other major powers can win only when they are motivated by intense fear. And once Osama bin Laden scurried away to Pakistan, the fear receded—or more probably, humans simply cannot stay in a state of intense fear for very long.
The United States could not even exit before the Taliban (the very group the United States and its allies went there to fight) took over the country again. The question now is — as it was with Vietnam and Iraq and Syria — why couldn’t the world’s so-called greatest power win in Afghanistan? Consider the following 10 reasons.
First, Afghanistan, the arena for the Russo-British “Great Game” of the 19th century, became a 20th century cauldron of competition between the United States and Soviet Union. The 1978 takeover of the Afghan government by Marxists prompted a response by Afghan Islamists. The resulting civil war led the USSR to invade Afghanistan in late 1979, turning the country into an ideological battleground during the 1980s. The United States supported the Islamists, but some of them became adversaries after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and due to America’s Middle Eastern wars of the 1990s and thereafter.
Second, while the Islamist Taliban swept away the Afghan Communists in 1996, the ancient, often reinforcing ethnolinguistic, tribal, and religious cleavage lines that divide Afghan society grew more significant. Pashtuns from Afghanistan’s south and east, who overlapped into Pakistan; the largely Shia’ Hazara and Dari/Farsi speakers from western Afghanistan, who turned toward Iran; and Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen Afghans from the north, who sought succor from the post-Soviet neighboring countries—they were all just the tip of the iceberg in a complex identity mélange, which constantly roils Afghanistan.
Third, after al-Qa’ida attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the United States turned immediately to Afghanistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants, but they fled to Pakistan. Bin Laden was eventually found and killed by U.S. Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. Taliban, Al-Qa’ida, and other Islamist leaders were also killed in Pakistan—often by drone strike—between 2004 and 2018. Yet, the United States stayed on the ground in Afghanistan for 20 years. Why, when the United States could have used remote technology and airpower to kill opponents from afar? The ground mission began as a way to prevent Afghanistan from being a terrorist breeding ground. Thus, the United States slid into regime-change, development, and nation-building in one of the poorest countries in the world in 2001. It had no functioning government, and its economy centered on narcotics production.
Fourth, the United States had no idea how to address any of these problems. Indeed, President George W. Bush had campaigned against nation-building just the year before. The Bonn Accords of November 2001, Emergency Loya Jirga of June-July 2002, and the Constitutional Loya Jirga of December 2003-January 2004 were supposed to create a government that could replace the Communist regime of the 1980s and the Taliban of the 1990s. Instead, they eliminated political legitimacy for the new Afghan government. The new “democratic” system in a deeply fragmented country encouraged tremendously fraudulent elections, most significantly Ashraf Ghani’s “victories” in 2019 and 2014, and Hamid Karzai’s in 2009. The United States turned instead to the United Nations to run elections, to the international community for money (often promised but not paid) and military forces (which were scattered to different provinces and controlled by the home country, rather than the commanding general). With many commanders, no one was in charge.
Fifth, the United States had no overarching strategy, instead dividing its military strategy into counterterrorism (CT), largely the province of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division and the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command, and counterinsurgency (COIN), which fell to the rest of the Department of Defense. Under the CT campaign, the United States invaded compounds all over the country, upsetting family honor, and arresting and transporting hundreds of Afghans to Guantanamo Bay and other foreign detention centers, keeping many of them imprisoned for years, with no charges or the possibility of release. The COIN effort lacked enough soldiers and was constantly changing ideas about how to defeat the Afghan insurgents. It tried Provincial Reconstruction Teams, a “Clear-Hold-Build” strategy, and fighting from forward operating bases (FOBs), before taking an “Advise-Train-Assist” approach (which ultimately transformed into a mission to build the Afghan Defense and Security Forces). Poor strategy was compounded with poor tactics and poor planning. Too few soldiers were sent to control a large, rural country, even though defeating a group like the Taliban demands a near-continuous presence in rural areas which were ultimately the military “center of gravity” of this conflict. The support, or at least help, of the rural population was critical, but the military generally struggled with local languages and culture, which meant that the Taliban could completely dominate. While the United States struggled to find its footing tactically and strategically, the Taliban had a coherent strategy to hang around and wait for the United States to leave, and it was also able to execute successfully its immediate tactical goal to encourage the United States into terrible miscues, overreach, and insensitivity to local conditions.
When Ashraf Ghani and other government leaders fled ahead of the Taliban with millions of dollars in cash, no one was surprised.
Sixth, even though the United States and its allies deployed too few soldiers to do the job, they still poured tons of money into Afghanistan. This influx of money seemed like a good idea at first, as Afghanistan needed everything rebuilt after decades of high-intensity war, and had only an agricultural economy, built on illegal opium. However, Afghanistan has a system where certain elders (khans) use their money in a patronage fashion toward their local supporters. Between that arrangement, the longtime war economy, and Afghanistan’s limited absorptive capacity, everyone wanted to pad their pockets against the threat of future upheaval. Before long, vast corruption of all sorts became the norm. When Ashraf Ghani and other government leaders fled ahead of the Taliban with millions of dollars in cash, no one was surprised. Indeed, it was widely known that many government officials had used ill-gotten gains to purchase villas in Dubai, Doha, and other safer locations long before the country fell.
Seventh, the Taliban fled to and received succor in Pakistan. The Taliban, being predominantly Pashtun, slipped across the border into both Pashtunabad, just outside of Quetta, Baluchistan, and into the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies between Khyber-Pakhtunkwa and the Afghan border. These heavily Pashtun areas were the old digs of the Mujahideen from the 1980s, and once again allowed the Taliban to become pawns of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). It is nearly impossible to find a defeated insurgency that had such an easy refuge in a contiguous state. Pakistan controlled the major access route into Afghanistan, as well as sheltering the Taliban, thereby making Pakistan into a complicated “frenemy” of the United States.
Eighth, when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Afghanistan became the “forgotten war.” In 2003, over 300,000 American troops invaded Iraq, while less than 10% of that number of Americans were in Afghanistan. For the rest of the 2000s, Iraq dominated Afghanistan in the consciousness of most Americans. In 2010, President Barack Obama felt compelled to surge additional troops into Afghanistan to try to regain control over the Taliban. Iraq overshadowed Afghanistan for much of the last 20 years, often occluding the American march toward doom.
Ninth, American officials throughout the war exaggerated and prevaricated so routinely that it became difficult for average Americans (and even national security experts) to understand the situation there. Eventually, an office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) was created to report on government efforts in Afghanistan, but few read the detailed SIGAR reports and instead believed the positive pronouncements of our policy makers, generals, and ambassadors who talked of “success,” “progress,” and “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the United States lost its willingness to lead. The country went to Afghanistan to avenge 9/11, but its leaders immediately began planning a war against Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11. The United States asked NATO for help in Afghanistan but refused to run it as a war that had to be won with American leadership. The United States put up with Pakistan supporting the Taliban. By the 2010s, American presidents began talking about “leadership from behind” (President Barack Obama), “making America great again” (President Donald Trump), and “building back better” (President Joseph Biden), all slogans about America rather than about leadership. At almost every turn, the United States failed to lead, and the United States can no longer be a great power if its people do not choose to carry the burdens of leadership that great powers must carry. The United States today is racked with extremism and racial challenges, political disagreement over whether its citizens should be vaccinated or masked against an infectious disease, challenges to its democracy, and unwillingness of its major political parties to cooperate to do anything. And it has now lost every significant war since World War II.
We deeply regret what is coming for Afghanistan, which is most likely a new civil war, waged between Afghan proxies on behalf of regional powers. We also regret what is coming for the world, which will only be able to see the U.S. defeat as the profound failure of a declining power. The American adventure in Afghanistan was a disaster from the beginning to the end. Many good, inspired, brave, and even noble people from all over America and all around the world tried very hard to make Afghanistan a success, as others fought and schemed to thwart that. They won, and the United States – we – failed.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The article has been updated to correct an unfortunate misspelling of President Obama’s first name. Stupid spell check.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Credit: All photos are provided by the authors or are public domain courtesy of the U.S. White House and Department of Defense
5. Will the U.S. Navy Defend Taiwan From China?
Will the U.S. Navy Defend Taiwan From China?
Talk of a ‘prolonged counterinsurgency’ suggests otherwise.
WSJ · by Sept. 19, 2021 1:58 pm ET
An F/A-18E Super Hornet lands on the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea, July 6, 2020.
Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 2n/Associated Press
Robert O’Brien and Alexander Gray’s strategizing on “How to Deter China From Invading Taiwan” (op-ed, Sept. 16) has the redolence of a waffle. A year or two back, the authors might have written of the U.S. Seventh Fleet positioning itself in the Taiwan Strait, blockading, intercepting or possibly sinking a Chinese amphibious flotilla destined for the beaches of Taiwan.
Now that resolve has been whittled down to arming Taiwan into a “porcupine” status that would make for “a difficult amphibious landing” and “a prolonged counterinsurgency.” To the untrained ear, it sounds like a foregone conclusion that China will come ashore in Taiwan. How else to interpret the apparent need for a “well-armed civilian population”?
Providing Taiwan with the Naval Strike Missile, the mobile Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, Quickstrike sea mines, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and a raft of other war gadgets is a bit like handing David a pair of brass knuckles and sending him into the ring against Goliath.
The “serious domestic political repercussions” and the “plummet” in international standing are small prices for China to pay to make good on 70 years of saber-rattling. Nowhere in their op-ed do Messrs. O’Brien and Gray envision a confrontation between U.S. Navy assets and Chinese vessels.
If this isn’t a waffling from previous assurances, what is it?
Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey R. Smith, USN (Ret.)
Alameda, Calif.
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
WSJ · by Sept. 19, 2021 1:58 pm ET
6. Our remote warfare counterterrorism strategy is more risk than reward
Excerpts:
The failure is not in the intelligence collection or reporting leading up to the moment of mishap, the failure is with the decision makers who elected to conduct the strike while the ground truth remained unclear.
...
Within the U.S. Special Operations Command capabilities already exist for a robust, highly mobile counterterror package built for global response — a strategic reaction force, as it were. Among these are global access and precision strike capabilities, hyper-connectivity, an emphasis on strategic partnerships, while the full Special Operations Forces arrangement boasts decentralized operability in austere locales. U.S. Special Operations Command has lived and breathed nothing but counterterrorism for two decades, and while the enterprise understands and is re-vectoring for strategic competition, it will not shed its institutional knowledge of counter terror operations full stop. Therefore, a concentrated component that adopts a new model coalescing intelligence, targeting and interdiction capabilities with strategic partnerships responsive to credible threats is a more worthy option than trusting the policy to remote operations.
Biden is already on the record as a proponent of limited Special Operations Forces employment against violent extremism, which includes his opposition to then-President Obama’s 2010-2011 troop surge in Afghanistan, favoring a small contingent of specialized forces over mass occupation. There is a path forward for some form of constructive counterterror strategy, one that doesn’t rely on the limitations of stove piped sensor feeds and delayed intelligence.
America just ended one forever war, we cannot in good faith keep it going at the fringes through the modality of unrestrained remote technology.
First reliance on one capability is not a recipe for success. Second, not all of USSOCOM organizations have lived and breathed nothing but counterterrorism for the past 20 years. Third, after what just happened in Afghanistan I think we will be seeing a lot more checks and balances on "unrestrained remote technology."
Our remote warfare counterterrorism strategy is more risk than reward
The Hill · by Ethan Brown, opinion contributor · September 18, 2021
Afghanistan has begun its fade into the history of American foreign policy, yet the aftershocks of the war on terror remain entrenched in policy decisions, with implications that could very well threaten our future security and stability.
With the loss of permanent basing in Afghanistan, President Biden has touted an over-the-horizon counter terrorism strategy, a system built on sensors and remote systems: “We’ve developed an over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the U.S. in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.”
There is tremendous risk in reliance on disaggregate and remote technology, primarily not understanding the full situation on the ground resulting from the degrees of separation between target and analyst. No number of high-definition screens, signals intelligence, and delay-hampered tracking across disparate environs will advance American security or redress the failures of a poorly defined counter-terror strategy from previous decades.
Biden's decision echoes the inclinations of his predecessors. Under the Obama administration, an exponential increase in the use of remote-controlled warfare to counter extremism skyrocketed, thanks largely to the vague legal limits from the early phases of the program under President Bush. President Trump clouded oversight on remote warfare by executive order, revoking legal mandates on intelligence disclosures of civilian deaths by remote-weapon airstrikes. While safeguarding U.S. service members and avoiding international entanglement is an applaudable ambition, the risk of deepening global antagonism against the United States through this type of disassociated warfare is increased; remote-warfare employment makes lethal effects easier to perpetuate with fewer consequences of oversight — that is to say, the temptation to overuse this capability is profound while the results are questionably effective at best.
