Quotes of the Day:
“The sense of being at home in the world through social connection with others is a deep and pervasive Stoic theme. Stoicism, whether ancient or modern, sees social supports and not just inner strength as critical to how we surmount rather than succumb to adversity.”
- Nancy Sherman, Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience
“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”
- Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
1. Remarks by President Biden Before the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
2. Air Force IG to lead investigation into Kabul drone strike that killed civilians
3. Despite the chaos of U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan, the world still needs American leadership | Opinion
4. Has War Become Too Humane? (book review)
5. Opinion | It’s time to break up the military-industrial complex
6. Ruckus over AUKUS torpedoes united anti-China front
7. Japan politics on a precipice but US barely notices
8. Digital Dunkirk: What the Afghan Evacuation Should Teach Us about the Future of Volunteer Support to the US Military
9. Opinion | The Biden administration just stalled China’s advance in the Indo-Pacific
10. Biden, the U.N. and Afghan Women
11. Fat Leonard is poised to spill the beans in this new podcast
12. China views critics as terrorists and criminals
13. U.S. targets suspected al Qaeda leader in Idlib, Syria
14. Influential Taliban commanders added to Taliban government
15. Erdogan’s U-turn in Afghanistan shows the danger of outsourcing security missions to autocrats
16. Space Force reveals uniforms and Twitter can only see 'Star Trek' and 'Battlestar Galactica'
17. China’s ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’ Opens Beijing Intl. Film Festival With Rocketing Box Office Forecasts
18. China's Xi, like Biden hours earlier, turns to calm language
19. With No U.S. Support, Leaders of Afghan Resistance Flee the Country
20. Air Force commandos are preparing for war with Russia or China by rethinking what a 'runway' really is
21. After the Tall Man
1. Remarks by President Biden Before the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
Remarks by President Biden Before the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
•
United Nations Headquarters
New York, New York
10:01 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to this noble mission of this institution: It’s my honor to speak to you for the first time as President of the United States.
We meet this year in a moment of — intermingled with great pain and extraordinary possibility. We’ve lost so much to this devastating — this devastating pandemic that continues to claim lives around the world and impact so much on our existence.
We’re mourning more than 4.5 million people — people of every nation from every background. Each death is an individual heartbreak. But our shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act together.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the clear and urgent choice that we face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world — a decade that will quite literally determine our futures.
As a global community, we’re challenged by urgent and looming crises wherein lie enormous opportunities if — if — we can summon the will and resolve to seize these opportunities.
Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere, and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic? For there will be another one. Or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal as the more virulent and dangerous variants take hold?
Will we meet the threat of challenging climate — the challenging climate we’re all feeling already ravaging every part of our world with extreme weather? Or will we suffer the merciless march of ever-worsening droughts and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes, longer heatwaves and rising seas?
Will we affirm and uphold the human dignity and human rights under which nations in common cause, more than seven decades ago, formed this institution?
Will we apply and strengthen the core tenets of inter- — of the international system, including the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as we seek to shape the emergence of new technologies and deter new threats? Or will we allow these universal — those universal principles to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of naked political power?
In my view, how we answer these questions in this moment — whether we choose to fight for our shared future or not — will reverberate for generations yet to come.
Simply put: We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history. And I’m here today to share with you how the United States intends to work with partners and allies to answer these questions and the commitment of my new administration to help lead the world toward a more peaceful, prosperous future for all people.
Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are fixing our eyes on devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future: ending this pandemic; addressing the climate crisis; managing the shifts in global power dynamics; shaping the rules of the world on vital issues like trade, cyber, and emerging technologies; and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today.
We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan. And as we close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy; of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world; of renewing and defending democracy; of proving that no matter how challenging or how complex the problems we’re going to face, government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people.
And as the United States turns our focus to the priorities and the regions of the world, like the Indo-Pacific, that are most consequential today and tomorrow, we’ll do so with our allies and partners, through cooperation at multilateral institutions like the United Nations, to amplify our collective strength and speed, our progress toward dealing with these global challenges.
There’s a fundamental truth of the 21st century within each of our own countries and as a global community that our own success is bound up with others succeeding as well.
To deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world.
To ensure that our own future, we must work together with other partners — our partners — toward a shared future.
Our security, our prosperity, and our very freedoms are interconnected, in my view, as never before. And so, I believe we must work together as never before.
Over the last eight months, I have prioritized rebuilding our alliances, revitalizing our partnerships, and recognizing they’re essential and central to America’s enduring security and prosperity.
We have reaffirmed our sacred NATO Alliance to Article 5 commitment. We’re working with our Allies toward a new strategic concept that will help our Alliance better take on evolving threats of today and tomorrow.
We renewed our engagement with the European Union, a fundamental partner in tackling the full range of significant issues facing our world today.
We elevated the Quad partnership among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States to take on challenges ranging from health security to climate to emerging technologies.
We’re engaging with regional institutions — from ASEAN to the African Union to the Organization of American States — to focus on people’s urgent needs for better health and better economic outcomes.
We’re back at the table in international forums, especially the United Nations, to focus attention and to spur global action on shared challenges.
We are reengaged at the World Health Organization and working in close partnership with COVAX to deliver lifesaving vaccines around the world.
We rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, and we’re running to retake a seat on the Human Rights Council next year at the U.N.
And as the United States seeks to rally the world to action, we will lead not just with the example of our power but, God willing, with the power of our example.
Make no mistake: The United States will continue to defend ourselves, our Allies, and our interests against attack, including terrorist threats, as we prepare to use force if any is necessary, but — to defend our vital U.S. national interests, including against ongoing and imminent threats.
But the mission must be clear and achievable, undertaken with the informed consent of the American people and, whenever possible, in partnership with our Allies.
U.S. military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first, and it should not be used as an answer to every problem we see around the world.
Indeed, today, many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed through the force of arms. Bombs and bullets cannot defend against COVID-19 or its future variants.
To fight this pandemic, we need a collective act of science and political will. We need to act now to get shots in arms as fast as possible and to expand access to oxygen, tests, treatments to save lives around the world.
And for the future, we need to create a new mechanism to finance global health security that builds on our existing development assistance, and Global Health Thr- — and a Global Health Threat Counc- — Council that is armed with the tools we need to monitor and identify emerging pandemics so that we can take immediate action.
Already, the United States has put more than $15 billion toward global COVID respon- — the global COVID response. We’ve shipped more than 160 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to other countries. This includes 130 million doses from our own supply and the first tranches of the half a billion doses of Pfizer vaccine we purchased to donate through COVAX.
Planes carrying vaccines from the United States have already landed in 100 countries, bringing people all over the world a little “dose of hope,” as one American nurse termed it to me. A “dose of hope,” direct from the American people — and, importantly, no strings attached.
And tomorrow, at the U.S.-hosted Global 19 — COVID-19 Summit, I’ll be announcing additional commitments as we seek to advance the fight against COVID-19 and hold ourselves accountable around specific targets on three key challenges: saving lives now, vaccinating the world, and building back better.
This year has also brought widespread death and devastation from the borderless climate crisis. The extreme weather events that we have seen in every part of the world — and you all know it and feel it — represent what the Secretary-General has rightly called “code red for humanity.” And the scientists and experts are telling us that we’re fast approaching a “point of no return,” in the literal sense.
To keep within our reach the vital goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, every nation needs to bring their highest-possible ambitions to the table when we meet in Glasgow for COP26 and then to have to keep raising our collective ambition over time.
In April, I announced the United States’ ambitious new goal under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the United States by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, as we work toward achieving a clean-energy economy with net-zero emissions by 2050.
And my administration is working closely with our Congress to make the critical investments in green infrastructure and electric vehicles that will help us lock in progress at home toward our climate goals.
And the best part is: Making these ambitious investments isn’t just good climate policy, it’s a chance for each of our countries to invest in ourselves and our own future. It’s an enormous opportunity to create good-paying jobs for workers in each of our countries and to spur long-term economic growth that will improve the quality of life for all of our people.
We also have to support the countries and people that will be hit hardest and that have the fewest resources to help them adapt.
In April, I announced the United States will double our public international financing to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis. And today, I’m proud to announce that we’ll work with the Congress to double that number again, including for adaptation efforts.
This will make the United States a leader in public climate finance. And with our added support, together with increased private capital and other — from other donors, we’ll be able to meet the goal of mobilizing $100 billion to support climate action in developing nations.
As we deal with these crises, we’re also encountering a new era — an era of new technologies and possibilities that have the potential to release and reshape every aspect of human existence. And it’s up to all of us to determine whether these technologies are a force to empower people or to deepen repression.
As new technologies continue to evolve, we’ll work together with our democratic partners to ensure that new advances in areas from biotechnology, to quantum computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, and more are used to lift people up, to solve problems, and advance human freedom — not to suppress dissent or target minority communities.
And the United States intends to make a profound investment in research and innovation, working with countries at all stages of economic development to develop new tools and technologies to help us tackle the challenges of this second quarter of the 21st century and beyond.
We’re hardening our critical infrastructure against cyberattacks, disrupting ransomware networks, and working to establish clear rules of the road for all nations as it relates to cyberspace.
We reserve the right to respond decisively to cyberattacks that threaten our people, our allies, or our interests.
We will pursue new rules of global trade and economic growth that strive to level the playing field so that it’s not artificially tipped in favor of any one country at the expense of others and every nation has a right and the opportunity to compete fairly.
We will strive to ensure that basic labor rights, environmental safeguards, and intellectual property are protected and that the benefits of globalization are shared broadly throughout all our societies.
We’ll continue to uphold the longstanding rules and norms that have formed the guardrails of international engagement for decades that have been essential to the development of nations around the world — bedrock commitments like freedom of navigation, adherence to international laws and treaties, support for arms control measures that reduce the res- — the risk and enhance transparency.
Our approach is firmly grounded and fully consistent with the United Nations’ mission and the values we’ve agreed to when we drafted this Charter. These are commitments we all made and that we’re all bound to uphold.
And as we strive to deal with these urgent challenges, whether they’re longstanding or newly emerging, we must also deal with one another.
All the major powers of the world have a duty, in my view, to carefully manage their relationships so they do not tip
from responsible competition to conflict.
The United States will compete, and will compete vigorously, and lead with our values and our strength.
We’ll stand up for our allies and our friends
and oppose attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones, whether through changes to territory by force, economic coercion, technological exploitation, or disinformation.
But we’re not seeking — I’ll say it again — we are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs.
The United States is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to shared challenges,
even if we have intense disagreements in other areas — because we’ll all suffer the consequences of our failure if we do not come together to address the urgent threats like COVID-19 and climate change or enduring threats like nuclear proliferation.
The United States remains committed to preventing Ira- — to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. We are working with the P5+1 to engage Iran diplomatically and seek a return to the JCPOA. We’re prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same.
Similarly, we seek serious and sustained diplomacy to pursue the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
We seek concrete progress toward an available plan with tangible commitments that would increase stability on the Peninsula and in the region, as well as improve the lives of the people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
We must also remain vigilant to the threat of terr- — that terrorism poses to all our nations, whether emanating from distant regions of the world or in our own backyards.
We know the bitter string [sic] of terrorism — the bitter sting of terrorism is — is real, and we’ve almost all experienced it.
Last month, we lost 13 American heroes and almost 200 innocent Afghan civilians in the heinous terrorist attack at the Kabul airport.
Those who commit acts of terrorism against us will continue to find a determined enemy in the United States.
The world today is not the world of 2001, though, and the United States is not the same country we were when we were attacked on 9/11, 20 years ago.
Today, we’re better equipped to detect and prevent terrorist threats, and we are more resilient in our ability to repel them and to respond.
We know how to build effective partnerships to dismantle terrorist networks by targeting their financing and support systems, countering their propaganda, preventing their travel, as well as disrupting imminent attacks.
We’ll meet terrorist threats that arise today and in the future with a full range of tools available to us, including working in cooperation with local partners so that we need not be so reliant on large-scale military deployments.
One of the most important ways we can effectively enhance security and reduce violence is by seeking to improve the lives of the people all over the world who see that their governments are not serving their needs.
Corruption fuels inequality, siphons off a nation’s resources, spreads across borders, and generates human suffering. It is nothing less than a national security threat in the 21st century.
Around the world, we’re increasingly seeing citizens demonstrate their discontent seeing the wealthy and well-connected grow richer and richer, taking payoffs and bribes, operating above the law while the vast majority of the people struggle to find a job or put food on the table or to get their business off the ground or simply send their children to school.
People have taken to the streets in every region to demand that their governments address peoples’ basic needs, give everyone a fair shot to succeed, and protect their God-given rights.
And in that chorus of voices across languages and continents, we hear a common cry: a cry for dignity — simple dignity. As leaders, it is our duty to answer that call, not to silence it.
The United States is committing to use — committed to using our resources and our international platform to support these voices, listen to them, partner with them to find ways to respond that advance human dignity around the world.
For example, there is an enormous need for infrastructure in developing countries, but infrastructure that is low-quality or that feeds corruption or exacerbates environmental degradation may only end up contributing to greater challenges for countries over time.
Done the right way, however, with transparent, sustainable investment in projects that respond to the country’s needs and engage their local workers to maintain high labor and environmental standards, infrastructure can be a strong foundation that allows societies in low- and middle-income countries to grow and to prosper.
That’s the idea behind the Build Back Better World.
And together with the private sector and our G7 partners, we aim to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.
We also — we’ll also continue to be the world’s largest contributor to humanitarian assistance, bringing food, water, shelter, emergency healthcare, and other vital, lifesaving aid to millions of people in need.
When the earthquake strikes, a typhoon rages, or a disaster anywhere in the world, the United States shows up. We’ll be ready to help.
And at a time when nearly one in three people globally do not have access to adequate food — adequate food, just last year — the United States is committing to rallying our partners to address immediate malnutrition and to ensure that we can sustainably feed the world for decades to come.
To that end, the United States is making a $10 billion commitment to end hunger and invest in food systems at home and abroad.
Since 2000, the United States government has provided more than $140 billion to advance health and strengthen health systems, and we will continue our leadership to drive these vital investments to make peoples’ lives better every single day. Just give them a little breathing room.
And as we strive to make lives better, we must work with renewed purpose to end the conflicts that are driving so much pain and hurt around the world.
We must redouble our diplomacy and commit to political negotiations, not violence, as the tool of first resort to manage tensions around the world.
We must seek a future of greater peace and security for all the people of the Middle East.
The commitment of the United States to Israel’s security is without question. And a support — our support for an independent, Jewish state is unequivocal.
But I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel — Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state living in peace alongside a viable, sovereign, and democratic Palestinian state.
We’re a long way from that goal at this moment, but we must never allow ourselves to give up on the possibility of progress.
We cannot give up on solving raging civil conflicts, including in Ethiopia and Yemen, where fighting between war- –warring parties is driving famine, horrori- — horrific violence, human rights violations against civilians, including the unconscionable use of rape as a weapon of war.
We will continue to work with the international community to press for peace and bring an end to this suffering.
As we pursue diplomacy across the board, the United States will champion the democratic values that go to the very heart of who we are as a nation and a people: freedom, equality, opportunity, and a belief in the universal rights of all people.
It’s stamped into our DNA as a nation. And critically, it’s stamped into the DNA of this institution — the United States [Nations]. We sometimes forget.
I quote the opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, quote: “The equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.”
The founding ethos of the United Nations places the rights of individuals at the center of our system, and that clarity and vision must not be ignored or misinterpreted.
The United States will do our part, but we will be more successful and more impactful if all of our nations are working toward the full mission to which we are called.
That’s why more than 100 nations united agai- — around a shared statement and the Security Council adopted a resolution outlining how we’ll support the people of Afghanistan moving forward, laying out the expectations to which we will hold the Taliban when it comes to respecting universal human rights.
We all must advocate for women — the rights of women and girls to use their full talents to contribute economically, politically, and socially and pursue their dreams free of violence and intimidation — from Central America to the Middle East, to Africa, to Afghanistan — wherever it appears in the world.
We all must call out and condemn the targeting and oppression of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities when it occurs in — whether it occurs in Xinjiang or northern Ethiopia or anywhere in the world.
We all must defend the rights of LGBTQI individuals so they can live and love openly without fear, whether it’s Chechnya or Cameroon or anywhere.
As we steer our — steer our nations toward this inflection point and work to meet today’s fast-moving, cross-cutting challenges, let me be clear: I am not agnostic about the future we want for the world.
The future will belong to those who embrace human dignity, not trample it.
The future will belong to those who unleash the potential of their people, not those who stifle it.
The future will belong to those who give their people the ability to breathe free, not those who seek to suffocate their people with an iron hand.
Authoritarianism — the authoritarianism of the world may seek to proclaim the end of the age of democracy, but they’re wrong.
The truth is: The democratic world is everywhere. It lives in the anti-corruption activists, the human rights defenders, the journalists, the peace protestors on the frontlines of this struggle in Belarus, Burma, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and everywhere in between.
It lives in the brave women of Sudan who withstood violence and oppression to push a genocidal dictator from power and who keep working every day to defend their democratic progress.
It lives in the proud Moldovans who helped deliver a landslide victory for the forces of democracy, with a mandate to fight graft, to build a more inclusive economy.
It lives in the young people of Zambia who harnessed the power of their vote for the first time, turning out in record numbers to denounce corruption and chart a new path for their country.
And while no democracy is perfect, including the United States — who will continue to struggle to live up to the highest ideals to heal our divisions, and we face down violence and insurrection — democracy remains the best tool we have to unleash our full human potential.
My fellow leaders, this is a moment where we must prove ourselves the equals of those who have come before us, who with vision and values and determined faith in our collective future built our United Nations, broke the cycle of war and destruction, and laid the foundations for more than seven decades of relative peace and growing global prosperity.
Now we must again come together to affirm the inherent humanity that unites us is much greater than any outward divisions or disagreements.
We must choose to do more than we think we can do alone so that we accomplish what we must, together: ending this pandemic and making sure we’re better prepared for the next one; staving off climactic climate change and increasing our resilience to the impacts we already are seeing; ensuring a future where technologies are a vital tool to solving human challenges and empowering human potential, not a source of greater strife and repression.
These are the challenges that we — will determine what the world looks like for our children and our grandchildren, and what they’ll inherit. We can only meet them by looking to the future.
I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years, with the United States not at war. We’ve turned the page.
All the unmatched strength, energy, commitment, will, and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what’s ahead of us, not what was behind.
I know this: As we look ahead, we will lead. We will lead on all the greatest challenges of our time — from COVID to climate, peace and security, human dignity and human rights. But we will not go it alone.
We will lead together with our Allies and partners and in cooperation with all those who believe, as we do, that this is within our power to meet these challenges, to build a future that lifts all of our people and preserves this planet.
But none of this is inevitable; it’s a choice. And I can tell you where America stands: We will choose to build a better future. We — you and I –- we have the will and capacity to make it better.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot afford to waste any more time. Let’s get to work. Let’s make our better future now.
We can do this. It’s within our power and capacity.
Thank you, and God bless you all.
10:34 A.M. EDT
2. Air Force IG to lead investigation into Kabul drone strike that killed civilians
Air Force IG to lead investigation into Kabul drone strike that killed civilians
Lt. Gen. Sami Said, the Department of the Air Force inspector general, has been tasked to lead the investigation into the Aug. 29 Hellfire missile strike in Kabul that killed at least 10 civilians. The strike, which U.S. Central Command later dubbed a mistake, was intended to target ISIS-K militants. Said has 45 days from his appointment to complete the investigation, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told Military Times.
In his role as Air Force IG, Said has overseen several notable investigations, including a broad review of racial equality and injustice within the service branch. Under his leadership, the office also led a review released this month that found one third of women in the Air Force and Space force said they’d experienced sexual harassment, according to the Associated Press. Prior to becoming Air Force IG, Said supported the International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
In a memo dated Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to choose a three-star or above to investigate what went wrong, how strike targeting might be changed in the future, and whether anyone involved in the mission should be disciplined.
That decision came after the Pentagon faced a great deal of public scrutiny following reports of civilian casualties. Initially, official stood by the strike. Joint Chiefs Chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley, told reporters two days after the attack that it appeared to have been a “righteous” strike and that at least one of the people killed was a “facilitator” for the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, which had killed 169 Afghan civilians and 13 American service members in a suicide bombing on Aug. 26 at the Kabul airport. But following an investigation by the New York Times that an aid worker and his nine family members, including seven children, had been killed, the military walked back its stance.
“This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake,” Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie told media on Sept. 17. Officials confirmed that no ISIS fighters are believed to have been killed in the attack.
Leila has covered global military and security operations from across the U.S., the Middle East, and Latin America.
3. Despite the chaos of U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan, the world still needs American leadership | Opinion
2017 was an anomaly. I do not think we will get P5 support for future actions against north Korea.
Excerpts:
Likewise, the P5 nations have demonstrated that they’re capable of sharing information and working together on one issue despite being at odds over other issues. Consider for a moment North Korea. Though the United States is often at odds with China and Russia for their forays in the South China Sea and Ukraine respectively, we have leaned on them to apply pressure on Kim Jong-Un of North Korea. This cooperation sprang from a mutual interest in slowing Kim’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
The UN is still a relevant and powerful organization. Hopefully, the rest of P5 leadership will see the inextricable linkage of security and economic growth to one another and will use future UN meetings to engage in thoughtful policy discussions with one another. Moreover, Biden has a role to use his position as the leader of the most powerful nation in the P5 to help foster the pursuit of common goals for the collective good of the world community.
Despite the chaos of U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan, the world still needs American leadership | Opinion
By John Weaver
With the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) underway, President Biden finds himself in a tenuous position. The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of the government in Kabul has relegated the U.S. to a country that appears weak and incompetent.
That stated, this country remains the hegemonic power of the planet. Biden needs to leverage his leadership to restore America’s image quickly and his speech next week to the General Assembly could help him move in that direction.
Aside from the global pandemic and resulting economic crisis, there are other real threats to peace and stability that will likely continue into the foreseeable future; these will require U.S. leadership and cooperation among most of the countries of the world. Likewise, globalization of trade, its proliferation and inextricable linkages among most countries’ economies has made it increasingly difficult in knowing whether one is a friend or foe.
This is particularly true when turning to the relationship of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) otherwise referred to as the P5: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The relationships among the five member nations are not as clear as was the case three decades ago during the Cold War when we lived in a bipolar world.
As Biden looks to address the General Assembly next week, one can hope that he will look to align nations for common goals such as helping to end the world’s COVID crisis, renegotiating the Iranian nuclear agreement, strengthening the world’s resolve regarding North Korea’s nuclear program, and seeing where common ground exists with Russia and China to move forward with mutually beneficial initiatives. He also needs to confront the elephant in the room and seek global support to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a harbinger of terror actors like al Qaeda and ISIS-K.
World leaders would be remiss in their duties if they fail to take into account the position of each in the context of contemporary issues. Countries can be aligned on one issue and yet diametrically opposed on others. Biden should exploit common interests among the P5 when and where possible. Examples include terrorism, halting nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, preventing organized crime from burgeoning, and more. If Biden can seize the initiative, make the case for these common issues, and if the U.S. can serve as a lead advocate for UN involvement, then this can help start the process to restore this country’s image on the world stage.
Back in 2015, all five members were able to work together to convince Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Another famous example of the nations working together was when the United States warned Russia of a terror plot in St. Petersburg in 2017; Russia was able to react to prevent the event from coming to fruition. This relationship should continue and will most likely do so well into the future.
Likewise, the P5 nations have demonstrated that they’re capable of sharing information and working together on one issue despite being at odds over other issues. Consider for a moment North Korea. Though the United States is often at odds with China and Russia for their forays in the South China Sea and Ukraine respectively, we have leaned on them to apply pressure on Kim Jong-Un of North Korea. This cooperation sprang from a mutual interest in slowing Kim’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
The UN is still a relevant and powerful organization. Hopefully, the rest of P5 leadership will see the inextricable linkage of security and economic growth to one another and will use future UN meetings to engage in thoughtful policy discussions with one another. Moreover, Biden has a role to use his position as the leader of the most powerful nation in the P5 to help foster the pursuit of common goals for the collective good of the world community.
4. Has War Become Too Humane? (book review)
Excerpts:
In his new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, the Yale Law School professor Samuel Moyn acknowledges this pattern but also sees another factor that helps explain the war on terror’s persistence. The problem, according to his provocative argument, is not the war’s brutality but its relative humanity. Moyn does not at all advocate a return to brutal methods or so-called total war, but he does suggest that in vilifying torture, reducing casualty counts, and otherwise focusing on how the United States conducts hostilities, lawyers and advocates have stunted public criticism and diverted energy from the peace movements that might otherwise bring it to an end.
Moyn’s craft, erudition, and insight make for a book that succeeds on many, but not all, levels. He does not quite make a persuasive case that humanitarian efforts were instrumental in girding domestic support for the war effort. Nor does the book fully explain what lawyers and advocates who sought to curb some of the war on terror’s ugliest features might have actually done to bring the war to an earlier end. Still, one can disagree with aspects of Humane and nevertheless appreciate the way it challenges acquiescence to the status quo. Beyond being a meditation on the meaning of war, it is a history of the tension between pacifism and humanitarianism. In a culture that has come to valorize the latter, Moyn gives the former its due and pushes readers to think about how law can aid the cause of peace. Reining in the executive branch’s unilateral war powers and requiring public deliberation over where and against whom the United States is waging war would be a good place to start.
Has War Become Too Humane?
What Really Allows the War on Terror to Persist
Anyone hoping that this month’s 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks might bring some closure after two decades of war is going to be disappointed. By withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the administration of President Joe Biden sought to create a sense that the United States’ string of exhausting and counterproductive interventions in the Middle East and South Asia was coming to an end. But the truth is more sobering. For all its commitments to end “forever wars,” the administration has given no sign that it is preparing to pivot away from the use of military force to manage perceived terrorist threats. Its ongoing counterterrorism policy review appears to be focused more on refining the bureaucratic architecture around drone strikes and other forms of what the military refers to as “direct action” than on a hard look at the costs and benefits of continuing to place military force at the center of U.S. counterterrorism policy.
Part of the reason may be that there is little meaningful pressure on the administration to revisit the scope of U.S. military action against jihadi groups around the world in what has become known as the “war on terror.” Executive branch lawyers have long read the broadly worded Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that President George W. Bush signed into law a week after the 9/11 attacks as allowing them to decide—often secretly—where and against whom the United States is fighting this war. Congress and the courts have largely acquiesced. Because military action against jihadi groups is often conducted by drones or through light-footprint operations in remote locations, it rarely attracts public attention. The exception is when something goes terribly and publicly wrong, as happened last month during a drone strike in Kabul that killed an Afghan aid worker and nine of his family members, including seven children, and when U.S. soldiers died during a 2017 operation that went wrong in Niger—a place few Americans even realized was a front in the war on terror. But even in those cases, the headlines rarely last; within days, the story usually fades away.
In his new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, the Yale Law School professor Samuel Moyn acknowledges this pattern but also sees another factor that helps explain the war on terror’s persistence. The problem, according to his provocative argument, is not the war’s brutality but its relative humanity. Moyn does not at all advocate a return to brutal methods or so-called total war, but he does suggest that in vilifying torture, reducing casualty counts, and otherwise focusing on how the United States conducts hostilities, lawyers and advocates have stunted public criticism and diverted energy from the peace movements that might otherwise bring it to an end.
Moyn’s craft, erudition, and insight make for a book that succeeds on many, but not all, levels. He does not quite make a persuasive case that humanitarian efforts were instrumental in girding domestic support for the war effort. Nor does the book fully explain what lawyers and advocates who sought to curb some of the war on terror’s ugliest features might have actually done to bring the war to an earlier end. Still, one can disagree with aspects of Humane and nevertheless appreciate the way it challenges acquiescence to the status quo. Beyond being a meditation on the meaning of war, it is a history of the tension between pacifism and humanitarianism. In a culture that has come to valorize the latter, Moyn gives the former its due and pushes readers to think about how law can aid the cause of peace. Reining in the executive branch’s unilateral war powers and requiring public deliberation over where and against whom the United States is waging war would be a good place to start.
Humanizing the War on Terror
If the book has a single protagonist, it is Leo Tolstoy, who features prominently in its lengthy exploration of nineteenth-century peace movements and whom Moyn admires both for his ferocious commitment to the pacifism and for advancing the idea that humanizing war may well entrench it.
Moyn sees precisely this dynamic at work in the war on terror, especially the years that immediately followed the 9/11 attacks. Humane’s account of this period is in many ways the emotional core of the book. There is some irony in this line of argument, in that Bush’s response to the attacks is remembered more for its brutality than for respecting humanitarian protections: the era’s totemic images remain those of shackled detainees in orange jumpsuits at the makeshift U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and of prisoners suffering vicious torture at the hands of U.S. service members at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Nevertheless, Moyn argues, the administration’s abuses need to be viewed alongside the reaction they provoked. Scholars, lawyers, and advocates rallied in protest. They flooded the courts with filings, took their cases to international bodies, and worked passionately to close legal loopholes to make sure such things never happened again.
The problem is not war’s brutality but its relative humanity.
In so doing, Moyn intimates, they may have missed the forest for the trees. Yes, they secured a combination of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, executive orders, and new statutes that reined in torture. But they did little or nothing to address the underlying conflicts in which the torture took place. Why didn’t the same lawyers who shook with fury in the face of custodial abuse harness the same energy to oppose the wars that created a pretext for it?
To illustrate this tendency, Moyn profiles three lawyers who played prominent roles in shaping the contours of the war on terror. One is Jack Goldsmith, a legal scholar who as head of the U.S. Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 2003–4 withdrew the infamous opinions effectively authorizing torture that had been written by his colleague John Yoo. Another is the late Michael Ratner, a longtime antiwar activist and celebrated civil liberties lawyer who in 2004 won a landmark Supreme Court case securing the right for Guantánamo detainees to challenge their detention under the federal habeas corpus statute. The last is Harold Koh, a political progressive and former Yale Law School dean who became the top lawyer at the U.S. State Department during the administration of President Barack Obama. (I worked for Koh at the time.)