The decision to parlay American technological prowess into a replacement for boots on the ground operations carries many risks, notably, the temptation to perpetuate the insulated, haphazard use of sensors instead of definitive, real-time data that would normally drive ground operations in sensitive environments. By employing this over-the-horizon paradigm, lethal effects are now entrusted to the credibility and timeliness of data that omits that critical on-the-ground picture, exacerbated by degrees of separation inherent to sensor screens and inevitable transmission delays through distance, time and familiarity. For certain, remote-warfare technology has improved exponentially in recent decades, although over-reliance on this filtered fidelity between the target and kill chain decision-maker increases the chances for mishaps in the form of civilian casualties.
No example serves to emphasize this point better than the retaliatory, over-the-horizon airstrike in Kabul on Aug. 29, following the ISIS-K suicide bombing that claimed 13 U.S. service members lives and wounded dozens of civilians. In that airstrike, per a New York Times investigation, misidentification of real-time data resulted in an errant selection of persons determined to be carrying weapons or materiel associated with hostile intent. Yesterday, the Pentagon admitted to mistaking a civilian vehicle for one associated with ISIS-K in the incident.
The failure is not in the intelligence collection or reporting leading up to the moment of mishap, the failure is with the decision makers who elected to conduct the strike while the ground truth remained unclear.
Reliance on remote-technology to perpetuate a poorly understood counter terror paradigm will sustain the risks of the forever war that just ended — improved recruitment for violent extremism, images of civilian deaths directly attributed to American military might, and the unanswered question about what limits are in place for this type of lethality across international borders.
Within the U.S. Special Operations Command capabilities already exist for a robust, highly mobile counterterror package built for global response — a strategic reaction force, as it were. Among these are global access and precision strike capabilities, hyper-connectivity, an emphasis on strategic partnerships, while the full Special Operations Forces arrangement boasts decentralized operability in austere locales. U.S. Special Operations Command has lived and breathed nothing but counterterrorism for two decades, and while the enterprise understands and is re-vectoring for strategic competition, it will not shed its institutional knowledge of counter terror operations full stop. Therefore, a concentrated component that adopts a new model coalescing intelligence, targeting and interdiction capabilities with strategic partnerships responsive to credible threats is a more worthy option than trusting the policy to remote operations.
Biden is already on the record as a proponent of limited Special Operations Forces employment against violent extremism, which includes his opposition to then-President Obama’s 2010-2011 troop surge in Afghanistan, favoring a small contingent of specialized forces over mass occupation. There is a path forward for some form of constructive counterterror strategy, one that doesn’t rely on the limitations of stove piped sensor feeds and delayed intelligence.
America just ended one forever war, we cannot in good faith keep it going at the fringes through the modality of unrestrained remote technology.
Ethan Brown is an 11-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force as a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack controller. He is currently the senior fellow for Defense Studies at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, a contributor to the Diplomatic Courier, and has written for the Modern War Institute (West Point), RealClearDefense and The Hill. He can be found on Twitter @LibertyStoic.
The Hill · by Ethan Brown, opinion contributor · September 18, 2021
7. AUKUS and Australian Nuclear Submarines: Just the Beginning?
Conclusion:
This is not the end, of course, and this agreement has a long, complex way to go. But if it is a beginning, if we are indeed returning to a “base course” grounded in democratic values, we need to nurture it and build on the cooperation it signifies. It must become a high Administration priority, and a Congressional priority through the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. This cannot be allowed to proceed at our usual bureaucratic speed.
AUKUS and Australian Nuclear Submarines: Just the Beginning?
Stand by for Heavy Rolls.
This emergency naval command, warning of imminent rough seas, seems appropriate after the Franco–Chinese responses to Australia’s termination of a 2016 contract with France’s Naval Group for conventional submarines to replace aging Collins-class boats. That this was done in favor of an agreement among three of the “Five Eyes” English-speaking nations to produce nuclear-powered submarines, adds to the turbulence. AUKUS, for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., is the inevitable if awkward acronym. Perhaps Canada will join, creating another acronym. Anti-nuclear New Zealand will probably sit this one out.
Usually the proceedings of government meetings, even among a collection of nations, are written in dull bureaucratic prose and relegated to specialist publications or the back pages of general publications. This is especially true for complex international defense deals. But not this time. We have not seen so much ink on a submarine project since Admiral Hyman G Rickover’s nuclear revolution in the U.S. Navy – over vigorous opposition. He would enjoy this.
In 2016, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government invited foreign interest in the replacement of Australia’s aging Collins-class conventional submarines. France and DCNS, now referred to as Naval Group, won the contract over Japanese and German competitors. Since that time, the project became more complex and more expensive. The French proposed modification of a nuclear submarine design to accommodate conventional propulsion. Costs increased greatly as did the time required to deliver. Australian politicians, in office and out, loudly demanded cancellation in favor of nuclear propulsion for the Collins replacement. This was well known in Australia, and France should not have been surprised. Another factor – contracts like this very likely have termination penalties. This was a commercial sales deal. Caveat emptor, and lawyer up.
Australia’s threat perception has developed since 2016. China’s intervention in Australia’s internal affairs through economic coercion, election interference, academic corruption, and other actions led to a reexamination of needed capabilities. Darwin in Northern Australia, and Guam are roughly the same distance from the South China Sea. Unlike Guam, Australia looks north at several straits that must be navigated by merchant and naval ships seeking access to the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. The underwater speed, endurance, and stealthy capabilities of nuclear submarines provide obvious advantages for sea control and interdiction.
Do you want us to remove the dead American soldiers?
China’s predictable complaints follow the expected pattern. Cold-War mentality, threats to peace and stability, arms race, and damage to non-proliferation are rolled out again. No mention is made of China’s extraordinary military buildup, its extensive territorial claims, the militarization of artificial features in the South China Sea, the challenges to Japanese and Taiwanese air and sea space, the intimidation of other nation’s lawful maritime activities in the South China Sea, or the violation of the international treaty on Hong Kong autonomy. China is very likely to react in some way to regain a perception of dominance. We must be prepared.
AUKUS has obvious military and operational promise. But the greater value may lie in its political statement. After more than a few years of talk about “pivots” to the region, and lately Biden administration talk of efforts to prove the superiority of democracy over authoritarian governments, we have what looks like solid action. Australia and the U.S. will likely experience Chinese reprisal. Australian export businesses are a likely target. India is sure to take notice that the “Quad” gained more support. Great Britain, quite conveniently engaged in a Pacific deployment of their new aircraft carrier, seems to have joined with part of the “Quad” in an expression of common national interest here. Japan and Taiwan will be buoyed by AUKUS and may deepen their cooperation.
This is not the end, of course, and this agreement has a long, complex way to go. But if it is a beginning, if we are indeed returning to a “base course” grounded in democratic values, we need to nurture it and build on the cooperation it signifies. It must become a high Administration priority, and a Congressional priority through the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. This cannot be allowed to proceed at our usual bureaucratic speed.
Lieutenant General Wallace C. Gregson (RET), Jr. serves as Senior Director, China, and the Pacific at the Center for the National Interest. He retired from the Marine Corps in 2005 with the rank of Lieutenant-General. He last served as the Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific; Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific; and Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Bases, Pacific, headquartered at Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii. Gregson also served in the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.
8. China's military has an Achilles' heel: Low troop morale
Excerpts:
Some believe that Chinese soldiers' low morale is attributable to the country's long-standing one-child policy, which has made the military one of the world's leading "one-child armies."
"Over 70% of Chinese soldiers are 'only children,' and the rest are the second or later children whose parents had to pay fines to bear them," said Kinichi Nishimura, a former Ground Self-Defense Force officer who for many years has analyzed East Asia's military balance at the Ministry of Defense's Defense Intelligence Headquarters and elsewhere.
The Confucianist view that children must respect and take good care of their parents and ancestors remains deep-rooted in China. As a result, parents are particularly reluctant to see their children die earlier than they do. Parents of one-child households must feel even more strongly about their only son or daughter becoming nothing more than a proverbial "nail."
In China, where people tend to have little respect for soldiers, there is a saying: "Good steel does not become nails," meaning respectable individuals do not become soldiers. In order to ensure it can secure sufficient numbers of troops, the party has been working to improve salaries and pensions.
China's military has an Achilles' heel: Low troop morale
'One-child army' more inclined to add unmanned aircraft and ballistic missiles
Visible military muscle like missiles and tanks is only one component of power. Troop morale is another. © AP
TETSURO KOSAKA, Nikkei senior staff writerSeptember 19, 2021 16:09 JST | China
TOKYO -- The Chinese Communist Party has unintentionally revealed weaknesses of the country's military.
One indication came with the building of facilities for launching new intercontinental ballistic missiles in an inland desert region. The other was a series of further attempts to increase childbirths, including measures to help reduce the costly burden of educating children. Behind these moves lurks evidence that the country is addressing concerns regarding troop morale and the military's ability to fight a sustained war.
For nearly a decade, China has been busy in the South China Sea, first building artificial islands, then deploying radar equipment and missiles to deter foreign military aircraft and vessels from approaching the area, and finally deploying strategic nuclear submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles in the now-protected sea.
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles, known as SLBMs, are the ultimate weapon. They allow nations to avoid being put in disadvantageous positions since the subs that carry them can remain in deep waters, keeping the enemy at bay, until the very end.
So why is China rushing to build new ICBM bases in inland desert areas? Experts believe the reason lies in the fact that although China has militarized some waters in the South China Sea and deployed SLBMs, it no longer has confidence it can defend the area should conflict arise.
In January 2018, a Chinese submarine humiliatingly revealed its lack of high-level performance. The submarine, traveling undersea in a contiguous zone of Japan's Senkaku Islands, in the East China Sea, was quickly detected by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.
It was quick to surface and unhesitatingly raise the Chinese flag, which might as well have been a white flag of surrender; the crew presumably feared their vessel could be attacked with depth charges.
Under international law, the Maritime Self-Defense Force could have regarded the vessel as an "unidentified submarine" that had intruded into Japanese territorial waters while submerged.
Many Japanese and U.S. officials believe the incident symbolizes the low morale of Chinese troops.
A Chinese submarine raises what might as well be a flag of surrender after being forced to surface near Japan's Senkaku Islands in January 2018. (Photo provided by the Ministry of Defense)
Chinese Communist Party governments have spent the past quarter-century increasing military spending and staging military parades and naval reviews. But visible might like missiles and tanks is only one component of military power. There are also invisible inputs, like troop morale.
The Chinese navy has been working on an aircraft carrier program, but a former Japanese Ministry of Defense official predicts Chinese aircraft carriers will not leave their military ports in conflicts out of fear they might be attacked and sunk.
Some believe that Chinese soldiers' low morale is attributable to the country's long-standing one-child policy, which has made the military one of the world's leading "one-child armies."
"Over 70% of Chinese soldiers are 'only children,' and the rest are the second or later children whose parents had to pay fines to bear them," said Kinichi Nishimura, a former Ground Self-Defense Force officer who for many years has analyzed East Asia's military balance at the Ministry of Defense's Defense Intelligence Headquarters and elsewhere.
The Confucianist view that children must respect and take good care of their parents and ancestors remains deep-rooted in China. As a result, parents are particularly reluctant to see their children die earlier than they do. Parents of one-child households must feel even more strongly about their only son or daughter becoming nothing more than a proverbial "nail."
In China, where people tend to have little respect for soldiers, there is a saying: "Good steel does not become nails," meaning respectable individuals do not become soldiers. In order to ensure it can secure sufficient numbers of troops, the party has been working to improve salaries and pensions.
On Aug. 1, the government enacted a law to protect the status, rights and interests of military personnel. This desperate effort to improve the patina of a military career might be a sign that the People's Liberation Army has not been able to turn around its recruitment efforts, especially in the face of the country's ebbing fertility rate.
"The Chinese military has increased the deployment of battleships and fighter planes since a few years ago," Nishimura said, "but their operating rates are not exactly high. It seems they are unable to sufficiently train enough soldiers to properly maintain and repair" the high-tech hardware.
This is partly why the Chinese military in recent years has come to rely more on unmanned aircraft and ballistic missiles. The number of ballistic missiles China deploys has increased to several thousand.
One of the PLA's military doctrines not widely known, says, "In the initial battle of war, launch a large number of missiles and then immediately leave the front line." This strategy was picked up from the former Soviet Union, whose military played the role of teacher while China was forming the PLA.
Over the past few years, the PLA has rushed to add more fighter jets, surface ships and submarines, which might indicate an intention to increase the number of missiles that can be launched when battles commence. Unmanned aircraft are thought to have the same purpose. This strategy will continue, especially when the military is not able to secure enough soldiers.
To protect themselves from Chinese missile attacks, Japan and other nations must start thinking about enhancing measures to mitigate damage. These measures include developing and deploying next-generation arms, including high-energy laser weapons and rail guns, which use electromagnetic force to launch projectiles at extremely high speeds. Japan already has a technological foundation to develop these weapons, though this capacity is not widely known in the country.
9. How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists
The finger pointing will go on for some time.
Excerpts:
“We evacuated at least 700 media affiliates, the majority of whom are Afghan nationals, under the most challenging conditions imaginable,” Mr. Blinken said in an interview on Friday. “That was a massive effort and one that didn’t just start on evacuation day.”
When it came to the government’s role, Mr. Blinken said he was referring, primarily, to the fact that the United States was able to operate Hamid Karzai International Airport, to the courage of military and State Department employees who worked there and to the decision in early August to include journalists among the “at risk” groups eligible to leave Afghanistan. (A spokesman later called to say Mr. Blinken wasn’t trying to take full credit for evacuations.) Mr. Blinken also said the United States was still trying to bring out more Afghan journalists, particularly those who have worked for Voice of America and other media outlets funded by the U.S. government.
But people at major news organizations and others who pushed to get journalists out of the country told me they were incredulous that the United States would claim to have played a pivotal role in the exodus. And further reporting bore out their contention.
Major American news organizations ended up dealing directly with Qatar’s government, which had cultivated a relationship with the Taliban. A Qatari official said that his government had led the evacuations of people working for The Times, The Journal, The Washington Post, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, NPR, Vice and CNN, as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists group. Several people at those organizations confirmed that account, though they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are still trying to get other journalists out of Afghanistan.
Many Afghan journalists who worked for media outlets funded by the U.S. government, including Radio Free Europe, also had to make other arrangements. Jamie Fly, the president of Radio Free Europe, told me that about 10 journalists from the outlet flew with their families on a private charter to another country in the region over the weekend without U.S. help, and many more remain in Afghanistan.
How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists
the media equation
The secretary of state cites a “massive effort” by the government, but people involved in the evacuation instead describe bureaucratic snags.
Evacuees waiting to board a plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 30.Credit...U.S. Marine Corps, via Associated Press
By
Sept. 19, 2021
As American news organizations scrambled to evacuate their Afghan journalists and their families last month, I reported that those working for The New York Times had found refuge not in New York or Washington, but in Mexico City.
The gist of that column was that even outlets like The Times and The Wall Street Journal had learned that the U.S. government would not be able to help at critical moments. In its place was a hodgepodge of other nations, led by tiny Qatar, along with relief groups, veterans associations and private companies.
Some State Department officials took umbrage at the idea that the U.S. government had abandoned Afghans who had worked alongside American journalists during the 20-year war. In telephone interviews last week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and two other officials closely involved in the evacuation of journalists and many others from Afghanistan made the case to me that the U.S. exit should be seen as a success. They pointed to the scale of the operation — 124,000 people evacuated, in total — as the ultimate American commitment to Afghanistan’s civil society.
“We evacuated at least 700 media affiliates, the majority of whom are Afghan nationals, under the most challenging conditions imaginable,” Mr. Blinken said in an interview on Friday. “That was a massive effort and one that didn’t just start on evacuation day.”
When it came to the government’s role, Mr. Blinken said he was referring, primarily, to the fact that the United States was able to operate Hamid Karzai International Airport, to the courage of military and State Department employees who worked there and to the decision in early August to include journalists among the “at risk” groups eligible to leave Afghanistan. (A spokesman later called to say Mr. Blinken wasn’t trying to take full credit for evacuations.) Mr. Blinken also said the United States was still trying to bring out more Afghan journalists, particularly those who have worked for Voice of America and other media outlets funded by the U.S. government.
But people at major news organizations and others who pushed to get journalists out of the country told me they were incredulous that the United States would claim to have played a pivotal role in the exodus. And further reporting bore out their contention.
Major American news organizations ended up dealing directly with Qatar’s government, which had cultivated a relationship with the Taliban. A Qatari official said that his government had led the evacuations of people working for The Times, The Journal, The Washington Post, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, NPR, Vice and CNN, as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists group. Several people at those organizations confirmed that account, though they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are still trying to get other journalists out of Afghanistan.
Many Afghan journalists who worked for media outlets funded by the U.S. government, including Radio Free Europe, also had to make other arrangements. Jamie Fly, the president of Radio Free Europe, told me that about 10 journalists from the outlet flew with their families on a private charter to another country in the region over the weekend without U.S. help, and many more remain in Afghanistan.
“The U.S. government has yet to fulfill its commitment to evacuate vulnerable Afghan journalists,” Mr. Fly said.
Mr. Blinken said he was “really disappointed, frustrated that we were not able to evacuate all the Afghan staff” of the U.S. government outlets. He added that “the commitment to bring them out is enduring.”
Mr. Blinken said his current goal was to work with the Taliban on enacting “a normalized system of emigration,” which, he said, would be “a much better way of dealing comprehensively with those who wish to leave than doing one-off efforts.”
Ahmad Wali Sarhadi, an Afghan reporter, was able to get out after he sent panicked emails to the international news media outlets he had worked for. His children remain in Afghanistan.
The experience of one Afghan reporter, Ahmad Wali Sarhadi, offers a glimpse of the roles played by the United States and its allies, private organizations, nonprofit groups and sheer chance.
Mr. Sarhadi had been freelancing for Afghan television outlets, The Financial Times, The Associated Press and Der Spiegel. He also did work for a project, Salaam Times, that was funded by the Defense Department. In addition, Mr. Sarhadi had appeared on television accusing the Taliban of human rights violations in rural villages.
On the morning of Aug. 12, moments after he had filed a television report on the situation in Kandahar, he learned that the Taliban had entered the city, he said in an interview. He fled out the back of his house and lied his way through checkpoints all along a day’s drive to Kabul.
There, he sent panicked emails to the international news media outlets he had worked for and to anyone else he thought could help. The only promising response came from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a well-connected American nonprofit organization that helps journalists in the world’s trouble spots.
“You are not alone — we are going to support you,” the email said, according to Mr. Sarhadi.
“That’s an email I will never forget,” he said.
Maria Salazar Ferro, the emergencies director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, had already been putting together a list of Afghan journalists who weren’t being helped by other organizations, and her team had vetted Mr. Sarhadi’s documents.
The nonprofit’s Washington lobbyist, Michael De Dora, was also part of the effort, having taken part in conversations in July and August with State Department officials. Those talks began hopefully, and on Aug. 2 the State Department announced that it would extend to journalists a priority visa, intended for Afghans who did not work directly for the U.S. military but were nonetheless at risk.
Then, obstacles began to mount. On Aug. 5, a U.S. official using only a first name sent an email from an account staffed round-the-clock by different employees that offered an important clarification: It said that freelancers and contractors, a category of worker that made up the bulk of those working with U.S. organizations, would not be eligible for the visa. A copy of the email was shared with me by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“We evacuated at least 700 media affiliates, the majority of whom are Afghan nationals, under the most challenging conditions imaginable,” said Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.Credit...Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
On Aug. 12, the Committee to Protect Journalists began sharing its list of at-risk Afghan journalists, which would ultimately grow to more than 400, with the State Department. Three days later, on Aug. 15, Kabul fell to the Taliban. On Aug. 16, the State Department reversed course and told news organizations that it would broaden the visa program to include freelancers and contractors. By then, however, it was too late to easily move journalists to third countries to apply for visas.
Mr. Sarhadi joined the dense crowd at Hamid Karzai International Airport, trying and failing to get through a gate.
On Aug. 20, Joel Simon, the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Mr. De Dora met via Zoom with Uzra Zeya, the under secretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights. They said they left the meeting convinced that the U.S. would do nothing to help.
They went looking for help elsewhere, and met the same day with the deputy director of the Qatari government’s communications office, Sheikh Thamer bin Hamad Al Thani. Mr. Al Thani asked for a list of the Afghan journalists it considered most in danger, then sent word that a convoy should assemble at a safe location near the Kabul airport. On Aug. 23, the Qatari ambassador to Afghanistan led 16 journalists and their families from the safe house to the airport. They flew to Doha the next day. Many of the other journalists on the list are still in Afghanistan.
“We didn’t see any policy here,” Mr. Simon said of the U.S. government’s role in the evacuation. “Our experience was that powerful media organizations were able to leverage their own relationships and use their own resources,” he said.
Others involved in rescue efforts had similar experiences, finding that formal U.S. government channels were at best useless and at worst an obstacle.
The leader of one rescue effort spoke with me on the condition of anonymity to reveal details of sensitive dealings with the State Department. On Aug. 29, this group leader emailed a State Department official to say that they were prepared to fly 181 people, including some Afghan journalists, out of Mazar-i-Sharif, a city in northern Afghanistan.
The group, whose charter was paid for by the Facebook Journalism Project, according to the email and a Facebook official, had gained approvals from the airline operating the flight, Kam Air, as well as from the United Arab Emirates, where the plane would land, and Mexico, the flight’s ultimate destination.
The group had also gotten the go-ahead from the Taliban, according to the email, which was shared with me, but that approval came with the condition that the U.S. government sign off on the plan.
Instead of offering formal approval, State Department officials suggested the group direct its request to a Gmail account used by officials approving air traffic for the airport in Kabul, 200 miles away. In another email, a State Department official said that while the U.S. was “appreciative of all efforts to assist in the relocation efforts out of Afghanistan,” the organizers would be responsible for the details.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who was among those pushing for evacuations out of Mazar-i-Sharif, said he was told the U.S. government wouldn’t approve the flights because it did not have officials in place to vet travelers — even if they were not headed for the United States.
“The planes could have left if there were sufficient clearances,” Mr. Blumenthal said
The Facebook-funded flight finally got off the ground after its organizers reached out to a different State Department official, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had managed U.S. negotiations with the Taliban.
U.S. officials pointed out that paperwork wasn’t the main obstacle in Afghanistan. “The issue was not the back end organization in Washington,” said John Bass, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who returned to manage the evacuation from the airport. “We could have had 10 times as many people sorting and sifting inquiries and creating great manifests, a great plan for how we were going to move people in 10-minute segments through gates, and all of that still would have crashed up against the reality of human desperation outside the airport and this very capricious set of security checkpoints the Taliban set up.”
The story of evacuating U.S. journalists is a microcosm of the larger evacuation and of the wider debate over the withdrawal. Journalists, critics suggested, were too close to the story, bound up in the lives of their Afghan friends, to see the wisdom in getting out. But the correspondents on the ground were largely depicting what was in front of their eyes — both chaos, and the surprising absence of American organizational capacity.
Mr. Sarhadi, for his part, remains stuck in a housing complex built for next year’s World Cup in Doha. He is far better off than he was in the jumble outside the Kabul airport, but his next destination is uncertain.
The Qatari government is now operating some flights in the other direction. A foreign ministry spokesman, Ibrahim Al Hashmi, told me the country now has a different task: “securing trips for foreign reporters wishing to return to Afghanistan.”
Ben Smith is the media columnist. He joined The Times in 2020 after eight years as founding editor in chief of BuzzFeed News. Before that, he covered politics for Politico, The New York Daily News, The New York Observer and The New York Sun. Email: [email protected] @benyt
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 20, 2021, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Aided, and Hindered, Afghan Journalists’ Escape. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
10. A plan for rooting out extremism in the military: report
This will create more friction among the troops and political factions.
A plan for rooting out extremism in the military: report
The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the subsequent revelations that many veterans were involved, pushed the Defense Department to start addressing the issue of extremism in the ranks from the top down.
“These individuals often draw meaning from the identity that they apply to themselves and others based on their group affiliations (e.g., race, gender, religion, nationality, political beliefs),” according to the paper, published Thursday. “Studies have identified a variety of factors that lead people to join extremist movements, such as having a passion for political change, looking for a sense of belonging, and seeking excitement.”
To counter that behavior among service members, and by extension veterans, the paper suggests four focus areas: recognizing the scope of the problem, preventing future views/activities, detecting and intervening and measuring trends to evaluate whether interventions are working.
Though the paper recognizes DoD’s efforts in 2021 to clarify its messaging on extremism ― including that political beliefs, in and of themselves, are not considered extremism, though acting on them or espousing them could be ― it asserts that “the military could better leverage existing violence prevention programs to prevent service members from becoming involved with extremist groups.”
That could be done with existing resources, such as chaplains, and behavioral health counselors of the Family Advocacy Program.