Moyn perceives an element of tragedy in their work. Although he applauds Goldsmith and Ratner for their efforts on behalf of the rule of law, he strongly intimates that their energies were wrongly focused. “If there had been a chance to put limits on the war itself,” he writes, “after Goldsmith’s years in power and Ratner’s years of filing petitions, it had been missed.” He criticizes Koh yet more sharply for explaining and defending the international legal framework for Obama’s war on terror.
Three Critiques
Moyn’s book has been justly praised for drawing attention to the perils of allowing the perception of humanity to create a comfort zone around military action. As the Pentagon’s August drone strike in Kabul illustrated, once the United States crosses the war threshold, it creates vast potential for bad judgment and mistakes with horrific consequences. In focusing on how U.S. foreign policy became so war dependent, and challenging readers not to be satisfied with merely blunting its roughest edges, the book makes an essential contribution. It stumbles, however, in its efforts to draw lessons from the personal stories of the prominent lawyers it features.
For one thing, Humane’s speculation that their work meaningfully helped shore up domestic support for the war is less than fully convincing. Although procuring rights for detainees and withdrawing problematic legal opinions almost certainly made working on the conflict more comfortable for many executive branch officials, this does not mean that the same cadre of officials (to which I belonged) could otherwise have pushed back hard enough to shorten the war’s longevity, particularly amid a maelstrom of politicized fear-mongering and the constant thrum of threat reporting.
The American people should be able to debate and shape the wars that are being fought in their name.
As for the broader public, its tolerance for the war seems to owe mostly to zero-risk thinking, whipped-up Islamophobia, and the U.S. military’s pivot toward drones and light-footprint operations that minimized U.S. casualties. Yes, the U.S. government (or at least the Obama administration) said that reducing civilian casualties would help make the war more sustainable at home and abroad, but Moyn underplays the extent to which its focus was on the latter. Protecting civilians was important to maintaining host-country support for U.S. military operations in places such as Yemen, where leaders faced pressure from outraged civic leaders complaining that their communities lived under the constant whirr of drone surveillance and the fear of becoming collateral damage.
For another thing, the book offers little if any basis for its suggestion that Ratner, Goldsmith, or others of their ilk could have applied their talents more usefully during the early years of the war. Indeed, it is not entirely clear what instruments of law Moyn believes they might have deployed. The key legal fact with respect to both conflicts is that Congress authorized them in two sweeping statutes, putting both the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions on the firmest possible domestic legal footing and making them close to invulnerable to legal attack. Although it is not out of bounds to ask whether prominent lawyers could have done more to stop the war, it does not seem entirely fair to imply that the answer might be yes without offering viable suggestions for what that would have entailed.
Finally, even if one accepts Moyn’s premise that the fig leaf of humanitarian safeguards combined with the legitimizing gloss afforded by the U.S. government’s legal positions made the war more palatable to the American people, his discussion of the individual players would have benefited from greater consideration of the larger forces that were in some measure responsible for driving the outcomes he deplores. A deeper look at the realities of executive branch lawyering could, for example, have shed light on why even government lawyers skeptical of U.S. legal positions on the use of force are ill placed to be a reliable brake on the expansion of military action.
A View From the Inside
Although executive branch lawyers can and do say “no” to policymakers’ questions about whether and how the United States can use force, it is not an easy message to deliver, and it does not always stick. In many executive branch agencies, officials expect lawyers to tell them whether policy positions are “legally available” rather than whether they comport with the “best understanding” of the law—a higher standard. If a legal authority is broadly worded, such as the 2001 AUMF, or has been stretched over time, such as the UN Charter’s use of force provisions, both lawyers and policymakers tend to see room for maneuver. (This culture of flexible interpretation long predates the war on terror.) The fact that a U.S. position might buck the weight of scholarly or even global opinion is not always enough to deem it legally unavailable. Policymakers are sometimes willing to absorb the reputational hit in order to maintain operational flexibility. Because courts bend over backward to leave decisions in this area to the political branches, and Congress tends to shirk accountability and defer to the executive branch, there are few if any nonpolitical checks on this tendency.
Lawmakers should examine the rules and institutional habits that perpetuate imprudent war making.
Even so, as the Obama administration assumed the reins of the war on terror and began to formalize its legal positions—prompted in part by the march of Guantánamo habeas litigation—its lawyers had fierce debates. Particularly at the beginning of the Obama administration, lawyers from different agencies argued about where the United States was at war, against which groups, and who could be targeted and detained. Many of these questions were never completely resolved. Senior State Department lawyers never appeared to fully accept that the United States was in a globe-spanning conflict with al Qaeda. The State Department and the Pentagon did not see eye to eye on who could be deemed a member of an organized armed group. Nor did they agree on whether the United States had the right to detain, much less target, “substantial supporters” of an enemy group. But as Brian Finucane, who served as an attorney-adviser at the State Department, and I recently wrote, the U.S. government’s legal culture tends to drive its lawyers toward approving operations and enlarging executive power. Where disagreements persist, this culture favors a form of cosmetic consensus in which ambiguous public-facing language masks interagency differences, while giving operators much of the flexibility they seek.
Of course, lawyers who disagree with this consensus can quit. But when powerful lawyers willing to buck the internal tide leave the government, the result is not necessarily less war. For example, Koh’s departure at the beginning of Obama’s second term did not stop the U.S. government from developing controversial new legal theories to justify expanding lethal operations under the 2001 AUMF to counter the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). His leaving may, however, have paved the way for the government to argue that the war on terror allowed for operations against rank-and-file members of the al Shabab terrorist group in Somalia—a significant expansion that Koh had successfully resisted during his tenure.
Law, Not Lawyers
Humane succeeds as a bracing reminder not to grow comfortable with war as a status quo. But rather than focus on individual lawyers who had few if any effective tools to bring war to an end, it would be more productive to consider the rules and institutional habits that perpetuate imprudent war making.
As the International Crisis Group has recently argued, one important target for legal reform is the 2001 AUMF, which executive branch lawyers have treated as a deep well of authority to wage war not just against al Qaeda and its affiliates but also against so-called associated forces that have no connection to the 9/11 attacks, and even some groups (such as ISIS and its affiliates) that have broken with al Qaeda. The Biden administration should work with Congress to replace the 2001 AUMF with a new law that identifies where and with which groups the U.S. government is at war, removes the executive branch’s authority to expand the conflict without further legislative action, and requires reauthorization every two years so that the American people can debate and shape the wars that are being fought in their name.
But more is required. The War Powers Resolution that Congress enacted at the end of the Vietnam War to reinvigorate congressional checks and balances on war making has largely failed and needs a reboot. Bipartisan legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would limit the president’s unilateral capacity to wage nondefensive war, cut off funds for unauthorized conflicts, and require Congress to revisit its war authorizations every two years. Most important, this legislation (which echoes several recommendations that Moyn and Goldsmith jointly made in a recent op-ed) would force greater public deliberation between the two branches about whether and where the country goes to war.
Reforming the president’s war powers promises to be a long slog and would by no means guarantee that the United States finds a greater measure of peace. Outside actors have a say, and so does the American public. Still, in a world where there are not enough safeguards to keep the United States from entering imprudent wars, such legal reforms could serve the twin goals of conflict prevention and democratic accountability. The twenty-first-century equivalents of the peace movements Moyn celebrates should throw their weight behind these efforts.
5. Opinion | It’s time to break up the military-industrial complex
Is that a windmill you are tilting at Ms. vanden Heuvel?
Excerpt:
But we shouldn’t settle for just blocking further increases in military spending; we should redirect a significant portion of Pentagon spending to measures that will truly make us safer — addressing climate change, preventing future pandemics and reducing racial and economic injustice. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), for example, has proposed an amendment that would cut the overall Pentagon budget by 10 percent, excluding any reductions in military personnel or the defense health program.
When Eisenhower first cautioned the world about the influence of the military-industrial complex, he warned of “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” The past two decades of war have fueled that disastrous rise. As we wind down foreign conflicts, our country faces a choice. We can double down on the war-profit cycle — or we can cut it off, and give priority to our citizens, our economy and our integrity on the global stage.
Opinion | It’s time to break up the military-industrial complex
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Katrina vanden HeuvelColumnist Yesterday at 8:00 a.m. EDT · September 21, 2021
Two days after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, the House Armed Services Committee voted to set the Pentagon’s 2022 budget. Given that U.S. officials claim to be winding down decades-long wars, even maintaining current levels of military spending would seem a mystifying choice. But the committee didn’t just vote to maintain current spending levels. It voted to increase them by a whopping $24 billion.
Which begs the question: Are we spending this money because we need to, even though our military budget is already higher than those of the next 11 largest countries combined? Or are there other incentives at play?
Ties between the government and the private sector — what President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously called the “military-industrial complex” — form the foundations of our national defense. Since 9/11, between one-third and half of the nearly $14 trillion the Pentagon has spent went to for-profit defense contractors. Dozens of members of Congress and their spouses own millions of dollars’ worth of stock in those companies.
And Pentagon officials regularly leave their government posts to serve on corporate boards or lobby on behalf of — you guessed it — defense contractors. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that, between 2014 and 2019, 1,718 former Defense Department senior and acquisition officials went to work for many of the country’s largest defense contractors. Generals have made fortunes joining corporate boards to hock their experience leading a conflict that lasted 20 years, cost taxpayers trillions, and claimed the lives of 176,000 people — only to fail in its primary objective. As columnist Eric Alterman writes, the question of who won the war on terrorism has a clear answer: “the ex-generals and admirals and other defense contractors who made millions off of it.”
The result is that decisions about whether to engage in military conflicts are shaped by people who have a vested interest in perpetuating these conflicts. Media outlets regularly invite former military and public officials to comment on U.S. defense policies — without disclosing their financial interests in these policies. Over the course of just 10 days in August, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane appeared 16 times on Fox News; retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared 13 times on MSNBC; and retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus appeared six times on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. Keane chairs a military-vehicle manufacturer, McCaffrey has a long history of not disclosing conflicts of interest and Petraeus serves on the boards of two firms with interests in the defense sector.
The military-industrial complex’s sheer breadth of influence — to the point where it might more accurately be called the military-industrial-congressional-media complex — can make dismantling the system seem hopeless. But history offers a solution.
Nearly 80 years ago, then-Sen. Harry S. Truman chaired the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, a commission to eliminate waste and prevent war profiteering. In just seven years, it saved the country an estimated $113 billion to $170 billion in today’s dollars. We need something similar — and even bolder — today: an independent commission to disrupt the insidiously symbiotic relationship between the Pentagon and the private sector.
But a commission is just the first step. In 2019, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed a plan that would ban defense officials from owning stock in defense contracting companies and make them wait at least four years after exiting government to join those firms. Her plan would also require contractors to specifically disclose their lobbying activities, and prevent contractors who take government jobs from working on projects that could affect their former employers.
As for addressing congressional conflicts of interest, there’s rare potential for transpartisanship: In March, more than a dozen lawmakers from both sides of the aisle introduced a bill prohibiting members of Congress and senior staffers from buying or selling stocks while in office.
These proposals legislate what should be common sense: The people influencing decisions about whether our country engages in foreign conflicts should not have a clear personal financial incentive to do so. If these proposals even moderately reined in out-of-control military spending, they would free up funding to address different, but no less urgent, concerns. With just the proposed $24 billion in new Pentagon funds, the federal government could support almost 14 million Americans behind on rent, or help rural and urban communities rebuild from Hurricane Ida, or finance nearly 8 billion covid-19 vaccination doses.
But we shouldn’t settle for just blocking further increases in military spending; we should redirect a significant portion of Pentagon spending to measures that will truly make us safer — addressing climate change, preventing future pandemics and reducing racial and economic injustice. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), for example, has proposed an amendment that would cut the overall Pentagon budget by 10 percent, excluding any reductions in military personnel or the defense health program.
When Eisenhower first cautioned the world about the influence of the military-industrial complex, he warned of “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” The past two decades of war have fueled that disastrous rise. As we wind down foreign conflicts, our country faces a choice. We can double down on the war-profit cycle — or we can cut it off, and give priority to our citizens, our economy and our integrity on the global stage.
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Katrina vanden HeuvelColumnist Yesterday at 8:00 a.m. EDT · September 21, 2021
6. Ruckus over AUKUS torpedoes united anti-China front
A view from India.
Excerpts:
Put differently, AUKUS is a big Australian bet on US policies. What if in three years’ time, someone like Donald Trump enters the White House? This is one thing.
More important, as veteran Australian author and China scholar Hugh White has noted, AUKUS is “full of risks,” as it “changes the way Australia approaches the region.”
He said, “In the escalating rivalry between America and China, we’re siding with the United States and we’re betting they are going to win this one. But the fact is that when we look 10 or 20 years ahead, I don’t think we can assume the United States is going to succeed in pushing back effectively against China.”
Ruckus over AUKUS torpedoes united anti-China front
France has thundered its displeasure over sub snub that puts Australia at the center of America's Indo-Pacific containment plans for China
The diplomatic fallout from the new security agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) is just beginning. The debris will take time to clean up. Might there be some lasting damage?
It now emerges that not only was no attempt made to include France in the AUKUS security pact, but the old Anglo axis conspired to keep French President Emmanuel Macron in the dark.
The Sunday Telegraph reported on September 19 that the AUKUS deal was ironed out during the Group of Seven Summit in June, but Macron, who was also in attendance, was unaware of what was happening behind his back amid all the bonhomie.
The Guardian earlier reported that clandestine discussions on the deal went on for months before in the US, sans Paris’s knowledge. The world’s cameras have caught the stupefaction, fury and depth of emotion of the French.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has described it as a “stab in the back” that constituted “unacceptable behavior between allies and partners.” And in a virtually unprecedented step among allies, Macron ordered the recall of the French ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.
Le Drian told French TV on Friday, “There have been lies, there has been duplicity, there has been a major rupture of trust. There has been contempt. So it is not going well between us, not at all. That means there is a crisis. We are recalling our ambassadors to try to understand but also to show to our former partner countries we have very strong discontent. Really, a serious crisis between us.”
The repercussions on French-Australian ties will be severe. France is a Pacific power also (unlike Britain), and Canberra’s nearest significant eastern neighbor is the French archipelago of New Caledonia.
French President Emmanuel Macron has reacted strongly to the sub snub. Credit: AFP.
Australia needs the French to secure an EU free-trade agreement. An Australia-European Union FTA, now in the balance, has the potential to open up a market for Australian exporters of almost 450 million people, with a GDP of more than US$15 trillion.
Officials in Brussels told CNN that the timing of the AUKUS announcement was rude, as the European Union’s high representative on foreign affairs was set to deliver his own strategy for the Indo-Pacific on Thursday, conveying the impression that the EU is not taken seriously as a geopolitical player.
A senior EU official told CNN caustically that these were “English-speaking countries” who are “very belligerent” forming an alliance against China, and these were the same nations who took the lead in invading Afghanistan and Iraq — “And we all know the results.”
CNN reported: “The EU’s strategy for handling China differs from the US in one major way: The EU actively seeks cooperation with China, and sees it as an economic and strategic partner. Brussels officials believe that by trading and working with China, not only can they lean on Beijing to reform their human rights and energy policies, but also use a good relationship with China to act as a buffer between Beijing and Washington, thus giving the EU a clear and important geopolitical role.”
It cannot be lost on France and Germany that when it comes to the Indo-Pacific region, Washington is willing to spend more political capital and invest in security and defense ties with the UK and Australia before reaching out to EU powers.
Coming on top of the developments in Afghanistan, where US President Joe Biden did not even consult the European allies on his April decision to withdraw troops, the AUKUS announcement can only solidify France’s view that the EU needs the capacity to defend its interests in the Indo-Pacific.
Equally, AUKUS highlights that the US position toward Australia within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is very different from that toward Japan and India.
By the way, the senior official in Washington who briefed the media on September 15 was asked whether there is scope in future for the US to extend such cooperation to other countries. He replied:
“I do want to underscore: We see this as a very rare engagement between Australia, Great Britain, and the United States. We’ve done this only once before.… That was almost 70 years ago with Great Britain.… This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects. I do not anticipate that this will be undertaken in other circumstances going forward. We view this as a one-off.”
Of course, neither Japan nor India hold such compelling geopolitical relevance for Washington as Australia, which is the hub of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy – with the Indian Ocean to its west and the Pacific Ocean to its east. Thus it is equipping Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines of cutting-edge technology to patrol the Indian Ocean as well as the Pacific Ocean.
Although Washington and New Delhi may have common interests, they have significant differences as well. India will not completely turn to the US side like Australia. Washington and New Delhi have different political needs in the medium to long term. India will have its ambitions, too.
Ships taking part in the Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal, India, November 3, 2020. Photo: AFP / Indian Navy
AUKUS is bound to be studied carefully in Tokyo and Delhi and it will affect their strategic choices. Much is still in the dark about this “enhanced trilateral security partnership” among three “maritime democracies.” Will there be a governing treaty?
No doubt, the US will aim at building a more solid and broad foundation for its Indo-Pacific Strategy with AUKUS and the Quad complementing each other. However, within the Quad framework, Australia stands out now as “more equal” than Japan and India in terms of US willingness to share super sensitive core technologies. Japan and India need to assimilate the “psychological blow.”
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has made a phone call to his French counterpart. Jaishankar later tweeted, “Discussed recent developments in the Indo-Pacific and Afghanistan with my friend FM @JY_LeDrian._Looking forward to our New York meeting.”
It would seem that the British industrial dimension in the submarine project determined the AUKUS partnership. Curiously, Dominic Rabb, who as British foreign secretary during the G7 summit had voiced reservations about AUKUS annoying China and France, has since been summarily moved out of the Foreign Office and appointed justice secretary.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his remarks on September 15 regarding AUKUS twice highlighted for the benefit of the domestic audience that business interests are involved.
As he put it, “the other opportunities from AUKUS [will be] creating hundreds of highly skilled jobs across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, the north of England, and the Midlands, taking forward this government’s driving purpose of leveling up across the whole country.
“We will have a new opportunity to reinforce Britain’s place at the leading edge of science and technology, strengthening our national expertise.… Now, the UK will embark on this project alongside our allies, making the world safer and generating jobs across our United Kingdom.”
The UK needs Washington’s approval for the transfer of technology for elements of the nuclear propulsion system, and that’s how this probably became a threesome alliance.
However, Australia’s capacity to operate these horribly expensive and powerful defense assets will always be subject to US veto, which means that the whole program will lead inevitably to deeper operational integration with the US.
No doubt, Australia is ceding a high degree of its sovereignty.
The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Waller, a Collins-class diesel-electric submarine, is seen in Sydney Harbour on November 2, 2016. Photo: AFP / Peter Parks
Put differently, AUKUS is a big Australian bet on US policies. What if in three years’ time, someone like Donald Trump enters the White House? This is one thing.
More important, as veteran Australian author and China scholar Hugh White has noted, AUKUS is “full of risks,” as it “changes the way Australia approaches the region.”
He said, “In the escalating rivalry between America and China, we’re siding with the United States and we’re betting they are going to win this one. But the fact is that when we look 10 or 20 years ahead, I don’t think we can assume the United States is going to succeed in pushing back effectively against China.”
M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat.
7. Japan politics on a precipice but US barely notices
Excerpts:
No matter who wins the LDP election, policymakers in Washington foresee a period of uncertainty in Japan that may slow the implementation of the kind of grand strategies that will occupy the Quad meeting.
Down at the level of officials who are seeking more broadly to forge concrete policies on science and technology innovation, supply chain cooperation, cybersecurity and economic security – the key building blocks of the competition with China – things are already stalled.
“We have had a lot of meetings but I haven’t seen a whole lot of momentum,” says Schoff, who will lead a new initiative on alliance relations at Sasakawa’s Washington office. People are now waiting to see who the next cabinet minister will be and little is getting done.
“We can’t sit around for two months waiting for this to be settled,” he worries. “We are already late to get out of the gate.”
Japan politics on a precipice but US barely notices
Washington seems to believe its faithful LDP partners will be in power forever but risks to that assumption are rising
US President Joe Biden will host a much-touted first-time in-person summit meeting of the leaders of the Quad – the United States, India, Australia and Japan – at the White House on September 24.
For the American president, this is the frontline of a foreign policy clearly aimed at confronting China. The announcement of a secretly negotiated deal to provide nuclear submarines to Australia only underscores the importance of this event.
No one seems to have noticed, however, that the man representing Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, will be gone from office within days of the White House summit.
Japan is in the midst of one of the most turbulent political moments in recent years, with the leadership of the country completely up in the air. Even after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party makes its choice at the end of September, two elections will follow, with the ruling coalition facing an unhappy electorate and a rejuvenated opposition.
But in the halls of power in Washington, even in the pages of major media, hardly a mention can be found of the events in its most important Asian ally. In discussions with several leading American Japan hands who are in touch with senior officials in the Biden administration, all report an almost complete absence of interest in the events in Tokyo.
“I hope they are paying attention,” says Japan expert Tobias Harris, based at the Washington think tank Center for American Progress. But, he admits, “I don’t know if the administration is really watching this now. I have not heard anything.”
In large part, this is because the attention of the administration is focused elsewhere – first of all on the continued battle against the Covid-19 pandemic, next on economic recovery and – ahead of Japan even in the realm of foreign policy – on the devastating defeat in Afghanistan and its aftermath.
Of course, Japan is important to the Biden China policy: As one Washington insider put it to me, “Japan is the non-China.”
But there is a deeply held belief among American policymakers that their faithful partners in the LDP, backed by the mandarins of the Japanese bureaucracy, will be in power forever.
“The standard view is that we want stability,” says George Washington University Japan expert Mike Mochizuki. “We might not have stability in who is the prime minister but the system is stable. Are we entering a period of revolving door prime ministers? Isn’t that a problem in terms of developing a partnership? They don’t think so. Basically, it is the same ruling class.”
US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga during a recent summit in Washington. Photo: AFP
This view of Japan leads to a lack of interest in who might succeed Suga that might surprise some Japanese. “There is a complacency that the LDP is not going anywhere,” says Harris, the author of the first biography of former premier Shinzo Abe published in English. There is a belief that “we don’t have to worry about Japan.”
But Harris cautions against that overconfidence, pointing not only to the possible challenge from the opposition alliance but also from extremist elements within the conservative party – elements now mobilized around the candidacy of Sanae Takaichi, backed by Abe. “Questions about the underlying stability of Japan should not be underestimated,” he warns.
Who does Washington favor in the LDP battle?
Now that the field of candidates in the LDP is set, does Washington, or at least the small circle of Japan hands, have a preference?
Two of the leading candidates are well known there – former foreign ministers Fumio Kishida and Taro Kono. Given his popularity and his command of English, there is a presumption that American policymakers would prefer Kono as prime minister. But that may be wrong.
“I don’t sense any preference for Kono,” says James Schoff, a former senior Obama administration defense official who has recently moved from the Carnegie Endowment think tank to the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Washington.
“Basically, American policymakers would be happy with either Kishida or Kono. The number one concern is political strength and sustainability. There was a little bit of a collective sigh when Suga decided not to run, a concern about momentum lost and nervousness about where Japanese politics is going.”
There is a belief that Abe established a blueprint that is now firmly established – both in the realm of basic economic policy and in a foreign policy that is anchored in the alliance with the US, improvement of relations with Europe and a broad consensus on seeing China as a strategic competitor. “None of them is deviating from that,” says Harris. The differences are more a “question of style and execution.”
The exception to that may be Takaichi whose hardline views on wartime history and vows to visit the Yasukuni shrine honoring Japan’s war dead and war criminals would effectively end hopes in Washington to restore trilateral cooperation between the US, Japan and South Korea.
“That door would shut,” says Harris. A Takaichi premiership would be a “propaganda boon for China … and make Japan a more challenging partner for Washington to work with.”
Sanae Takaichi speaks during a press conference at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo on September 11, 2019. Photo: AFP / Toshifumi Kitamura
While Takaichi’s prospects are still considered slim, if a runoff is forced between Kono and the rightwing stalwart there is some worry that the mainstream faction leaders Abe and Taro Aso might unite behind her.
Unlike the case with Kono, who has widespread personal appeal, an LDP led by such a hardliner might lead to a serious setback in the upcoming elections for the lower and upper houses of the parliament. “If Takaichi wins, that means more trouble,” says Schoff.
American experts are unclear why Abe put his weight behind Takaichi. In part, this is seen as a reward for her personal loyalty to Abe, and an attempt to position himself as the shadow power behind whoever emerges as the prime minister.
More troubling is the sense that this reflects Abe’s own ideological views, some of which he had to submerge or put aside when he was prime minister – both for domestic political reasons and in response to American pressure.
“There are two Abes,” says Georgetown’s Mochizuki, “the pragmatic Abe and the ideological Abe. Now that he is out of power, this is the ideological Abe talking. This has put a monkey wrench into the process.”
Abe, in Mochizuki’s view, was unhappy with Suga for his failure to push constitutional revision and his reluctance to embrace a doctrine of carrying out retaliatory attacks on adversary bases in North Korea and even China. When Takaichi declared her candidacy, Mochizuki noted, she went out of her way to endorse both policies.
And while Kishida has tried to appeal as well to the conservative wing, “Abe doesn’t trust Kishida that he will follow through on this,” Mochizuki observes.
While American policymakers would be most clearly troubled by a Takaichi-led LDP, in some ways Kono may pose the greatest potential challenge. He has a well-deserved reputation as a bit of a maverick, very attuned to public opinion in Japan and with an independent streak.
While Kono is a strong supporter of the security alliance, he has shown that he does not unquestionably yield to American views. The clearest evidence of this was his decision, as defense minister, to cancel the controversial Aegis Onshore missile defense system contract after it ran into serious domestic opposition.
In his own book, Kono embraces the concept of “strategic autonomy” for Japan, including in areas like economy, energy and technology policy. “I don’t think he will be as assertive on offensive strike and on Taiwan commitments,” believes Schoff, who has met him a number of times, “but I don’t know if Kishida would be either.”
Taro Kono, cabinet minister in charge of vaccinations, attends a debate organized by Liberal Democratic Party, Youth Bureau, Women’s Bureau at Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo on September 20, 2021. Photo: AFP / Philip Fong / Pool
Within the ranks of the more hardline conservatives of the LDP, there is a fear that Kono shares the views of his father, Yohei Kono, a former LDP leader. The elder Kono is reviled on the right for his efforts to acknowledge responsibility for Japan’s wartime coercion of Korean, Chinese and other women to serve in the brothels of the Imperial Army.
“There is a suspicion that he is like his father,” says Mochizuki. “He is aware of that and went out of his way to show that he is not soft on China, not soft on Korea. Abe appreciated that but, instinctually, Kono has a more balanced foreign policy.”
Uncertainty ahead
No matter who wins the LDP election, policymakers in Washington foresee a period of uncertainty in Japan that may slow the implementation of the kind of grand strategies that will occupy the Quad meeting.
Down at the level of officials who are seeking more broadly to forge concrete policies on science and technology innovation, supply chain cooperation, cybersecurity and economic security – the key building blocks of the competition with China – things are already stalled.
“We have had a lot of meetings but I haven’t seen a whole lot of momentum,” says Schoff, who will lead a new initiative on alliance relations at Sasakawa’s Washington office. People are now waiting to see who the next cabinet minister will be and little is getting done.
“We can’t sit around for two months waiting for this to be settled,” he worries. “We are already late to get out of the gate.”
Daniel Sneider is lecturer, international policy, at Stanford University and a former Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent. This article originally appeared in The Oriental Economist and is reprinted with permission.
8. Digital Dunkirk: What the Afghan Evacuation Should Teach Us about the Future of Volunteer Support to the US Military
Auxiliary. (through and with an underground, auxiliary and a ....)
Excerpts:
The benefit of an auxiliary is that individuals would be pre-vetted to solve problems, and there could be structure to avoid duplication of efforts. In the absence of DoD-directed opportunities, passionate citizens established ad hoc auxiliaries during the Afghanistan crisis, and this poses some risks—for instance, Signal, WhatsApp, and text chats being compromised or non-vetted individuals creating influence in the groups. Major news sources reported operators associated with the Pineapple Express group lost communications at one point because of the US military jamming communications. Unsanctioned military activity could also counter or distract from the US mission or create a greater need for military intervention if independent American actors were compromised.
More importantly, the recent clout of these groups evidenced that capability normally associated with the military can be wielded by groups not formally recognized or approved by the US military or the US government. That becomes dangerous if those groups perceive the mission in a way that diverges from that of US forces on the ground. Fortunately, the groups formed were altruistic and their ways and means led to the same end state the Department of Defense worked toward. Formal creation of an auxiliary means it is not just good fortune that ensures missions and activities are synchronized. A sanctioned DoD structure with an auxiliary could give credibility, empowerment, and active coordination to those individuals and groups whose efforts are aligned with the US government.
In the end, invisible forces in the form of ad hoc auxiliaries were crucial in contributing to the saving of countless lives as the US presence in Afghanistan came to a close. The Department of Defense can actively work to incorporate lessons learned and the capacity from these organizations without diluting the creativity, culture, and grit formed by creating a structure to absorb and empower those willing to help.
Digital Dunkirk: What the Afghan Evacuation Should Teach Us about the Future of Volunteer Support to the US Military - Modern War Institute
It was a former Afghan interpreter reaching out for help that pulled Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Torres to connect with other likeminded individuals to assist his former colleague out of Afghanistan in late August. My experience was similar to Torres’s, I found my way to a West Point alumni Signal chat group that was working to facilitate Afghan evacuations when I was trying feverishly to help a former colleague who was in Qatar receiving Afghan refugees in the absence of critical logistics. It was the human dynamic combined with a looming deadline that spurred action. Requests in online and messaging chats ranged from asking which gates were open at the Kabul airfield to requesting helo support. The speed and the collective, iterative knowledge were integral to the work of the virtual groups, especially when the catalysts were personal Afghan colleagues facing life-and-death consequences and needing help to evade and escape the Taliban.
The organic, voluntary, collaborative effort highlights an important lesson with implications well beyond Afghanistan. The Department of Defense can leverage similar enthusiasm, passion, and human capital by exploring the possibility of creating an auxiliary to help augment future missions.