“People in existing programs, such as chaplains, counselors, and other sources of support, might become aware of emerging extremist groups, ideologies, rumors, and misinformation being circulated,” according to the paper. “Although those sources cannot violate their professional and ethical codes or standards for confidentiality, privacy, and the protection of sensitive health information, they could be encouraged and provided with a means to share general information about those trends so commanders could address them across the population at large.”
Much of the paper suggests using existing DoD infrastructure to tackle the problem.
RELATED
Ensuring that service members and law enforcement officers are not connecting to extremist groups is a top priority.
“DoD currently tracks bias motivations in the Defense Incident-Based Reporting System (DIBRS), but it might need to reevaluate and revise these reporting codes in DIBRS and consider whether alternative forms of data collection would be useful to measure extremist trends in the future,” according to the paper.
While backlash to the department’s anti-extremism efforts has centered around potential censoring of conservative political views or support of particular politicians, policy is pretty clear about what is punishable ― such as organizing, fundraising or plotting violence on behalf of an extremist organization ― versus what requires counseling and further monitoring.
“For example, the policy states that possessing literature associated with extremist causes, ideology, doctrine, or organizations is not necessarily prohibited, but it signals that further investigations or counseling might be warranted,” according to the paper.
Rand’s anti-extremism plan similarly focuses on early detection and intervention, rather than leaning on law enforcement, which is saved for the most serious cases.
The paper recommends that DoD expand its anti-extremism efforts to include the military community, including civilian employees, spouses and children; that the department share information with civilian law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI; that the Pentagon use technology to monitor and tract trends, especially on social media; and that these strategies should be continually evaluated for their effectiveness.
Generally, the Rand paper backs up much of what the Pentagon has been pursuing already. The Countering Extremism Working Group has so far been tasked with creating an extremism definition, creating new screening for recruits, updating education for troops preparing to discharge from the services on the possibility of extremist recruitment and looking into ways to study the prevalence of extremism views and attitudes in the force at large.
An initial report, sent to the defense secretary in July, has not yet been briefed publicly.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Follow on Twitter @Meghann_MT
11. AUKUS is a victory for freedom, democracy and the rule of law
Excerpts:
The agreement is the strongest response so far to China’s behaviour in the Indo-Pacific and its continued efforts to remake the global order. It seems the Biden administration has finally demonstrated it is serious about reassuming a global leadership role for the US, despite the bungled exit from Afghanistan. Some analysts have suggested their exit from the Middle East was to give them the bandwidth to deal with the China problem.
With the Quad alliance due to meet next week, the US has another opportunity to bolster its pivot to the region and build its efforts to contain Chinese expansionism. China can now see that its so-called ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy and its agenda in the South China Sea have triggered a strong response, but beyond angry rhetoric it is not clear how it will respond to the new agreement.
Strategically, Australia’s geography combined with the technological contributions of the US and the UK makes the deal an obvious bulwark against growing concerns of Chinese influence in the region. But it is also a win for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law more broadly. With the restoration of the US as a global leader willing to work with its partners to uphold these values the world is a safer and freer place. The challenge now is to bring the rest of the region along for the journey.
AUKUS is a victory for freedom, democracy and the rule of law - CapX
By Rohan Watt
Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have embarked on the most important development in Western security arrangements since the formation of NATO, leaving their Five Eyes and EU partners scrambling. The Aukus deal is a renewed commitment to uphold freedom, democracy, and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific – it’s also a strong signal to China before next week’s meeting of the ‘Quad’ of Australia, India, Japan and the US.
The agreement, announced earlier this week, represents a significant step up in the security relationship between the three allies and demonstrates the importance of shared values among friends. It is the West’s first serious response to China’s increasingly antagonistic behaviour in the South China Sea and the broader Indo-Pacific.
AUKUS promises to deliver greater joint capabilities and interoperability between the three partners, with a focus on sharing cyber, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies. Australia will receive technology and support to build its first fleet of nuclear submarines as part of the deal – the first nation apart from Britain to gain access to US nuclear propulsion technology since 1958
In time this will be seen as both a defining moment for the Biden presidency and is a significant win for the UK and Australia. For other nations in the Indo-Pacific, it will be interpreted as a renewed commitment to upholding international law and norms of territorial sovereignty.
For the Australians, the deal means cancelling an existing £65 billion contract with the French to build diesel-powered submarines to replace their existing fleet of aging Collins class boats. It was thought politically impossible to introduce nuclear powered subs when the contract was awarded in 2016. The French government has understandably taken it badly, with foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian describing the cancellation as a ‘stab in the back’. The deal also completely overshadows the EU Indo-Pacific strategy announced today.
Perhaps the most surprising development is the further elevation of Australia as a middle power with real bite on the global stage. Despite being a country of only 25 million people, they have handled their closest international relationships with aplomb – securing significant concessions in the UK-Australia trade deal, Boris Johnson inviting them to the G7 in June, and now opening access to extraordinarily advanced military technology. Clearly, key allies view Canberra as both a trustworthy and able partner.
And yet, it has not been an easy rise for the antipodeans. While this latest deal will force China to reconsider its assertive posture in its near region, Beijing’s recent attitude toward recalcitrant states has been ruthless.
During the pandemic, for instance, China banned Australian coal imports after the Morrison government called for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. When Australia banned Huawei from providing 5G technology for its national network, China imposed anti-dumping measures and punitive duties on Australian barley, beef, and wine. Australia has managed to find alternative export markets, but the immediate effects were dire for producers.
The UK must prepare for similar retaliation. If Britain wants to stand up for the ideas it gave the world, it must be prepared to face an increasingly belligerent Chinese state.
The next steps for the three allies are likely to include regional engagement, decisions about colocation or joint fleets, and the possibility of new ports on the doorstep of the South China Sea to service these new nuclear subs. This will create strategic challenges for Britain, and it must proactively bring along its Indo-Pacific partners.
The agreement is the strongest response so far to China’s behaviour in the Indo-Pacific and its continued efforts to remake the global order. It seems the Biden administration has finally demonstrated it is serious about reassuming a global leadership role for the US, despite the bungled exit from Afghanistan. Some analysts have suggested their exit from the Middle East was to give them the bandwidth to deal with the China problem.
With the Quad alliance due to meet next week, the US has another opportunity to bolster its pivot to the region and build its efforts to contain Chinese expansionism. China can now see that its so-called ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy and its agenda in the South China Sea have triggered a strong response, but beyond angry rhetoric it is not clear how it will respond to the new agreement.
Strategically, Australia’s geography combined with the technological contributions of the US and the UK makes the deal an obvious bulwark against growing concerns of Chinese influence in the region. But it is also a win for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law more broadly. With the restoration of the US as a global leader willing to work with its partners to uphold these values the world is a safer and freer place. The challenge now is to bring the rest of the region along for the journey.
CapX depends on the generosity of its readers. If you value what we do, please consider making a donation.
Rohan Watt is a former adviser to an Australian cabinet minister and is now a DPhil candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford.
Columns are the author's own opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of CapX.
12. How the U.S. Nailed the Economic Response to Covid-19
A fairly positive assessment of US fiscal policy from the Wall Street Journal. (note the discussion of some of the waste).
How the U.S. Nailed the Economic Response to Covid-19
America’s fiscal policy succeeded in pushing poverty in the opposite direction that usually occurs in recessions
And yet poverty, by its broadest measure, went down. The figures reported by the Census Bureau this week reveal why: Based on cash income such as wages and social security, the share of households in poverty rose to 11.4% last year from 10.5% in 2019. But after taking account of government benefits such as stimulus checks, food stamps and tax credits, the share dropped to 9.1% from 11.8%.
In other words, the fiscal response to the pandemic succeeded in pushing poverty in the opposite direction that usually occurs in recessions.
After the 2007-09 recession, economic output took three years to return to its prerecession level and never got back to the growth path it was on before the crisis. By contrast, after just 18 months U.S. gross domestic product is already back to its pre-pandemic level and may be back to its pre-pandemic path by year-end.
Much of the harm of recessions comes after they technically end as prolonged unemployment and depressed sales cause human and business capital to atrophy, perhaps never to be used again. The more rapid return to normality this time should preserve years of economic potential that might otherwise have gone to waste.
Several factors account for this faster economic recovery. Most of the initial plunge in activity was due to government-imposed restrictions, and as those restrictions ended, some rebound was inevitable. Still, after that initial reopening the recovery continued even as it stumbled in many other countries amid rising Covid cases.
The Federal Reserve gets some credit for rapidly slashing interest rates to near zero and intervening in markets to prevent the economic crisis from becoming a financial crisis. But once the Fed’s interest rate ammunition was exhausted, fiscal policy rose to the challenge. Congress ultimately authorized $5.9 trillion of emergency measures of which $4.6 trillion has been spent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
As important as the magnitude of this relief was the variety. Unsure of the most effective remedy, Congress rolled out several: forgivable loans for small businesses that kept their employees (the paycheck protection program or PPP), stimulus checks to almost everyone, unemployment insurance expanded to gig workers and topped up with an extra $300 to $600 a week, low-cost loans from the Fed and Treasury to medium and large businesses, aid to state and local governments.
Much of this was experimental, and the lessons learned may lessen the toll of future recessions. By depositing cash directly into household bank accounts, Treasury has learned how, with congressional approval, to deliver stimulus almost as quickly as the Fed. PPP has yielded new tools to preserve employer-employee bonds in the face of shocks, reducing wasted economic potential.
There are cautionary lessons, also. We don’t know how fast the recovery would have been absent the stimulus. A pandemic is like a natural disaster, and historically recoveries from natural disasters are quick, whereas recoveries from financial crises are slow.
The money had to be borrowed. Publicly held federal debt shot from 79% of GDP at the end of 2019 to 98% now, and there is as yet no credible plan to put it on a downward path again. This doesn’t pose a burden so long as interest rates remain near zero. But future interest rates are more likely to be higher than lower, so ratcheting debt up by 20% of GDP isn’t a realistic response to every future recession.
A lot of stimulus money was wasted. Funds were sent to states to address budget squeezes that never happened. More than 90% of the jobs at firms that received PPP loans would have been preserved without the program, a study by Eric Zwick at the University of Chicago and three co-authors concluded. Thanks to $300 and $600 weekly supplements, unemployment insurance paid many recipients more than the job they lost. Whatever its other benefits, insurance that pays more than the lost job discourages work (by how much is debated) and, once demand for labor returned, slowed the return to normal.
Better state information systems in the future would enable UI benefits to be calibrated to workers’ actual wage history. Benefits could also adjust automatically with economic conditions, such as unemployment and job vacancies.
Finally, the case for the latest round of stimulus checks, weak from the start, has gotten weaker. They funneled more demand into a supply-constrained economy, exacerbating the inflation problem. This is the Achilles’ heel of stimulus: politically it’s so appealing that it’s easy to overdo it. Indeed, a final verdict on the economic policy response awaits a resolution of these supply problems and inflation.
Nonetheless, the economy today is in a far healthier place than was imaginable in the spring of 2020. That’s worth celebrating.
13. Will Turkey’s Détente with Egypt and the Gulf Extend to the Horn of Africa?
Excerpt:
Although the extent to which the climate of détente will affect the Horn is not certain, the relative calm offers a unique opportunity for Washington to claim leadership and prevent the kind of violent rivalry that proved disastrous in Syria and Libya. Special Envoy Feltman should continue his engagement with the regional actors in the Horn and encourage the flow of resources into building inclusive institutions instead of ramping up proxies and factionalism.
Will Turkey’s Détente with Egypt and the Gulf Extend to the Horn of Africa?
Although the extent to which the climate of détente will affect the Horn is not certain, the relative calm offers a unique opportunity for Washington to claim leadership and prevent the kind of violent rivalry that proved disastrous in Syria and Libya.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a $30 million donation to Somalia last month. This gesture raised eyebrows among Turkish citizens, who protested that their cash-strapped government should have used the money on firefighting planes to battle raging blazes at home. But Erdogan’s interest in Somalia is not a passing fancy or humanitarian gesture. Over the last decade, Ankara’s aid to Mogadishu totaled more than a billion dollars as Erdogan and his Qatari allies competed against their Egyptian and Gulf rivals for influence in the Horn of Africa. Yet as Turkey and Qatar now pursue détente with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Horn may get a respite from their rivalry.
The Gulf states’ involvement in the Horn has grown sharply in the last decade, becoming yet another flashpoint in a regional struggle over ideology and strategic terrain. The Horn is adjacent to the Red Sea, which lies between two key maritime chokepoints upon which global trade and traffic depend: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the south and the Suez Canal in the north. Somalia also opens out to the broader Indian Ocean basin, itself a key route for maritime security and trade. As the Indian Ocean base race heats up, the Gulf states have been keen to secure their own interests.
Ideologically, the Horn constitutes one more arena like Libya and Tunisia in which Erdogan and his Qatari partners seek to promote the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have worked actively in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland, and Sudan to counter the Turkish-Qatari axis. Their rivalry set off a crisis in Somalia earlier this year, as Mohamed Abdullahi, the country’s Doha-backed president, nearly triggered an armed conflict by seeking to delay elections. This follows last September’s warning by Somalian opposition leaders that Abdullahi might use Turkish weapons to “hijack” the coming elections.
At the height of the Arab Spring, Erdogan invested in expanding the regional footprint of an ascendant Muslim Brotherhood. In 2012, the International Crisis Group warned Turkey about its destabilizing role in Somalia, recommending Ankara to “tread prudently, eschew unilateralism and learn lessons to avoid another failed international intervention.” Following the Muslim Brotherhood’s reversal of fortune as the Arab Spring turned into a bitter winter, the Turkish president prioritized pushing back against his Gulf rivals and Egypt on all fronts, directly and through proxies. Domestic politics reinforced this impulse. Erdogan’s eroding support base and his ensuing dependence on ultranationalist and Eurasianist factions at home led him to embrace the irredentist naval concept of Turkey’s Blue Homeland, and with it, enhanced overseas ambitions that extend to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
In 2016, during his visit to Somalia, Erdogan inaugurated Turkey’s largest embassy ever built, a sign of the Horn’s significance for his broader aspirations. Although the 2019 ouster of the Sudanese Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir, a close ally of Erdogan, derailed Ankara’s plans to redevelop the port on Sudan’s Suakin island for civilian and military use (along with Qatar, which signed a separate deal with Sudan to develop Suakin), Turkey still maintains its biggest overseas military base in Mogadishu.
The controversies surrounding the Turkish role in Mogadishu also point to the ways in which the Turkish president’s ideological and personal interests can overlap in the Horn. The Turkish ports operator Albayrak, a conglomerate with close links to Erdogan, won a fourteen-year concession to refurbish and manage Mogadishu’s port last year, providing Ankara an important access point on the Indian Ocean. A Turkish columnist alleged last month that Somalia was going to use Erdogan’s $30 million donation to expand the port’s capacity.
While clashing interests and ideologies still shape dynamics in the Horn, Joe Biden’s election as president brought about a recalibration of Egyptian, Gulf, and Turkish policies toward the region, triggering various attempts to mend ties among opposing blocs. This week’s reports that Qatari and Turkish officials will attend an energy conference in Dubai is the latest sign of the improving relations between the UAE and two of its foremost rivals. For all of the contenders, Biden’s pledge to pursue a human rights-centered foreign policy led to concerns that they would become targets of Washington’s ire. Biden’s promise to restore the Iran nuclear deal created additional uncertainty, in response to which the two axes swept some of their outstanding differences under the rug for the time being.
Jeffrey Feltman, Biden’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, concluded a visit to the Gulf in June, making stops in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The appointment of a special envoy signifies the heightened priority Washington now gives to this region. It also reflects the risks involved if the competition in the Horn heats up once again between pro- and anti-Muslim Brotherhood camps.
Although the extent to which the climate of détente will affect the Horn is not certain, the relative calm offers a unique opportunity for Washington to claim leadership and prevent the kind of violent rivalry that proved disastrous in Syria and Libya. Special Envoy Feltman should continue his engagement with the regional actors in the Horn and encourage the flow of resources into building inclusive institutions instead of ramping up proxies and factionalism.
Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and the senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him at @aykan_erdemir
Image: Reuters.
14. Biden Says 'America's Back.' The World Has Some Questions
Excerpts:
Biden's speech to the U.N. may give him the opportunity to "reset the agenda" with countries concerned about the U.S. commitment to multilateralism, said Alynna Lyon, a University of New Hampshire professor who has written extensively about the relationship between Washington and the U.N.
But they also need to be accompanied by actions and resources, she said.
"Words are pretty hollow right now," Lyon said. "He can't just say he wants to work with other countries. He really needs to bring in, particularly the allies, into both planning what the U.S. agenda and what the U.N. agenda could be, and also implementing it."
Biden Says 'America's Back.' The World Has Some Questions
NPR · by Ayesha Rascoe · September 20, 2021
One thorny issue facing President Biden at the U.N.: the defense deal he announced with Australia and the United Kingdom, which left France so angry that it pulled its ambassador from Washington. Win McNamee/Getty Images
As President Biden prepared for his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, his White House was reeling from a trifecta of bad news stories — headlines that underscored questions about U.S. leadership in the world.
And an important scientific advisory body failed to give a ringing endorsement to Biden's plans to give Americans COVID booster shots — plans that have been criticized by the World Health Organization as people in many parts of the world have yet to receive a single dose.
It's against this backdrop that Biden will make this key address to a global audience to try to convince them of his pledge that "America's back," an assurance that he is committed to working with allies and partners in a way that his "America first" predecessor, former President Donald Trump, was not.
Biden, then vice president, sits with President Barack Obama at a summit on refugees during the U.N. General Assembly in 2016. Julie Jacobson/AP
Biden's U.N. history may buy him some goodwill
At the U.N. General Assembly, Biden will be working to secure meaningful commitments from the world on two of his top priorities: fighting the COVID pandemic, and addressing climate change.
While it's his first time there as president, he is no stranger to the institution. That history will likely buy him some goodwill.
Biden was the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1990s, a time when the United States had held back contributions to the U.N. He was instrumental in brokering a funding deal with his Republican counterpart on the committee, Jesse Helms, a staunch opponent of the U.N., in exchange for reforms.
As vice president, Biden often made the rounds with world leaders at the General Assembly meeting, and sat in for then President Obama in different sessions. He helmed a U.N. peacekeeping summit in 2014.
"Joe Biden probably knows more about the U.N. than any other president in recent years, with the exception of George Bush, Sr. who had actually been an ambassador to the U.N.," said Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group, an advocacy group.
After former President Trump's open antagonism to the U.N., Gowan said many world leaders would be breathing a sigh of relief to hear from a more traditional U.S. president. But he said Biden needs to do more than just not be Trump.
"Biden really does have to convince other leaders," Gowan said, noting the president needs to show that "he's getting a grip on U.S. domestic politics."
In 2018, former President Donald Trump drew laughter during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly when he bragged about his accomplishments. "I didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK," he said. John Moore/Getty Images
Explaining the Biden doctrine
While Biden is a well-known internationalist, he faces questions about his approach to working with allies after the chaotic exit from Kabul, said James Dobbins, a long-time diplomat. Biden had framed his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan as being in the U.S. national interest, sticking to it despite reservations from some allies.
"The United Nations has additional burdens as a result of the U.S. departure," said Dobbins, who served under multiple presidents. Dobbins saw Biden's approach to foreign policy first hand when Biden was a senator and also during the Obama administration, when Dobbins served as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Dobbins recalled running into Biden on an Amtrak train headed to Washington, shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "He stopped reading his newspaper and asked me to sit down across from him," said Dobbins, now a senior fellow the Rand Corporation. "And for the rest of the trip, from Wilmington to Washington, he probed me on what we should be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Years later, when Biden was vice president, Dobbins was a part of a group of about a dozen experts invited to have dinner with him at his residence. Biden still had questions, but had become decidedly skeptical of the military mission in Afghanistan.
"He's pretty open minded, at least initially," Dobbins said. "And then when he made his mind up, he tended to stick to that position."
President Biden, in an address about the end of the war in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, said it was no longer in the U.S. national interest to be there. Evan Vucci/AP
COVID concerns
Biden has said he wants to rally the world to boost the pace of global COVID-19 vaccinations, and the White House has planned a virtual summit on the topic for Wednesday, to coincide with activities at the U.N.
The administration has faced criticism for its preparations to give Americans a third booster shot even as millions of people in the world's poorest countries are still waiting for an initial dose. The World Health Organization and other groups have urged the United States to hold back on broad plans for booster shots, arguing that other countries need the vaccines more. The White House has pushed back, countering that the U.S. has enough doses to vaccinate Americans even as it donates more doses than any other nation.
An additional 4.6 million US-donated #COVID19 vaccine doses are arriving in #Indonesia, a total of nearly 13 million so far. 190 @USAID-supported vaccine sites immunized thousands of people in Jakarta last month, and we’re proud to continue our partnership. pic.twitter.com/wOoSbyekYp
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) September 18, 2021
Biden's speech to the U.N. may give him the opportunity to "reset the agenda" with countries concerned about the U.S. commitment to multilateralism, said Alynna Lyon, a University of New Hampshire professor who has written extensively about the relationship between Washington and the U.N.
But they also need to be accompanied by actions and resources, she said.
"Words are pretty hollow right now," Lyon said. "He can't just say he wants to work with other countries. He really needs to bring in, particularly the allies, into both planning what the U.S. agenda and what the U.N. agenda could be, and also implementing it."
NPR · by Ayesha Rascoe · September 20, 2021
15. After 20 years of waging religious guerrilla warfare, Taliban fighters in Kabul say they miss the battle
Did they not have a transition plan to go from fighting to governance?
Excerpts:
During a recent patrol, Nifiz, the commander from Wardak, bragged about the new uniforms his men had been given: traditional Afghan male dress of a long shirt over trousers but made from matching camouflage fabric.
“It helps build trust with the people,” he said. During the patrol through the Kabul district under his command, he spent most of his time chiding people for driving on the wrong side of the road or parking in the middle of the street.
“We have to maintain order,” he said. But over the course of a few short weeks, he said, he noticed a difference in how the residents of his district felt toward his fighters. More people were coming to his base asking for help resolving disputes, shops that were initially shuttered were back open, and more people were out walking on the streets.
Nifiz said some reports of killings and beatings of Kabul residents by Taliban fighters were true. “In some cases, our men committed mistakes,” he said, but added it was to be expected after being at war for so many years.
Even when maintaining order in villages under their control, Nifiz said he and his men were more violent with those who broke the rules. But once they entered Kabul they were under strict orders to use less force.
“Before, I was not as careful when I took prisoners, but now I want to behave better with them,” he said. When asked if he was referring to torturing detainees, he said he couldn’t discuss the matter further.
“At first everyone was scared of us,” he said. “They thought we were just these fighters who came from the mountains. But now they see we are human beings, too.”
After 20 years of waging religious guerrilla warfare, Taliban fighters in Kabul say they miss the battle
KABUL — Since celebrating the fall of Kabul a month ago, after years of waging a holy war to overthrow the U.S.-backed government, the 250 Taliban fighters under Abdulrahman Nifiz’s command have struggled to adjust to their new day job: the mundane task of securing a city.
“All of my men, they love jihad and fighting,” he said. “So when they came to Kabul they didn’t feel comfortable. There isn’t any fighting here anymore.”
“Many of my fighters are worried that they missed their chance at martyrdom in the war,” Nifiz said. “I tell them they need to relax. They still have a chance to become martyrs. But this adjustment will take time.”
Taliban leaders claim the group has changed since it last controlled most of Afghanistan in the 1990s and have suggested it could be a more tolerant governing force. But interviews with more than two dozen Taliban fighters, commanders and leaders since the fall of Kabul reveal a movement open to some change but one that is dedicated to the harsh enforcement of rules — such as gender segregation — that date to the movement’s founding.
While most of the group’s political leadership has spent years meeting with foreign officials over a decade of peace talks with the United States, the Taliban rank-and-file has been fighting a war they believed was sanctioned by God, offering them a clear path to paradise in the afterlife.
The result is that violence and intimidation remain central to how the Taliban maintains order, at least for now.
“Our new work is different. It’s a huge change,” Nifiz said, “but day by day everyone is becoming more experienced, and because of that we are changing.”
The men under his command said they agreed. “We follow the orders of our leadership,” said a 19-year old fighter, Ahmad. “And our leadership said this is our new responsibility.”
But privately many of the men admitted feeling homesick for their villages in Wardak, where Nifiz and his unit are from.
“In Wardak, we lived among the people, not like this,” Nifiz said, gesturing to the government police compound that was now his base. The complex was surrounded by layers of blast walls. The rooms were designed for bureaucrats, with large imposing desks, lines of overstuffed chairs and bookshelves that once held framed photographs of senior Afghan government officials.
In central Kabul, Taliban commanders described similar struggles. When peaceful protesters were recently attacked by Taliban fighters sent to disperse the crowd, the group’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, excused the violence, saying, “The fighters are not trained to deal with protests yet.” He gave a similar explanation when journalists were badly beaten.