The evacuation efforts in August—which have been dubbed a “digital Dunkirk,” a name inspired by the historic World War II effort in which civilian vessels assisted the Royal Navy in evacuating troops—allowed groups of individuals to influence operations in Afghanistan. In 2021, organizations such as the Pineapple Express, Team America, Allied Airlift 21, No One Left Behind, and other unnamed groups ignited around-the-clock grassroots efforts to expedite the safe passage of Afghan allies during the precarious week before the deadline to cease military operations in Afghanistan. Some of the organizations are official nonprofits, while others were just groups of passionate individuals. These groups were composed of a motley crew of national security professionals, military members, veterans, aid workers, business professionals, congressional staff, and others who felt emboldened to establish some order to the chaos. Not formally recognized by the Department of Defense until after the mission in Afghanistan ended, the groups were independent of the military. However, they worked in concert, albeit in the shadows, with the military and the interagency on the ground. They influenced operations from thousands of miles away, circumventing bureaucracy and accelerating communications. Several of the groups cite thousands of refugees’ safe passage to their credit. It is difficult to discern how much responsibility each group can claim because it was a collection of actions, but nonetheless their work created an unprecedented boost to the military efforts on the ground.
The groups accomplished sophisticated operations in a short amount of time, including setting up virtual tactical operations centers, intelligence gathering, fundraising, communicating with a variety of stakeholders in real time, coordinating logistics, and even moving directly into the theater to escort Afghans. The sum of their efforts created a modern-day Underground Railroad moving evacuees from location to location, circumventing the Taliban en route to the Kabul airport, and then personally using their military networks to expedite processing. Members of these groups relied heavily on encrypted messaging apps, Facetime, and simple instructional cues (like displaying a pineapple) to send piecemeal information to Afghans on navigating the chaos and crowds at the Kabul airport. In some cases, the groups funded private charter flights to extract Afghans out of the country. The speed with which the groups worked and the flexibility to incorporate diverse experiences, combined with the ability to fundraise, augmented the military unprecedentedly. Impressively, one Instagram influencer, Tommy Marcus, raised over $6.7 million with a GoFundMe campaign—with $800,000 generated in the first two hours—to fund private flights out of Afghanistan.
Part of these efforts’ impact was because of the transparency they offered to Americans using social media hashtags like #DigitalDunkirk, #SaveOurAllies, and #AfghanEvac to reach broad audiences to accelerate fundraising and awareness. The groups circumvented bureaucratic obstacles leveraging insider knowledge and relationships. As only 7 percent of the US population has served in the military, these groups proved that civilians are willing to contribute their expertise in the absence of compensation for causes they care about passionately.
The desire to contribute also aligns with the recent trends in the veteran community to do mission-based work. Several nonprofits popular in the veteran community emerged in the last two decades, such as The Mission Continues and Team Rubicon. The nonprofits offer camaraderie and a clear purpose and mission set while capitalizing on the training, skills, and expertise developed in the military. Involved members contribute to the greater national and global community allowing military personnel who are no longer formally serving to continue to give back in a meaningful way. A commitment to something greater than self, from both veteran members of these groups and their nonveteran members, also parallels recent trends that millennials and younger generations value meaning and purpose with their work. An auxiliary to the Department of Defense might be a gateway to capitalize on the talent of individuals that want to support the military but do not want to join formally.
Moreover, it would allow servicemembers transitioning out of the military to remain connected and provide an even greater return on the training invested in them, especially if they do not join the reserve component at the end of their active duty commitments. Retired General Stanley McChrystal has called for more civic connectedness through, for example, the Serve America Together campaign that he co-chairs. The campaign recognizes that not everyone has to wear a uniform to serve. An auxiliary could capitalize on interest in getting involved with minimal commitment and allow DoD to tap into hard-to-find talent. It would also allow individuals outside the defense sector to gain experience with and a connection to the military via their contributions.
The concept of an auxiliary is not new. The United States Coast Guard has benefited from its auxiliary and the United States Air Force from the Civil Air Patrol for around eight decades. The Marine Corps also has a cyber auxiliary. Almost half of US states have state defense forces formed of passionate civilian volunteers who serve mostly without compensation and offer expert knowledge and resources for the betterment of their states and the country. In these examples, the organizations served as force multipliers while freeing up the National Guard, reserve, and active duty units engaged in military operations.
In recent years, the Air and Army National Guard have contributed significantly to US military missions, and there are efforts underway to grow skillsets like cyber in the National Guard to augment and accelerate access to information for active components. Specifically, the “Cyber 9-Line” allows members of the National Guard to communicate cyber incidents in their states to US Cyber Command quickly, which then provides information to the National Guard unit to help address the incidents. The reserve component offers the unique advantage of having servicemembers with inroads to industries and communities removed from the military. Connections between private and public sectors can grow even deeper if the Department of Defense has an auxiliary of members who are associated with various public and private organizations.
As the reserve component absorbs mission responsibilities, reducing stress on active duty forces, an auxiliary could in turn reduce pressure on the reserve component. An auxiliary can also open the aperture to highly skilled talent the military struggles to recruit, develop, and retain. As military compensation accounts for one-third of the DoD budget, creating force composition for volunteers could also reduce or mitigate the rising personnel costs. Ideally, the long-term value of services and hours donated would exceed the cost to establish and maintain the auxiliary.
How could it work?
Auxiliary members could contribute to “task rabbit” tasks, as proposed by the Defense Innovation Unit’s Gig Eagle app initiative. Or a “problem” could be crowdsourced, taking advantage of the type of push-pull dynamic that was evident on the ground in Afghanistan. Conceptually, individuals could accept specific tasks or, through the power of the masses, solve problems collectively in a community.
Crowdsourcing benefits would be reduced costs, faster problem solving, the flexibility to incorporate diverse experiences and learnings, and the scalability to solve significant problems simultaneously regardless of geography. Crowdsourcing is not a new concept to the military. Most recently, the military even sought the public’s help on renaming military bases. In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is of the utmost importance the military enhances the culture around digital literacy, embraces accessible technology, and welcomes thought leadership from contributors in private sectors.
The benefit of an auxiliary is that individuals would be pre-vetted to solve problems, and there could be structure to avoid duplication of efforts. In the absence of DoD-directed opportunities, passionate citizens established ad hoc auxiliaries during the Afghanistan crisis, and this poses some risks—for instance, Signal, WhatsApp, and text chats being compromised or non-vetted individuals creating influence in the groups. Major news sources reported operators associated with the Pineapple Express group lost communications at one point because of the US military jamming communications. Unsanctioned military activity could also counter or distract from the US mission or create a greater need for military intervention if independent American actors were compromised.
More importantly, the recent clout of these groups evidenced that capability normally associated with the military can be wielded by groups not formally recognized or approved by the US military or the US government. That becomes dangerous if those groups perceive the mission in a way that diverges from that of US forces on the ground. Fortunately, the groups formed were altruistic and their ways and means led to the same end state the Department of Defense worked toward. Formal creation of an auxiliary means it is not just good fortune that ensures missions and activities are synchronized. A sanctioned DoD structure with an auxiliary could give credibility, empowerment, and active coordination to those individuals and groups whose efforts are aligned with the US government.
In the end, invisible forces in the form of ad hoc auxiliaries were crucial in contributing to the saving of countless lives as the US presence in Afghanistan came to a close. The Department of Defense can actively work to incorporate lessons learned and the capacity from these organizations without diluting the creativity, culture, and grit formed by creating a structure to absorb and empower those willing to help.
Laura Keenan is a lieutenant colonel in the District of Columbia Army National Guard and is currently assigned as the J55, Division Chief for Policy and Strategy in Cyber National Mission Force.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or of any organization the author is affiliated with, including the Army National Guard and US Cyber Command.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla, US Marine Corps
9. Opinion | The Biden administration just stalled China’s advance in the Indo-Pacific
Excerpts:
The American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the sale of nuclear submarines to Australia, occurring within a few weeks of each other, punctuate the transition from a focus on messy Middle Eastern wars to more clear-cut great power competition. As poorly carried out as it was, President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was arguably inevitable, as was a Taliban takeover (sooner or later). Nothing unsurprising happened there, except for the speed with which events on the ground unfolded. The Australian submarine sale, on the other hand, was a calculating, almost counterintuitive geopolitical chess move: counterintuitive since Australia, economically still dependent on China and so geographically proximate to it, might not have been expected to swing quite so far in the United States’s direction.
Biden’s presidential term is only one-sixth over. The Australian submarine sale demonstrates that it is probably premature to argue that Biden will be defined by his shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan. In pure geopolitical terms, the submarine deal alone is likely more significant.
Even so, it may be that what will define Biden’s foreign policy hasn’t even happened yet — and when it does, it could have a lot to do with a crisis in Asia, specifically Taiwan or North Korea. Australia, by intensifying the military competition with China, could tee up a chain of as yet unforeseen events.
Opinion | The Biden administration just stalled China’s advance in the Indo-Pacific
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Robert D. Kaplan Today at 1:59 p.m. EDT · September 21, 2021
Culture and tradition matter. The Anglosphere is a real grouping that comprises elements of trust going back decades and centuries. The agreement between the United States, Britain and Australia to build the latter nation eight nuclear-powered submarines effectively erects a core Anglo-Saxon military alliance fitted to a multicultural and globalized world. This is nothing less than the Atlantic Charter finally extended to the Pacific, eight decades later. Just as Britain has served since before World War II as a geopolitical platform for the United States close to mainland Europe, Australia, situated at the confluence of the Pacific and Indian oceans, will now do the same for the Indo-Pacific region close to mainland China.
There are few things more hidden and precious in the U.S. defense arsenal than the production process for nuclear submarines. The United States shared those secrets only once before, with Britain in 1958, and is doing it again, for the second time, with Australia. This builds on the long-standing Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement among the three countries that also extends to the other two Anglo-Saxon nations, Canada and New Zealand, whose geographies and small populations make them geopolitically less relevant.
This new and de facto Anglo-Saxon alliance effectively joins NATO to the Indo-Pacific through Britain. In doing so, it alerts our other Pacific allies, notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Singapore, that the United States is more capable than they previously assumed at keeping them from being “Finlandized” by China. This will further incentivize them to stand up to Beijing. The same goes for India, which suffered a geopolitical setback with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. In one bold move, the Biden administration has stalled, perhaps even reversed, the seemingly inevitable and creeping geopolitical advance of China over the Indo-Pacific.
France is understandably upset, having lost the contract with Australia to build conventional diesel-electric submarines. But the French know that they could not technologically compete with the Americans on this matter. Indeed, there can be few cases of a nation so nakedly leveraging its technology to such a specific and pivotal geopolitical effect as the United States has done with Australia.
Australia, a crucial Indo-Pacific state, has been flipped. Its ambiguity is gone, even accounting for its worsening relations with China in recent years. That is the big story here. Australians have transitioned from being protected by the Americans, while getting rich off China, to land fully in the American camp. Because the production process for nuclear submarines is long-term and expensive, and therefore must dramatically affect Australia’s highly competent but relatively small defense establishment, this is a decision not likely to be reversed or slowed down by any future Australian government.
The sale of the nuclear submarines to Australia also puts into more dramatic relief the qualitative difference between the United States’s alliance systems in Asia and Europe. Asia lacks a single and storied alliance structure such as NATO. But because our Asian allies are nationalistic, believe in robust defense postures and are more threatened by China than our European allies, they are more dependable, even while China is their largest trading partner. Our NATO allies are relatively distant from China. They do not in many cases believe in robust defense budgets. And their dependence on Russian natural gas makes them less reliable in an era of great power competition.
Further buttressing our Asian alliance structure is an inner core of democracies, the “Quad,” which includes Australia and the United States as well as Japan and India. The sale of nuclear submarines to Australia provides the Quad with a significant and additional military component, adding to its credibility and confidence.
The American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the sale of nuclear submarines to Australia, occurring within a few weeks of each other, punctuate the transition from a focus on messy Middle Eastern wars to more clear-cut great power competition. As poorly carried out as it was, President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was arguably inevitable, as was a Taliban takeover (sooner or later). Nothing unsurprising happened there, except for the speed with which events on the ground unfolded. The Australian submarine sale, on the other hand, was a calculating, almost counterintuitive geopolitical chess move: counterintuitive since Australia, economically still dependent on China and so geographically proximate to it, might not have been expected to swing quite so far in the United States’s direction.
Biden’s presidential term is only one-sixth over. The Australian submarine sale demonstrates that it is probably premature to argue that Biden will be defined by his shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan. In pure geopolitical terms, the submarine deal alone is likely more significant.
Even so, it may be that what will define Biden’s foreign policy hasn’t even happened yet — and when it does, it could have a lot to do with a crisis in Asia, specifically Taiwan or North Korea. Australia, by intensifying the military competition with China, could tee up a chain of as yet unforeseen events.
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Robert D. Kaplan Today at 1:59 p.m. EDT · September 21, 2021
10. Biden, the U.N. and Afghan Women
Very tough criticism.
On Sept. 8, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that “despite professing that a new government would be inclusive,” the Taliban’s list “consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates, and no women.”
This weekend the Taliban announced that girls would not be allowed to return to school. All signs so far in Kabul are that the Islamist group is reverting to the same medieval approach to girls and women it enforced the last time it controlled the country.
Perhaps the Administration thinks its well-meaning gender appeals can’t hurt. But the dissonance between the Administration’s words and its actions in abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban discredits its liberal humanitarian project. No single act by an American President has done more harm to more women than Mr. Biden’s willy-nilly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Noble but feckless exhortations at Turtle Bay can’t make up for that reality.
Biden, the U.N. and Afghan Women
The President’s gender appeals continue to diverge from reality.
WSJ · by The Editorial Board
President Joe Biden speaks during the General Debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 21.
Photo: Wang Ying/Zuma Press
President Biden’s first speech as Commander in Chief to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday was full of the high-minded internationalist sentiment that defines his rhetoric. If only those words reflected the reality of the world he and America will have to navigate over the next four years.
“We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan,” Mr. Biden averred. “And as we close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy; of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people around the world, of renewing and defending democracy.”
Mr. Biden told the assembled leaders what they wanted to hear: America will lash itself to the idealistic offices of the U.N., to the World Health Organization, to the Human Rights Council, and even to a New Global Health Threat Council. Aren’t pandemic threats the WHO’s job? Well, you can never have too many international bureaucracies.
Nowhere was Mr. Biden’s rhetoric more divorced from reality than on women and Afghanistan. In his speech he highlighted “the expectations to which we will hold the Taliban when it comes to respecting universal human rights. We all must advocate for women—the rights of women and girls to use their full talents to contribute economically, politically, and socially.”
Meanwhile in Kabul, the Associated Press reports: “The Taliban expanded their interim Cabinet by naming more ministers and deputies on Tuesday, but failed to appoint any women, doubling down on a hard-line course.”
On Sept. 8, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that “despite professing that a new government would be inclusive,” the Taliban’s list “consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates, and no women.”
This weekend the Taliban announced that girls would not be allowed to return to school. All signs so far in Kabul are that the Islamist group is reverting to the same medieval approach to girls and women it enforced the last time it controlled the country.
Perhaps the Administration thinks its well-meaning gender appeals can’t hurt. But the dissonance between the Administration’s words and its actions in abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban discredits its liberal humanitarian project. No single act by an American President has done more harm to more women than Mr. Biden’s willy-nilly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Noble but feckless exhortations at Turtle Bay can’t make up for that reality.
WSJ · by The Editorial Board
11. Fat Leonard is poised to spill the beans in this new podcast
Will this scandal get even more ugly?
Fat Leonard is poised to spill the beans in this new podcast
Over the past decade, coverage of the Navy’s so-called “Fat Leonard” scandal has unveiled scores of West Pacific naval officers who were once supplied with booze, sex, hotels and even suckling pigs.
In exchange, “Fat Leonard” Glenn Francis’ port services company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, was gifted classified ship movement information and juicy port servicing contracts.
Francis pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme back in 2015, but the portly Malaysian magnate has since kept quiet amid an interminable series of sentencing delays. Now, it looks like that’s about to change.
A nine-part podcast series aptly titled “FAT LEONARD” is scheduled to drop on Oct. 5, according to a press release that asserts the project will feature Francis “exclusively talking for the first time” about the torrid saga.
“FAT LEONARD will shed light on the Navy’s cover-up of the case, which has gone after more than 30 officers, but failed to prosecute admirals whom Leonard claims took gifts and favors,” the release states.
“The explosive story will also feature scores of other voices, including prominent women who share the broader tale of misogyny and sexual abuse in the U.S. military.”
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Robert Gorsuch was indicted with eight other officers in 2017.
Hearing from Fat Leonard alone should make for compelling listening, but the release also promises to tell the tale of Francis’ role “in covert missions against al Qaeda, including using his own warship Braveheart to support Marines, with U.S. diplomatic cover.”
The podcast will be hosted by Tom Wright, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Observation Post is the Military Times one-stop shop for all things off-duty. Stories may reflect author observations.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at [email protected].
12. China views critics as terrorists and criminals
Excerpts:
As the meaning of Article 38 and its implications has become clear, many nations worldwide have rescinded or suspended their extradition treaties with China. Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States were the first to let Beijing know they would not comply with any extradition requests. Other countries have followed.
But those making money in China are tacitly accepting Beijing’s right to censor. Last month Marriott quickly apologized when one of its employees “liked” a tweet that referred to Tibet as a country” and promised Beijing they would see to it that “errors like this don’t happen again.” And last week, Twitter began redirecting inquiries about Taiwan to China. As Human Rights Watch summed up, “One can no longer pretend that Chinese suppression of independent voices stops at its borders.”
In another day, the world would have laughed Beijing’s tactics off as outrageously unenforceable and an insult to anyone who values freedom. Last fall, in the world we now live in, the United Nations elected China a member in good standing of the UN’s Human Rights Council.
China views critics as terrorists and criminals
CCP: The cancel culture party
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
If you have been publicly critical of the Communist Chinese regime’s crushing of Hong Kong, hinted that you believe the COVID-19 virus may have escaped from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, or spoken favorably about Taiwan, Beijing’s security forces are claiming the right to come after you as part of China’s on-going campaign to silence its critics.
In 2020 the US Department of Justice indicted five Chinese agents in New York who were part of something called “Operation Foxhunt,” set up on orders of Chinese President and Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping to harass and return dissidents who have fled China for trial. Prosecutors charged that these “foxhunters” warned several US citizens of Chinese descent and others that unless they returned to China, their Mainland relatives would pay a heavy price for their obstinacy.
There is thus far no evidence that the Communist regime has kidnapped targets within the United States, but its agents do so when they believe they can get away with it in other countries. In 2016, a Chinese journalist who fled to India and Thailand to avoid arrest and persecution for criticizing the regime vanished while traveling in Southeast Asia only to turn up later as a prisoner in China.
Xi Jinping’s regime considers critics “a security threat” and asks the rest of the world to treat them as terrorists or criminals who should be apprehended and turned over to Beijing’s security forces. They routinely request international help, posting the names of dissidents with Interpol and asking other governments to deport or extradite them to stand trial in China.
Beijing’s attacks on freedom of speech and the press in Hong Kong created a firestorm of international disgust, which only encouraged Beijing to expand the worldwide attack on their critics. Beijing contends that their 2020 “National Security Law “extra-territorial “legal” authority to crack down on “criminals” who, for example, “like” a Twitter post critical of Chinese policy. While the new law was initially directed at Chinese critics of the regime’s Hong Kong policy, many believe it can and will be used against anyone who says or writes anything Beijing finds offensive.
This fear stems from a new law’s Article 38, which gives Chinese security forces the authority to visit similar punishment on anyone who expresses disagreement with Chinese policies. The language of Article 38 claims jurisdiction in cases arising “outside the region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the region.” As Donald C. Clark, a law professor at George Washington University, said after reading Article 38, “It is asserting extraterritorial jurisdiction over every person on the planet.”
The language of Article 38 is a threat designed to make businessmen, academic experts, and reporters the world over to think twice before criticizing Beijing. It means, for example, that anyone who has expressed any criticism who later travels to China, Hong Kong any nation prepared to do Beijing’s bidding may be turned over to Beijing for arrest, trial, and imprisoned by the regime for statements made in London, New York, or Washington.
In cases involving critics who have gotten under Xi Jinping’s skin, it means China might ask other countries to arrest and turn one of their own citizens over to his security forces to be tried for their “crimes” in China. At present, few governments are likely to cooperate with this blatant attempt to make them accessories to repression, but that could change, and the mere possibility that this could happen represents a risk that will chill travel by businessmen and women, diplomats, journalists, and even vacationers who will never know if they are about to be surrendered to China for having expressed opinions critical of the Chinese Communist regime or its policies.
As the meaning of Article 38 and its implications has become clear, many nations worldwide have rescinded or suspended their extradition treaties with China. Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States were the first to let Beijing know they would not comply with any extradition requests. Other countries have followed.
But those making money in China are tacitly accepting Beijing’s right to censor. Last month Marriott quickly apologized when one of its employees “liked” a tweet that referred to Tibet as a country” and promised Beijing they would see to it that “errors like this don’t happen again.” And last week, Twitter began redirecting inquiries about Taiwan to China. As Human Rights Watch summed up, “One can no longer pretend that Chinese suppression of independent voices stops at its borders.”
In another day, the world would have laughed Beijing’s tactics off as outrageously unenforceable and an insult to anyone who values freedom. Last fall, in the world we now live in, the United Nations elected China a member in good standing of the UN’s Human Rights Council.
• David A. Keene is an editor at large for the Washington Times.
13. U.S. targets suspected al Qaeda leader in Idlib, Syria
Despite POTUS claims 20 years of war has ended there is still fighting by US forces.
U.S. targets suspected al Qaeda leader in Idlib, Syria | FDD's Long War Journal
This screen shot is taken from a short video posted online by jihadists. It purportedly shows the aftermath of a U.S. drone strike in Idlib province, Syria on Sept. 20.
The U.S. launched a drone strike on a suspected al Qaeda leader in Syria’s Idlib province yesterday, but provided few details about the intended target. Jihadists on social media posted a short video of a car set ablaze by the bombing, saying that one or more members of Hurras al Din (HAD), an al Qaeda group, were traveling in it.
“U.S. forces conducted a kinetic counterterrorism strike near Idlib, Syria, today, on a senior al-Qaeda leader,” LT Josie Lynne Lenny, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, said in a statement. “Initial indications are that we struck the individual we were aiming for, and there are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike.”
It appears the intended target of the strike was a Tunisian HAD leader known as Abu Al Bara al Tunisi, an ideologue who has proselytized on behalf of the group. One or more other HAD members, including a figure known as Abu Hamza al Yamani, may have been in the vehicle as well.
The U.S. military conducts sporadic airstrikes on al Qaeda targets in Idlib province, but offers little clarity on its choice of targets.
Idlib is dominated by Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS), an al Qaeda offshoot that has been at the center of jihadist controversies since its formation in early 2017. HAD, a smaller organization, was formed in 2018 and is led by al Qaeda veterans. HAD often advertises its role in al Qaeda’s network in its media.
One of the veterans leading HAD is a jihadist known as Abu Hammam al Shami (a.k.a. Faruq al Suri), an experienced military trainer whose career began in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, where he taught new recruits at al Qaeda’s Al Faruq camp.
The U.S. State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for Abu Hammam and two other HAD emirs. “All three leaders have been active in al Qaeda (AQ) for years and remain loyal to AQ leader Ayman al Zawahiri,” the State Department reported in Sept. 2019.
Earlier this month, Abu Hammam al Shami posted a statement online in which he criticized HTS for holding several HAD members for more than a year. Abu Hammam called on HTS to adjudicate the matter in a common sharia court overseen by Abu Qatada al Filistini, a leading pro-al Qaeda cleric. HAD has repeatedly tried to mediate its disputes with HTS in independent sharia courts for several years.
HAD was among the dozens of jihadist groups and individuals to congratulate the Taliban on its victory in the Afghan war last month. In a two–page statement posted in early Sept., the group held up the Taliban as a model for the jihadists to emulate elsewhere.. The al Qaeda group has repeatedly praised the Taliban in the past as well.
However, HAD and HTS, which also praised the Taliban’s victory, are frequently at odds with one another. And there remains great uncertainty over the extent of al Qaeda’s network and command structure inside Syria.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
14. Influential Taliban commanders added to Taliban government
Influential Taliban commanders added to Taliban government | FDD's Long War Journal
The Taliban tapped two important military commanders, one who is a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay and the other who worked closely with Iran’s Qods Force, to serve as deputies in the interior and defense ministries.
The Taliban appointed former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as a deputy minister of defense, while Ibrahim Sadr (or Sadar) was named a deputy minister of the interior for security. The two powerful military commanders, who previously served as the head of the Taliban’s military commission between 2010 and 2020, were not given postings in the initial round of cabinet appointments that were announced on Sept. 7.
Sadr will serve under Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Minister of Interior, who is arguably the most powerful and influential Taliban leader in the country. Sirajuddin is also one of two deputy emirs, and leads the potent Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network, which influenced the course of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Zakir will serve under Mullah Yacoub, the Minister of Defense who is the son of Taliban founder and first emir Mullah Omar. Yacoub is the other deputy emir of Taliban.
Their appointments to the important ministries of defense and interior end questions on whether the two commanders would be given significant positions within the Taliban’s new government.
Additionally, Zakir and Sadr join a long list of historical Taliban leaders, many whom have served the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s government from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban’s new government looks much like it did 20 years ago.
Mullah Zakir
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Zakir was picked up by forces loyal to warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in Dec. 2001 and handed over to U.S. forces, who sent him to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. While at Guantanamo, Zakir maintained he was an innocent man who was not connected to the Taliban. In 2007, Zakir was transferred from Guantanamo to Afghan custody and detained at the prison in Bagram for a short period of time. Upon release by the Afghan government in May 2008, Zakir rejoined the Taliban.
The Taliban immediately welcomed Zakir back into its ranks, and he was appointed the leader of the Gerdi Jangal Regional Military Shura, a military command that oversees operations in Helmand and Nimroz provinces. As the leader of this regional shura, Zakir interacted with Al Qaeda, as the terror group was operating alongside the Taliban in both provinces.
In 2010, as the U.S. military and NATO surged its forces in an attempt to defeat the Taliban, Zakir was tapped by the Taliban to counter Western forces in the south, particularly in Helmand and Kandahar. He was also named the commander of the Taliban’s military forces that year.
Zakir resigned as the head of the Taliban’s military commission in April 2014 “due to his prolonged battle with ill health,” according to a statement released by the Taliban. But it was rumored at the time that Zakir and Taliban emir Mullah Mansour were at odds over Taliban strategy and negotiations with the Afghan government. Although Zakir resigned as the Taliban’s military commander, he is still “a member of the Leadership Council of Islamic Emirate and is busy working in other important Jihadi works which are comparatively easier,” the Taliban said at the time. [See LWJ reports, Head of Taliban’s military commission resigns due to ‘ill health’ and Taliban: Mullah Zakir denies reports he called for negotiations with the West.]
After Mullah Mansour was named as Mullah Omar’s successor in 2015, the Taliban immediately issued a statement claiming that Zakir remained a member of the Quetta Shura and did not oppose its new emir, as was rumored in the press. Zakir formally swore allegiance to Mansour in March 2015 and reaffirmed his support in July 2016. In April 2016, the Taliban issued a statement from Zakir that denied he sought to negotiate with the U.S. and Afghan government.
In 2020, Zakir was named as deputy to Mullah Yacoub, who was named the head of the Taliban’s military commission.
Sadr Ibrahim
Ibrahim rose through the ranks of the Taliban by his close relationships with Omar and Mansour. However, he is considered a formidable military commander by his own right. Ibrahim commanded forces in Kandahar, the northeastern Afghan provinces of Kunar, Laghman, and Nangarhar, as well as Kabul. In the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, Ibrahim served as a deputy defense minister.
After the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Ibrahim served on the Taliban’s Peshawar Regional Military Shura. Ibrahim was appointed to lead the Taliban’s military commission in 2014.
In 2018, the seven member nations of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (including the U.S.) sanctioned Ibrahim “for acting for or on behalf of the Taliban.” Ibrahim worked with the Iranians to secure support for the Taliban.
“Iranian officials agreed to provide Ibrahim with monetary support and individualized training in order to prevent a possible tracing back to Iran,” Treasury noted in its designation of Ibrahim. “Iranian trainers would help build Taliban tactical and combat capabilities.”
In 2020, Ibrahim was replaced by Mullah Yacoub, who was named the head of the Taliban’s military commission. Ibrahim was demoted to serve as Yacoub’s deputy. The Taliban routinely moved its military leaders into different positions during its two decade-long insurgency from 2001 to 2021.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
15. Erdogan’s U-turn in Afghanistan shows the danger of outsourcing security missions to autocrats
Erdogan’s U-turn in Afghanistan shows the danger of outsourcing security missions to autocrats
President Joe Biden walked into Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trap in June by agreeing to hold a one-on-one meeting without the presence of any diplomats or note takers. The American president was hoping to finalize a deal to outsource the security of the Kabul international airport to Ankara. Biden got his deal, and Erdogan got back into Washington’s good graces.
Fast forward three months: Erdogan not only withdrew Turkish troops from Afghanistan despite promising they would stay even after the fall of Kabul but is now in negotiations with the Taliban to help them secure diplomatic recognition . Erdogan also reached an agreement with the militant group to provide them technical support to operate the airport. Ankara reportedly offers this support through a dozen technicians while also hoping to provide security through a private firm. This U-turn offers a cautionary tale about outsourcing security missions to autocrats.
The Biden and Erdogan Kabul airport deal marked a significant turning point in a relationship that had gotten off to a rocky start. After taking office, Biden gave Turkey’s Islamist strongman the cold shoulder by refusing to call him for three months.
Erdogan, however, is skilled in identifying his opponents’ needs and weaknesses. He was quick to detect the growing American reluctance to maintain U.S. troops abroad as part of long-term counterterrorism missions.
In October 2019, during a phone call with former President Donald Trump, Erdogan exploited his U.S. counterpart’s neo-isolationist impulses to convince him to withdraw American forces from northeast Syria. Erdogan assured Trump that Turkish troops would deal with the remnants of the Islamic State.
Yet, during the ensuing military operation in Syria, Turkish troops and Ankara’s Islamist proxies battered Washington’s Syrian Kurdish-led partners, who had borne the brunt of ground combat against the Islamic State. The result was a power vacuum that the Russians and the Assad regime exploited to expand their presence in northeast Syria.