Taliban leadership — made up of figures from the movement’s old guard — is under immense pressure to regain access to the billions of dollars in aid money that kept the previous government afloat. Many of the countries in control of that cash flow have said the group’s actions regarding human rights, the rights of women and civil liberties will be key to their decision-making.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the group has declared unauthorized protests illegal, barred women from working in most sectors and restricted access to education for women and girls, citing security concerns. But in an attempt to signal things are different, the movement has made some cosmetic changes.
Taliban fighters are increasingly wearing uniformed fatigues in Kabul, a move that the group’s leadership says will help distinguish them from criminals claiming to be members of the group. One of the first Taliban units to be clothed and equipped like a professional military was the Badri 313 unit, which helped secure Kabul’s airport during the chaotic U.S. airlift.
“The men for this unit were selected from among the martyrdom seekers within the Taliban,” said the top Badri commander, Saad, who refused to give his last name or home province, citing security concerns. He said that he joined the group when Mohammad Omar was its leader.
“Martyrdom seekers have different skills,” he said. “Some were trained to use vest bombs, others in car bombs or targeted killings, and some were front-line fighters leading operations.”
He said the Badri unit was created from this pool of people because they displayed the greatest dedication to the Taliban’s military operations and ideological values. “We already know they are willing to sacrifice themselves for this country,” he said.
On a recent day in Kabul, the Badri fighters were moving into an old security compound inside the Kabul airport. Men were sorting through piles of uniforms, helmets, toiletries and rations left behind by Afghan forces. Photographs of a previous director of airport security had been hurriedly torn down.
Hikmatullah Hafiz had just arrived in Kabul after being selected to join the elite unit.
“Before I was a guerrilla warrior, and now I’m a soldier,” he said, gesturing to his uniform and equipment. “We want the world to accept that we are a legitimate military, that we are part of an organized system.”
The 21-year-old joined the Taliban five years ago in Helmand, the province in southern Afghanistan where he was born. The only education he received was at a madrassa, where his teachers encouraged him to fight to reestablish an Islamic government in Afghanistan. He said witnessing civilians being mistreated by Afghan forces and killed in U.S. and Afghan government airstrikes also encouraged him to take up arms.
Another Badri fighter described a very different path to the force.
Khalid Abdullah, 26, was working as a ride-share driver in Dubai when he got a message earlier this year inviting him to return to Afghanistan and become a suicide bomber. Three of his friends working as laborers in Iran were planning to do the same. All four met up in Kabul before traveling to Paktika province for training.
It was February, and the Taliban was gaining ground as U.S. and NATO forces were withdrawing. Abdullah said he knew many other Afghans who returned to the country around the same time to join the Taliban in a fight that the militants were looking sure to win.
Halfway through the six-month course, he was told he had been reassigned to the Badri unit.
“I didn’t think that one day I would be a soldier with the important job of securing an airport,” he said. But he admitted he was initially disappointed when he was told of the move.
“As a suicide bomber, you are assured martyrdom,” he said, “but of course it is still possible in this role because this is still jihad.”
On Kabul’s western edge, fighters from another Taliban unit charged with protecting Afghanistan’s national museum from looting explained that they were told their assignment was intended to encourage confidence among Kabul’s residents.
“Our leadership just told us that this building is important, and we shouldn’t allow anyone to loot it,” said Mohammad Javid Mubari, the leader of about a dozen men stationed at the museum. He admitted that he didn’t know what was inside the building and brushed off the question as unimportant.
“Before this, I was just fighting jihad,” the 30-year-old said, boasting of his battlefield credentials. “I fought in many different provinces in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. We also trained in Pakistan, and fought against the Pakistani army.”
“I became the top commander in my group after the three commanders before me were killed in drone strikes,” he said with little emotion.
“I don’t have a background in archaeology,” he said of his current assignment guarding relics, including Buddhist antiquities, which many Taliban fighters view as an affront to Islam. “Our leaders will decide what will happen to the artifacts here. We don’t have the authorization to destroy them yet.”
In central Kabul, the Taliban unit charged with securing the Green Zone — a heavily fortified neighborhood that once housed many Western embassies, aid organizations and a handful of foreign news bureaus — laid out their prayer rugs in the middle of a deserted street. Just a month ago, the avenue was bustling with convoys of armored cars carrying Afghan officials, diplomats and aid workers to and from their offices.
“When do you think the embassies will come back?” asked one of the older fighters, Rahimullah Hijrat. “You should tell the other foreigners to return.”
He said Kabul and the Green Zone are more secure now than before and that the country needs the same kind of help from the international community that the previous government was receiving.
He also expressed concern about the neglect that followed the rushed exit of many international organizations from Afghanistan.
“We are worried about the gardens,” he said. “They haven’t been watered, and they’re dying. At least the gardeners should come back to work.”
Hijrat said he heard many Afghans who worked with foreign organizations are too scared to return to work because for years the Taliban considered them legitimate military targets. But he said he didn’t understand why they don’t believe the Taliban’s pledge that anyone who asks for amnesty will be forgiven regardless of their previous employment.
“It’s different now,” he insisted. “They should trust us.”
Hijrat was a senior Taliban security official in Kapisa before the group took Kabul last month. In his home province, he said, he developed a respectful rapport with village elders and prominent families over the course of many years.
“Our responsibilities are different here,” he said. “In the villages, you live among the people, they come to you with their problems. Here we are just maintaining security.”
One of the men under his command said he was happy to be assigned to Kabul. Zabiullah Zahib joined the Taliban because that’s what all the other men in his family did and “because I am a Muslim,” he said.
“But to be honest, I don’t like weapons. I don’t like holding a gun,” the 25-year-old said. “I’m hoping that with the Taliban in power, the security situation can improve, and I can study economics in university.”
He said his mother inspired him to pursue an education. “She told me a country cannot be strong without a good economy.”
During a recent patrol, Nifiz, the commander from Wardak, bragged about the new uniforms his men had been given: traditional Afghan male dress of a long shirt over trousers but made from matching camouflage fabric.
“It helps build trust with the people,” he said. During the patrol through the Kabul district under his command, he spent most of his time chiding people for driving on the wrong side of the road or parking in the middle of the street.
“We have to maintain order,” he said. But over the course of a few short weeks, he said, he noticed a difference in how the residents of his district felt toward his fighters. More people were coming to his base asking for help resolving disputes, shops that were initially shuttered were back open, and more people were out walking on the streets.
Nifiz said some reports of killings and beatings of Kabul residents by Taliban fighters were true. “In some cases, our men committed mistakes,” he said, but added it was to be expected after being at war for so many years.
Even when maintaining order in villages under their control, Nifiz said he and his men were more violent with those who broke the rules. But once they entered Kabul they were under strict orders to use less force.
“Before, I was not as careful when I took prisoners, but now I want to behave better with them,” he said. When asked if he was referring to torturing detainees, he said he couldn’t discuss the matter further.
“At first everyone was scared of us,” he said. “They thought we were just these fighters who came from the mountains. But now they see we are human beings, too.”
16. US-China relations: two economies linked by financial risk can’t afford to go to war
I so want this to be true but I think we need to get Norman Angell to give his theory once again.
In The Great Illusion (first published as Europe's Optical Illusion), Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."
How has that worked out for us since World War I?
I think the paradoxical trinity (passion, reason, and chance) trumps the great illusion.
US-China relations: two economies linked by financial risk can’t afford to go to war
- The interconnected fates of the US and China have become apparent from recent exchanges between George Soros and BlackRock
- Financial markets in the US and China have perhaps never looked so fragile, and that is never a good position from which to start a conflict
By Anthony Rowley South China Morning Post3 min
Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping spoke by phone recently. The US and China have many differences but one problem they have in common is that of systemic risk crystallising in their financial sectors. Photo: AFP
What really brought presidents
The US and China have many differences but one problem they have in common is that of systemic risk crystallising in their financial sectors. Financial cooperation is the price they may have to pay to avert the threat.
This goes deeper than the fact that US financial markets are behaving skittishly as
For a decade or more, Washington and Beijing have been able to engage in what might politely be termed highly competitive behaviour on both economic and strategic fronts, safe in the knowledge that accommodative monetary policy would support the financial systems that underpin such competition.
Quite suddenly, those financial and monetary foundations are looking fragile as tremors in equity, bond and real estate markets hint at possible earthquakes to come. So interconnected is the global financial system that a market crisis would be of pandemic proportions.
02:28
Angry protest at headquarters of China Evergrande as property giant faces liquidity crunch
More particularly, the interconnected fates of the US and China have become apparent from the recent exchanges between global investment guru Soros and BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset management firm headed by Fink.
In Wall Street Journal and Financial Times op-eds, Soros attacked BlackRock’s investments in China as a
BlackRock’s response was less emotional: “We believe that globally integrated financial markets provide people, companies, and governments … with better and more efficient access to capital that supports economic growth around the world.”
Whatever the merits or demerits of such arguments, they show that economic ties between the US and China go much deeper now than trade and business investment and reach critical areas like portfolio investment where both have the potential to boost or damage each other through bond and equity strategies.
Even if such issues were not on the formal agenda during the Biden-Xi chat, they would have provided a psychological backdrop. The US and China cannot afford to engage in a battle for supremacy if their armies face marching on empty stomachs.
Financial markets have perhaps never looked so frighteningly fragile and exposed. This has been obvious for some time in the US where record high stock prices are based on unsustainable monetary largesse rather than economic fundamentals.
But what has become uncomfortably clear recently is the extent to which China’s real estate and debt markets are exposed to a possible default by
As senior analyst Jeffrey Halley at foreign exchange specialist Oanda remarked in a note to clients: “China is unlikely to hit the red button and open the fiscal spigots immediately. Another month of weak data next month may change that narrative though.”
Halley said that “expectations of government largesse may be limiting the fallout in China equities”. “But with the sectorial clampdowns, the Evergrande [saga] and withering domestic consumer confidence, the downward repricing of China equities could be far from over,” he added.
To quote Chinese think tank the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), Washington and Beijing “are now locked in a precarious balance between competition and cooperation”. But neither is in a position to employ 1980s-style “Star Wars” tactics to force the other into ruinous spending.
01:10
US Navy sets off explosives to test new aircraft carrier
Both nations are up their necks in debt and that is never a good position from which to go to war. So it makes sense to cool off and pay more attention at the very highest levels of government to financial as well as macroeconomic and strategic issues.
“The recent nomination of Nicolas Burns as US ambassador to China, alongside US Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken’s call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s reported plan to visit China, have prompted renewed hopes for bilateral cooperation,” said the CCG.
Let’s hope so, because the real threat to financial and economic (and thus social) stability now lies not in the Taiwan Strait, or the East or South China seas, but much closer to home, in the stock and bond markets.
If the exigencies of national finance serve to show political leaders the futility and fatuousness of raising competition to conflict-risking levels, that will mark a victory of quiet diplomacy over the sound and fury of aggressive posturing.
Anthony Rowley is a veteran journalist specialising in Asian economic and financial affairs
Anthony Rowley is a veteran journalist specialising in Asian economic and financial affairs. He was formerly Business Editor and International Finance Editor of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review and worked earlier on The Times newspaper in London
17. America's plan to build 747 arsenal ships packed with cruise missiles
Hmm... What happens to all the commercial 747s just conducting routine operations around the world? Will we have more KAL 007 shoot downs as we did in 1983 when the Soviets shot it down? Do we put all 747s at risk?
America's plan to build 747 arsenal ships packed with cruise missiles
During the Cold War, Boeing developed plans to load a 747 with as many as 72 air-launched cruise missiles to serve as a long-range arsenal ship capable of wiping out targets from hundreds of miles away. The design, dubbed the 747 Cruise Missile Carrier Aircraft (CMCA), could have been an extremely cost-effective alternative to America’s current fleet of heavy-payload bombers in a wide variety of mission sets.
Ultimately, the 747 CMCA never made it off the drawing board, with the Reagan administration pulling the B-1 program out of mothballs and the B-2 entering service shortly thereafter–but it may be time the United States revisited the idea of leveraging these or similarly capable commercial airframes for more than just ferrying cargo and passengers.
Why pack a 747 with cruise missiles?
On June 30, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced that he was canceling development on America’s B-1 bomber program, citing the program’s cost overruns and advancing ballistic missile technology for the decision. The bomber would eventually find new life under the Reagan administration, eventually resulting in the B-1B Lancer that remains in service today. Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit, sometimes referred to as America’s “stealth bomber,” also entered service in the ’80s, placing America’s strategic bombing capabilities right back at the top of the global military heap.
But for a short window of time, the United States seemed to be in need of a heavy-payload aircraft that had enough endurance to cross entire oceans to engage enemy targets. Some believed converting an existing commercial platform to carry the recently-developed AGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles made the most sense from an economic standpoint, and Boeing’s 747 seemed like just the right aircraft for the job.
If an aircraft can give a Space Shuttle a piggy-back ride, it can probably carry a fair amount of ordnance. (NASA Photo/Tom Tschida)
Boeing’s 747 first took to the skies in 1969. Initially designed to compete for an Air Force cargo transport contract (which it lost to Lockheed’s C-5 Galaxy) it found renewed purpose as the first commercial airliner ever to be called a “jumbo jet,” and “jumbo” was an apt description. The 747 was a massive aircraft for its day, and the largest civilian aircraft in the world at the time. The original 747 fuselage stretched 225 feet and carried a vertical tail that stood as tall as a six-story building. It had more square footage in its wings alone than you can find in an entire basketball court, and just one of the 747’s wings was 30 times heavier than Boeing’s entire first aircraft, launched just 53 years prior.
The prototype Boeing 747 (WikiMedia Commons)
Boeing developed the aircraft incredibly quickly–in under 16 months by their own accounting, but the effort was positively monumental nonetheless. Some 50,000 employees had a hand in the 747 program. More than 75,000 engineering drawings were produced, accounting for some six million parts and over 171 miles of wiring. In order to ensure the aircraft design was extremely efficient, it spent more than 15,000 hours in the wind tunnel, and then another 1,500 hours of flight testing.
Incredible as the aircraft was, however, it was also a serious gamble. Boeing struggled to finance the completion of its development, eventually borrowing more than $2 billion (roughly $14.9 billion in today’s money) to get it across the finish line. If the aircraft were to fail to find a market, it would have meant ruin for the company.
It may have been with that in mind that plans for the 747 CMCA began to form. Boeing knew the Air Force might be interested in an aircraft with a range of nearly 6,000 miles and the ability to carry nearly 77,000 pounds of ordnance, so they set to work on just such a proposal in 1980. If they were successful, it would mean selling their expensive new design in both commercial and military markets for cargo, personnel, and as an arsenal ship.
The 747 CMCA
Boeing started with a 747-200C, which was a convertible airliner with a nose cargo door that could be opened to remove the seats and leave the interior empty, as well as to bring large payloads on board.
The 747 Cruise Missile Carrier Aircraft would leverage the new AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile, which was developed for exactly this sort of application, though in a different aircraft. By the 1970s, the B-52 was already looking pretty long in the tooth, and the AGM-86 had been designed specifically to increase its survivability by engaging targets from ranges that could exceed 1,500 miles–well outside the reach of Soviet surface-to-air missiles.
But while the B-52 could carry 20 of these 21′ cruise missiles, the 747 CMCA could carry a whopping 72.
Patent drawing of the 747 CMCA
The weapons would be carried within the 747 fuselage on nine rotary launchers, each loaded with eight AGM-86 cruise missiles. The missiles would be fired one at a time from the side door near the rear of the aircraft, with each rotary launcher sliding back into firing position as needed. Although the missiles were ejected one at a time, Boeing’s design was meant to be able to launch them in quick succession.
These missiles would leverage a satellite data link to receive target information while the 747 was airborne, or target information could be relayed from a command and control team stationed just behind the cockpit of the aircraft in the area usually reserved for 1st class passengers.
As a result, the 747 CMCA would have been able to deploy more cruise missiles than three B-52s combined, each with independent targets within hundreds of miles of one another. But impressive as that may be, it was the potential cost savings that made the missile-packing 747 seem like a very viable option.
Cheaper than any bomber
Artist’s rendering of a 747 CMCA firing cruise missiles
The B-1B Lancer that would ultimately eliminate the need for the 747 CMCA can carry a comparable payload to the 747, and its sweep-wing design and powerful General Electric F101-GE-102 afterburning turbofan engines make it both fast and extremely maneuverable for a bomber carrying so much firepower you can use school busses as a unit of measurement. But it’s also incredibly expensive, at around $61,000 per hour to fly. The B-52 is a bit pricier, at about $70,000 per hour. The stealth B-2 Spirit crushes those figures with a jaw-dropping $130,159 per hour.
But a modern 747 rings in at just about $25,000 per hour.
A large part of what makes America’s bombers so pricey to operate is the size of their respective fleets. The Air Force operates some 62 B-1Bs, 76 B-52s, and just 20 B-2s. With so few of each of these planes in existence, parts tend to be very pricey–and they keep getting pricier as all three of these bombers continue to age. Conversely, more than 1,500 747s have been built, with supply lines and maintenance infrastructure already established the world over. That means it’s not just cheaper to buy parts for the 747, it’s cheaper to get them on the aircraft that need them.
As Tyler Rogoway pointed out way back in 2014, a 747 carrying 72 cruise missiles would have been extremely handy over Afghanistan throughout the past 20 years of conflict. With its low operating cost, great endurance, and massive payload, the 747 CMCA could have been an air support powerhouse in the uncontested airspace over Afghanistan, as well as in other conflict-ridden areas like Iraq and Syria. If the aircraft had been put into service and converted to carry JDAMs of varying sizes along with small-diameter bombs over the years, the number of individual targets it could engage increases from 72 to literally hundreds. And all at a fraction of the cost of America’s current bomber options.
Could we see a resurgence of the CMCA concept?
A B-52 Stratofortress (Left) followed by a B-2 Spirit (top) and a B-1B Lancer (bottom). (USAF Photo)
Today, both the B-1B Lancer and the B-2 Spirit are slated to retire in favor of America’s forthcoming stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider. The B-21 promises to offer incredibly advanced stealth technology and the same global strike capabilities we’ve come to expect from bombers like the Raider’s predecessor, the B-2. There is a significant catch, however: The B-21 Raider is going to be quite a bit smaller than the B-2, limiting its payload capabilities to around 30,000 pounds. That’s not terribly far off from the B-2’s 40,000-pound limit, but it’s less than half of the supersonic B-1B’s 75,000 capacity.
While the B-21 will likely be more economical than the B-2 thanks to newer technology and fresher airframes, there’s no denying that operating stealth aircraft is expensive. This understanding is part of what prompted the Air Force to purchase new non-stealth F-15EXs, which offer nearly three times the lifespan at less than half the cost per operating hour than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. While Northrop and the Air Force both claim the B-21 program is steaming ahead on schedule and without any serious snags, just how much it costs to fly remains to be seen.
(WikiMedia Commons)
The United States is no longer conducting combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but as the nation shifts back toward an era of great power competition, it seems unlikely that America’s days of conducting combat operations in uncontested airspace are over. Much like the last Cold War, the simmering tensions between the U.S. and China are unlikely to boil over into open war any time soon. This time, it’s not just mutually assured nuclear destruction keeping the dogs of war at bay, it’s also the promise of economic catastrophe.
America’s and China’s booming economies are so intricately intertwined with one another’s and the world’s at large that declaring war would be akin to detonating a nuclear bomb in the ethereal plane of global commerce. Of course, that’s not to say that America and China will get along, it’s just much more likely that the war between them will manifest in proxy conflicts in the developing world, as each nation jockeys for diplomatic leverage, resources, and strategic footholds around the globe. Avoiding war certainly isn’t a sure thing, but the Cold War model, for all its failings, did manage to stave off nuclear winter.
While the Cold War may have involved a lot of high-end competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union, low-tech platforms like the OV-10 Bronco were essential in the proxy conflicts that accompanied that high-tech posturing. (WikiMedia Commons)
With America’s Special Operations forces spread apart further than ever, supporting ally and partner forces the world over in combat operations against terror cells and the like, America has a growing need for economical air support in the developing world. SOCOM’s Armed Overwatch program is aiming to meet that need, but a fleet of converted commercial arsenal ships could prove invaluable in that and similar roles.
The biggest challenge in supporting disparate operations spread throughout a massive landmass like Africa is the “tyranny of distance.” Cheap 747s converted to carry long-range cruise missiles and shorter-range munitions alike already have the endurance needed for continent-spanning missions, and that range could be extended further through in-flight refueling. In other words, in the 21st century, a 747 filled to the brim with bombs and missiles could well be the king of the battlefield.
The last production 747s are slated for delivery next year, but the effort could be even lower-cost if the U.S. were to procure used airframes for the job. Likewise, any number of newer commercial aircraft could fit the bill.
If you’d like to read more about efforts to make the 747 into a military powerhouse, you can read about the 747 AAC, which was to be a flying aircraft carrier here.
If you’re interested in other programs that could turn commercial platforms into low-cost arsenal ships, check out this discussion about turning commercial cargo vessels into missile barges here.
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18. The USA, China, and the “Whole of Society” approach
I am guilty as charged.
A good thesis here:
A system that appears (to outsiders and insiders) to be falling apart, constantly at odds with itself, and seemingly incapable of coming together for a common purpose.
If you believe the above and swallow it whole, you’re missing the bigger picture.
The USA already does the whole of society approach – and does it incredibly well.
Here, we trust our people with free speech, to make decisions in their best interests and pursue what makes them happy. This is mission command at a societal level.
We don’t need to tell our people that they need to go out there and counter adversarial aggression. Instead, we provide the space and the means for people and organizations to thrive.
The USA, China, and the “Whole of Society” approach
Still catching up on the backlog of podcasts. I listened to episode 34 of the Irregular Warfare podcast weeks ago – and jotted down a few notes. This episode was on “China’s Strategically Irregular Approach.”
Before I even listened to it, I opined that there would be a discussion or comment about how “good” China is at irregular warfare and how “bad” we are at it.
The discussion was more nuanced than that, thankfully. But there is one area in which I think we (the US) continue to get a bad rap.
And that’s on the topic of the “whole of society” approach.
In any discussion on China’s approach to competition, their ability to marshal their entire society in lockstep towards their political goals is touted as a huge advantage. A top-down approach, where the CCP dictates the direction, and often the pace and style.
To the outside observer, it can appear as if they’re “doing it well” or “doing it better.”
Wolf-warrior diplomacy, banning video games, social credit systems. It’s all in the name of winning.
And what do we have to counter that?
A system that appears (to outsiders and insiders) to be falling apart, constantly at odds with itself, and seemingly incapable of coming together for a common purpose.
If you believe the above and swallow it whole, you’re missing the bigger picture.
The USA already does the whole of society approach – and does it incredibly well.
Here, we trust our people with free speech, to make decisions in their best interests and pursue what makes them happy. This is mission command at a societal level.
We don’t need to tell our people that they need to go out there and counter adversarial aggression. Instead, we provide the space and the means for people and organizations to thrive.
And they create things. Entertainment. Sports. Fashion. Philanthropy. Finance.
Hollywood. College sports. Non-profits. The iPhone.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe – an American media franchise – is worth billions of dollars worldwide, but more importantly, carries the power of American culture, creativity, innovation, and humor across the world.
If you’re on the outside looking in, American society, with all its cracks and fissures, is a behemoth. It is worth envying.
We don’t need to try to recreate something that “gets everyone on board.” We don’t need to force it.
Do the right thing, speak the truth, and trust your people.
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19. NEIL MACKAY'S BIG READ: Disney makes you sad. Jane Austen teaches you to kill ... meet the Scots genius who reveals all on the psychological science of stories
Now for something completely different (seemingly but there is relevance to national security here)
I am reminded of Charles Hill's book on Grand Strategy in which he traces the roots of grand strategy through the history of literature.
But this is an interesting excerpt:
There’s also been talk about AI being used on the battlefield. Ironically, one of the places where Fletcher is working on the application of the “science of stories” is in the military. He’s collaborating with the American army, using literature to make Special Forces soldiers – similar to Britain’s SAS – more effective.
Armies have put “so much money into data and it’s not working”, he says. “What we’re doing is training special operations soldiers how to function in low data environments by boosting their narrative abilities.” In other words, computers cannot examine highly complex, fluid environments – like war – and determine what to do.
However, because the human mind runs primarily on story not logic – more like a book than a computer, as Fletcher discovered – soldiers become better on the battlefield if they think creatively, and they learn how to think creatively through literature. Fletcher – who makes clear he’s a pacifist – has written “the creative-thinking field guide for the US military”.
“Creativity comes from saying what’s unique about this? What’s special about this person? What does she have about her that nobody else has? What are the unique opportunities?” Computers, however, work in the opposite way, studying masses of data. “They look at 1,000 things and say what do they all have in common”.
NEIL MACKAY'S BIG READ: Disney makes you sad. Jane Austen teaches you to kill ... meet the Scots genius who reveals all on the psychological science of stories
Beavering away in his neuroscience laboratory, Professor Angus Fletcher has uncovered the “science of stories” – how books, plays, movies, TV shows and poetry affect both our minds and bodies.
Fletcher – a Scot whose parents emigrated to America – is a true polymath: both a neuroscientist and Yale-educated doctor of literature.