Hoping to replicate with Biden the kind of personal relationship he had with Trump, Erdogan launched a charm offensive following the 2020 U.S. elections but failed to make inroads during the first few months of the Biden presidency. Yet neo-isolationist impulses proved to be just as strong among Democrats as Republicans, giving Erdogan a weakness to exploit.
When Biden cornered himself by committing to a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Erdogan was poised to capitalize on Washington’s predicament, which included logistical challenges as well as the frustration of NATO allies . The Turkish president was correct to assume that, under growing pressure to outsource security responsibilities in Kabul, Biden would fall for Erdogan’s offer to guard and run the city’s international airport.
From the start, Biden should have seen the signs that Erdogan was not a good-faith negotiator and did not share his values or goals in Afghanistan or, for that matter, elsewhere . In July, the Turkish president admitted that Turkey “does not have any conflicting issues with [the Taliban's] beliefs.” Erdogan even suggested that the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan was illegitimate from the get-go, saying , “Imperial powers entered Afghanistan; they have been there for over 20 years.” There were even reports that the Erdogan government was planning to deploy to Afghanistan some 2,000 Syrian mercenaries, whose earlier conduct prompted the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria to bring accusations of war crimes against them last September, including allegations of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, rape, and pillaging.
Paradoxically, the total collapse of Biden’s Afghanistan policy and the accompanying withdrawal of the Turkish troops from the war-torn country have not brought Erdogan’s leverage over Washington to an end. On the contrary, as the Biden administration has scrambled to cope with the fallout, the Turkish president has enjoyed the opportunity to pitch new deals to his U.S. and European counterparts.
These include an offer to provide technical assistance to run the Kabul airport, as well as ostensible efforts to encourage the Taliban to form an inclusive administration that upholds women’s rights — a pledge on which Erdogan should first deliver at home. But most importantly, Ankara maintains the ability to block or slow down refugee flows to the European Union, a capability it weaponized at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015.
Whether the Turkish president’s renewed offers of assistance and veiled threats are serious or not, lately, he has been enjoying a steady stream of affirmative messages from his U.S. and European counterparts. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who dismissed Turkey as a “so-called strategic partner” in January, stated on Sept. 3 that the U.S. is “working closely with our partners Qatar and Turkey to help get the airport in Kabul up and running as quickly as possible.”
A week earlier, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed Berlin’s gratitude to Turkey for its offer to continue to help run the airport after NATO’s withdrawal and said Germany was ready to support that effort financially and technically. Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, an alliance within which Erdogan repeatedly plays a spoiler role , similarly thanked Turkey for its vital role in securing the Kabul airport during the withdrawal of NATO forces and personnel from Afghanistan.
In a world where the U.S. and its European allies are reluctant to deploy troops even to hold back adversaries such as the Taliban, there will be further temptations to outsource security challenges by undertaking questionable deals with the likes of Erdogan and other autocrats. Illiberal governments remain eager to fill the power vacuum a neo-isolationist U.S. and an inward-looking EU leave behind. This, in turn, will bolster the impunity of adversaries who know that Washington’s illiberal partners are in the game for themselves.
Aykan Erdemir (@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.
16. Space Force reveals uniforms and Twitter can only see 'Star Trek' and 'Battlestar Galactica'
Space Force reveals uniforms and Twitter can only see 'Star Trek' and 'Battlestar Galactica'
| Fort Collins Coloradoan
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White House says Space Force has 'full support'
The White House offered its "full support" for the Space Force on Wednesday, one day after Press Secretary Jen Psaki provoked a backlash with seemingly dismissive comments about the Trump-era addition to the U.S. military. (Feb. 3)
AP
Lt. Col. Alison Gonzalez, the Space Force deputy chief of strategy, was among two Guardians who modeled the new uniform. Gonzalez told Millitary.com she helped test the uniforms, ensuring they were designed with women in mind.
Here's what the uniforms look like:
— United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 21, 2021
Raymond noted the uniforms are just a prototype, and comment on the uniforms will be collected by Space Force in the coming months.
On Twitter, users were quick to note the similarity to those worn in classic sci-fi TV shows like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Star Trek." The response was reminiscent of Trump's reveal of the Space Force logo, which folks on Twitter said resembled the seal of Star Trek's Starfleet Command.
Here's a sampling of those comparisons:
The new Space Force uniform
— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) September 21, 2021
Who wore it better (à gauche, le prototype d'uniforme de la Space force lancée par Trump, à droite, l'amiral Bill Adama dans Battlestar Galactica) pic.twitter.com/qmE2ptvc4F
— Philippe Berry (@ptiberry) September 21, 2021
— Stephen Losey (@StephenLosey) September 21, 2021
— Will of Texas (@WilliamofTexas) September 21, 2021
There were other comparisons, including one to the video game Mass Effect.
— Lauren Souch (@laurensouch) September 21, 2021
Still, others wondered why Space Force remained operational with a new administration in charge.
— Chuck (@ambiguous8) September 21, 2021
— Clear Critique (@Clear_Critique) September 21, 2021
— Carl Stawicki (@Carl_Stawicki) September 21, 2021
Contributing: Mike Snider
17. China’s ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’ Opens Beijing Intl. Film Festival With Rocketing Box Office Forecasts
Chinese propaganda.
Excerpt:
He emphasized that the bloody spectacle about killing Americans is a “film that celebrates life — a story of how young warriors are willing to risk it all to protect our homes and defend our country.”
China’s ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’ Opens Beijing Intl. Film Festival With Rocketing Box Office Forecasts
Variety · by Rebecca Davis · September 22, 2021
A battalion of producers and stars worked the opening night red carpet of the Beijiing Intl. Film Festival Tuesday for the world premiere of their mammoth Chinese war film “The Battle of Changjin Lake,” which is expected to rank amongst China’s highest grossing films of the year.
The nearly three-hour-long historical epic is a grind through the blood, sweat and tears of the real-life People’s Volunteer Army as they fight against all odds to defeat the U.S. army at the titular lake during the Korean War. The conflict (1950-1953) is formally known in China as the “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.”
Producer and Bona Film Group president Yu Dong said before the screening that the movie has been “meticulously crafted into a masterpiece that can be included in the annals of Chinese film history,” thanks to five years of script development, 200 days of shoots and the involvement of as many as 7,000 crew members and 70,000 extras.
“‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’ is not just an [index of how] the industrialization of Chinese film has been pushed to a new high, but more of how we can calmly take on large-scale production and investment equivalent to A-list Hollywood movies,” he said. “This is thanks to the courage of Chinese filmmakers, and, even more so, the huge confidence in the Chinese film market.”
He emphasized that the bloody spectacle about killing Americans is a “film that celebrates life — a story of how young warriors are willing to risk it all to protect our homes and defend our country.”
The title is co-directed by heavyweights Chen Kaige, Dante Lam and Tsui Hark and headlined by actors Wu Jing (“Wolf Warrior 2”) and Jackson Yee (“Better Days”).
It has sold $4 million so far in pre-sale tickets as of Tuesday evening (RMB26 million), and will hit theaters nationwide on Sept. 30 in time for the important week-long National Day holiday that begins Oct. 1. Local media report that Alibaba’s big data marketing platform Beacon has initially predicted that the film could gross more than $464 million (RMB3 billion), and other optimistic estimates have since ticked even further upwards.
While the Beijing Intl. Film Festival — which runs this year in-person from Sept. 21-29 — provided a glitzy backdrop for the film featuring China’s many of most recognizable and bankable talents, their comments to the press were far from what one might hear on an Oscar or Emmy ceremony red carpet.
Fifth Generation director Chen is best known abroad for his 1993 Palme d’Or winning drama “Farewell My Concubine,” the first Chinese film to win that prize. For “Battle,” however, he is taking a much more patriotic tone.
“This battle victory is of great significance: Our China, with its poor and weak national power, had to face down the world’s most powerful military, but as Chairman Mao said, ‘the Chinese people are now organized and are not to be trifled with,’” he said, citing a line from Mao Zedong frequently quoted by President Xi Jinping when discussing the Korean War’s ongoing 70th anniversary.
He continued: “In this war, we paid many sacrifices, but eventually earned victory and respect…The film shows us how without this strength of spirit, there would have been no way to take on such an enemy.”
Dante Lam said that he came to have a deep respect for the troops during the production process and hope that “everyone can remember their sacrifices” while watching the final product.
Director Tsui Hark also quoted Mao. After extensively researching the history of the Korean War, he found himself most moved by one of the controversial leader’s eight-character phrases: “strike one punch to avoid a hundred punches.”
He explained: “The quote really touched me. I decided then that my task would be to depict the truth of this quote for everyone to grasp. It seemed like the core of the entire film — that spirit of I don’t want to fight, but still, I must fight.”
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Variety · by Rebecca Davis · September 22, 2021
18. China's Xi, like Biden hours earlier, turns to calm language
"All warfare is based on deception" or so said Sun Tzu.
"Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations." Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989), p. 3. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233501.pdf
China's Xi, like Biden hours earlier, turns to calm language
wsls.com · by Ted Anthony, Associated Press · September 21, 2021
NEW YORK – Choosing calm language as tensions with the United States grow, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated his nation's longtime policy of multilateralism on Tuesday, telling world leaders at the United Nations that disputes among countries “need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation."
His remarks came hours after U.S. President Joe Biden said he didn't have any intention of starting a “new Cold War" — itself a response to criticism from the U.N. chief this weekend that both Washington and Beijing need to make sure their differences and tensions don't derail their 42-year-old relationship and cause problems for the rest of the planet.
"One country’s success does not have to mean another country’s failure," Xi said in a prerecorded speech to the U.N. General Assembly's leaders' meeting in New York. "The world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries."
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The comments from leaders of the two major powers, the world's most formidable economies, appeared to represent linguistic, if not necessarily substantive, efforts to calm the waters after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres admonished them over the weekend for putting confrontation over productive dialogue.
China often preaches multilateralism and international cooperation in public forums, though critics say its policies toward Taiwan and in South China Sea territorial disputes with its neighbors — among other things — strongly indicate otherwise.
Xi didn't let the United States off the hook entirely, however, and rarely does. In pointed comments clearly aimed at Washington, he criticized nations that would fiddle around in the affairs of others.
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“Recent developments in the global situation show once again that military intervention from the outside and so-called democratic transformation entail nothing but harm," he said, an apparent reference to events in Afghanistan last month after the U.S. military withdrawal.
China's Foreign Ministry and state media have relentlessly emphasized the chaos surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, saying Washington would be responsible for any ensuing instability in the region. Afghanistan shares a small border with China.
The very presence of a Xi speech at the United Nations on Tuesday was unexpected. Earlier schedules of speakers indicated a deputy Chinese premier would give an address Friday. The decision to slot in the country's supreme leader moved him up to Tuesday's first-day docket, hours after Biden's remarks.
Earlier Tuesday, Biden said in his U.N. address that the United States was not attempting to be divisive or confrontational.
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“We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs,” he said. “The United States is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to shared challenges even if we have intense disagreements in other areas.”
He didn’t say the word “China” directly in the speech. But the language mirrored what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said this weekend in an Associated Press interview when he said he worried of a new Cold War — this one between Washington and Beijing if they failed to improve their relationship.
“Unfortunately, today we only have confrontation,” Guterres said Saturday in the AP interview. “We need to re-establish a functional relationship between the two powers,” he said.
He reiterated that theme Tuesday in opening the meetings, saying: “I fear our world is creeping towards two different sets of economic, trade, financial, and technology rules, two divergent approaches in the development of artificial intelligence — and ultimately two different military and geopolitical strategies.”
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“This is a recipe for trouble," Guterres said.
China’s current Communist rulers took power in 1949 under Mao Zedong, ejecting Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists — American allies — from the mainland to the island of Taiwan. It took until 1979 for diplomatic relations between Beijing and Washington to be established.
Ties over the ensuing decades have pinballed between friendly and contentious. Low points have included the years after the government’s bloody 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and the days after a U.S. military aircraft was forced down off the southern Chinese coast by fighter jets in 2001.
Today, the two governments share an assortment of disagreements, from trade and tariffs to climate change, human rights and online security. In particular, China's claims of total sovereignty over the South China Sea do not sit well with the United States and its allies. China protests the presence of the U.S. military in the area and has upped its threat to attack the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.
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China has also been strongly critical of American calls for a renewed investigation into the origins of COVID-19, which first spread in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Blaming the pandemic on a “Chinese virus,” which former U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters often did, does not go over well in China.
“China will continue to support and engage in global, science-based origins tracing, and stands firmly opposed to political maneuvering in whatever form,” Xi said in his speech.
On climate, China has tied its cooperation on reducing carbon emissions to the United States dropping critical policies linked to the mass detention of Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minority groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, a crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong and other human rights issues.
Xi, the paramount leader in China's Communist Party for a decade, has set the tone for an assertive foreign policy, backed by his nation's massive economic influence and growing military power.
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Xi’s address also comes as China, the world’s second-largest economy, faces increasing financial pressures.
Zhao Kejian, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said there were opportunities for cooperation on pandemic control, security on the Korean Peninsula, Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas, even while disputes would continue over ideology, values and human rights.
“There might have already been preparations on that between the two sides,” Zhao said. “China believes the U.N. embodies multilateralism. If the U.S. also pays attention to the U.N., there can be a foundation for strategic coordination under the framework of the U.N.”
___
The Beijing bureau of The Associated Press contributed to this report. Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press, was based in China for AP from 2001 to 2004 and was its director of Asia-Pacific news from 2014 to 2018. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted
wsls.com · by Ted Anthony, Associated Press · September 21, 2021
19. With No U.S. Support, Leaders of Afghan Resistance Flee the Country
We should be conducting a thorough assessment of the resistance potential.
With No U.S. Support, Leaders of Afghan Resistance Flee the Country
The retreat of Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh belies public claims that they are still in Afghanistan.
September 21 2021, 5:25 p.m.
The son of Afghanistan’s most celebrated anti-Taliban resistance leader has escaped into neighboring Tajikistan, less than a month after vowing to defend his homeland “no matter what happens.”
Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, fled to Tajikistan shortly after the Taliban seized control of the Panjshir Valley on September 6, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, a Pentagon consultant, and two former senior Afghan government officials. Massoud was joined a few days later by Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan vice president and longtime intelligence chief, who left Afghanistan by helicopter, the senior U.S. official and two former Afghan officials said.
The retreat of the two key Afghan resistance figures contradicts public claims that they are still in Afghanistan and holding out against the Taliban and signals a remarkable shift in their fortunes: For the first time in decades, the United States government and the CIA do not appear to be backing them. Massoud and Saleh are both seeking military aid and equipment from the West, but the Biden administration is not supporting them and has given no indication of whether it will provide future assistance, according to the two former Afghan officials and a retired U.S. intelligence official.
On Wednesday, Massoud hired Washington lobbyist Robert Stryk. Massoud and Saleh have been embraced by prominent Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is keen on the U.S. returning to Afghanistan.
Neither Massoud nor Saleh has been seen in public since the Taliban took Panjshir. Both come from the mountainous northeastern province, a perennial base of Afghan resistance, first against the Soviet Union and later the Taliban. Massoud is currently in a “safe house” in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, according to a former senior Afghan government official who spoke with him last week, while Saleh is in a nearby location.
Former Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh speaks during a function at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on August 4, 2021.
Photo: Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images
Saleh last tweeted on September 3, as the Taliban began encircling Panjshir. In an accompanying video, he dismissed reports that he had already fled Afghanistan as “totally baseless.” “The RESISTANCE is continuing and will continue,” Saleh tweeted. “I am here with my soil, for my soil & defending its dignity.”
On Monday, Ali Maisam Nazary, a spokesperson for Massoud, told The Intercept that Massoud “is inside Afghanistan … in an undisclosed location.” Saleh could not be reached for comment.
Saleh, who once worked as an aide to Ahmad Shah Massoud and served many years in senior positions in Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government, tweeted last month that he was the legal successor to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, citing Ghani’s decision to flee to the United Arab Emirates. “As per d constitution of Afg, in absence, escape, resignation or death of the President the FVP [First Vice President] becomes the caretaker President,” Saleh tweeted on August 16, the day after the Taliban seized control of Kabul. “I am currently inside my country & am the legitimate care taker President.”
In August, prominent Republicans like Graham and Rep. Mike Waltz called on the Biden administration to recognize Saleh and Massoud as the “legitimate government representatives” of Afghanistan. “We will be going back into Afghanistan,” Graham told the BBC earlier this month. “We’ll have to because the [terror] threat will be so large.”
“I want his voice out,” Graham said of Saleh in an interview with Politico last week. “I’m gonna go all in. [The Taliban are] holding our people hostage. They’re a terrorist group. They’re a radical Islamic jihadist group.” Graham also reportedly secured Saleh a slot on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show in August; Waltz managed to get Massoud booked on Fox News as well. On Tuesday, James Hewitt, a spokesperson for Waltz, reiterated the congressman’s call to recognize Saleh and Massoud as the legitimate representatives of Afghanistan, saying, “Yes, this is still his position,” and linking to a press release titled “Waltz, Graham Call on Biden to Recognize Opposition Forces in the Panjshir Valley.” Graham did not respond to requests for comment.
A growing number of Republican senators have also been urging Biden to designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization, with Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Marco Rubio introducing legislation that would do just that — a move that would likely doom diplomatic engagement with the new government.
The U.S. has long supported opposition groups in Afghanistan, going back to the CIA’s role in arming Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviets under President Ronald Reagan. Ahmad Shah Massoud, a legendary resistance commander, received CIA funding under Reagan and subsequent U.S. administrations, as his militia ousted the Soviets from Kabul and later led the opposition to the Taliban. Massoud was assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives two days before the 9/11 attacks.
It is not clear whether Ahmad Massoud and his National Resistance Front will win the support of U.S. or other Western governments this time around. Prospects for the resistance appear grim, with the New York Times reporting last week that “combat had largely ceased” in Panjshir province and that “what resistance remained seemed confined to mountainous areas.”
Though Western intelligence agencies have not formally cooperated with Massoud, they reportedly have held informal meetings. There is also ample historical precedent for opposition groups fleeing to neighboring countries to plot their eventual return. This happened most recently in 2001, when the Taliban disappeared into Pakistan and Iran to regroup.
20. Air Force commandos are preparing for war with Russia or China by rethinking what a 'runway' really is
Air Force commandos are preparing for war with Russia or China by rethinking what a 'runway' really is
An A-10 takes off on a highway in Alpena, Michigan, August 5, 2021.
US Air Force/Master Sgt. Scott Thompson
- The US military is preparing for a potential conflict for a capable adversary, namely Russia and China.
- Part of that preparation is finding ways to distribute forces so they can keep operating if fighting starts.
- For the Air Force, that means using new airfields, and its special operators have been crucial to that.
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In a conflict with a near-peer power, such as China and Russia, the US military would be challenged by the size of its rivals' arsenal and the range of their weapons.
China is now seen as the US's "pacing threat," and the sheer scale of its manpower and arsenal demand prudent distribution of forces to avoid a nightmare scenario in which one strike takes out a large number of troops or weapons.
So the Air Force has been training to disperse its forces to non-traditional and sometimes improvised airfields. Air Force special-operations forces have been crucial to that preparation.
America's Air Commandos
US Air Force pararescuemen board a US Army CH-47F helicopter after an exercise at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, March 14, 2018.
US Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook
As the air component of US Special Operations Command, Air Force Special Operations Command provides air transport; close air support; precision strike; and intelligence, surveillance, global access, and reconnaissance capabilities to special-operations units.
AFSOC also oversees highly skilled battlefield commandos who get attached to other special-operations teams, merging air and ground power.
These battlefield commandos work in four main career fields: Pararescuemen, who are elite medics and personnel recovery experts; Combat Controllers, who coordinate airfield operations and close air support; Tactical Air Control Party airmen, commandos who specialize in calling in airstrikes; and Special Reconnaissance operators, the newest career field that specializes in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.
Although they are an important part of SOCOM, Air Commandos are often overlooked because they support other special-operations units. Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen are often attached Navy SEAL platoons or Army Special Forces detachments. They do operate on their own teams but not as often.
AFSOC is equally active in the air, however. It operates several rotary- and fixed-wing platforms, such as the MC-130 Commando II transport plane, the AC-130 Spooky gunship, the CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, and the MQ-9 Reaper drone.
Winds of Change
A C-146A Wolfhound prepares to land on a highway in Alpena, Michigan, August 5, 2021.
US Air Force/Master Sgt. Scott Thompson
Air Commandos recently conducted a unique exercise that reflects the shift in thinking about military operations.
During exercise Northern Strike 21 in northern Michigan in early August, Air Commandos facilitated the first landing of a modern aircraft on a US public highway. The goal was to prepare pilots and commandos for impromptu operations in austere locations.
During the exercise, Air Commandos practiced infiltrating and securing the highway and then setting it up to function as an airfield.
A-10 and C-146A aircraft then landed and took off from the roadway. In a real-world scenario, especially during expeditionary operations, the highway-turned-airfield would ideally be close to the front lines to provide quick and accurate logistical and close air support for conventional and special-operations troops.
"We're working on agile combat employment concepts, which basically makes the force more flexible, more maneuverable, and creates challenges for our adversaries in different environments," Lt. Col. Jeff Falcone, the Air Commando in charge of the exercise, said in a press release.
"It also increases the survivability of US forces as we're able to move around to more unpredictable locations to resupply, refuel, or anything else we may need," Falcone added.
Besides the Combat Controllers who conducted air traffic control, Pararescuemen were on standby to provide medical attention to forces at and near the highway, as they would be during a real operation.
An A-10 lands on a highway in Alpena, Michigan, August 5, 2021.
US Air Force/Master Sgt. Scott Thompson
The US military isn't the only one who trains for such contingencies. Taiwan's military operates aircraft on a specially designed public highway as part of exercises simulating defense against a Chinese invasion.
During such an invasion, China's military would already know where Taiwan's military and civilian airports are and target them accordingly. Conducting air operations in non-traditional, austere environments makes it harder for an enemy to target your aircraft.
Airfield operations Combat Controllers' "the bread and butter," a former Combat Controller told Insider.
"People often mistakenly think that our only job is to sit by the SF [Army Special Forces] or [Navy] SEAL ground force commander and call in airstrikes on bad guys, but actually that is a very small portion of our job," the former controller said, adding that not all combat controllers are qualified as joint terminal attack controllers, which allows them to call in airstrikes
"A primary aspect of our job is airfield ops — identify, assess, mark, and operate airfields, often in austere environments. We are the first in to establish the conditions for follow-on forces. It takes years of training to get to that place," the former Combat Controller added.
This exercise in Michigan showed that AFSOC is adapting to the new challenges of great-power competition.
Lt. Gen. James Slife, AFSOC's commander, acknowledged earlier this year that Air Commandos need to adapt and evolve in order to remain relevant, calling the current period an "inflection point" for the command.
ACE and FARP
F-35s wait to refuel from a C-130J during Agile Combat Employment training at Northwest Field on Guam, February 16, 2021.
US Air Force/Senior Airman Jonathan Valdes Montijo
For example, in a war with China, instead of relying on an F-35 group — two squadrons with roughly 50 aircraft — to operate from a large island, the Air Force would deploy a single squadron or even a half-squadron to a smaller island.
Agile Combat Employment, or ACE, and Forward Arming and Refueling Points, or FARP, are not entirely new operations, but AFSOC has investment in them more as tensions have risen with Russia and China.
ACE seeks to enable larger, operational-level air forces to function in smaller, tactical-level units in the event of a near-peer conflict. By doing that, the Air Force makes it harder for adversaries to target its aircraft and personnel.
ACE operations also make it a more unpredictable and thus more effective force.
Special-operations airmen refuel an F-22 from an MC-130J during Forward Area Refueling Point training in Alaska, January 30, 2020.
US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Ridge Shan
F-35s conducted just such an exercise earlier this year, deploying from their main base in Alaska to the main US base in Guam, from which they redeployed to an austere airfield on the small island nation of Palau for refueling.
FARP goes hand-in-hand with ACE. Aircraft need to be refueled and rearmed wherever they are, especially if they have to deploy to remote, austere bases on short notice.
The "Nightstalkers" of the US Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and the US special-operations community as a whole have used FARP for decades to support operations in unfriendly territory or behind enemy lines. In early 2020, Special Tactics Airmen practiced refueling fighter jets in the extreme cold of Alaska for the first time.
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
21. After the Tall Man
After the Tall Man
On February 4, 2002, near Khost in southeastern Afghanistan, U.S. forces killed a “tall man” in a case of mistaken identity that revealed core illusions of United States intervention in Afghanistan: a mistaken confidence in modern weapons, excessive faith in intelligence, and the illusion that something was true just because we wanted it to be.
What actually happened: Three men, Daraz Khan (about 31), Jehangir Khan (about 28), and Mir Ahmed (about 30), went to collect scrap metal. As they stood at a site in the mountains at about 10,000 feet, they encountered sudden death from above—a Hellfire missile fired from a predator drone.
What was supposed to have happened? Daraz Khan was tall, and Osama bin Laden, then on the run, was tall (actually taller), so U.S. forces on the hunt for bin Laden apparently killed Khan and the two men with him because drone operators possibly mistook Khan for bin Laden or thought there was a good enough chance he was bin Laden, and the two others had the misfortune to be standing near him.
The killing exposed three illusions that persisted throughout nearly 20 years of U.S. intervention. First, modern weapons, no matter how accurate, might not yield desired outcomes. The drone strike accomplished nothing in this case other than killing three innocent men. Second, modern surveillance, no matter how detailed, does not guarantee that personnel understand what they see. If drone operators thought Daraz Khan was bin Laden, he was not.
The third illusion was perhaps the most powerful: rather than admit failure, the U.S. often attempted to manufacture a more convenient reality. Locals scoffed at the notion that bin Laden was dead, and as it became evident the United States shot someone else, Pentagon officials still defended the strike, suggesting the men had been up to no good. “There are no initial indications that these were innocent locals,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeam declared. “The indicators were there that there was something untoward that we needed to make go away.” Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said: “We’re convinced that it was an appropriate target,” even though she conceded, “we do not know yet exactly who it was.”
These early killings faded from public memory, at least in the United States, but the early illusions never disappeared. Advanced weaponry and training gave American and NATO forces an edge, but did not provide a path to victory. Despite some intelligence successes, most notably locating and killing bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. and allies could not kill so precisely as to avoid more deaths like Daraz Khan’s.
Even as Americans grew increasingly detached from the war, U.S. and allied airstrikes continued. And some killed civilians, either from erroneously bombing non-military targets or as collateral damage the U.S. accepts as an unavoidable price of attacking militants. Drones tend to kill fewer civilians than alternative methods of striking targets, but that’s little comfort to anyone who lost a family member, friend, or neighbor.
The efforts to manufacture reality evident after the killing of Daraz Khan continued as war dragged on without ever approaching anything the United States could call victory. Warning signs abounded, but military and political leaders, pundits, and some foreign policy “experts” repeatedly touted imagined progress.
In September 2007, General Dan McNeill, Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said he saw “great progress and significant gains in the Afghan National Army.” In April 2008, he predicted that “by about 2011 there is going to be some pretty good capacity in the Afghan National Army.”
By 2009, it was Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s turn for optimism. Lauding what he saw as a Pakistani offensive against the Taliban, Gates told Congress that the possibility of Afghan-Pakistani cooperation “has given me more optimism than I’ve had in a long time in Afghanistan.” The optimistic mood was infectious enough to sway New York Times columnist David Brooks on a 2009 visit in which he determined that the Afghans “detest the insurgents and root for American success.”
America’s supposed success continued: In 2010, General Stanley A. McChrystal, senior commander in Afghanistan, said, “we have made significant progress in setting the conditions in 2009.”
In a January 2011 letter to the International Security Assistance Force, General David Petraeus, who had replaced McChrystal, wrote that the force and its Afghan allies had “made impressive gains in our mission.” He spoke of “hard-won progress … in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.”
Along with making progress, the United States and allies also turned corners. In 2011, President Barack Obama stated the U.S. had “turned a corner,” and Defense Secretary Gates said that, if Afghan forces hold gains, “we can say we’ve turned a corner here in Afghanistan.” Gates’s successor as defense secretary, Leon Panetta, concluded in 2012: “we have turned the corner.”
After Obama’s supposedly-corner-turning troop surge drew down in 2014, the Taliban went on the offensive. In 2017, the Trump administration added more U.S. forces to Afghanistan, leading General John Nicholson to declare that the U.S. and Afghan allies “have turned the corner.” Nicholson hailed the Trump administration plan to place U.S. troops back into combat alongside Afghan forces as a “game-changer” that would make the Taliban “reconcile, face irrelevance, or die.”
In a surprise visit to Afghanistan in late December 2017, Vice President Mike Pence told troops at Bagram Air Base, “I believe victory is closer than ever before.”
Over time, the repeated talk of progress, optimism, turning corners, and victory acquired a fantastical quality. Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was one of the few to publicly acknowledge error: “I thought we could turn it around, obviously, I was wrong,” he acknowledged in 2021.
In August 2021, as the Afghan government rapidly collapsed, so too did the illusions of progress and corner-turning. But another drone strike, the last of the U.S. occupation, showed the same illusions evident nearly 20 years before.
On August 26, an ISIS suicide bomb attack just outside Kabul’s airport tragically killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. servicemembers. In response, the U.S. launched a drone strike that killed someone the U.S. called an “ISIS-K planner,” with no known civilian casualties. Then on August 29, the U.S. launched another drone strike in Kabul, reportedly killing more would-be suicide bombers. Subsequent investigations showed the missile had actually blown up a Toyota Corolla driven by Zamari Ahmadi, a 43 year-old who worked at Nutrition and Education International, an American aid group, killing 10 civilians, including 7 children.
Had the U.S. struck a vehicle prepared by suicide bombers? Were the other deaths the result of secondary explosions, indicating the vehicle was bomb as U.S. officials suggested? Or was it another case of bad intelligence? As with the killing of Daraz Khan in 2002, it appears that U.S. analysts misinterpreted Ahmadi’s behavior, launching a missile because it looked like he may have been a terrorist, even though closer examination following his death shows he wasn’t. Then, on September 17, the Pentagon conceded error.
After nearly 20 years of a war of illusions, it’s hard to determine what, if anything, the U.S. had achieved. We had learned nothing from the killing of the tall man.
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.