He has combined his twin passions to unlock the psychological, physiological and pharmacological effects literature has on humans.
His work ushers in new forms of mental-health treatments, and is being studied by the US military and used by entertainment giants like Netflix to sculpt the perfect story.
Fletcher, whose new book Wonderworks: Literary Invention And The Science Of Stories, charts these discoveries, sat down with The Herald to discuss how literature is the most important technology humans ever invented.
Disney’s a downer
“DISNEY’S fairytales make us less happy,” Fletcher says. Much of Fletcher’s work studies the effect on the mind of specific stories. Some release “happy hormones”, others improve us psychologically, restoring wellbeing. Disney, however, can be destructive.
“Disney stories are all about good things happening to good people – relentlessly,” Fletcher explains. “They teach our brain this cause and effect. If you go to Disney feeling sad – which is often when you do go to Disney, because you’re looking to feel good about yourself – your brain starts to think: if good things happen to good people and I’m not feeling happy, then there’s something wrong with me. If I’m not a good person and bad things happen to bad people, then bad things are going to keep happening to me.”
Disney films cause a temporary “vicarious bump” of happiness. Viewers watch a film like Cinderella and feel briefly “up”, but happiness soon evaporates and negativity kicks in. Disney creates a “fatalistic, pessimistic view. Disney increases the likelihood that you’ll be sad about yourself or angry at others. Paranoia is part of the Disney story”.
The reverse is true with “real” fairy tales - like Brothers Grimm stories such as Little Red Riding Hood. In these, “terrible things happen to everybody. Good things happen to idiots and bad people. This teaches our brain that ultimately good things happen for no reason. To humans, that’s incredibly healthy because it gives us hope in moments of despair. That’s a positive story.”
The same goes for classic sitcoms – very similar to ancient Roman comedies where “good things happen to ridiculous people”. Think of anything from Dad’s Army to Derry Girls.
“Nobody is virtuous or morally upstanding but they still get to be happy. That’s a really healthy story to tell: you’re not perfect but that’s okay, you can still have joy.”
All cartoons aren’t bad for you, though. Pixar’s Up was deliberately designed to lift viewers’ spirits. Fletcher, who has spent time with Pixar’s team, says the film followed the same process Steve Jobs used to design the iPhone: reverse engineering. Jobs – one of the brains behind Pixar – wanted a particular iPhone user experience and worked backwards from there.
Pixar wanted the end of Up to literally lift audiences “up” so designed the film backwards to its bleak beginning, ensuring a big emotional journey. Jobs, Fletcher believes, thought similarly to Shakespeare –intuiting exactly what audiences want. “Story is a technology, after all,” says Fletcher.
War and love drugs
HOMER’S epic The Iliad – which recounts the Trojan War – is a great example, says Fletcher, of the “chemical responsiveness of literature”. He has studied in the lab how this bloody tale floods the brain with oxytocin, the love hormone linked to bonding between mothers and babies, and ties like friendship.
“Literature,” says Fletcher, “can be therapeutic. It has a way of triggering neurochemical cascades.”
Fletcher discovered that The Iliad – and other books which place readers at the heart of battlefield violence where comrades group together to defeat an enemy – releases chemicals which flood the body with a sense of courage and friendship. A similar book might be Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings, where brave friends overcome insurmountable odds.
“Courage is a chemical response that comes when we’re scared,” Fletcher says. It’s closely linked to oxytocin’s ‘bonding effect’. “If we were standing together and something scary happens, the fact you were there would release oxytocin in my brain, it would mix with fear chemicals – that adrenal response – and it would give me the strength to stand and fight.
“Literature figures out how to give you that entire experience without anyone actually being there with you, or without there being anything to make you scared. The classic example is The Iliad. It’s terrifying.”
Fletcher, who uses literature in work with military survivors of trauma, says not all war-themed stories, though, are good for the soul. “Game Of Thrones would ultimately probably not be very good for us and might actually increase anxiety. Fantasy can be positive if the characters experience growth that’s translatable. Game Of Thrones is a bit sadistic – it exists to punish you and make you scared. It makes you feel fragile.”
In George RR Martin’s books almost everyone is amoral, betrayal is constant, and friendship relatively meaningless. It’s much more likely to release fear chemicals, than love hormones. This kind of literature makes you feel victimised.
Where the written word really goes into reverse gear and terrorises readers is in religious texts. “The discovery that literature could generate fear was made in the ancient world by powerful people – priests and regents – who wanted to tell stories of gods and hell as a way of controlling people.”
This kind of fear can be “traumatic”, says Fletcher. “It becomes lodged in the memory, we lose control over it.”
Happy Oedipus
NOT all dark literature is bad for you, though. The Ancient Greeks, says Fletcher, came up with “one of the earliest discoveries about what literature could do to help process fears”. It was upsetting drama – Greek tragedy.
Aristotle the philosopher wrote about the phenomenon “catharsis” – the purging of negative feelings through watching plays like Oedipus, which ends in despair and the protagonist blinding himself.
Fletcher says: “Greek tragedy uncovered a series of mechanisms that work procedurally in the brain to help get out that traumatic fear and help the brain process it so that you can remove those symptoms.
“The best way to make people feel like they’ve self-efficacy is to have them help somebody who’s experiencing what they’ve experienced. That’s why we’ve survivor groups. But there’s lots of problems with survivor groups – people often don’t like being helped by others. In literature, however, all that friction disappears. With an imaginary person like Oedipus we can reach out to empathetically. This makes us feel we can help others with their trauma, and that in our brain cues up the belief that we can help ourselves.”
Vicarious Victorians
WHEN it comes to empathy, turn to Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. Their works forge a sense of shared caring. Victorian novels are rich in “the apology”, says Fletcher. Think of Great Expectations or Jude The Obscure where we get inside characters’ heads, ‘hearing’ them regret their actions. “We get direct access to people’s remorse and their sense of vulnerability,” says Fletcher. “That automatically elicits an empathetic response.”
Fletcher is currently experimenting in the lab with two works: one, where a character simply apologises; and the other, where readers get inside the character’s head and “feel” their regret.
Fletcher found readers experienced “increased empathy and lowered anger in response to the second way of writing”.
Netflix is McDs
MODERN storytelling has become “industrialised”, says Fletcher. “We’re getting the refined sugar of literature from Netflix. They’re just trying to get you to constantly binge watch – tapping into hypnotic centres. Literature is like food. It’s possible to eat so badly you make yourself sick.”
Fletcher has worked with “some of the largest producers at Netflix”, adding: “I’m not here to defend them.”
However, he’s not being snobbish. Fletcher also believes most “high culture” does little for the soul either. “It’s often a vehicle for elites to express their views and it’s not emotionally innovative.”
Good storytelling – whether high or low-brow – helps people emotionally. When it comes to Netflix, it’s simply escapist. It’s the difference between watching gladiators at the Coliseum and visiting the Athenian theatre. “Escapism is when a story puts you in an unreal world and you feel happier there. When you come back to your actual life, you feel depressed, unfulfilled.”
The modern world’s epidemic of depression, anxiety and anger may be connected to the dominance of mass-market entertainment. “Certain types of story are basically wiping out almost all others like an invasive species,” he says.
“There’s not the generative diversity of new stories that’s so biologically important because we’re just being fed the same master story over and over. It crimps culture and you see just how lost people feel nowadays because there aren’t new stories coming out.”
Most Netflix shows follow repeating formulae. Think of dramas like You, 13 Reasons Why, and Dirty John – all very similar, extracting the same emotional effect.
However, a little junk storytelling isn’t bad, says Fletcher -–just like a little chocolate isn’t bad. Enjoying a Netflix show won’t ruin your mind any more than a few sweets will ruin your body. “The problem is our culture just keeps feeding us the same thing,” Fletcher adds. “That’s what’s causing us to be unhealthy – the lack of diversity in our diet.”
Chill with Hamlet
SHAKESPEARE did something revolutionary with Hamlet. The Danish prince famously does nothing after his father’s murder. Shakespeare, Fletcher says, told his audience not to act on their first impulse if they’re wronged – revenge – but to process their pain instead.
“Hamlet is a revenge play. Up to that point people had always thought if something bad happens to you, attack back. Anger, strength, manliness was the answer. So, there’s all these revenge plays prior to Hamlet which are just 90 minutes of blood – then the audience goes out into the streets and watches the bear-baiting. Shakespeare says ‘what if something bad happens to you and instead of being angry, your brain realises anger was a response to being hurt, and beneath that hurt is grief, and your brain starts to think, why do I have that grief’. Your brain starts to process that grief by thinking about what you’ve lost, and as you process that grief you feel gratitude for that person. Your pain is mixed with gratitude and love, and that’s how healing works. Throughout the play, while Hamlet is ruminating on his lost father, you get autobiographical recall in your own brain – you start remembering the people you’ve lost, and you go through that mourning process. In the modern world, we never take time to grieve.”
Be a better lover
SO, some literature does things chemically to us like The Iliad, while other literature therapeutically “teaches” us how to behave, like Hamlet. Sometimes, though, literature effectively invents ways in which humans see the world. Sappho, the ancient Greek poet, invented much of the language of love that we still use today. Expressions like your heart quickening or love making you shake, or how passion turns you tongue-tied – these are all ideas first expressed by Sappho.
“Love existed before Sappho but what she did is teach us to be better at love,” says Fletcher. Until Sappho, literature never dared venture into a place where people disclosed their emotional vulnerability.
“Millions of love poems and songs” have copied Sappho. “They’re imitating her,” says Fletcher. Romance movies like Titanic mimic her too. Thanks to Sappho, “we’ve a culture where we feel more comfortable disclosing ourselves because she made that model public. Prior to that it didn’t exist, it was nowhere in culture”.
This “disclosing” of positive feelings has a chemically positive effect. “Most of the time we gripe, we express our anxieties. It depresses our mood and we get into a cycle of complaining. It’s more effective to say what you really value about someone – then you can gripe all you want as you’ve this baseline of positive emotion that will sustain you through those other feelings and make them more positive. A lot of literature is modelling for that.”
So much of the world is about controlling and limiting us – jobs, money, political structures, family. It all gets a bit like Kafka’s novels, says Fletcher. Poets like Sappho – with the courage to reveal their innermost soul – help free us from these manmade cages.
Christie your IQ
MANY critics sneer at the Queen of whodunnits but yarns like Agatha Christie’s detective stories genuinely make you clever. That set-up in most crime fiction where you make an assumption about who is guilty, then have your expectations overturned, only to make another guess at the baddie, helps build intelligence. Neuroscience, says Fletcher, shows this technique is “designed to guide our brain into thinking more scientifically”.
He adds: “Our brain learns by making predictions that fail. The fail jolts our brains with unexpected negative feedback, prompting our neurons to hastily gather more intel and make another prediction … that’s when the brain learns like a scientist.”
Who dares leads
THERE’S been lots of talk about AI computers soon writing stories. Fletcher scoffs: “It’s complete bullshit.” He’s worked with “a very big entertainment company” – he can’t say which – on “a programme to invent stories. It didn’t go anywhere”. That’s because computers can never be truly creative, he says.
“Computers cannot do anything unless we tell them what to do,” Fletcher adds. “If I programme a computer to run an assembly line, it can do that. But if I tell a computer to watch an assembly line and run it better, it’ll never do that in a million years.”
There’s also been talk about AI being used on the battlefield. Ironically, one of the places where Fletcher is working on the application of the “science of stories” is in the military. He’s collaborating with the American army, using literature to make Special Forces soldiers – similar to Britain’s SAS – more effective.
Armies have put “so much money into data and it’s not working”, he says. “What we’re doing is training special operations soldiers how to function in low data environments by boosting their narrative abilities.” In other words, computers cannot examine highly complex, fluid environments – like war – and determine what to do.
However, because the human mind runs primarily on story not logic – more like a book than a computer, as Fletcher discovered – soldiers become better on the battlefield if they think creatively, and they learn how to think creatively through literature. Fletcher – who makes clear he’s a pacifist – has written “the creative-thinking field guide for the US military”.
“Creativity comes from saying what’s unique about this? What’s special about this person? What does she have about her that nobody else has? What are the unique opportunities?” Computers, however, work in the opposite way, studying masses of data. “They look at 1,000 things and say what do they all have in common”.
So, if you read Austen’s Emma, you ask yourself “what’s unique about Emma? Why is she different to any other character in history? We’re training soldiers to use literature to ask what’s unique to activate their creativity – so when they get into life-and-death situations they don’t need lots of data.” What they need is just a few bits of “exceptional information”. “It sounds paradoxical that you’d read Emma as a special operations soldier but actually it works,” says Fletcher.
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.
